With Six you Get Catnip...

Okay, here goes. (Take a deep breath.) (Take several DEEP breaths.) (Remember to exhale. Again.) (Repeat.) Here goes…in the waning hours of the first week of April…my first real blog entry.

I’ve wanted to start a blog for some time, but never quite felt the muse, or worried that I would be entering into some sort of self-centered, self-exposing chaos of Kardashian level calamity. And, I’m a master of “open mouth, insert foot” disease on Facebook. So at times, this move did not sound like the best idea…

In the spirit of starting out small, I’ve decided this first entry will set out to explain the name of my blog, and the Facebook and Twitter accounts I hope to seamlessly sync up quite soon with this blog. (Fingers crossed!)

First off, Happy Birthday, Doris Day! (It’s still April 4^th, after all)

The title “With Six You Get Catnip” pays homage to one of my favorite vintage movie actresses, Doris Day, and her last movie, “With Six You Get Eggroll.” With perfect blonde hair, the perfect blonde smile, and the perfect male costars, Doris charmed her way into America’s heart through a series of madcap romantic comedies in the 1960’s. As a kid, I would see one of her films ever so often on our old UHF stations in Houston, and “With Six…” was my favorite. If you’ve never seen it, it co-starred the likes of Brian Keith from “The Parent Trap,” George Carlin, Mel from Alice, and Klinger and Father Mulcahy from M*A*S*H. Here’s a clip:

With Six You Get Egg Roll

Doris Day’s movie career was on the wane with this last film; playing the chaste good girl widow, or labeled the “world’s oldest virgin,” her star power was fading as movies with more sexual content (like The Graduate—in fact Doris had been offered the role of Mrs. Robinson!) did not interest her. As a single, forty-something Gen-Xer in a millennial world, I identify with Doris and her then predicament, and with her character, as a plucky, independent, maternal woman. I just happen to be the “mother” of six cats. Oh, and Doris LOVES animals.

But back to explaining my blog title; “With Six You Get…” refers to the movie title and old Chinese restaurant take out menus that listed, if you ordered for six, you got free eggrolls. If anything best defines my life today, it’s my six cats. And all the things that come with sharing a home and a life with those six cats, not just the catnip.

And that is where I am starting this blog. I hope to share with you the origins of my 6 furries, the other 6 related furries who live just down the street with my mother, who will also share a star in this blog; also the occasional feral cat visitors in my neighborhood, friends who are involved in animal rescue, friends who are involved in our world, the issues of homeless cats and dogs in our area, animal welfare issues around our world, and the trials and tribulations of it all, along with my life as that forty-something, single-something girl trying not to define herself or her life solely by those six cats. Oh, and all is set in the background of one of the toniest resort towns in the country. It has all the makes for a movie!

As for this blog, writing was once a passion for me, but somewhere along the way being a writer became a pipe dream. The wannabe writer’s dreams I dreamed as a younger woman, did not come to fruition. I’m not one who works well with self-imposed fuzzy deadlines and topics. Give me a topic, a hard deadline, and I’ll do it. I’ll be up at 3am completing the task…but as for self-generated creativity? Let's see if I can "blog." I still want to be a writer, and maybe this is the modern format to see that dream come true and escape that Doris Day milieu. So, I’m starting out small. I do not know where this will lead, but to give you one of my favorite quotes, from Carl Sandburg, “I am an idealist. I don't know where I'm going but I'm on my way.” Let’s see what journeys start from here--because some days, your camper WILL crash into a chicken truck!