Cloning Cotton Balls

I'm thinking now about this past Christmas!

Christmas is a non-event in Korea. Many people don't even have the day off. I have noticed an increase in Xmas decorations in Korea from when I first came here. I think the commercialism of the West is catching on here. Students I surveyed, half of them, or so, reported having a Christmas tree in their house (though it may have been a mini-tree, or a picture of a Christmas tree, or a fern). In Japan, Christmas is a time for lovers. I don't still know how the birth of wee baby Jesus equates to a holiday for those and their beloved to pay a visit to the local love motel after an evening of cocktails and perhaps Christmas cake, but, whatever.

I haven't explained it yet, but I spent 6 months back in 1992 in Korea, and then moved to Japan for almost 2 years, and have been back in Korea now for almost a year (just one month shy of a year now). I will post more later about all that, but in the meantime I am thinking of this past Christmas in Korea. I was lonesome. I was looking forward to the call from my family, which has happened every Christmsa since I've been gone. It came. It made me happy.

It was great to hear from them, but it made me blue that I wasn't there.

My brother's cat's name is Mittens. She's a really good cat he and his (then) girlfriend (now, wife) rescued from The Humane Society. The reason they picked her was because she looked like a pretty orange striped little tiger with a freckle on her lip. Really what sold them though was when they called to her and she came right up and licked my brother's face through the cage. Coooool.

So - turns out she has been a great cat for them. She licks everyone with such an unchecked intensity, they have decided she is a stylist. Not just hair, but goatees, sideburns, arms,...anything with even the slightest of hair.

My brother was telling my on the weekend that he had read an article about a woman who had her pet's DNA saved so that they could make her a replicate pet someday. We got into this talk about saving Mitten's DNA so that once she "goes to California," (my brother's euphemism for dying) they could get a replacement. Thing is, it costs about 50,000$. Jeff decided that in order to cover the costs he was going to take orders for replicate Mittens, and he asked me if he could sign me up for one. I ordered 2. So he said he'd have to take her into the doctors to get the DNA collected. I told him all he had to do was get a cotton swab,...I mean, that's how they always find out 'who da baby papa?' on Montel eh? Jeff called me a dumbass and said he'd have to have the DNA frozen until they had the technology to mass-produce Mittens. "Like, as if - I'm going to get Mittens to lick a cotton ball and put it in a zip-lock bag for a few years and then go to the lab and say 'hi!' hand them my cotton ball, 'can you make me some cats?'"

Ha ha ha.

How many Mittens would YOU like?

Meanwhile my fat sumo-cat is lying upside down with his little legs in the air and his fat belly hanging out making piggy little purring sounds. He's a good cat, but I doubt I could mass-market him. He's so fat, (how fat is he??) everytime he poos, if I'm not there to wipe his huge ass he leaves hershey-poo-kisses all over the apartment. Yum. More on him later too. I loooove him.

Maybe once I get my Repli-Mittens she will groom him up for me. Maybe I can sell them as a pair -- some kind of Laurel and Hardy cat-clones. What will we think of next?