a request for assistance

Nissy raced into the kitchen.  The toaster transporter was dinging incessantly and he knew there must be an urgent message awaiting him. Skidding to a halt and hopping up onto the counter, he peered into the toaster.

"Yeah, would you mind answering that toaster?" Seville asked.  "The dinging is annoying.  It's disturbing my nap."

Nissy glanced over his shoulder to see his marmalade brother curled up on a kitchen chair.  Obviously, Seville had not considered to get up himself to see what message was coming through. Nissy watched as his brother let out a giant yawn, closed his eyes once more and fell back asleep.

Scattered around the toaster were several hard-boiled eggs, each painted with the letters S, O and S.  Another ding coughed up a couple more.  Clearly, someone was in trouble and needing his help.

A loud explosion in the back yard startled Seville, awakening him from his nap so violently that it caused him to jump straight up into the air and hit his head on the ceiling.  "For crying out loud!" he cried.

Nissy looked out the kitchen window.  The sky had darkened and the air had become hazy.  A pinprick of light appeared out of nowhere and from it, time waves began to emanate.  This anomaly was going to require immediate investigation.

Venturing outside, Nissy cautiously approached the disturbance in the space-time continuum. "What the mouses is that?" he asked Seville who had followed him outside and was now sitting beside him.  "MOUSES!  I've never seen anything like it.  Have you?"

The two cats watched as hundreds of butterflies began to fly out of the vortex.  Never before had a vortex created a butterfly effect.  Whoever had opened it was certainly not using egg beater-whisk time travelling-teleportation technology.  Some other kind of technology was at work here.

Mesmerised, the cats sat there, watching the butterflies flit this way and that.  Seville swatted a couple with a paw but they escaped, unscathed.  Moments later, there was a loud thud and out of the vortex rolled a giant painted egg.  The egg righted itself and out popped two arms.  As it came to life, a face appeared.

"MOUSES!" cried the cats in unison.

"Hello there.  Egg Sackly is the name," and the giant egg reached toward Nissy to shake his paw.  "You must be Nerissa the Cat.  Very pleased to meet you."  Turning to Seville he said, "and I assume you are the brother, Seville?"

The cats stared at Mr. Sackly in disbelief.

"You're probably wondering about my unexpected visit.  We've been sending messages to you all morning but your toaster transporter appears to be malfunctioning."

"Those eggs were from you?" Nissy asked.

"Ah, so you did get my messages.  Never thought to reply?" and the egg sighed loudly.

"Sorry 'bout that," explained Nissy.  "Only got the messages a few minutes ago and I didn't know from whom they were coming.  Please tell me what's going on and how I can help."

"We're facing a major catastrophe over at Easter Bunny Headquarters.  If the matter isn't resolved within the next few days, Easter morning egg deliveries will be in jeopardy.  In fact, they already are. This matter needs to be attended to urgently and the top bun felt you were the only cats for the job."

"You mean that the Easter Bunny himself has requested our assistance?" Seville asked, incredulously.

"He most certainly has although," and the egg cleared his throat, "he really requested the assistance of Nerissa the Cat but is aware that the marmalade side kick is part of the bargain."

"SIDE KICK!  Of all the nerve," sputtered Seville.  "I'll show you a kick," and he raised a hind leg. Thinking this might be going a little far, Seville lowered his leg before peering under Egg Sackly. "Ummm...  by the way, how come you don't have any legs?" he asked the egg.

"I'm an egg.  Eggs don't have legs," he answered.  Turning back to Nerissa the egg instructed, "You'll need to follow me back through the vortex.  Prepare to duck and roll."

Nissy peered into the vortex, narrowing his eyes.  "Yeah, I don't think we're gonna do the ol' ducking and rolling bit.  We have our own mode of transport.  SIVVERS," and he turned to his brother, "PREPARE THE TELEPORTATION DEVICE."

Moments later, the two cats and Mr. Egg Sackly were hurtling through space and time, heading towards Easter Bunny Headquarters.

"Can't this flying frying pan contraption go any faster," cried the egg?  "Time is of the essence.  Easter is at stake!"

"Faster?  You want to go faster?" asked Seville.  "I have the whisks whisking full blast.  We're travelling forward in space but backwards in time.  We'll arrive before you even left.  Gosh," he turned to Nerissa and hissed, "Eggs sure are impatient."

"And I think this one is a little soft in the centre," Nissy muttered under his breath.  "He seems to have forgotten just who is doin' whom the favours around here.  On the other paw, he might be feelin' a little nervous about bein' in...  well...  you know...  'Bout bein' in a fryin' pan, if you know what I mean.  I'm hopin' we'll get some better Intel once we can speak to an actual bunny."

Landing gently in a grassy field, the cats and egg climbed out of the frying pan teleportation device. Nissy had to admit that Egg Sackly was looking mightily relieved to be on solid ground, once more.

Nerissa looked around.  There were painted eggs scattered everywhere.  Scattered around like wild flowers growing amidst the grass.  Multitudes of butterflies danced in the air and Seville took another swipe at one.  It flew off, only to replaced by several others.   Off in the distance, loomed an ancient castle.  Nissy wondered if that castle was the Easter Bunny's Headquarters.

A small white rabbit approached them, hopping through the painted eggs.  "Nerissa?  Nerissa the Cat?  Thank goodness you are here!" the bunny exclaimed.

"Ummm...  are you the Easter Bunny?" Nissy asked.

