There must be a computer out here somewhere, says I, Misty the cat. (Photo by Laurel Cummins.)

Misty the cat here, back for my every-two-month guest post that I’ll continue writing as soon as I grab the hyphens from this sentence and sell them on eBay.

I’m still annoyed at my humans Dave, Laurel, and Maria for leaving me to take a January 5-12 trip to Guatemala, where teen peep Maria was born. I was alone for seven nights: One Hundred Years of Solitude, minus 99 years and 51 weeks. Fortunately, a nice sitter visited three times a day to feed me and administer my asthma inhaler — which I’ll have another dose of this afternoon after I click on the Merriam-Webster website to see what the word “administer” means.

Dave is not a Kindle user, so he visited the library January 2 to take out six paperbacks to bring to Central America along with a wallet full of quetzals — the Guatemala currency that rhymes with pretzels but is baked with less salt. Those small-sized paperbacks helped keep Dave’s luggage light enough to avoid the plane being overloaded to the point of having to make an emergency landing in Narnia, the magical world authors C.S. Lewis and Mary Higgins Clark visited during their famous early-19th-century Lewis and Clark Expedition.

The six novels for plane and non-plane travel reading included Pearl S. Buck’s classic The Good Earth — which Dave discussed last week — as well as Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park and four of Sue Grafton’s 25 “alphabet mysteries” starring the very relatable private investigator Kinsey Millhone. None of that series of Grafton novels included C is for Cat, F is for Feline, K is for Kitty, or S is for Servemefoodnowornomoreunpaidguestblogging, but that’s (l is for) life.

Anyway, Dave thought Jurassic Park was good but not great. Fantastic premise in terms of the hubris to use prehistoric dinosaur DNA to bring those creatures back to life in the 20th century, and some very suspenseful moments, but the characters were mostly two-dimensional and the writing not much more than adequate. Plus, where was Barney the Purple Dinosaur? Maybe in the Jurassic Park movie.

Dave tells me the four Grafton novels (E is for Evidence, G is for Gumshoe, H is for Homicide, and I is for Innocent) he read on the trip were all absorbing, even though absorption wasn’t necessary due to it being the dry season in Guatemala. I’m also told that Dave read the first four “alphabet mysteries” years ago, and plans to get to the post-“I” ones before the aforementioned Lewis and Clark Expedition ends.

Soon after returning to New Jersey the night of January 12, Dave read Lee Child and Andrew Child’s latest Jack Reacher novel: Exit Strategy, which would have come in handy when he, Laurel, and Maria were trying to get out of the airport terminal in Newark, New Jersey. The book was okay. Dave is a big fan of the Reacher series, but things have gone downhill somewhat now that Lee Child doesn’t write the novels solo and now that 30 books have been published since 1997. There are only so many plots, as any cemetery director would tell you.

I, Misty the cat, have a favorite Reacher novel: 61 Hours, which is the amount of time I sleep every day.

Dave will reply to comments as I look out the window at dinosaurs. They’re big.

I, Misty the cat say: “Still too much snow outside to take a walk, but this bed seems to be shoveled.”

Dave’s comedic 2024 book — the part-factual/part-fictional/not-a-children’s-work Misty the Cat…Unleashed — is described and can be purchased on Amazon in paperback or on Kindle. It’s feline-narrated! (And Amazon reviews are welcome. 🙂 )

This 90-second promo video for the book features a talking cat: 🙂

Dave is also the author of a 2017 literary-trivia book…

…and a 2012 memoir that focuses on cartooning and more, including many encounters with celebrities.

In addition to this weekly blog, Dave writee the 2003-started/award-winning “Montclairvoyant” topical-humor column every Thursday for Montclair Local. The latest piece — about snow and more — is here.