The Cats Have Seen Me (Almost) Naked, and Why

It's a meme! First, you might want to visit the sites from whence the questions came...

https://brianlageose.blog/2018/08/25/friday-night-clam-bake-20-philosophical-musings-about-nudity-and-unregulated-morality/

https://barbtaub.com/2018/08/28/who-has-seen-you-naked-humor-aboutme/

Selected questions and answers...I can't guarantee that mine will be as funny as Brian Lageose's and Barb Taub's.

1. I eat the licorice jellybeans. I eat the root beer jellybeans. I miss the jalapeno jellybeans. I would not miss the buttered-popcorn jellybeans. (I don't buy popcorn because, although I like it, I avoid the aisle that reeks of fake butter.)

2. Ohh. This was GBP's question. "Bio of an Active Vegetable"? "The Vegetable Activist"? "VegMin: A Vegetable Turned Minister"?

Thirty years ago I had no idea what my totem animal might be, and today I still don't know if I have a totem vegetable.

3. If I'm trying to solve the mystery, I backtrack and see whether any clues given early are turning out to be more relevant than I thought.

4. No way. I happened to decode English phonics and gain the ability to read ordinary-sized type before my fourth birthday. This made me a child prodigy at whom people were always thrusting things that I could read aloud, with occasional mispronunciations, just as glibly as if the words made any sense to me. I "read" the Bible, Shakespeare, and JAMA aloud correctly while the books I was actually reading were Little Golden Books and similar. But I do remember dissatisfaction with not being able to get the second grade teacher to share Girl Scouts at Camp with the class--she read other people's library books aloud, so why not mine?

5. I've been compared to Don Quixote. There's some truth in that, although I've not convinced myself that reality is merely a mystifying disguise cast over my illusions. I'm not going to win all the battles, or even all the ones I choose to join. I am going to support the cause I believe to be right, win or lose.

6. I didn't care about clothes enough to steal them, but when I was in junior high school there was a fad (a revival of an older fad) for wearing your parents' clothes at school. (Girls borrowed from both parents, boys from fathers only.) I wore one of Mother's dresses fairly often, and wore two or three of Dad's shirts before he complained.

7. Well...in a general way...it's in storage at my home.

8. Talk about a loaded moral question...especially when it's so unlikely that anybody would hurt my Significant Other in prison. You'd go, my dear. (To be fair, if this scenario were set up I'd go for you too.)

9. I salvaged lots of unshredded scrap paper, with former employers' knowledge and consent; have some manuscripts that at least two employers encouraged me to print out on the backs of their misprints.

10. Any competent woman can wait for the man to make the right decision (in the pop song context, anyway).

11. "Happy Birthday to You."

12. Exactly. Do you know how often you've been seen naked as an adult? My guess is that, for many of us, the unseen observers outnumber the ones who got naked with us. Even if our homes are clothing-optional.

But I promised to explain why all Cat Sanctuary animals--not only cats--are on the list: Animals do not add enough clothing to change their looks completely, and they don't instinctively realize that humans do. People who've formed the habit of looking closely at other humans' faces often laugh about the "dumb" animals who may not recognize the person who feeds them every day when person is dressed up to go into town--but from the animals' point of view there's nothing dumb about that.

Once I went out to feed someone's hens, who knew me and came when I called, only this time I was wearing a dress rather than jeans--and the hens scattered. Even after hearing my voice, they nonverbally told me that they had reasons to distrust someone else whom they'd seen wearing a dress. (I knew who it was.) So, happening to have work clothes in the car, I took off the dress and put on jeans and T-shirt, explaining that humans changed their clothes. No more trouble. They saw for themselves that the outline formed by clothing was not the best way to identify humans.

I remembered reading as a child that horses who were tended by stable workers who wore drab trousers were often frightened by skirts or bright colors. I remembered, too, that Joy Adamson had reared a leopard who seemed unsure whether Adamson was a friend or a predator when she saw Adamson in different clothes.

So, Cat Sanctuary animals see me strip down to underwear and change outer layers, so that they'll recognize me whether I'm wearing jeans, skirts, shorts, or an overcoat. Dogs, cats, and horses do recognize us by scent as well as sight and sound, but it's just as well for them to get accustomed to the different ways we may choose to look.

13. (E) Row back to the beach to which I came, if possible. (No incentive to stare at the nudists for a health care professional. I've seen all types of bodies in all types of condition.)

14. If I got to have a high school graduation, I'd get to relive my past and make different choices, so yes, I'd definitely go back that far.

15. How is that scenario set up? Person wants to be anonymous now, but reserves the right to out perself and demand the money back if I spend it? Or, person wants me to refrain from trying to find out who person is?

16. I'd rather be with loved ones who will at least interrupt, if not agree to turn off, the movies.

17. Broke. 

18. I'm a hack writer; therefore I'm going for both.

19. I've written lots of things I've never shared.

20. I don't spend a lot of time regretting anything.

21. Yes: God.