50,000 chickpeas & a long night

3:30 a.m. — CRASH!

burekaboy, after having just fallen into deep REM sleep, following 3 annoying hours of tossing and turning, reflexively springs up in bed, completely bewildered {why did he drink that can of coke at 9 pm?? well, at least it tasted great}.

confused, he makes his way to one of the two places he knows could be the source of the crash, and expects the worst since the mischevious four-legged food processor was nowhere in sight.

squinting, in anticipation of the extreme pain which would be caused by the turning on of the bright light of the kitchen after being in complete darkness, he decides on plan B .... turn on light over the stove — less bright, less pain.

ambling to the stove in pitch blackness, he stops cold. "why are my feet wet?" he quickly asks himself. he realizes he has stepped into in a pool of water. as this realization occurs in the dark, he feels a sand papery tongue licking his ankles and hears a familiar purring. burekaboy knows he should just stop now and go back to bed; of course, he doesn't and his first thought is: "cat, you are SO dead!"

another step towards the stove to turn on the light results in the foreshadowing of the horror to come ..... as his finger extends to illuminate the situation, burekaboy thinks again: "what did i just step on?"

with a flip of the switch, he finds a soaking wet cat, 8 cups of cold water and 50,000 (ok, i exaggerate here but it was A LOT) *%#*&!@ chickpeas (& fennel seeds) all over the kitchen floor. it's now 3:40 am. i mean, what does one say at this point except: AAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!! STUPID CAT!!

alas, it's hard to be totally angry at a drenched cat with fennels seeds* in his fur happily licking up the water from soaking chickpeas, two hours before dawn. this didn't help burekaboy from wanting to rip his fur out at that very moment — let's face it, who wants to mop up chickpeas at that hour? burekaboy did contemplate going back to bed and then thought it would smell like hell in the morning (not that it already didn't) and waking up to a mess like that would be even worse.

(what's with the fennel seeds & chickpeas, you ask? chickpeas for cooking, fennel seeds to make them more easily digested).

after 15 minutes of chickpea hunting [under the stove, behind the refrigerator, under the cabinets], cursing and mopping up rank smelling water and fennel seeds, burekaboy notices it's now 4 am. the whole time, the cat is sitting in the corner, staring with that "what are you doing?" look on its face, acting as if he had nothing to do with the whole fiasco. to add insult to injury, he goes over to his food bowl and howls for a "midnight snack". chutzpah.

why didn't burekaboy buy a dog?

burekaboy, in bed again, rationalizes the situation by saying to himself that the silver lining is that at least the bowl didn't smash and that he was stupid for leaving the chickpeas within cat's reach. cat is an oddball: he especially loves chickpeas which are soaking and fresh tofu.

zzzzzz......

4:15 a.m. BANG! (mop falls over) — the fun begins again.....

you're lucky you're so cute, my little brown devil.

(this is what watches over me as i work on the computer)