I went to the cat show in Pleasanton on Sunday afternoon. I got there around 1:30 pm, but missed the entrance for parking and drove around to the Pleasanton Avenue entrance.

I'm used to using that entrance for the Good-Guys shows. The guard said I couldn't come in that way for the Cat Show. So I parked in a small lot across from the ACE Train station and walked about ½ a mile to the building.

I was wearing a sweater but it wasn't much help from the rain and wind. I keep an umbrella in the car which helped more because I was walking into the wind and it was blowing the rain back on me. I reached two buildings, marked A and B and asked one of the maintenance guys where the Cat Show was. He pointed to the building on my left.

I saw the side doors were open and didn't want to walk all the way around to the front, so I came in through the side doors and didn't pay the $5 senior admission fee. I figured I earned it from all that walking. I saved $8 on parking too.

The show wasn't very crowded, mostly just breeders with their cats. I sat down at one of the judging stations. The cats were not all the same breed so I thought this might be a Best of Show, but on the contrary it was the House Pet competition. One of the cats looked just like one of my black cats. He finished sixth out of eight. All eight got ribbons. It reminded me of summer camp when everyone in a competition won a ribbon, even if it was only "Honorable Mention."

The cat agility demonstration was supposed to start at 2 pm, so I went over to the agility course and asked when the show would start. The lady there must have forgotten she was supposed to give a show at 2 pm, but she said she'd do one just for me.

A group of about six or seven other people came over when she started, but the cat wouldn't do any of the tricks. Last year a Japanese Bobtail ran the obstacle course at top speed. He ran up and down the stairs, jumped the hurdles, ran through the cat tube, and wove in between the posts. That cat wasn't there this year and the cats brought into the cage were not at all interested in doing any of the stunts.

"Oh, you want me to climb those stairs? It's easier for me to walk around them." "You want me to jump over that thing? It's easier for me to walk past it." It was fun watching the cat ignore whatever silly things the human there was trying to make him do.

I stayed about an hour and walked back to my car. By that time the rain had stopped and the wind was at my back.