The next person to post in this thread...

[Jizzelbin]

Yes. This cat is very happy with me but she had an incurable zest for the outdoors, which is difficult to manage at most times.

TNP's best and most high thought when a pet cat "escapes" is to leave it alone and trust it will come back Or not. Or TNP has a better idea.

[Elendil's Heir]

When it's happened in the past, we've gone out looking for the cat, no matter the hour, calling and calling, hoping and praying and asking the neighbors to keep a lookout. But yes, often - not always - the damn thing just comes back on its own.

TMP will share the names of his or her last three pets.

[Jizzelbin]

Sure. Current cat: Bobbie. Last cat: Gertrude (went with another girlfriend, almost certainly dead unless witchcraft). And I had a pet rat in grade school I creatively named Blackie.

TNP is pretty sure it is not permitted to take one's pet cat on a leash/harness and walk through the local zoo....paying full admission of course. But it would be amusing!

[Elendil's Heir]

I suppose it would depend on the zoo's rules. Sounds to me like it'd be worth a try, though! You might want to call ahead, just in case.

TNP thinks that calling ahead would be no fun.

[Jizzelbin]

Yes, agreed. Best just to show up and stare the gatekeeper down and then he or she can apologize to my kitteh! (For some reason I just thought of that scene in *The Omen* when Damien &cie drive through the safariland or whatever....something like that!)

But....but....but what if my cat's an emotional support...thing or whatever!

TNP has had it from about knees to tits from dealing with siblings and various family members about legal and financial issues. Life's too short....let the professionals handle it.

[Elendil's Heir]

One close relation, in particular, has indeed gotten on my nerves in recent years, but it's not about legal or financial issues, fortunately.

TNP has seen a great movie in the past week, and will tell us what it was.

[Jizzelbin]

Oh, no. The movies are an invitation for the devil to invade one's soul. Or said a strange voice to me on this Pentecost Sunday. Happy end of Easter!

TNP has had any experiences, negative, neutral, or positive, with shooting trap or skeet in an appropriate environment, and will share.

[Elendil's Heir]

I've only shot skeet once, long ago, and it was OK, although I haven't been yearning to try it again.

TNP has had any experiences, negative, neutral, or positive, with black-powder firearms in an appropriate environment, and will share.

[Jizzelbin]

No, not at all. Actually, and I hope to not offend, but I have fairly negative opinions about LARP people and AirSoft enthusiasts....although.... Yes, I'll be fair and say that growing up in Oregon City, reenactors of all types were a big part of my upbringing, you know....Lewis and Clark and all that, and my mother was a nut for that "history" guff, as one could say, so we went to every last WWII bunker or tribal hide-away on the coast and inland that there was.

No, but have to restrain myself because don't really need a new hobby yet such as reloading brass and fiddling with yet some....how'd they do it? I think before cartridges they used a paper and powder, and....they were loading from the breech, not the muzzle, I guess, and I don't know about any primer...hoped for the best? Struck a match? Or perhaps some kind of flint-based contraption?<lol>

TNP will say, if he or she had the choice, between buying a 4x4 small truck (for getting to BLM land up logging roads and such for to go shooting) or a really boss new musical instrument, which one, and why.

[Elendil's Heir]

I don't really need a new vehicle, so I guess I'll go with that really boss new musical instrument. Maybe a really good piano? I took lessons long ago and just might return to the keyboard someday.

TNP will be going to a concert in the next two weeks.

[Jizzelbin]

A concert of triumph, as I am to be accepted to the Portland Rifle and Pistol Club next week! 24/7 shooting, emphasis on 22LR, centerfire allowed in two traps during daylght hours, and 22LR practice on eight lanes 24/7. OR Lead Round Nose rounds with a muzzle velocity of less than 900 fps, which is easy for a factory load 45ACP....I only like to shoot 22LR and 45ACP, although I have three 9mm pistols....they're not as much fun.

Oh. A concert concert. Well....not much music happening next few weeks...well....I finally decided to get back into the Liszt Wagner transcriptions for piano, so that will be a concert of a sort as I read through that in the stalwart, reliable Dover reprint.

