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| Tortoise Cat rests in a favorite territorial garden nook. |
Tortoise Cat: The Big One mentioned moving to another territory! Why?
Chameleon: The
rumpus of city life...? Winter snow impeding progress...? I don't know, Tortoise Cat. It must be an old longing for the first home territory.
Tortoise Cat: What do you mean, first home territory?
Chameleon: It's wherever one is when exploring and marking beings, like your first place with the Big One, two blocks westward.
Tortoise Cat: Where is the Big One's first home territory, Chameleon?
Chameleon: It's in a land called
Central Valley, where summers are hot but dry with cool night ocean breezes. The way big ones reckon distances, it's much closer to my own home territory called
Point Reyes Seashore.
Tortoise Cat: How?
Chameleon: I will
shape-shift into a dragon and fly, Tortoise Cat. But you and the Big One will pack a van and roll along.
Tortoise Cat: A van? What is that? Must we roll dangerously fast like we did to and from the Big One's folk's territory during snow-season, way too far westward, but wonderful when we arrived?
Chameleon: A van is much bigger than the car you rode to the folk's place in and it will roll slightly slower. But, you will roll much farther westward and arriving will be...wondrously amazing. The ride to the Central Valley will take about five days.
Tortoise Cat: EYOW! What is "five"...?
Chameleon: Five is just one of the many, many words the big ones use to say "some"...but as cats count, the ride will take some days and nights.
Tortoise Cat: More than one and more than two, is too, too long a ride, Chameleon. When?
Chameleon: Next year, probably. And that's too long from now to keep on conversing about today, Tortoise Cat.
Tortoise Cat: Is next year after cat-grass season? Because this cat-grass season might never end.
Chameleon: It won't happen before the
next cat-grass season, Tortoise Cat.
Tortoise Cat: OK, Chameleon. Let us play, nap and dream through every day of this perfect cat-grass season that might last forever.
