Breaking Cat News by Georgia Dunn for March 24, 2020

Awwwwww

Sophie is afraid of losing her dignity, which may be why she appears to be studying ancient Egypt.

Uh Oh! Is Sophie contemplating something about the mysterious Egyptian cat idol in the Portrait of Dorian Gray film? Could this be a clue to the 2020 Halloween Special???

Methinks Sophie is designing her costume based on ancient Egyptian clothing.

Oh, Sophie, sweetie! It’s OK to let your fur down once in awhile and just be silly.

How to get Sophie to participate in a way that works for her? That is the puzzle to be solved.

So the truth comes out…

I love how Tommy is laying at the entrance to Sophie’s carrier. He loves her so.♥

♪”Time casts a spell on you, you won’t forget me

I know I could have loved you, but you would not let me.

So I’ll begin not to love you; Turn around, see me runnin’

I’ll say I loved you years ago; Tell myself you never loved me, no”♪ (Stevie Nicks, “Silver Springs”)

♪”She says that long ago she knew someone but now he’s gone

She doesn’t need him”♪ (Paul McCartney, “For No One”)

♪”He tried hard to help me, you know, he put me at ease…

I’m so hard to handle; I’m selfish and I’m sad

Now I’ve gone and lost the best baby that I ever had

I wish I had a river I could skate away on…” ♪ (Joni Mitchell, “River”)

" ‘… I care intensely’ – but I’m afraid of myself, so I’ve erected this facade of indifference."

I understand that Sophie. There are very few people I open up to.

Dearest Sophie; the others are trying their best to let you know that you are most welcome to join them! I’m afraid they cannot read your mind….

When the Masked Moggy finally, no one will make the connection. It will be like saying that effete fop, Don Diego, is a dashing outlaw who carves a Z with his blade or that the Kansas farmboy turned reporter is Superman.

Only a week until my pre-ordered Take It Away Tommy arrives—something to look forward to in these unsettling times!

Another off-topic report: Claire Luvcat is being contacted by many lawyers wanting to represent her on the issue of her wonderful cat video channel being taken from her, and she has posted a new video on her Korean language YouTube channel. No English subtitles yet, but there is French subtitling if you want to brush up (like I need to do). So, if you need a new Lulu et al. (pun intended) fix from the genuine Cream butler, it’s up for viewing.

C’mon, Sophie, let them in, yeah?

Fraidy-cat!

Back of Sophie’s head (BoCH)!

Artist Sophie is left-pawed. And such lovely and delicate paws they are, too.

But most introverts don’t want to go to the party, but they do want to be invited. It looks to me like Sophie got that.

This is a little disappointing. It buys into the myth that everybody secretly wants to be gregarious. Some of us really do like solitude.

Sigh. Can’t Sophie just be different? Why does her difference have to be superficial and hiding a deep desire to conform?

For everybody: stay safe, stay well, do what the experts tell you to do. And, if you be a praying person of any ilk, join up in prayer for our precious Planet Earth!!! We trully are all in this together!!! One of our other comics pals said they are on FORTY DAY LOCK-DOWN. And, in Illinois, you should hear the palaver over closing all non-essential businesses from 3/21 until 4/8!!!

Awww! Poor little Sophie

Poor Sophie! But, I do love the book she is reading:)

Sophie, dear one, what is the title of your book? It looks interesting. I so understand what you are feeling. Anxiety can be very tough.

The look on Sophie’s face in the last panel made me want to cry. Sometimes we are just to shy to join in. And then we hurt watching others having fun. Maybe Goldie will help her to join in.

Back of Sophie’s head is very similar to the back of Burt’s head, save that her ’do is more neat.

Go on, get up, and do it.

Is the cat in the carrier quarantineing

Do I sense a bit of social anxiety there, Sophie? That’s something different from just being an introvert, although the two may look the same to the uninformed (& frequently intolerant) outsider. It’s not uncommon for the two to go together, but they don’t always. (I don’t have social anxiety & I’m certainly not shy, but I’m definitely an introvert! My sis is the same way – we both just happen to prefer our own company & our own space.)

Too bad Beatrix has gone home – I’ll bet the two of you could bond right away over your shared love of books…

From last year’s Heck on the Deck: Where Do I Go? from Hair

What should I do?

Meeting the kitties?

How can I know,

What I should do?

Is there a way

I can get to know them?

I don’t know how but I can try!

…….

What can I do?

Show them my artwork?

What is like?

Watching their games?

Should I go cheer,

Lupin and Elvis,

I do not know but I can try!

…….

Learn to speak Spanish,

With Tabs and Sir Figs

Smile with Puck and play with Bea?

…….

Invite them in

To see my magnets

And watch a match

That Tommy referees?

…….

How can I know?

Their dreams and stories?

How can I show,

My dreams to them?

Will they all care?

Will I understand them?

I do not know but I can try!

Yes, I can try!

I’m gonna try!

Yeah, I knew it. Sophie, there’s nothing wrong with saying you want to join in too, or admitting that you’re afraid to do so. That’s why having friends are so great, because, unless they’re awful ones, those friends are there to help you work it out. :)

Thinking about the arrival of Take It Away Tommy in a week I did a search to see if the page with the paper dolls from Lupin Leaps in were still up and they are and the new ones from Take it Away Tommy have been added already:

https://www.ampkids.com/resources/activities/?series_type=breaking-cat-news&sort_type=release_date&post_count=-1&book_filter=Filter

I figured this might be useful for those with kids they are trying to keep entertained. Also if you change the filter there are a lot of other activities available for other series.

