Dog Days of Summer

by Mewsette

I can sympathize with whoever dreamed up the phrase "dog days of summer", because I don't like summer and I bet they didn't, either. It's hot. I don't like hot. That is not all I don't like in that phrase. So I suppose it's a pretty good phrase! To me, it means hot, glary days with a dog sleeping on the wood porch. Not my porch, of course! But some porch. Or in a dusty road. Dry days, when the waves of air wiggle because they're hot. When the sunshine we cats like is too white and scorchy to like. Draggy, dull days when you don't feel like doing anything. Lazy days, not the kind you like, but the kind you wish would go away. Days that are too long. When Kipling lived in India, he wrote that only "mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the noonday sun." Well, maybe the Englishmen were just glad it wasn't gloomy and rainy, like where they came from. And the mad dogs.... well, best not to elaborate on those. Wake me in October when you feel a cool breeze! When it's the cat days of autumn.