"Goodness no!  But I do work here at Bunny Headquarters.  We have a real problem on our paws," stated the rabbit.  "Our only key to the chocolate vault has been either lost or stolen and without it, we can't access the goodies needed for Easter morning deliveries.  Millions of children around the world are eagerly awaiting Easter morning and without that key, we'll let them all down."

"But there are eggs all over the place," interrupted Seville, batting at one between his two front paws. "They're everywhere.  Just look at them all."

"That's just a drop in the bucket," explained the rabbit.  "We need far more than that.  We anticipate requiring approximately four billion, nine hundred and sixty-three million, two hundred and fourteen thousand, eight hundred and eleven chocolate eggs for Easter morning.  Also, seven million, eight hundred and sixty-two thousand, five hundred and forty..."

"Did you say, billion?" sputtered Seville.

"Did you say, approximately?" asked Nerissa.

"The point is," continued the rabbit, "we need access to that vault.  Nerissa, your reputation precedes you.  Only you and your brother are capable of returning that key to us.  Are you willing to accept this assignment?

Smiling broadly, Nerissa was just about to answer with a resounding yes when he was distracted by the sound of eggs cracking as Seville managed to smash two of them together.

"What?" asked Seville looking up, innocently.  "And by the way, have you ever thought of filling these things with nip?"


Be sure to return on Sunday April 20th for part two of the cats' Easter adventure.

chaos theory

No one has seen chaos like I have seen chaos.  Believe me, it is true.

Chaos Theory...  the study of nonlinear dynamics.  Nonlinear, huh?  Is that like when a cat like me, walkin' in a straight line from one room to the next, does a back flip with a twist seemingly out of nowhere?  I'll tell you what came out of nowhere.  That fly came out of nowhere.  I had to catch him.  It had to be done.

Peeps have been talkin' about this Chaos Theory for years.  For more years than I have been alive.  It's a science.  It's a science that studies random events and shows how they only seem to be random.  Shows that in fact, these random events may be predictable from simple deterministic equations...   or maybe not.  I think that the maybe not part may just be part of the chaos.

I guess what they're tryin' to say is that a lack of order is only an apparent lack of order and that even though it appears to be orderless, the system containing the randomly disorderly events does, in fact, obey certain rules.  That no matter how complex a system is, it still relies upon some sort of underlying order.

Chaos Theory is supposed to be synonymous with dynamical instability.  But is it synonymouse?  And what the mouses is dynamical instability anyway?

Chaos Theory also says that a very small event can have super big repercussions.  Some guy named Edward Lorenz discovered that events can be incredibly sensitive to initial conditions.  Apparently, this Lorenz dude was one of the first peeps to experiment in the area of chaos.  Hmmm...  experiment in the area of chaos.  I'm pretty sure that my brother Seville has been applying Lorenz' theories when workin' with his whisks.

Lorenz found that even teeny tiny differences in initial conditions could make it impossible to predict past and future outcomes.  Interestin'...  This differs from Newtonian physics 'cause with Newtonian physics, one assumes that nearly perfect predictions can be made.  The more precise the measurements, the more precise the prediction.  But back to the chaos.

Anywho...  Lorenz came up with this idea he coined, the Butterfly Effect.  He suggested that a butterfly flapping his - or her - wings in Brazil could cause a tornado in Texas.  I don't know much about tornadoes and I've never been to Brazil but let me tell you 'bout somethin' that happened a little while ago at my house.

I call this, The Whisker Effect.  I have intentionally not named most of the participants in the kerfuffle in order to protect their identities.

Out on our sunbathing area which is the little roof outside the kitchen window, a cat sniffs a bug.  That bug tickles said cat's whiskers.  That first cat jumps backwards, bumping into a second cat.  The second cat fizzes at the first who ignores the fizz but a third cat is spooked by the sound and turns tail, running into the house through the open kitchen window.  The third cat jumps onto the kitchen table to escape the fizz of the second cat but lands on the flyers carelessly left there by a peep and skids across the tabletop.  The third cat regains her footing but the flyers go flyin', tumbling down onto the floor and, onto a fourth cat's head as I had been peacefully sleeping below that table.  The fourth cat is startled - of course - and jumps up, running into the family room but has to jump over a fifth cat who is asleep on the family room floor near its entrance way.  The fifth cat is awakened and fizzes at the fourth cat but it is a sixth cat who takes the fizz personally even though it's not directed at her, resulting in that sixth cat running out of the family room at high speed and knocking over a water dish on the way.  Meanwhile, a seventh cat has been wondering about the cause of all the fuss in the kitchen and the family room and has wandered over to check things out only to be splashed with water from the water dish upset by the sixth cat.  The seventh cat freaks out by the unexpected shower, spins around and sends a bowl of dry kibble flyin'.  The bowl of dry food skids across the kitchen floor leaving a trail of kibble behind.  An eighth cat - and that would be Seville -  calmly walks over to the trail of kibble and starts muching' even though he's not supposed to eat that kind of food 'cause he's supposed to eat his special special as the peep calls it, 'cause of his issues with the crystals.  Talk about chaos.  MOUSES!


From this example, we may find that the simple act of a bug ticklin' the whiskers of a cat can cause chaos and result in Seville eatin' the wrong kind of kibble.  Again I say, MOUSES!

And where exactly were the other cats in my family?  I don't know.  They were seemingly uninvolved in this particular chaotic mess of chaos.  Or were they?  Perhaps they actually started the whole thing by tellin' that bug to tickle those whiskers.  Or maybe they were just out chasin'
                                                         butterflies.