kitten chronicles- part 20

The boys sense the growing excitement of the coming World Cup and are committed to training for it. And when you think about it, soccer is a natural sport for cats. For one thing they'd never get called for a "hand ball" - take that Maradona! - because they have no hands. Each day when I return home exhausted from a very taxing day of writing Blood Pressure Check brochure copy, I grab a pole and fish under the piano to retrieve some Midnight Crazies! For the uninitiated, they are small plastic balls with a jingle bell in them - when they roll they make noise - this makes kittens very excited. They bat them around and chase them at high speed. It's kitty soccer with a very high skill level. The boys are uncanny dribblers (and excellent droolers, too - you should see my shoes in the basement) and they perform a variety of moves any World Cup team would die for. They seem to have little sense of the rules, however. And no matter how much I scream at them and threaten them with a yellow card they still check each other viciously in a manner that would have them ejected from the game instantly.I'm hoping that when they see some actual soccer they will become better acquainted with the rules. You laugh - but Rooney now watches the TV. He sits attentively about a yard away looking up trying to make sense of it. Why is Sue Sylvester so cruel to the Glee kids?, he wonders. And then he gives up in despair and licks his hindquarters instead. He's very practical that way. xxx dad