In Which the Christmas Greeting Is Simultaneously Merry, & Not, Until Observed By the Recipient OR (to put another way)
The Cat Was Dead, and Not, To Begin With…..
And Yes. This is what Bob calls one of my “weird” cards (i prefer “high concept”).
I am a Dog Person. There is no doubt whatever about that. I am also somewhat obsessed by Time and Space and Physics – when the Universe is faced with “choices” it decides between them at random, in accordance with the laws of probability (quantum theory) and that the choice is not made until somebody looks to see what is going on. The mention of this choice, coupled with the point I started with, must be distinctly understood, or no sense can come of the background story I am going to relate. (NOTE: preamble paraphrase inspired by Charles Dickens).
Again, i love dogs. I understand dogs. Over the course of umpteen years i have had the delightful pleasure of sharing different periods of my life with 4 corgis and a wonderful mixed-breed stray, but i have also included the occasional rabbit, hermit crab, fish and hamster to the menagerie (we even took care of a baby bird for a hot second until his mom came and reclaimed him). However, i have never ever wanted, considered or entertained the thought of having a cat. As i often explained to Jess when she was growing up and expressed interest in a kitten, we had the pets I didn’t mind taking care of, so cats simply never made the cut or factored into our lives.
Until 4 years ago that is, when Jess, now an adult with a job and apartment, decided to adopt an airport stray and then, 6 months later, promptly moved to Hawaii and dumped the beast in my lap (because Hawaii has strict rules about non-indigenous carnivores devouring their endangered Nene Geese. And no one else would take him). Even when she moved back to the main land she never quite got around to collecting him, so three years later he’s still here.
His name is Piper, by the way, but he has also been called: Cat, Booger, Crazy and Monster (not to mention other names inappropriate for a Christmas card story). I should note i knew nothing about cats before i inherited him and 3 years later i am still pretty much in the dark about what makes them tick. Or why people actually like them (particularly given the apparent truth of all the negative Cat Memes on Facebook). They all basically seem to like scratching people (Bob almost had to go to the ER), staring blankly, curling up in boxes, and – particularly annoying for me – inconveniently taking full-body naps on original artwork.
Needless to say, since living with Piper my favorite cat jokes involve Schrodinger in some way, which brings us to the Christmas card back story.
Basically – i simply couldn’t think of anything that excited me enough to draw (i blame 2016 as a whole for my ambivalence). And then Piper came to mind and i realized he had not yet been on a family Christmas card so i figured this was really the perfect year to feature him (he did almost kill Bob after all). I immediately pictured him sprawled on top of Christmas wrapping because he always lays on my illustrations when he slips past the barricade to my art room (so much so that i once put a piece of paper on the living room floor and wrote “Original Art: Do Not Lay On This” and the minute he saw it he curled up on it and went to sleep).
Of course then Schrodinger’s Cat came to mind (bringing the Quantum Physics Lesson above into the mix). Specifically: the thought experiment dreamed up by Erwin Schrodinger involving a CAT, locked in a box with radioactive material, giving it a 50-50 chance of survival. The cat is conceivably both Alive and Dead, the answer unknown, until the observer opens the box (and yes, this is a simplistic, Physics For Dummies interpretation, the true explanation is massively more complex – which is why we have Google).
For me, NOT being a Cat Person, it was just an easy abstract hop, philosophic skip and theoretic jump to this year’s Merry/Not Merry “Schrodinger’s Cat Card”. So with apologizes to Schrodinger (for garbling his theory and for the missing umlaut over the O) and Cat Lovers everywhere. Whatever your reality, may you find your Christmas Merry and your cat very much alive. Or, as Piper’s holiday greeting would be (upon opening the card, and i suspect what all cats think when confronted by human expectation),
“What?”
LAK 2016