11/26/2015 – Our Thanksgiving Dinner Grace, Colehaus Cats style

Before digging into Thanksgiving dinner, someone will need to say grace and it might as well be you. Inspired years ago by a favorite author, here you go. We’ve done the hard part. A stirring and meaningful piece giving thanks for so much before diving into that gravy and cranberry sauce. We won’t mind if you swap out our names or events with those from your family. We all have one or two that beg specific mentioning, and thank goodness for that. Just memorize and repeat. Easy as pumpkin pie. 😉

And have a very happy Thanksgiving.

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Our Dear and Gracious Lord Ceiling Cat,

This Thanksgiving, we thank You for the tasty feast in front of us and paws to reflect on the bounty, good fortune, and health which You have graced upon us this year. We thank You for the toys and brushies and treats and family, even our sister Tessa, sometimes known as Danger Cat and other times, as The Pee Queen.

We thank You for our home and Your wisdom to not have so many things break down this year, unlike last Thanksgiving when we were just happy to have electricity again after The Pee Queen had other ideas. We’re not holding that against her, or You, dear Lord, and are pleased You were finally able to keep her bladder, and attitude, in check.

We also want to thank You once again for the combination of nature and technology that brings us catnip, without which we may have spent, lo, these long years without entertainment such as that we now witness in Patrol Sergeant Zuzu when she knows permits are required for fun and yet, after a good dose of nip, she throws her paws in the air like she just don’t care. This doesn’t make sense in a tight-ship kind of household such as we dwell in, Lord, and You would think Zuzu would know that. But in Your wisdom, You haven’t pointed that out to her just yet and for that, we thank You.

Please let us extend our gratitude, Lord, for not allowing our humans to think this might be the year to bring a dog into the fold, or a goat, or to go about thinking cats aren’t the best pets ever. That this year not be the one in which we all learn to eat nothing but creamed hominy and peas, without grimacing and upon pain of death to think otherwise just because some of us ought to go on diets and lose a little weight; that cat vacuuming while eating a diet of creamed hominy and peas ought to be an Olympic sport and to believe that the best sports that go big often begin small at home. We think we speak for the rest of us when we say cats, diets, and vacuum cleaners together was not part of the game plan any of us had in mind while at this table today. And we thank You, Lord, for sparing us that vision.

Now, a Roomba vacuum cleaner, maybe. We’ll talk later.

Thank You for not allowing the world in which we dwell to turn into a wet, watery mess due to melting glaciers flooding the land for as far as the eye can see. And that even though our brother, painter cat Quint, doesn’t mind wet paws, we would be quite taken aback with damp toesies, especially upon learning that that would be the new norm, similarly as would lining up for nightly brushies with the likes of other creatures that don’t mind moist feet such as polar bears and walruses, and maybe even sister Tessa from time to time. Our favorite brush is only so big, dear Lord, big enough for just us, not for seals or even penguins, and for that, we feel truly blessed.

We further offer our thanks, Lord, for not sending space junk crashing into the Earth, thus decimating the Internet, specifically, Blogger and Facebook where lots of our friends reside in a virtual and yet, real sense, forcing governments to turn to upcoming politicians to save us and all our friendships. The televised debates we’ve listened to this year haven’t exactly inspired confidence, if You know what we mean, Lord. And while we know the world would probably survive such a tremendous loss of information, photoshopped selfies, YouTube cat videos, and assurances of overseas lottery winnings thanks to certain groups who have created dark net communication methods, we’re not confident at all we’d survive in the dark, except for our previously mentioned sister Tessa who could probably get away with peeing on things without our certain knowledge that she alone were responsible. Unless Patrol Sergeant Zuzu was watching with permit and black light in hand. So thank You, Lord, for not making us worry about any of that this year.

Our to-the-point thank You, Lord, for allowing our barfs to be easily cleaned up and not made of some toxic, alien, corrosive acid barf that burns holes through our low maintenance laminate flooring creating a Swiss cheese effect upon which to maneuver and walk. Enough said about that.

Finally, Lord, thank You for once again for keeping the idea of superheroes forefront in the imaginations of movie makers the world over. Though not one seems to have the cunning smarts, natural athletic ability, and diplomatic dialog of a cat, while remaining devastatingly cute in the meantime, it’s a good idea that surely will come to pass eventually. Probably. We’re not complaining, Lord, but it is a challenge to see so many human super heroes when we too are so many; many who would appreciate some equal representation on the big screen and not just the small screen, unless it were felt necessary to include litter box behavior and in that case, we’ll just stop talking now before sister Tessa pipes up.

For these and so many other things, Lord, we offer our humble gratitude to You this Thanksgiving. However, we think we’re speaking the minds of everyone if we added that if You should foresee the need to smite mom’s camera with Your mighty paw, say, before any more of us have to wear those dumb Santa hats, our well of thanks would know no bottom. Amen.