cat parliament

so i visited our nation's glorious capital city this weekend, and oh what lovely fun it was. under a cloudless sky, i visited a new friend/old soul. and i took in some sites. well... one site. unless you count the market, purveyor of fine stinky cheese and sumptuous wine. well at least, that's what i bought there. but i don't count the market. so i visited one true-blue tourist site, and what a site it was.

ok wait - two if you count the parliament. but to be honest, the parliament was an unavoidable distraction, standing between my hotel and my true destination: cat parliament.

just outside the fence, around back of our fine parliamentary hen house is cat parliament. i'm not even kidding: we asked fellow strollers where it was, and they were like "oh, cat parliament! just keep going that way!" cat parliament is a small ramshackle lean-to made to look like the parliament (though to be honest, i failed to see any meaningful resemblance), and it's populated by a mess of stray cats and one weathered old man.

on this beautiful afternoon, surrounded by tourists and saturday strollers, i watched them watch. i was particularly stricken by the toddlers, wild with glee as they peered curiously. although on the outside, the cat and caretaker looked caged, and the onlookers gawked.

"look mom, a CAT!!!!!" the kids screamed.

and i wondered... is this what our morally-pure zooless culture has bred? children frenzied over stray cats and a bored old man?

bring on the freak show, they are ripe.