My husband, Peter, had never had a cat before we adopted Felix, and Felix is taking full advantage of this.

Peter didn't know, for instance, that cats require tuna, right out of the can, every night at precisely 8:30 p.m. -- until Felix informed him. Peter did not know that he was not permitted to be late, nor was he allowed to run out of tuna. Felix has a firm no-substitutions policy. Peter now understands this.

Peter didn't know the kinds of games that cats like to play, so Felix had to train him from scratch. This has been a lot of work for Felix, but he is patient, and Peter is a remarkably good student -- for starting his training at such an advanced age.

Felix started Peter out with relatively easy games at first. There was the Towel Over the Head game, which is quite simple once you get the hang of it. All Peter had to do was throw a towel over Felix's head and stomp around the floor in front of him so Felix could chase Peter by sound from underneath the towel. The towel serves as a handicap for Felix because, obviously, catching Peter without a towel over his head would be far too easy and not much of a game.

After Towel Over the Head was mastered, Peter moved on to more challenging games. He played Around the House With a Mouse, where Felix has Peter run around with a mouse on a string. But that grew old quickly because Peter is far too slow. They tried Hide and Seek, but that also became tedious because Peter was loud as well as slow, and it was not reasonable to think he could ever outsmart Felix.

Then Peter graduated to Cat in a Box and a Stick, and I have to say, this is where Peter really began to excel as a student. Felix got inside a box and Peter poked the rubber end of a hiking pole into the open top while Felix grabbed onto the end of the stick. This game sounds deceptively simple, but you must have a light touch with the stick and not punch Felix in the stomach too hard while still moving the stick quickly and coming up with unexpected moves. I tried to play this game once, and Felix jumped out of the box and looked at me with disappointment. I clearly did not understand the rudiments of the game. Felix waited for Peter to play again.

Then we had a larger-than-usual Amazon delivery, and Felix got a bigger box. That's when things got more interesting because Peter had the brilliant idea of cutting a small window in the box and revising the game to Cat in a Box With a Hole and a Stick, and this proved to be even better. Peter laughed himself silly, and Felix played to exhaustion. Peter then cut several more holes in the box, so it became Cat in a Box With Several Holes and a Stick. Felix's paws were poking out of several windows at once, and Peter left for his bike ride later and later because of the extended rounds required to play this game properly.

"You never had a cat before?" I asked Peter.

"Never! I knew nothing about cats," he insisted.

"Well, you are an expert now."

It's surprising, really. Peter is a natural with cats. But they say when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. Peter was ready, and Felix appeared, ready to mentor Peter in the way of cats.

Till next time,

Carrie

Photos and other things can be found on Facebook at CarrieClassonAuthor.

DISTRIBUTED BY ANDREWS MCMEEL SYNDICATION

I have a problem with inspirational quotes.

"You are never too old to set a new goal or to dream another dream," is a quote attributed to C.S. Lewis. He didn't say it.

"It is never too late to be what you might have been" is something George Eliot is supposed to have said. She never said that, either.

I could keep on going, but it's a safe bet that, if you read it on Facebook and it is attributed to Mother Teresa, Einstein or Keanu Reeves, they almost certainly did not say it.

For the longest time, I'd hop on Facebook and debunk a quote and, while it was satisfying to let folks know that Einstein was much too busy making discoveries to say the things he supposedly had said, and Mother Teresa did not spend her time writing poetry, I don't think I made anyone any happier by pointing it out.

I thought it was important to set the record straight. But what I finally realized was that inspiration doesn't inspire us because it comes from a reputable source. The real reason the quotes incorrectly attributed to George Eliot and C.S. Lewis troubled me was because I worried they were incorrect in more ways than one.

George Eliot died at 61. C.S. Lewis was dead by 64. Maybe they didn't say it was never too late, or you were never too old because, in fact, it sometimes is too late, and maybe I am too old. This is the sort of thing I worry about, some of the time. I wonder if I might be showing up a little too late for some of my dreams.

