Originally posted by Frostfrog
Oh, what the h... I will join you, but sparingly. I will begin with a brief description of my setting. I am at a desk facing two computers, a 1999 Macintosh G333 tower with a 19 inch monitor and also a brand new Titanium Powerbook. Various other pieces of equipment also sit on that desk, ranging from an Imacon film scanner to a LaCie CD burner. A number of minature airplanes are scattered about on the desk and equipment, as well as ceramic and stone cats and a penguin, most being gifts from my daughters, but a couple of my own purchase.

Elsewhere in the room there are file cabinets, heavily laden bookshelves and work tables, and everywhere there are little airplanes, the two most prominent of which hang from my wall and were made by my brother prior to the motorcycle accident that paralyzed and ultimately killed him. A large map of Alaska dominates one wall.

Two electric trains are running. One, HO scale, is pulled by two Alaska Railroad engines and the track that it follows runs around the entire office, eight feet above the floor on the narrow edge of a 2x4 roadbed. There are two propellars perched against one wall, one that was bent in a minor accident that did no other damage to the airplane, and the other that came out of a crash unscathed, although the airplane was done in. The other is N scale and it has taken over a work table.

There are some family photos here and there, and a calendar featuring cows, but the most prominent photo is a portrait of a black cat, hung on the side of a filing cabinet that sits just to my right. That cat is no longer with me, and not a day passes that I do not feel pain about that.

Most importantly, at this very moment, sitting atop the monitor, is another black cat. Currently, he sits with his back to me, looking thoughtfully towards the window. Just a bit ago, his tail hung down in front of the screen, in front of the very words that I have been typing here, but now it is pulled up and is curled around the right side of his legs.

He is not a replacement for the first black cat. I did not seek him out and after I became aware of him, I tried to ignore him, to leave him to whatever fate awaited him, but I could not. So he now sits atop my monitor and he is my friend.

Ouups! the tail just came down and is hanging in front of these words again... no, no, wait... the black cat has arisen is stepping into the window sill. He is now on the other side of the curtain, but the sun is shining directly on him and I see him in silhouette.

Now, really, I must get back to work.
What a poet...ahh...