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Dear Ann,

It seems you have found your way to an old article of mine from last March which dealt with the mysterious Sphinx cat.  First off, let me thank you for taking the time to not only stop by, but ask a direct and very clear question.  Thank you.

Let me take a moment to answer your question.  No, I do not have any female Sphinx kittens for sale at this time, nor do I know where you might be able to find such a beautiful, hairless, creature.  While I do enjoy cats, I can’t actually claim to be a cat fancier.  My own cat goes by the name Barn Cat, because, you see, he lives in the barn.  A true cat fancier would never name their cat based solely on where their cat spends most of its time.  I imagine if I had a Sphinx cat, either male or female, I would end up naming it Sweater Cat, because surely a cat with no hair spends much of it’s life wrapped up tightly in a sweater.

But it is easy to understand how I might be mistaken for a cat fancier, given the fact that I was comparing men to Sphinx cats.  That, I would agree, seems like a leap that only a true cat lover would take.  I’m not sure why I wrote the article.  Maybe, just like you, I was moved by the grace and flow of the Sphinx.  There are just some things in life that are hard to look away from.

I can assure you, however, that should I become a cat fancier in the future, I will file all articles concerning the proper care and breeding of cats under a category suitably titled.  Something like Feline Friends or Cat Crap.  I promise you (and all other cat fanciers) that I would do a much better job of separating my posts, making sure that all serious cat-related articles never find their way into the Exaggeration category.  That would just be wrong.

Good luck, Ann, in your search for your new female Sphinx kitten.  I wish you all the success in the world.  I should confess that I’ve never actually even seen one, other then in pictures, so I’m guessing there aren’t any around here.  But like I always say, if someone has a picture of something, then it must be out there somewhere.

I’d write more, but I need to get back to my friend.  He’s sick in bed, but being well-tended by a very nice group of nurses.

I’ve been shopping again.  Hardly news for some, but front page headlines for me.  You might remember my struggle to pick out a few new clothes.  But with my ten day trip fast approaching, I have decided that it is time to purchase a digital camera.  Things such as aging family faces must be captured so they can be stared at in amazement in private.  And maybe I will decide to document the entire trip right here on Word Shadows.  It’ll be like a miniature episode of One The Road with Charles Kuralt, only without the knowing voice or big RV lumbering along until it bumps into something interesting.  But who knows, maybe I’ll bump into something like the World’s Largest Twine Ball. 

Not only do I have the navigational prowess to get there, but it lies almost directly in the path my friend Randy and I will be taking.  And the fact is, I’ve seen the big ball of twine many times, because I remember driving by it as a kid as my family headed north to visit family.  But we never stopped, which to this day seems more curious then the big ball itself.  Wasn’t my dad even the least bit curious?  I would think that a ball of twine that large would begin to exert some sort of gravitational field that would pull in even the most hurried father.  I know it pulled hard on me.  I would smash up against the side window as we drove by and then find myself hurled into the back window as we zipped by.  This was long before seatbelt laws.  A time when kids often flew all over the car.

I have no idea what the big hurry was.  All we did was drive non-stop up to the lake so we could stare at bobbers floating above a school of bluegills who never seemed hungry.  Seems to me we had plenty of time for a big ball of twine.

But now I’ll be behind the wheel.  Well, probably Randy, it’s his car.  But I’m sure there will be plenty of time to stop and look at all kinds of things along the road.  All worthy of comment.  All odd if caught in the right light.  The world is filled with oddities.  You just have to know how to look.

And the timing to shop for a new digital camera couldn’t be better.  Only yesterday I found myself being invited to participate in Jo Spanglemonkey’s latest creation, Ten:Ten - a blog dedicated to capturing a photograph from your life at precisely 10:10 a.m. each day.  Having not a bit of free time to even consider playing along, I immediately said yes.  It didn’t matter that I owned no digital camera.  It didn’t matter that I would have to keep track of time.  Minor details.  It reminded me of the time I talked my way into the pantry chef position even though I knew absolutely nothing about preparing salads and desserts for hundreds of hungry guests.  I think I spent the first hour of that job looking for the bill on my chef hat.

But I liked the idea of Ten:Ten, so I joined the club.  Besides, free lifetime membership and my wheels rotated free every 3000 miles.  Or was that a complimentary water bottle and a mint on my pillow every night.  Or maybe it was guaranteed access, the wheels deal, and a mint.  Oh, I don’t remember.  I never pay very good attention.

Besides, it’s 10:10!  I have important work to do.

Update: Thanks to Gina Smith and Reuters, who bring to light that a new nude roller coaster ride record has been set (did we even know there was a record?), I have realized that my upcoming trip might very well find itself written into the record books.

Is there a world record for nude men staring at the world’s largest ball of twine?  Could Randy and I set the standard?  Who will snap the photograph?  Will the mayor hand over the key to the city?  Does Darwin, Minnesota even have a key?

So many questions come to mind when one thinks about getting nude in public.

Setting the nude roller coaster record took less then two minutes.  I’m sure Randy and I could stand there for much longer then that.  Maybe we could arrange for a few fake Keystone cops to chase us around the giant twine ball and the whole thing would make for great slapstick entertainment.  Or maybe a political statement.  Something about two nude midwestern boys finding an ancient weapon of mass destruction right here in the heartland of America.  A short film filled with eye-opening discussion and humorous chase scenes.  Are the boys heroes or villians?  Which side of the agenda do they scamper around on?

I can’t wait for my trip to begin.

Today I must be busy.  Think of me as a phone call, placed to someone irritating, say like the IRS.  If you call them, you have to wait.  Pure and simple.  I’m kind of like that today.

Thank you for visiting Word Shadows.  Your comments are always greatly appreciated, and will be replied to in the order they were received.

A big project is nearly complete and demands one final burst of my energy.  You have to love the customer who one second asks you why things take so long, and the next asks you to walk around the garden with her and marvel at the rhododendron blooms.

Word Shadows appreciates its readers.  Please continue to hold and someone will be with you shortly.  Your hold time is approximately [in computer generated voice] six hours and fourteen minutes.

After today, things will be different.  By simple definition, today can’t be tomorrow, and that alone makes things different.  Doesn’t it?

Thank you for holding.  In order to expedite your comments, your cooperation is appreciated.  Using the alphanumeric keypad on your touchtone phone, please enter the opening chapter from Leo Tolstoy’s novel, War and Peace.  If you make a mistake, simply press *9, and begin again.  Your hold time is approximately [the voice] six hours and thirteen minutes.

I have no idea what it is or where it came from, but it looks like giving up coffee makes me the stuff lead stories are made of.  Or so The World Star Gazette would have us believe.

In other news:  my blog entries are popping up all over the place on surrounding community Co-op bulletin boards.  Farmers throughout the county seem to embrace my philosophical moodiness.  Many of my entries have been translated in Spanish, and the migrant population, beginning to swell with the spring’s warmer weather, have embraced me as their new Cesar Chavez.

And all because I gave up drinking coffee fourteen days ago.  Who could imagine such a thing.