Oh shit....last night I got the word that the Rich Halley 4tet is playing off their new album at Turn Turn Turn this coming Tuesday! Fuck yeah I got a concert to see! This motherfucker is a bad cat on horn, and his son, Carson, is the hardest working drummer on the trap in the Portland area, and a personal friend.

Of course I'll see that!

TNP considers a person to have "quit smoking"; even if that person might have one or two cigarettes every day or so, or none. (Perhaps as Kant suggests in his Anthropologie one only smokes when one is bored).

[Elendil's Heir]

No, to me, someone who has "quit smoking" no longer smokes, ever. Otherwise they're "trying to quit smoking," which can take years.

TNP is meeting a friend for lunch tomorrow.

[Jizzelbin]

Actually, yes....sort of....if by "tomorrow" one means Sunday 14-Jun at in Zulu time, and if by "lunch" one can exclude comestibles. Sister wants to come by and see my inherited cat from the ex-dad, and she might make a ride out to a nearby dump to get rid of some excess furniture as a favor, using her minivan. Plus, since she's not bring any of her children, I don't feel the need to secure my firearms with trigger locks.

[Oh....please....that's tantamount to saying if one is a social crack smoker one is a crackhead, which is obviously not true!]

TNP finds that the lure of buying books (to read, of course) is too strong to resist at many times. Which means buying more bookshelves. And TNP thinks both habits can be taken far to excess.

[Elendil's Heir]

Oh, absolutely. I have far too many books already, most of which I really do wanna read!

TNP has listened to some J.S. Bach this weekend.

[Jizzelbin]

Well...sort of....I set a goal to finally memorize the Contrapuntus IX and the comparatively simple Emaj and Emin fugues from WTCI, in addition to other things.

Yeah, I guess one could call that a kind of listening, when one deliberately tries to hear each voice and then reproduce it within one's ear and then at the keyboard. I'd go further and say that there's no such thing as a "classical musician" who doesn't play by ear.

TNP finds it's probably a oood idea to read those Patricia Highsmith novels about that Mr. Ripley character,,,one must keep oneself occupied, somehow, one supposes.

[Elendil's Heir]

Y'know, I've thought about that, and someday maybe I will, but I just haven't yet.

TNP can think of at least three novelists who sound interesting, but TNP hasn't actually read anything they've written... yet.

[Jizzelbin]

Hmmm.....three novelists? Yeah, maybe.....for sure never ever read anything by Tolkien....not even one part of a page....nor any of Boccaccio (I'd count that as a novelist, maybe....and yet I know about Marguerite de Navarre, for some idiotic reason).....nor.....whatisface.....that Michael Chrichton person.

It's difficult to say if all of those three are considered primarily novelists.....but....I wanted to put Anthony Burgess on there, but I know I've read at least some of his work, although not his fiction, so not a true virgin to his work. I'm sure there are many others, but it's hard to say.

Could put William H. Gass on the list....that is a true &quot;zero words read ever,&quot; and it's fair to say known almost exclusively for his prose fiction.

Oh, and there are a good many Central and Eastern European authors....not to mention the most famous of the Chinese or Japanese authors, and some of those from the Indian subcontinent, and the entire continent of Africa, as well as....it's just too difficult to say what one knows about but doesn't truly know.

Difficult question, really....an interesting one, though.....difficult to answer, though, in the spirit it was asked, because among those &quot;known&quot; (by me, or anyone), certainly one has some awareness of the character of the prose, from reading a few pages and so forth.

JM Coetzee, for sure.....well....how does one know what one doesn't know, really?

Apuleius, to stretch the idea of a "novel" to mean extended fictional narrative...

Umberto Eco....but like with Burgess, I know some of his other work. Wait, I got one! Gabriel García Márquez....not one word, ever. Yeah, I'd put him down on Team Colombia for the win. Probably so many, but who can say for sure?

TNP would rather have had lunch/dinner/drinks with either Moon Unit Zappa or G Gordon Liddy at some point, and will say which one and why. (!)