September 1, 2002

Dear Muffin,

Here is some half-and-half coffee creamers. They are delicious also portion-controlled. Pia brings them home by the case from the restaurant where she works part time.

Hope you like them.

Gracie

 

September 2
Tomorrow is the first day of school. Chickenloaf thinks this is just great. Chickenloaf is singing PALLY WALLY DOOTLE, and is ironing jumpers and blouses and corderouy pants and leotards. Chickenloaf is ironing a crease down the front of each leotard leg in order to make the toes pointy.

Now Chickenloaf is ironing her socks. Chickenloaf likes nice crisp socks.

Now Chickenloaf is singing I'LL BE YOUR LITTLE BREAD PUDDING, and is ironing the pink corderouy pants with bumblebees all over them which make a frightful zeeping noise. The pants not the bees.

Pia is lounging on the davenport and is painting her front claws Neuter Me Neutral. Pia is wearing a red and purple and gold and green and orange silk turpin around her ears. Also earrings that are real-life mice wearing little gold collars crusted with sparkly stones. Dangling by their tails.

I want to know where Pia got those earrings.

Me, I am trying to do this cross word puzzle in Dad's Wall Street Journal.

What the hell is a ten letter French word for a drowning victim.

Oh I know. QUATRE CINQ.

September 3
Now it is the first day of school. Weakie Ms. Wysiwyg is scritching something on the chalk board with a piece of chalk. That peice of chalk is screetching like tortured cave bats. Everybody's ears are standing straight up.

That is what Ms. Wysiwyg has just skritched across the chalk board.

The classroom is dead silent.

September 4
Art class. Ms. Van Lips is teaching us how to paint lovely autumn leaves using oils. Like the Great Masters.

Ben is wearing a beret with a little nipple on top for the occasion. Ben is painting with lots of flourishes of the paw and he is singing

Les feuilles mortes!
Se ramassent à la pelle!
Tu vois, je n'ai pas oublié!
Les feuilles mortes!
Se ramassent à la pelle!

Ms. Van Lips is praising Chickenloaf's use of chariscuro. Whatever the hell that is.

Everybody elses paintings look like we drained out crankcases.

Chessie has given up. She is licking her painting.

DON'T LICK THAT CHESSIE IT WILL KILL YOU.

But it's marvelous.

DO NOT LICK IT. THAT PAINT IS RADIOACTIVE.

September 5
The seventh grade is not as stimulating and challenging as I expected. We are studying Quantum Mechanics, Classical Robotics, Scapegoats Through History, and The Mad Poets. Also Lucretius. I studied Lucretius when I was a small kitten.

Ms. Wysiwyg is parseling out this sentence on the chalk board.

Me, I am trying to figure out what is a eleven letter word meaning stipend.

Oh that's easy. CHUMP CHANGE.

In the next row over Snooples is setting at her desk studying a tiny spider. Snooples is wearing her new magenta mittens which are attached to one another by a long magenta string. Those mittens have red satin bows on the tops of the wrists. They are very stylish.

Every time that spider staggers a couple of millimeters across the desk Snooples moodges it down under a mitten. Now that spider is listing along like a Corvair knocked out of alignment.

Now Snooples is trying to feed that spider some cream cheese.

Weakie Ms. Wysiwyg has finished parseling the sentence.

September 10
Bad news: Gym class day. We have to wear one-piece padded gym suits which resemble snomobile suits. They are leopard patterned. They are not very figure flattering.

However I am a large kid in the seventh grade which means no more dodge ball. Thank Heavens.

September 12
I did not do so well this week playing roller jailai in gym class. Mostly on account of that gym suit was too tight under the armpits.

Also the roller skates kept wheeling off in four different directions. Then, every time I tried to keep all four legs straight, I rolled straight through the game headfirst into the wall.

The other kids, they were skating every which way and flinging that ball at 190 miles an hour. Then I would roll straight through like a saw horse.

September 13
Chickenloaf is now captain of the roller jailai team. On account of she is the best roller skater. Mom and Dad went out to the mall shopping with Chickenloaf and bought Chickenloaf a set of roller skates which are pink. They have rubber erasers on the toes. I don't know why. They are inexplicably festooned with enormous pink pom poms.

Mr. Butts-Münch will not allow me to play on the roller jailai team. On account of I can't skate.

Pia says if I am going to roll through the game like a liquor cart I could at least serve drinks on my back.

