Okay so I have one of these little guys visiting me, a Ringtailed Cat, totally charming, (the above photo is off the Internet) and I went to YouTube to see if there was a video on them (habits, gustatory preferences etc.) and there was  one; some people in a small office in Arizona had one dropping through the ceiling tiles every night to feast on what they had left out for it, and somebody got a little amateur video of the creature sitting on a computer devouring cat food and oranges.

So far so good.

Then some wierdo posts filthy-mouth posts on the video. Speculating on the people’s sex lives, using the foulest language he/she could come up with. How did this crazy even find this obscure video?

I’ve noticed this on other You Tube toobs. It’s a kind of Tourette’s syndrome, I suppose. Others were on a video of a cruise ship in trouble, another on Bulgarian folk dancing (to which I am addicted). some YouTube videos are posted with warnings for the filth-mouth people to stay off. Does YouTube ever ban these people?

Interesting. No wonder my editor warned me not to allow comments. It’s a whole new human activity. Meanwhile the ringtail visits every night and goes on its language-less life, snacking on bird seed and the cat food I leave out for it. They are the last word in animal charm.

A tail of two kitties.

And so this is where I was on 9/11. Jim and I were reconstructing an 1899 stone house in San Antonio and I took every opportunity to get away. This was a weekend retreat loaned to me for several days by friends, outside San Antonio, Pipe Creek. I was working on Enemy Women; peace and silence. I turned on the radio that morning to find some classical music station before starting work on the manuscript, and ABC radio news was on and they stayed on. The first plane had just hit the tower and they were speculating that it was an accident.

And so the morning went on. I never got a yard away from the radio. Finally packed up and returned to San Antonio. Everyone in the house was sitting in front of the TV and completely silent. They were silent all day. I found that strange. No one said a word.