January 2008 Archives

A shower of paper leaves

Chime for prairie dogs

The wind through Aspens

The deliberate

Pause of the foot in the air

Tap shoe sharpened bright

"Daisy, today at school Sarah (the name has been changed to protect the oh-so-innocent) asked me if my parents believed in God."

"And what did you tell her?"

"I said you didn't."

"And what did she say?"

"She asked if you and Dad steal cars."

!!!

-- Insert long indepth lecture on morality as a chosen code of ethics independent from an individual's religious preferences, but often erroneously treated synonymously (in my opinion), of which Kyna heard about four words. --

"I pray sometimes."

"You do?"

"Yes. In Catland, where I live as a Fairy Cheetah Princess, Cheapy Smile and his wife, Mrs. Stripes are God."

"Cheapy Smile?"

"Yes. He has big orange wings with green stripes and a big fat grey body. He's a cat and lives in the sun."

"And Mrs. Stripes...?"

"She is an orange cat and her pink wings have purple spots."

"Why is he called Cheapy Smile?"

"Because he smiles all the time and it is very cheap to get a stuffy of him."

Peeling off layers

Revealing the excuses

Of security

So I'm sick. Yickily, horribly sick, and for no apparent reason at all, except that the universe is obviously trying to undermine my new year's resolutions to get in shape, become a famous author, photographer, and philanthropist, while focusing more on my family.

I started out with lofty goals of a strict new exercise regime, followed by writing a thousand words a day, then whisking Kyna off to some amazing-make-your-kid-a-genius after school entertainment before preparing an enriching dinner of quinoa and water sprouts. And if there was no such thing as water sprouts I was going to bioengineer them. Because really, could anything sound healthier? Instead, I'm a whining, bedridden, dripping, carcass of self-pity with the energy of road kill.

We have to take a detour now, back to Christmas morning. Specifically opening the gift that Kyna gave me. Her gifts for my husband and I, as well as a variety of other family members were a complete surprise. The school she attends had arranged a fundraiser where parents could send their children with an envelope full of cash and a list of relatives with corresponding monetary alotments to buy presents on their own. The hook was that your child would get to participate in the spirit of giving gifts that were a surprise while simultaneously learning how to spend within set limits AND support their school at the same time. What over-concerned, parent of a single child could possibly resist? However, a smart over-concerned parent would have checked the goods being sold first. I didn't.

So Christmas morning rolled around and I eagerly tore off the wrapping paper to reveal a 'Harvest-Your-Own-Wish-Pearl-Kit', complete with a small alcohol preserved oyster, as seen here. I was simultaneously deeply touched and horrified. I am not a vegetarian (anymore), so could not claim to be morally opposed to the oyster's sacrifice without being a hypocrite to the n^th degree, but at the same time, I was mortified to think that there might actually be an oyster in that shell. Surely it was just the shell with a pearl placed in it, and my wish before I opened it was for this to be true.

No such luck. As I pried the two halves of the shell apart over the kitchen sink, there sat in all it's preserved glory, a slimy grey ruffled mollusk. I had to search around a bit with a spoon before finding a little peach colored pearl nestled in one of the grey flaps of flesh. So much for my wish, but then as a hardened adult, I don't really hold out much hope for wishes anymore. Hard work, getting a good night's sleep, and eating your broccoli are my mainstays now. According to the box a peach pearl symbolized 'health', as found  here. Obviously there is some discrepancy between wish-pearl cultivars as to the symbolism of the different colors. Some say peach is love, some say it's health, and some say that it will definitely make you a blonde. A disturbing fact that further casts into doubt their ability to grant a wish or provide the color-specific virtues of health, wealth, love or whatever. Nevertheless I was touched. I disposed of the poor oyster and put on my necklace, telling Kyna truthfully that I loved it.

At some point the pearl necklace came off and joined the options in my jewelry box. (Come on, do you wear that colored macaroni necklace every day?)

Then I got sick. And yesterday as I was sipping Theraflu, and blearily blowing my nose every millisecond, I asked Kyna if she could fetch me another tissue box, me being too weak to get out of bed and get it myself.

"You wouldn't be so sick if you were wearing your necklace." She said sincerely, handing me the tissues. "If you put it on you'll get better in no time."

All those moments when we had plugged Santa, the Tooth Fairy and making wishes on her birthday, when we had extolled the virtues of the Easter Bunny, and rewarded her belief in magic with one of the most powerful stimulants known to humans: sugar, they all ganged up in that instant and crushed my broccoli logic. Out maneuvered by the mystical world of childhood, I am wearing my pearl necklace as I type and wishing fervently that this particular brand was right about the peach colored pearls symbolizing health.

words will never do
justice to the breathing whole
so entwined in me

"We who choose to surround ourselves with lives even more temporary than our own, live within a fragile circle, easily and often breached.

Unable to accept its awful gaps, we still would live no other way. We cherish memory as the only certain immortality, never fully understanding the necessary plan."