Anyways I don't care. I would rather be in 4-H and raise a calf.

 

September 14, 2002

Dear Muffin,

I'm wondering did you ever get those coffee creamers. Hope they did not fall into the hands of somebody who would use them for evil.

Best,

Gracie

P.S. In case this letter is confiscated by the authorities, nobody actually sent a case of half-and-half coffee creamers by air mail. It is just a little joke ha ha ha.

September 16

Weakie Ms. Wysiwyg just skritched this across the chalk board:

Fact! That was Chickenloaf. Chickenloaf is hopping up and down in her seat and waving her paw. Chickenloafs bracelets are jangling like a bunch of hubcaps.

Fiction! That was Fluffikins. Fluffikins thinks everything is fiction.

Historical event mythologized! Ben.

Bullcrap who ever heard of a porky pine doing people's laundry. Bucky Lawless. Bucky always gets cranky in the fall.

She is NOT a porky pine! Chickenloaf. She is a HEDGE PIG! She is very real!

She did people's laundry? How common. Porcine.

Another denizen of the pink-collar slum. Pia, sighing into her Biotechnology book.

Myth! Myth! Ben (voice strained). We cannot define Mrs. Tiggywinkle using the conventional dichotomy of fact or fiction! Myth lies outside of reality! Indeed, myth defines our collective reality! Clearly, Mrs. Tiggywinkle is the pastoral allegory of Original Sin washed to sparkling whiteness!

Amen! Amos, the crow.

Amen Brother! Moses, the other crow.

Ben has buried his face in his paws and has burst into tears.

I am pretending to avidly take notes.

Actually I am on question 11 of this Wall Street Journal crossword puzzle. What is a 4-letter word describing the occupation of Elvis Presley and Arthur of the Round Table.

Oh I know. DEAD.

September 17
3 p.m.

Raining like hell. Chessie and Snooples have fallen asleep on the rug in front of the fireplace. Crayons are scattered everywheres. Snooples and Chessie have been working on a drawing. It appears to be a drawing of a Hideous Mutant Spider wearing magenta mittens on each of its 22 claws. The magenta crayon is worn down to a stub.

What is a three-letter word for a low-lying, muddy area characterized by still and sometimes fetid water populated with insect larvae. I have been trying to figure this out for hours. I am practically tearing my ears out.

Wait I know! DOG.

September 18
Roller jailai in gym class again today. Apparently this is the only sport Mr. Butts-Münch is aware of.

This means another interminable 75 minutes of thirty or forty kids skating hell-for-leather in every direction with a small and highly dangerous ball breaking the sound barrier and headed straight for my head.

My job is to roll through the maelstrom serving water bottles on my back.

September 19
What is a 16-letter compound synonym for calculus.

Oh. BORING AND TEDIOUS.

Looking forward to tomorrow, as get to choose 4-H animal.

September 20
It is late in the afternoon. Snooples and Chessie are outside under the gargantuan old maple tree. They have buried themselves in lovely autumn leaves up to their ears. They have strewed their new magenta mittens and matching magenta cupcake hats all over the lawn.

Am studying Dylan Thomas for Mad Poets class.

Rage! Rage...

So that's where Gladstone got those lines he was hollering.

Picked out 4-H animal today: tilapia. Think it is a type of beef sheep.

September 21
On school bus. Twenty-five white-footed gerbils wearing matching red plaid jumpers are bouncing up and down on one seat. Walter the bus driver is telling us a dirty joke about hydraulic rams.

Ha ha ha! That was a pretty good joke.

Three crossword puzzle questions to go. What is a 4-letter word for a horse foot.

Huh.

HEY CHESSIE WHAT IS A 4-LETTER WORD FOR A HORSE FOOT.

Oh yeah. CLAW.

September 22
8 p.m.

Almost time for bed. Am eating banana jello and studying World Logic. Nini is mending her pink feather boa at the sewing machine. The treadle is galloping like Clydesdale.

Chickenloaf and Ben are watching Are You Being Served. It is my favorite episode of that television show. It is that episode in which the gigantic brazeer lights up.

Ha ha ha!!! That brazeer just lighted up.

September 23
Back seat of Moms King Cab pickup truck on way to shopping mall. Chickenloaf is counting dead deers along the roadside.

What is a 18-letter word for the largest animal with the smallest brain. Relatively speaking.

Beats me. It is not a cow. Cow does not have 18 letters.

