Random thoughts

I couldn’t find some of my writing. I remembered writing it but I could remember where I stored it. I have had two computers since writing it. I had my husband dig up the old computer. I searched the files.


I found some files that I thought were lost for my quilt program. No writing. Where is it? I remembered that I had another laptop. I looked all over in the external hard drive in backed up files. No where to be found.


So I started to look through the backed up cd’s. I called my Dad who has the previous laptop and it was scrubbed and he remembers backing it up. I kept looking. Everywhere, I dug up boxes out of the closet and sorted thought stacks of dusty papers.


I spoke to my Dad again and he said it was backed up on a DVD. The next day I started to look through all the cd/dvd’s again. I found it. I was looking for a cd or a thumb drive.


I then started to think about life lessons. I have discovered that you can’t find something if you don’t know what you are looking for. This has proved to be so true for me in my life. I know people spend so much time and money searching for that “one thing” that will make them happy. To feel fulfilled. To feel that they are successful, confident, at peace.. the list goes on and on.


I go back to the assertion, you won’t find it if you don’t know what you’re looking for. Is it really a spiritual quest? A self esteem problems and lack of knowledge or a character issue that needs to be addressed? Is it really just lack of direction or lack of self discipline?

I decided that there are times I just need to quit spinning my wheels. I need to stop, ask someone for input, to look back and take an objective look at things. You can’t find something if you don’t know what you are looking for. Just isn’t possible.


OK here is the writing I was looking for:


The Cat Parade







Three cats live in the street by my house. They eat and drink when they can. They are thin and fast. The cats are elusive to the humans that live in the houses that shelter them from the rain. The leader is a black and white cat, the next is grey and the smallest is a young orange striped.


The cats sit outside on the property line between the houses in the town where I live. They sit and twitch their tails. They also wash their faces in the sun. Sometimes they sleep curled on the steps when no one is home.


My dog Dexter does not like the cats. He sits all day looking out of the windows on the property line. He pants and anxiously waits to get a glimpse of nature, the birds, squirrels and mostly the cats. He wants to chase them. It is interesting the history between cats and dogs. My dog has never been off his leash long enough in the yard to get close to a cat. I don’t understand his passion to catch a cat.


Dexter is 90 pounds and has wiry hair. He is a pointer. He has a deep passion to point out birds and small game to his humans. He had three good legs and one bad knee that was injured during his last hunting trip. He is now retired. He feels it is important to save his people from the cats.


Why do the cats parade past the windows each night at nine o’ clock? Day after day for nearly a year they do this ritual walking in a line from the left to the right and then cross the street at dusk. Do the mice come out at precisely nine? Does the restaurant on the alley dump their garbage at exactly nine? Dexter cries and occasionally jumps at the window in his distress at the cats.


The curtains are drawn, it doesn’t matter. If the sun is up or down, it doesn’t matter. The parade continues every night rain or shine.


I gave up on stopping the cat parade. I quit trying to solve the mystery of three cats on parade from the left to the right walking by my window every night.

Until at 5 to nine yesterday when Dexter had to go out side. On his leash to protect him from the street and limiting his exposure to the rest of the world, we entered the yard and walk to his favorite patch of grass. I heard a squirting sound and then a spray. I saw the sprinklers turned on across the street. And then one by one the parade began those thin and wild things , to the source of water trickling in the gutter.


The leader sits daintily and takes a drink. He looks at Dex on his leash, and twitches his tail. He knows the parade is over and enjoyed the chance to see from afar his number one fan of the nightly ritual.