I have been duly informed that I am not losing my mind.

It's a bit of a relief, let me tell you.

I posted a bit of yesterday's entry to ALF, asking for opinions. The consensus is that it was sleep paralysis, like I thought. (I was given this URL for more information.)

But in addition to that, something else was brought up. Something called synesthesia. Basically, it's a crossed circuit in the brain, where two or more senses get combined. (Some "synesthetes" will see different colors for different letters in the alphabet, some will see colors with sounds, etc etc.) Thus explaining the textured and noisy colors.

Well, it doesn't really explain it. In all the sites I looked at, none mentioned a "sometimes" synesthesia. The people these sites were talking about experience this all the time. (Good grief!) And although they said that the senses could be crossed in many ways, there were no examples of what I saw/felt/heard. Then again, they also said this is a field that is rapidly expanding, more and more research is being done, yada yada yada. Maybe it's not synesthesia. I mean, this would all sound totally hokey if I hadn't experienced it.

Heh. No, scratch that. It does sound hokey.

Anyway.

You've probably heard the old joke about the gourmet dog food. "If lamb-flavored dog food is made out of lamb, and chicken-flavored dog food is made out of chickens, what is gourmet-flavored dog food made out of?"

I realized I've been feeding Jaws something worrisome. She gets Whiskas wet cat food every night. They have cute names for the flavors. (Does the cat really care?) "Turkey morsels in gravy." "Seafood dinner." I usually just go to the grocery store and randomly grab a bunch of cans off the shelf without pondering the flavors. Well...

If chicken-flavored cat food is made of chickens, and turkey-flavored cat food is made out of turkeys...

I realized I've been feeding Jaws something with the flavor of "Kitty Stew."

Kitty stew?!

Who thought up this name?

(Images of large pots of boiling water, filled with crying kitties, flash through my mind...)

So I decided to check out the ingredients. I'll skip over the chemicals because they scare me and they're too hard to type.

Sufficient water for processing. This is the number one ingredient. Water. And just how much do I pay for this stuff? Couldn't they just sell a shake-n-pour mix like for pancakes, so I could add my own water?

Meat by-products. Eww. What is a by-product anyway? Hooves? Tails? Entrails? Blood?

Poultry by-products. More by-products. Could someone explain this to me? Beaks, toes and feathers? Imagine the poor truckers. "So, Sully, what are you hauling?" "Oh, just a load of turkey by-products."

Liver. Ah. Meat for my little carnivore. Finally.

Fish. Ok, looking good...

Carrots, peas. ?! What? Excuse me, I have a voracious miniature tiger here, not a rabbit.

Dried beet pulp. Oh, I see. Actual real beets aren't good enough for cats. You have to drag out the Grade D dried beet pulp, which isn't actually made out of beets. It's just powder that's had a beet dragged through it.

Guar gum. Ah, sap from the wonderful guar tree. If you put six cups of warm guar gum into a cake batter and bake for one hour at 350 degrees, you can use the cake as a replacement tire for a tricycle.

Carrageenan. Excuse me. Don't use your Big Freakin' Words to try and pull a fast one on me. I know what carrageenan is. It's seaweed. No wonder Jaws is getting fat. I've been feeding her what manatees eat.

Brewers dried yeast. Well, that would explain her attacks of kitty gas. She is more than happy to climb into my lap (under the pretense of being friendly), turn her butt towards my face, and then cut the cheese. Spreading the joy around, to be sure.

The rest is vitamins and scary chemicals.

Conclusion: Kitty stew is actually all the leftovers from the other flavors. Nothing goes to waste! They needed a good name. Stew. Stew for kitties. Kitty stew!

Sickos.