I consider myself a very fortunate person. I've gotten to do so many interesting things in my life, and I spend every day doing things I genuinely enjoy. But sometimes, I look at the careers of people I admire, and I realize they didn't dither around as long as I did. They stuck with one thing from a very early age. While here I am, at 62, looking forward to a first novel that won't be published until I'm 63, and I wonder (because how could I not?) if I didn't get kind of a late jump on things.

Of course, none of us knows how much time we get. So many authors and artists I admire died very young. They made this huge splash, and their ripples are still being felt, but they didn't live long. I like to imagine that, since I eat a lot of broccoli and don't drink bourbon, I might squeeze out more than the expected number of years to write things and tell my stories. I like to think that the actuarial tables do not apply to me. But, of course, they do.

And, because they do, I will do what I can with whatever time I have left.

I'll do this because I believe with every fiber of my being that starting late is so much better than never starting at all. And I'll do it because knowing that life is short (no matter how long it is) provides my greatest incentive to make this time -- now -- matter.

And, honestly, I don't care how much or how little I am remembered after I die. I'd just as soon make room for new people to tell their stories when the time comes. My goal is to make meaning of life now. To be useful today. Maybe even offer a little inspiration -- even if I am not the most reputable source.

Till next time,

Carrie

Photos and other things can be found on Facebook at CarrieClassonAuthor.

DISTRIBUTED BY ANDREWS MCMEEL SYNDICATION

I wear used clothes.

I remember going to clothing stores years ago and buying new clothes. But about the time I stopped wearing business suits and flying in airplanes for work, I started going to used clothing stores. Then I discovered online consignment stores and, since then, I've hardly bought a new item of clothing except socks and shoes and underwear.

I like used clothes.

Of course, I like the prices. I've always been frugal and when I see how much a pair of new jeans cost or a new dress, I am shocked. But buying used clothes also eliminates buyer's regret. If the jeans I bought refuse to stay on my hips, or the color of a top is brighter than I like, or my sister tells me I look like an automatic car wash in the new dress I bought for Christmas (and once you see a thing like that, it's hard to unsee), I can donate the clothes to another used clothing store and let them go on their merry way to the next customer, guilt-free.

My mother tells me she wore almost exclusively hand-me-downs as a child, which is not surprising since she was the ninth of 11 children, and most of them were girls. She remembers when she got what she called her "Joyce coat," which delighted her to no end because, instead of coming from several sisters before her, this coat had been owned by only one person -- a neighbor named Joyce -- before my mother got it. There is a picture of her standing in front of the farmhouse wearing her Joyce coat, and she looks very pleased.

I was much more spoiled and usually had new clothes as a child. I occasionally got hand-me-downs from a neighbor across the street who was the same age as me but much taller. Lynn was the youngest in her family and the only girl, so she had a lot of nice clothes that she quickly outgrew. I remember I got a beautiful green dress from Lynn that required about an hour to iron. My mother was grateful when I also outgrew it.

These days, I occasionally wonder where my clothes came from.

It sometimes feels wicked to imagine my clothes living on someone else's body. I imagine there are people who wouldn't like the idea, and that's why they buy new clothes. But I have lived in plenty of houses where other people have lived, so the idea that my clothes have had another life is not troubling.

Still, it would be interesting to know the history of my clothes. They are usually in good shape and a lot of my used dresses still have the tags on and little bags of extra buttons, which I promptly lose. I wonder why a particular dress never worked out. I wonder if it was purchased for some occasion that never materialized. I wonder if that was disappointing. Maybe it was bought to wear when the owner lost 20 pounds that remained stubbornly where they were. I will never know. But at some point, someone decided it would be better to get a few pennies on the dollar than to keep it in their closet, and that is where every dress I own has come from.

"Where have you been?" I want to ask. The dress remains mum. And that's OK.

I imagine my dress had a very dull life, living in someone's closet, never being worn. It makes me want to put that dress on and make sure I have an especially good time while wearing it.

Till next time,

Carrie

Photos and other things can be found on Facebook at CarrieClassonAuthor.

DISTRIBUTED BY ANDREWS MCMEEL SYNDICATION