Wrangling Fairies, Cats and A Dog.

I was sitting out on the back porch this morning, watching the critters, and thinking about the fairies I’m going to be drawing soon. While doing so, it randomly occurred to me that my morning ritual is probably an interesting thing that I’ve never really mentioned. Or if I have, I’ve forgotten that I’ve mentioned it, and so I get to tell the story all over again. One of the benefits of getting old and losing your mind. You keep getting to have the same experiences for the first time again and again.
Well, to talk about this, I should probably explain that the back porch is basically a screened-in outdoor room. If you’ve ever been to Florida, I’m sure you’ve seen plenty of houses down here with them, and you know what I’m talking about. Every morning I take Dali, the dog, out for her morning constitutional. Accompanying us on this morning ritual are a number of cats; usually Baggins, Booger and Sabella. While Dali’s in the yard doing her business, I sit in a folding chair on the porch and listen to the wind, ruminate, or whatever, while the cats wander around and investigate the porch (like they’ve never been out there before), hoping beyond hope to spot a lizard (there are lots of little salamanders in the yard down here) that got too brave and climbed up on one of the screens.
Well, for some reason, as I was sitting out there this morning, watching the cats watching everything else, and I started thinking that it wasn’t a bad way to start out your morning, sitting on the porch with a nice breeze wafting across your face, hanging out with some of your best friends, and generally being glad to be alive.
Having a quiet moment on my hands, I started thinking about the fairies that I’m going to be drawing, and what they might mean to our future solvency. Although the subject seems out of place now, I should probably mention that my general intent is to draw a series of fairies, which we’re going to have copies made of on poster prints and t-shirt transfers, and which we’re going to then start marketing on eBay and selling them at local music festivals and art shows. Lately I’ve been rounding up all sorts of information on fairies, looking at what other people are doing, and thinking of ways  to make my fairies different from everybody else’s.
So I enjoyed that short time out there on the porch, listening to the wind and watching the cats, thinking of my fairies and imagining them rambling around on the porch with the cats, looking for mischief to get into. If nothing else, that’ll be the difference with my fairies. Instead of these hauntingly beautiful, ethereal little creatures that people are used to, my fairies will just be another part of the family. And if they were real, they’d be out there on the back porch with me in the mornings, waiting for Dali to decide if she was going to do her business or just stare at the limbs moving in the trees.
When Dali came back to the door, I let her into the porch and started wrangling the cats back toward the back door. Booger and Baggins know the deal, so they just started moseying in that general direction (you don’t really order cats to do anything, but you can nudge them in a particular direction if you let them think it’s their idea). Sabella, of course, decided that she wasn’t going to cooperate, and laid down on my feet as I tried to nudge her toward the door. I finally picked her up, figuring at that point that it was a time-saving action more than anything else. And as I finally got the dog and the three cats back into the house, I couldn’t help thinking that it’d be a whole lot easier if I had a couple of obstinate fairies out there with me who were willing to lend a hand.