Have you been getting ads for cat themed t-shirts?

The forces of Cat World Domination are mysterious... and powerful!

A friend, who in the nearly 35 years I’ve known him has never shown signs of being excessively devoted to cats, while not opposing them as far as I know, recently started getting ads for cat-themed t-shirts. I posited (vocab word!) that the reason was that it was International Cat Day, but perhaps not. Have any of you been getting unexplained ads in your social media for cat-themed t-shirts if you are not a Certified Cat Person? If so, the ways of Cat World Domination are powerful. I don’t see how this could be contagious from my Substack, but perhaps it can.

We are in our final week of SAT prep, and we have half days now as the kids take the test in the morning and then have two hours of hard math, then the teachers come in to go over the tests with them. Just three hours of teaching but with an hour drive on each end. Still, it’s nice to have time for Loviefluffy petting for an hour in the morning. Or more.

The kids sometimes call me Mrs. Smith, and I don’t bother to correct them. I wonder if they are even aware that Mrs. denotes a married woman, whereas Ms. does not. Perhaps they think I am married to Loviefluffy’s father. While I am a devoted daughter and servant of the Father Cat, I do not see myself married to an actual black cat.

In some public schools, Mrs. seems to be the default. I suspect that many women still consider that to be a higher status title than Ms., as marriage, in some circles, especially older ones, carries status with it. I used to want that status… now it seems a bit late to claim status points from purported (vocab word!) ownership of a man. Besides, I hear one has to pay property taxes if you actually buy the dude. Married friends: is this true?

Friends, do not take me literally. As I tell the kids, “Take the SAT literally. Do not take Ms. Smith literally.”

If you do, you’re likely to be consumed in a conflagration (vocab word!) of dragon fire!

I have many thoughts to write about, from the effects of AI on cheating and general motivation to cultural clashes and cuteness (saw an Indian woman, Korean-looking male young couple holding hands on the Drexel campus last night… so cute!) to ways to get people to stop the cycle of violence, which I am not so complacent about as the politicians seem to be. It is amazing to see how much more functional kids can be when they live in places where gun violence is unthinkable, instead of where they are afraid but not at all shocked to see a gun pulled at a corner store. There are many other factors, but having lived with the fear of violence seeped into my bones, I can tell you this is a major factor in how well executive function works.

But for now I must get ready to drive a long way, teach the most wonderful kids who are or ever shall be, and drive home. Soon, soon.