They tell us we are all citizens, that we were born in this country. Well, a cat can have kittens in the oven, but that doesn't make them biscuits!
You can put a cat in an oven, but that don't make it a biscuit.
Oh cat, I'd say, or pray: be-ootiful cat! Delicious cat! Exquisite cat! Satiny cat! Cat like a soft owl, cat with paws like moths, jewelled cat, miraculous cat! Cat, cat, cat, cat.
I sometimes think the Pussy-Willows grey
Are Angel Kittens who have lost their way,
And every Bulrush on the river bank
A Cat-Tail from some lovely Cat astray.
But I do, like proper cooks, have an oven burn on my arm. I ran it under the tap for a couple of minutes but then the biscuits I'd made were cool enough to eat and I had to make a choice. Tiny scar and full belly it is then.
I like baked potatoes. I don't have a microwave oven, and it takes forever to bake a potato in a conventional oven. Sometimes I'll just throw one in there, even if I don't want one, because by the time it's done, who knows?
I was baking cakes for a gourmet shop and put two chocolate cakes in oven to bake and when I opened the oven an hour later, they were raw - the oven wasn't working. I didn't know what to do. I couldn't borrow an oven and I didn't want to waste the batter, so I came up with the idea of steaming them and they came out great! Thick and fudgy, like pudding cake. That happy accident was always in the back of mind.
Just because a chicken was born in the oven doesn't make it a biscuit.
It's aspirational for me. I've lived as a cat lady. I'm happy to be a cat lady. I'll continue to be a cat lady. Just bring them all to my house, and I'll keep them all, no problem.
I love baking cakes and slices and biscuits, but I will only make them if I'm going somewhere with lots of people so I can share them around. I've got a sweet tooth, and I'm not good with discipline, so it's easier if I just don't have desserts in the house.
If you were in a burning house and there was a cat and a Rembrandt, what would you save? The cat...you would save the cat, because the cat is alive. The art is dead. It's just paint on a canvas, ink on a page. To live for art is to deny life. It's just to destroy life.
I had to nurture those doubts as if they were tiny, sickly kittens, until eventually they became sturdy, healthy grievances, with their own cat doors, which allowed them to wander in and out of our conversation at will.
You have to walk through the kennel and check out the older animals before you can get to the puppies and kittens - and let me tell you, sometimes the adopters never make it to the puppies and kittens.
I can still memory - taste the fresh buttermilk pancakes and hot buttermilk biscuits - both made with lard! - that were cooked on the top, or in the oven, of that ancient iron stove.
I could learn photography. That could be something to want. I could photograph children. I could have my own children. I would give them yellow roses. And if they got too loud, I would just put them some place quiet. Put them in the oven. And I would kiss them every day, and tell them you don't have to be anybody, because I would know that being somebody doesn't make you anybody anyway.
You got barn cats and you want to make them tamed, you need to get them as kittens.