I’ve been doing my neighborhood walks again more regularly, and was all about to post this really kind of nice and minimalist notice I saw yesterday
when this absolute nuclear bomb appeared out of nowhere:
It’s fake, but damn, I appreciate the attention to detail. The layout. The advice to Michael. The pushpins. Also, this wasn’t on a busy street, and there isn’t a QR code that will take me to a Go Fund Me for a terrible indie film. This was done for the pure love of the sport. I tip my sock to you, sir.
buffing mitts? I was hoping to see a whole series of photos but I only found two. It’s a well-known fact that watching a dog wash a car is a surefire cure for depression, so I hope this person gets their pup back soon.
Whoever made this flyer really knew what they were doing. Everything about it just slays me. The exclamation points, the perfectly reasonable misspelling, the idea of a child thinking about a 2-year-old cat that “has been in the family for years,” the P.S…. I probably should have peeked under the photo to see if there was a hand-drawn picture of Judy, but I didn’t want to alter this sweet masterpiece.
Come on. Tell me you aren’t drawn in by the passive voice of the last line. Who will give the reward? For that matter, who will get the reward? I’ve been thinking about this flyer all week.
My friend Dave found this gem of a found cat notice.
While some might question Dana’s decision to draw a white cat with a black crayon, I think I understand it and admire the gusto with which it was done. I do have a different question, however: I think the line at the bottom says “kitten boy” rather than “litter box” or “kitten box” or “kitter box,” but is that referring to the feline or to Dana, à la “Kitten Boy rescued another kitten”?
Yesterday Benny found this enigma. Is this a Found Pet notice? Or is this something else? It’s very open-ended.
It doesn’t really say anything about a dog being found, and it doesn’t really say anything about there being a statute of limitations about when this dog was lost, and it doesn’t have any conditions about how a person might define losing a dog either.
Found Pet notice? Pet grief counseling? Or… could this possibly be Cole Porter‘s abandoned fifth verse to “Friendship”? I would call to find out more, but I’ve never lost a dog.
My second lost pet notice helper this week is my friend Xian, who spotted this mind-blower:
Mr. Torty! Go back home. I AM SERIOUS. And also please tell us your secrets for staying so trim at your age. 18 pounds at age 70 is amazing. Don’t tell us it’s all the walking you’re doing around the neighborhood, because seriously you need to GO BACK HOME.
I’m still not recuperated enough to do my secret stair exploring around the neighborhood, but thankfully I’ve got some folks helping me out this week. My friend Janet was walking around Esther’s Steps recently when she encountered this notice:
Oh dear. There seems to be something missing here. A telephone number.
A few days later, Janet returned to the same area and found this a little further up the street:
Definitely more desperate. Definitely someone’s heart is breaking. Definitely someone forgot to include a phone number again.
I’m hoping that everybody in this neighborhood knows one another. Esther of Esther’s Steps seemed to know everybody in the neighborhood. It would be nice if Esther’s ghost were still hanging around Esther’s Steps. Maybe she could help bring Choco back to Poko. I’m not sure ghosts can do that, but if any ghost can do that, Esther can.
I started to exercise in January even more than I had been previously in lockdown, including stretching and strength-building and a lot of walking around the hills where I live. I had pulled out a book I had about some of the old public staircases in my neighborhood, found some new stairs that I never knew existed, and was able to work off some of the worry that I was having over attempted coups, rising death rates, general breakdown of modern civilization sorts of things. The only thing was I was having this strange ache in my hip when I slept on it.
It didn’t go away, and if you’re a woman over the age of 40 who runs or walks hills and stairs a lot, you probably know that I have bursitis of the hip and/or some associated tendinitis. And so about two and a half weeks ago I did the only thing that all the medical websites and YouTube physical therapists can agree on, and that is rest. I am much crankier than I was two and a half weeks ago, but I want this to go away so I can get back to my walks and exercising and sleeping on the side that I can snuggle with Benny. I’ll take it easier this time. I’ll pay better attention. I’m checking in with my doctor on Friday.
What I’m taking an awful long time to say here, I guess, is that Gus here
and I need to remember that there is nothing wrong with relaxing when you’re injured, especially when you start getting older. We need to treat our bodies like Robert Pirsig treats his ride in Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance; we can’t burn, burn, burn and toss them away by the roadside when they’re done in favor of a new, cheap, faster one like Dean and his pals do in On The Road.
Gus, you come home and let’s you and me take some time to heal. We can watch cartoons like Bobby Cat here. It’ll be fun.
If we’re classifying this magic-wise, this seems more like an escape artist feat than an illusion. Maybe I’m thinking about this wrong, though, and that’s not a lost cat at all. It’s really a shovel, or a baby, or a pizza pie. Or maybe it’s the notice that’s the illusion?
Fancy Notions 