{"id":4904,"date":"2020-02-03T15:51:52","date_gmt":"2020-02-03T14:51:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=4904"},"modified":"2020-04-27T19:46:10","modified_gmt":"2020-04-27T17:46:10","slug":"plant-eater","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=4904","title":{"rendered":"Plant Eater"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
Plant Eater<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s great to have friends who are moving. I mean, it\u2019s sad,\nno doubt, but there is nothing like the dissipating resolve of a person\nstanding in a room of their belongings and the knowledge that they have to pack\nthem into boxes and bring them somewhere else. This is the way you end up with\nthings. Lots of things. It\u2019s even better when that friend is leaving on an\nairplane, so there\u2019s no way they can bring everything. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s in this way that I have recently ended up with a yoga\nmat, a popcorn maker, lots of honey, a Pilates ball, a knife block, a set of\npots, a rug, a cast iron pan, and a plant stand and several plants. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

All of these things are useful and I have already used most\nof them. But the rug, the plant stand, and the plants have brought the most\njoy. They bring a cozy atmosphere to the flat that simply wasn\u2019t there before. It\nhas also given my cat a full circle of activity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She climbs the plant stand <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She eats the plants<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She pukes onto the rug <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s the circle of life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

I know that cats like to eat leaves because they make them puke and it cleans out their system. But there seems to be an intentional aspect to my cat\u2019s actions. This is inferred by me by the way she stares at me with a flat and angry look while munching. Then she meows at me until I look at her and it\u2019s then that she pukes onto the rug. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I yell at her each time. I try to talk sense to her. \u201cWhy\nwould you eat those plants if you know it\u2019s only going to make you sick?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She doesn\u2019t say anything, but she squints as if to say: \u201cHey\nold man, isn\u2019t it ironic that you say that to me while suffering your ten\nthousandth hangover?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But there\u2019s another element to it that troubles me. The only\nthing that ate those plants in my friend\u2019s place was probably some small insects\nand maybe a spider or two. My friend might have taken a nibble in a moment of drunken\ncuriosity, but overall they were probably left alone to bask in the warmth of\nhis room. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I feel bad that the plants have moved into an inferior\natmosphere. I want all things in my flat to get along. Me, Burke, the B\nMonster, our platoons of ladybugs (wonder what it is about this area), my desk spider\nJeff (who has now moved house to my desk plant), and now my plants. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Growing up we always had animals in the house. And not only\nthat, it was almost encouraged to bring home an animal (beneath a dog) who was\nhaving a bad day. So our house was full of dogs and cats and frogs and toads.\nThere was a turtle. Then there was another. I think for about 10 years a lope-eared\nrabbit lived quietly in a hutch in the backyard. Ostensibly it belonged to my\nsister Amanda, but the rabbit was so inactive that she might as well have\npossessed a pet rock.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I brought home a duck once, but it ran away pretty fast. We\nhad a slew of cats who thanked us for our hospitality by bringing around dead\nbirds and, terrifyingly, skunks. These cats were mostly autonomous and acted\nlike the rogue green beret you see in a movie, the one who doesn\u2019t play by the\nrules, but rather disappears into the misty jungle and returns in a similar\nway. Still, occasionally one tabby we had would hop up into my bed and sort of quietly\ndemand a space. I\u2019d let him, and I don\u2019t mind telling you that I\u2019d sleep a bit easier\non the nights he was watching my door from my feet. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Any animal that came (or was brought) around was treated\nlike an immediate part of the family. This was both good and bad for the\nanimals, who were stuffed into backpacks and brought on hikes, but also fed from\nthe table and welcomed with cozy nights on couches and pillows. The four kids\nloved animals, my mother rolled her eyes but tolerated them, and my dad had no\nidea how many animals we had, but we also didn\u2019t care as long as he wasn\u2019t\nexpected to clean up after one or to walk one.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I know it\u2019s dumb, but I think the only place I can control\nthe happiness somewhat bilaterally is in my house. And I want a little Utopia here.\nWhen I imagine my flat I want to be like St. Francis of Assisi standing among\nthe happy comingling masses of joyous and smiling flora and fauna. But that can\u2019t\nbe if one of us is eating another of us. Perhaps I should get a carnivorous\nplant to teach the cat a lesson. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The internet suggested orange peels, I suppose that\nsomething within them bothers cats and indeed I have noticed the displeased look\nmy B Monster gets when I peel an orange. It\u2019s like when someone near me opens a\ncan of mushrooms.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I suppose each Utopia has to have a jerk. If nothing else,\nmaybe that\u2019s the only positive thing about these troubled times of global\nassholery and people who won\u2019t listen to reason. I only wish I could temporarily\ncure that problem with orange peels. Is there a jerk around? Lay some orange\npeels at your feet and they\u2019ll stay away. Maybe books?  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite my efforts, the orange peels only work for a day or\ntwo before the cat gets right back to it. She\u2019s showing no signs of giving up\nhis plant based diet. Each week I walk out into the living room into a small\npile of slimy plant-filled puke. And she continuously and defiantly eats in\nfront of me and then upchucks it onto the rug, Larry. There\u2019s probably a\nmetaphor there, but it really just seems like nobody is winning.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Plant Eater It\u2019s great to have friends who are moving. I mean, it\u2019s sad, no doubt, but there is nothing like the dissipating resolve of a person standing in a room of their belongings and the knowledge that they have to pack them into boxes and bring them somewhere else. This is the way you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3357,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/damiengaleone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/2013-02-23-15.06.10.jpg?fit=2048%2C1536&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1EvEu-1h6","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4904"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4904\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4905,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4904\/revisions\/4905"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}