~ Irving Townsend

My cat, Seadog, disappeared last week. We've been together for thirteen years. In memory terms it is his intense orange fuzziness, his throaty purr and tendency to sleep on my head, his intimidating size and penetrating glare, and the way he could hold three six foot veterinary assistants at bay. It is the fear in the vet's eyes when I brought him in for his yearly checkup, and the warnings written in his file: "EXTREMELY FIESTY" and "DANGER. DO NOT APPROACH ALONE." Amazingly, he accomplished all this with two and a half fangs, having lost the other one and half while staying alive next to the British Columbia forests, home to things obviously worse than a mere veterinarian. It is unclear exactly when he lost his teeth, perhaps it was during the mysterious events that led him to spend three days fifty feet up a douglas fir while we were vacationing in Hawaii. Our valiant friend in shining armor, Kevin, finally coaxed him down using only tuna, a bucket, and a rope.

That was not the only tree Seadog got stuck in, there was also a cedar, a blue spruce, and a telephone pole.

The cedar was first. Resulting in my first on-the-brink-of-tears call to the fire department. The firefighter on the phone was very sympathetic. He explained that only strict regulations kept him from jumping in the district's only fire engine and racing to my home to spend an hour trying to coax a starving seventeen pound ball of claws down a ladder in order to calm the hysterical woman at the bottom.

"Ma'am," he said patiently, "if he got up there, he'll find a way down. They always do."

At this point Seadog was still yowling his head off in the tree. I hung up the phone, got out a can of tuna and opened it. I placed it calmly at the bottom of the tree and went back inside, not wishing to watch. Sure enough, about fifteen seconds later I heard a 'thump' like a big bag of flour falling out of a cedar tree. And there he was eating the tuna.

He would go a long way for tuna. Or cantaloupe, or papaya, or mushrooms, or bananas, or even cat food if you were offering. I am not pulling your leg. His mewling hysteria if I began to chop up mushrooms was at least as great as when he heard the can opener. And my daughter, Kyna, always shared her bananas with him. Whenever we moved into a new place he would introduce himself to all the neighbors as a poor neglected alley cat in desperate need of love and sustenance. A trick he could pull off easily with his two and a half teeth, ratty ears and lack of a collar. I tried to keep him in a collar, but due to his appetite his neck was larger than his head and they went missing almost as soon as I put them on. The last one I ever bought was red with a dangly heart engraved with his name. That afternoon, from the upstairs bathroom window, I saw it lying on the neighbor's skylight.

Needless to say the folks in our neighborhood bought his tale of woe hook, line, and sinker. He would eat four bites of his uber-dry-organic-vegan-diet-cat-food that I gave him for his health, and head out the door to do his rounds. Occasionally a neighbor would hold out, someone who had kitties and didn't want to pay to feed any more (especially a Seadog size one). In circumstances like this Seadog wouldn't bother with the 'poor me' shtick, he would just barge through the cat door, claws blazing, and uttering a long low growl, eat all their cat food.

Soon we had to move again. We packed cat, baby and coffee maker into the car and headed south.

In the car, each day of the three-day drive down to San Diego we were treated to a two-hour meowing session. Meows so loud and so intense that people in other cars on the freeway craned their heads to peer at what we were murdering in ours. Most of his meowing took place on the diver's lap, until exhausted and hoarse he'd drop where he was and have a nap.

There was only one time when he had to be an inside only cat. We hunted high and low for an apartment that would let us both a) have a cat, and b) let said cat out to wander. Finally a condo complex relented and granted Seadog his freedom providing he didn't bother anyone. Seadog promptly tried to ingratiate himself with the staff by accompanying them through the show home with prospective clients, only needing to be carried out if he happened to find a cozy chair to curl up on during the sales pitch. He also took to patrolling the perimeter of the complex every night. During his watch he often found rats lurking in the underbrush and further proving his good Samaritanship, killed them and brought his trophies home. Or almost. We lived on the third floor and more often than not Seadog would only make it to the door directly below us on the second floor before stopping to eat the good bits.

The Manager's call woke me up. Apparently the father and his four year old daughter directly downstairs didn't appreciate the skill and community service that the small skinned rat on their doormat exemplified.

There were tender moments too. Seadog wasn't all missing tufts of fur and vet bills. Thirteen years is over a third of my life. When relationships got tough he was there. When I stressed about exams he was always happy to sleep on my textbook to give me a break. He lived through my first marriage and it's dissolution, through roommates and roomcats, jobs, a second marriage, and the incredibly lonely first years as a stay at home mom for my daughter. He was a wonderful comfort. I would hug him crying tears of frustration and anger and loss, tears for bombed tests and arguments, for an aching heart or the sweet release of relief, for things that brought me joy and pain, often at the same time. Soft against my face, he would try to lick my hair. Which was always too long for him to properly groom, so he would resort to trying to chew the excess off, like a stubborn patch of fur. I would kiss his head and he would rest it on my shoulder and heave a big shuddering sigh of a purr and through my tears I would smile. He was my solace when it seemed to hurt the most and his endearing presence offered hope, because if this world could contain something as wonderful as him, it couldn't be all bad.

And now, when I face my deepest loss and the hurt is at times unbearable, my source of comfort and unconditional hope is gone. I feel him curl up around my head at night only to realize it is just the curve of the pillow and my chest tightens and it is hard to breathe for a while. But through the ache and tears, the trees and the vet bills, I recognize that I would do it over again in a heartbeat. If a little orange ball of fuzz appeared on my doorstep I would welcome it with open arms, because that is what Seadog taught me, to love unconditionally, to jump into that abyss with both feet and never look back, because while the bottom may hurt, the fall will be sublime.

To Seadog, my best friend.