As I got established in the house-by-the-zen-center, I began to see the need for more kitty company.   It is not good for a cat to live alone.  Look at what a solitary life had made Chaucer: a vicious, stingy, sadist.  Often, I thought Chaucer’s sole pleasure in life was beating me up.  He wasn’t much of a companion.   His high IQ only made him worse.  Do you want to live with a peer who applies his intellect to torturing and depriving you?    People don’t get this.  Consider the public schools.  If bad parents have a smart kid, they’ll get puffed up about his good grades.  But if a smarty kid has good grades but lousy work habits and non-existent citizenship, then what have you got?   I’ll tell you: you got a master criminal in the making.  Focus on a kid’s work habits and citizenship.  If a smart kid works hard and cares for others, his grades will take care of themselves.  If he is a dimmer bulb, he will still do as well as you have a right to expect if he keeps his nose to the grindstone and respects others.  Don’t rear a Chaucey, an evil genius of a cat.

 You can already tell I’m lucky in life.  Living right next door to my new home was a cute little black cat.  She was sweet to me.  She did have a murderous tendency.  She enjoyed killing little critters.  One day I saw her in my backyard.  She was walking along the support beam of the yard’s fence.  As she walked, a foolish bird flew right towards her.  She unhinged her mouth.  It then was as if the clueless bird were in outer space.  You couldn’t even hear her scream.  The kitty on the beam opened her mouth, clamped down, and the next thing I knew I was seeing a spray of feathers emitting from my kitty neighbor’s mouth.  What a woman!  I had to have her.

 My staff was too ignorant to recognize my neighbor was a girl.  Instead, they took to calling her Bart.  I could see that Bart was all girl.  She had grown up in a Mexican household.  An old lady had served Bart.   From her, Bart got the rudiments of a young woman’s formation.  Bart had a delicacy that you don’t find in kitties with all-male staff.  I had to have her living where she belonged, that is, with me.