Pia says HUMAN DRIVING PICKUP.

I will write that down.

September 24
Just finished Quantum Mechanics essay about the effects of gravitational force on the acceleration of time when you are having fun. Snooples and Chessie and Chickenloaf and Ben and Pia are outside playing in the lovely autumn leaves. They have built a fort out of leaves and they are in the fort eating cheese cake.

It is a very spacious fort. It has a Cathedral Ceiling. It has electric lights and heat. It has a radio that lights up! On account of Pia rolled the school janitor's 1966 Volkswagen Beetle out of the parking lot and down the hill and popped the clutch and got the engine running and then they all hopped in. Pia drove it over here and they buried it in lovely autumn leaves. They left one door open.

However the engine of that Volkswagen Beetle will never ever again start. That is because Chessie left the lights on for 7 1/2 hours.

But it is still a pretty neat fort.

September 25
Lunch time. Mom packed me a turkey leg. We are setting outside at the picnic tables. Ben is praying over his bean curd with milk. Pia is sitting on the curb smoking a cigarrette and scooping Nutella out of a jar with her paw.

There is this new kid at school. He is another white tail deer like Bucky Lawless. His name is Bing Hamton. He is from upstate New York. He wears a fringed buckskin jacket and narrow dark sunglasses. He plays bongos.

That fringed jacket is nice and soft but you must not touch it with your paw. Bing Hamton gets mad if you touch it with your paw. He says it was his brother.

September 26
Today Bucky Lawless and Bing Hamton got into a big fight on the playground. On account of Bing Hamton insulted Bucky Lawlesses black leather jacket. Bucky Lawless took this personally, as the jacket was a gift from Stoakley Carmichael.

Anyways, they kept galloping at each other and crashing antlers. They did this the whole noon hour.

It was cool.

September 26
World Logic class. Ms. W is talking about geographical tautologies.

Those two white tail deer have got bandaids all over their antlers. Also Bucky Lawless is carrying a silver flask. It has a deers head on it also the name DALMORE. So I guess it stolen. Bing Hamton keeps taking Tylenols. Every time one of them answers a question in class, the other snorts really loud and paws the tiles off the floor. Then everybody giggles.

Ms. W says NO MORE INTERRUPTIONS.

September 27
Today during the noon hour, Bucky Lawless and Bing Hamton rubbed a lot of paint off the swingsets with their antlers. This upset the little kids. They all started sucking their mittens and we could not get them to stop.

Those deer also kept walking all over the teeter totters and crashing them down left and right. It was a disaster.

September 28, 2004

Dearest Gracie;

I send heartfelt gratitude from our entire village for your most generous gift of the tiny containers of curdled milk of cows!

Using your gift, our cheesemakers made a most excellent cheese.

In case your family would like to attempt this cheese, I will tell you how: First you bury the little milks for three days in hot horse dung. Then, wearing your ceremonial robes, you empty the containers into a burlap sack. You must hang this sack from from a jujuju tree inhabited by a hornet's nest. This is so that it will not be molested by problematic ghosts. At the end of one week, mix in a generous amount of bird spittle and roll it into balls. Sprinkle the exterior of these balls with the ashes of goat's horns. Pack them in gourds to await the winter.

You take one of these balls and you mush it under your foot. It makes a most excellent spread for sandwiches or crackers.

Until next time,

All My Very Best!

Muffin

September 29
After dinner. The kittens are writing a letter to Leonard Nimoy. They are sending him poems. Also self portraits done in Elmers Glue and yarn. They are telling Leonard Nimoy to take up a singing career. Snooples has enclosed the lyrics of The Stars and Stripes Forever painstakingly written out with her very own paw.

MAYBE HE DOES NOT WANT TO SING.

That is what I tell them.

HE IS A SPACE GUY.

They do not listen.

Incidentally that self same song is grinding away on Nini's Victrola.

Pia says that Victrola is fucked. Pia tried to play a Nirvana CD on that Victrola. It sounded like Whales.

 

September 30
7 p.m.

At dining room table enjoying Cheezits. It is very nearly dark outside. The headlights of the leaf fort are twinkling cheerfully under the gargantuan old maple tree.

One crossword puzzle question to go. This should be easy: a 14-letter word for consumers of Stilton Cheese.

Something is wrong with this crossword puzzle.

Anyways, I am going outside and play in the lovely autumn leaves.