{"id":6478,"date":"2026-07-28T11:17:59","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T09:17:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=6478"},"modified":"2026-07-28T11:17:59","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T09:17:59","slug":"meow-meow-meow-meow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=6478","title":{"rendered":"Meow-Meow-Meow-Meow"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s early Friday evening and Burke and I are at a local watering hole irritating all of our neighbors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy turn,\u201d I shriek.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOK.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMeow meow meow meow meow-meow-meow-meow-meow. Meow-meow. Meow meow meow meow meow-meow-meow-meow-meow-meow!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBilly Joel\u2019s For the Longest Time!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMeow!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We celebrate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Meow-meow-meow-meow.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Beethoven’s 9th Symphony?!”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Meow!” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We celebrate further. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At 51 years old, I figured that discovering new talents was behind me. I have long resigned myself to the fact that I\u2019ll probably never find a till-now-unknown skill for dunking a basketball or archery or high dive fluency. But that all changes on Friday, July 24 2026 at around 5ish. I hummed a few lines of CCR\u2019s Proud Mary in all meows and my life was changed in an instant. Burke made me do a few more songs (Radiohead\u2019s Karma Police, The Star Spangled Banner, Happy Birthday (Stevie Wonder), and Gin and Juice).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was no doubt: I am a genius.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, that just started things from there. I started meowing everything. Burke tried too \u2013 the kid\u2019s okay, but she\u2019s no vocal meow prodigy like this guy. To be fair, she\u2019s been working at it these last few days and she\u2019s coming around. She did a halfway decent version of Gangsta\u2019s Paradise yesterday. A bit pitchy, but she\u2019s coming along.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I have to say: I am the one to watch. I have recorded meow song messages for several members of my family on Facebook Messenger. Despite their insistence that I \u2018stop immediately\u2019 for the \u2018sake of the family\u2019 or they will \u2018contact the authorities\u2019, I think they\u2019re dazzled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All of the other talents I have discovered within myself later in life can\u2019t make me any money. Though I am particularly fond of my newfound ability to spend the exact amount on a gift card, the sad truth is nobody is going to pay me to do that. Well, unless it\u2019s my birthday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I want all of you fiftysomethings and sixtysomethings out there who think that your time for talent discovery has passed \u2013 it hasn\u2019t. All you have to do is put away your phone and find yourself with nothing to do. Then put yourself into an arena for discovery. This could be anything or anyplace: a local Little League field, a tree in your yard, your bathroom.    <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next, just let yourself loose and see what happens. You never know what you\u2019ll learn about yourself. You might be able to whistle tunes backwards or identify a bird, or write the world\u2019s most perfect S. You never know. The world is your oyster \u2013 which you may find a talent for shucking like a madman.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you need more than me as an example, remember that Grandma Moses didn\u2019t start painting until her late 70s and Harland Sanders didn\u2019t conceive of KFC until his mid-60s. And imagine if they hadn\u2019t? Tragedy.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s early Friday evening and Burke and I are at a local watering hole irritating all of our neighbors. \u201cMy turn,\u201d I shriek. \u201cOK.\u201d \u201cMeow meow meow meow meow-meow-meow-meow-meow. Meow-meow. Meow meow meow meow meow-meow-meow-meow-meow-meow!\u201d \u201cBilly Joel\u2019s For the Longest Time!\u201d \u201cMeow!\u201d We celebrate. “Meow-meow-meow-meow.” “Beethoven’s 9th Symphony?!” “Meow!” We celebrate further. At 51 years […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6479,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_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},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6478","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\/2026\/07\/meow.jpg?fit=554%2C554&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1EvEu-1Gu","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6478","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=6478"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6478\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6480,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6478\/revisions\/6480"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}