Today is Chocolate Covered Raisins Day. They have something in common with potato chips: it’s almost impossible to eat just one. I’m odd (as if you didn’t know) I like them best when the raisins have gotten slightly stale so they are almost hard and very chewy. I also like slightly over-baked or at least stale, brownies. Soft, cake-like brownies I don’t care for, and they stick unpleasantly to my teeth. Maybe I was a Big Red Rock Eater in a previous existence.

So if anyone has some overdone or stale brownies, or chocolate covered raisins, I can take care of your little problem …

When I was a Girl Scout leader there was one girl in my troop who said she was shy. She would always hang back and wait for everyone to coax her into joining the fun. She would keep it up for at least 30 minutes and sometimes the entire hour. I finally stopped looking at it as shyness because it had become a way for her to be the pitiful center of everyone’s attention. She would even start crying if we started an activity. So, I took her aside one day and told her that everyone was tired of not getting to have fun because she refused to join in. I told her, in the kindest and warmest way possible, that she was always welcome to join the fun but we would no longer spend all our time trying to get her to join instead of going ahead and starting our activity. She was welcome to watch or participate with everyone else, or not. It was her decision. Then the rest of us got on with troop activities and had fun. Sure enough, after a while she realized that no one was going to force her to join us or ask her more that a time or two, (and even crying wasn’t going to get her anything but a box of tissues) so she slowly started participating.

Nefarious Nefertiti will be her costume if she participates .

Sports events always need publicity. LOTS of publicity. As in posters with exciting, colorful, eye-catching ART on them.

Sophie, we introverts are sometimes our own worst enemy.

Now here’s some Breaking Real World News, folks.

Our Prime Minister has just announced a complete total lockdown of entire India for the next 21 days from midnight tonight, to reduce Coronavirus impact and break the chain. People weren’t obeying and kept gathering and crowding despite several requests made for social distancing, but there were fools who simply didn’t take it seriously, and elite fools going around even though they had the virus and endangring everyone else. Drastic times call for drastic measures, especially for such a densely populated country like ours. Great measures by our great PM to ensure safety to all. And of course essential items and services will be available during this complete lockdown curfew. Of course you know what this means. I got more time to waste on comics now. Okay, now back to Cat Wrestling.

O.T. If there’s a bread shortage in your area, try for tortillas. Don’t know about elsewhere but they seem to be still in good supply here. The little “street tortillas” are thicker, you can use two of them to make a decent enough sandwich, and of course the larger ones are good for tortillas and wraps.

About time for a Bast reference.

Her costume with the pompoms for flair has to be just right. Meanwhile it looks like Tommy is still willing to wait for her.

Stop faking it and just do it

She’s a lefty and an introvert!!! I wonder if she has other superpowers.

Sometimes, in our sadness, we find the courage to move past our fear. I wish this for Sophie.

It pains me to see Sophie unhappy.

quietly weeping for Sophie and my younger self

Not completely sure what Sophie’s exact issue is but waiting for the mystery to unfold as I’m sure it will.

Sophie is wrestling with her desire to join in despite her reluctant nature to do so….she’s half-way there!

I see that the very formal Miss Sophie actually uses the proper cursive for a capital ‘I’. Although I learned cursive and still use it in writing, I always HATED some of those capital letters, especially the capital ‘Q’. Looked like a stupid ‘2’.

Don’t leave that diary unlocked, Sophie!

Still, it’s nice to know the door is always open XXX

Tussle atop the carrier. Even Bastet enjoyed a good Tusslemania.

Sophie’s internal struggle reminds me of an important question – if your cat settles on you, do you freeze? Our cat “Missy” will run away if you move in the slightest, so Karen will lie there for hours, and the slightest bump and she’s off, looking highly offended.

Are your cats easily offended or never offended (but secretly hiding it)?

My wife of 27 years, Marie, is not an extrovert at all. A book and he couch is her nirvana. Don’t get me wrong, she is not a shut-in. In fact, she is the reason the kids have blossomed as a dancer and an artist. She took them to see and participate in a lot of different activities until they found their Zing! But joining-in and crowds bother her. And it bothers her that it bothers her.

I know, living with me, and extrovert on steroids, you are thinking that poor, poor woman. But we have found a good equilibrium that have lasted all these years. In fact, being together we have thought of divorce never, however, murder often.

This story line means a lot to me and Marie. I hope Sophie finds an equilibrium. But she has to choose, it cannot be forced.

But the beer! Won’t somebody please think of the beer!

I’ve come to question in recent days whether anthropomorphism, of the sort in which Georgia indulges, may not be all that bad a thing. In many respects, I suspect it bonds us to our critters to an extent no other way of relating could achieve. And I see evidence they, in turn, reciprocate beyond what they might otherwise.

Awwwwwww! Poor Sophie, I know the feeling. It’s tough being sociable even when you desperately wish you could hang out. (((((((((((((((((((((((((purrs and boops and gentle head bonks going out to everyone in the Orb in this difficult time)))))))))))))))))))))))

If you haven’t checked out Georgia’s Instagram lately, there are new photos of Elvis that will remind you of a former BCN report:

https://www.instagram.com/p/B-InzmipgRo/

This is me.