What We Have Here Is A Failure To Communicate

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Last night, 8:30 p.m. I hear my cat, Snowball, come in from the back porch. I'm rather proud of the fact that I've taught him to let himself in. I close the back patio door so it just barely latches. By throwing his (considerable) weight against the door, Snowball can let himself in when he's ready. 

I got up to close the door behind him and noticed he had what appeared to a large lump of dark wet leaves in his mouth. Except I know my cat. 

"It better be dead," I said. 

Snowball looked up at me and, without losing eye contact, calmly and deliberately went "Patoo-ie!" 

And the lump of dark leaves scurried away. 

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Dumpster Diving

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Yesterday I went dumpster diving. Not because I’m a zealous re-use advocate and not because I’m an environmentalist and not even because I was hungry and there was no food in the house (which would be the most likely reason for me to give dumpster diving a shot). No, the reason I went dumpster diving is… wait for it… because I dropped the cat’s poo-trashcan in there.
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Back In The Land of Cat Jokes

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November has shaped up to be a busy month. The developmental edit for Does This Collar Make My Butt Look Big? A Diet Book For Cats came back this week from my editor which means I am once again buried in cat humor. 

A developmental edit is basically just the editor going through the manuscript and pointing out what she likes, what jokes she thinks fall flat, what needs more explanation, etc. For example, I had written: While other diet and exercise books encourage a healthy lifestyle based on portion control and exercise, this book promotes the more feline-friendly approach of retching up most of your calories.

The editor's comment about "retching up" was "Is there a funnier, less gross term we can use here? I know there are a lot of funny slang terms for upchucking." So my edits this morning included sorting through options like "regurgitating, disgorging, heaving up, hurling, blowing chunks, yacking, ralphing..."

Seriously, I get paid to do this. It's awesome.

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