4 Chapter 4: Non-static Electricity
The aforementioned problems with electricity began as a fatal attraction in two major experiences. The first one was out on a boat a while ago which also involved pole conductivity.
The weather was changing from warm to warmer. The bobber she had been staring at for the last two hours became more still. The lake looked like silk. There was just enough blue in the sky to make a pair of Dutchman’s pants. But the pant allotment was growing smaller.
She liked this altered meditative state while fishing with her owl of a husband. She loved her owl. She didn’t have to pretend to be dumb around him. Just be herself. He was big. Had a seven foot wingspan. This made her feel more feline when next to him.
“The Owl and the Pussycat”[7], she thought. Of course Mr. Lear’s poem was written about her not for some nonsense children in a nonsense rhyme in 1871. This love made sense to her. She loved it when he would play his fiddle and sing Mr. Lear’s poem:
“O lovely Pussy!
O Pussy my love
What a beautiful Pussy you are
You are.
What a beautiful Pussy you are!”[7]
He was good with his hands. He could fold laundry like a pro. Especially the bottom bed sheet which looked like a loaf of freshly baked bread when he handed her the final product.
Sometimes though the owl would become intolerant of her whimsy and silliness and say, “Go to the rats.”[8]
CeeCee never seriously took these outbursts of exasperation. She knew he picked up this expression from that “Secret of NIMH”[8] movie. NIMH’s secret wasn’t so secret after all; like those Victoria underwear commercials. Not a lot of secret there either.
…Any way rocking slowly in the boat the air quieted. She saw her fishing line pulling out of her reel. Her bobber wasn’t moving.
Bobber still, line moving out of the reel. It took a while for the Cat to catch up and see the line was running straight from her pole to the sky of Alyce-All-Mighty higher than ten feet tall.
The hair on the back of her neck was erect with excitement. Ches was transmitted into a higher sense of awareness. Graphite pole, a cat, aluminum boat, a developing storm. The owl saw puss’ line being pulled up to the grey above and calmly noted, “This is a pre-lightning condition.”
The puss-in tried to reassure herself as she was wearing her rubber boots. She reeled in her line, brought things back to start. But irrationally, of course, like her, reopened her reel’s bail and let the line go out and up a second time. It went up to you know what.
She felt a power greater. This power could take all of her line, pole and eventually her straight up to the fog above.
The owl said, “We should go in.”
So sadly she went back to her well known start. The electric high was a great thrill but soon with a turn of this tale rowing to land with her owl she forgot about it. Until the next electrical event many days later.