More On Talking To Animals

This is going to be one of those confusing posts where I think it's Friday night and y'all - and Blogger - think it's Saturday. Just so you know.

I had a lovely evening tonight: I met one of my many friends named J (this one has a blog) at the Westville and we drank beer & ate good pub food and meanwhile, queen of multitasking that I am, my clothes washed themselves across the street at the laundromat. Then we discovered that it was Walk In Theatre night, which is one of those Friday evenings through the summer when the cars get shooed out of the back parking lot, dedicated people erect a large "screen" that looks uncannily like a sail made of unbleached organic linen (this is Asheville, after all) many people, often with small dirty hippie children, filter in with chairs and blankets and a movie begins as it gets dark. Tonight was Time Bandits, which just so happens to be one of my favorites of all time, so we pulled the blanket out of my car - things like this are why I always, but always, have a blanket in my car - and settled in to watch. It was brilliant. I love that movie so, and watching any movie at all outside on a screen that ripples and sways a bit, surrounded by happy people drinking beer, is far and away the best way to see pretty much any movie.

Then I came home, and while I was having a small fit about where the hell I'd left my cigarettes and thus searching my car with the tiny useless flashlight on my keys, the front yard erupted into cat fight. Usually I ignore these things but tonight, fueled by beer and Time Bandits, I marched directly at it. "What the hell?" I asked the cats, "Do you think you're doing?" The cat next door, a sweet tortoiseshell, ran off. "You aren't even near your house." I said sternly, "and who are you fighting?" Of course, it was Orange Cat, and he was unashamed. He headed for home and I followed him along, lecturing him aloud like any mom in the neighborhood. "You need to stop causing trouble," I said, "You are always starting fights, and that's not cool. You go on home and you think about why you don't want the other cats to like you." He looked up at me and said Meow and I realized that I was, at 11:15 pm, chasing after an orange tom cat and scolding him aloud like a 2nd grade teacher.

It is just vaguely possible that I am spending too much time alone.