the pelican

once more with feeling

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heat wave

oh get out of the kitchen baby.

well you know it’s not a good sign when a ninety degree day feels cool.

i believe this is the 16th day of above 90s and no sign of it letting up. before that it was mostly 90s with a couple days of high 80s sprinkled in. and no water. barely a trickle a sprinkle a brief meager handful of water here and there. lightening against the mountains in the early evenings. extreme fire danger.

everything is starting to look parched and brown and wilted. yep it’s feeling like we’re being cooked alive here high on the front range.

and tempers have flared and words have been said and moments have occurred.

moved office in late june early july. strange chaotic mess but love my new space with magnificent view of the mountains with trees and brush and creek and little visiting birds. such a lovely view out my window that occasionally i am so distracted by the beauty of it just have to pause and stare.

and a new great big vast desk to wheel around inside of with plenty of work space for three separate projects to be going at a time.

much to be thankful for.

and yet.

and yet i’m getting so tired of the stress and the juggling of deadlines and the never-ending worry and the sitting up in the middle of the night wondering if all the exhibits were included or if i’d missed a filing date or a disclosure or returned a phone call and have too many hours and too many weekends but got to pay those vet bills somehow you know but feeling burned out and fed up and tired and old and irritable.

and hot. limp and exhausted and swollen and hot. and whiney. and stressed.

and so are the cats. they hate the heat. and can you blame them -- walking around in little fur coats. they lay around the house like dishrags. come home from work in the evening and dante and izzy and harley are all bunched up in a line sleeping against the cold porcelain of the tub.

oh yeah. harley.

adopted yet another cat. like we needed a sixth boarder in the cat hotel. but it was unavoidable. heard him call me at the giant pet outlet place in the wall of hard-to-adopt creatures. he was on the bottom left. forgotten. up against the bar of the cage. he reached out and tapped my leg with a gentle paw and it was over.

i mean they always call to me. all of them. and i can’t take them all home. and like we need another cat. honestly what was i thinking.

well i wasn’t, truth be told. he was inside my head. he was talking to me like my guys do. the bond was there and there was no denying it. he said i had to get him out of there and it was time he came home.

and well he was right.

he fit right in with the band of brothers without a hitch. he ran up and kissed everybody on the nose. each kitty was greeted and thanked and loved up by the new guy. he ran around saying he was home he was home he was home and he hasn’t really stopped. sometimes he just runs right up into my lap and up into my face and kisses me right on the nose and then dashes off to play or crunch some food or sit on the porch or lay at my feet. he comes when he’s called. he stays close. barely leaves the yard and kind of clings to the side of the house if he goes outside. he loves everyone he meets, human, cat, or otherwise.

he was a flat-faced-friends-society kitty, which typically rescues persians and their ilk, but he is not flat-faced, though he is long hair and all white and soft as an angora bunny. silky soft. practically mink.

globs of clingy white cat hair are going to look great on my clothes, too.

going to require regular brushing and grooming and care. because well i just have so much time on my hands that i might as well be spending it caring for six cats.

well for the most part the other guys have totally accepted him, as though harley was of course supposed to be there. they know him. they tolerate him. they are not threatened or disturbed by him.

for the most part.

jack was little upset. just a wee bit jealous. and bono thought there were too many other cats as is at this point and was concerned that he would not receive enough attention. and truth be told, i kind of wondered if we’d done the right thing.

i mean i think this is some kind of syndrome, right? where the crazy cat lady just keeps accumulating animals and her house fills up with cat poop and old newspapers and eventually the authorities will come and haul her away.

but not quite yet. hopefullly.

for now, all six guys are happily a pack of furry beastie brothers who play and sleep and live together in relative peace.

for the most part.

well see my bono kitty put me through a bit of a panic this week. my special little tuxedo clad hot water bottle rubber baby bono buddy and i had a few words. he had to make a statement and i had to hear it.

he’s always been the best about coming when called. yeah i know cats are not dogs, but all my cats come when called for the most part. it is part of the deal. part of the hotel rules, part of the regimen, part of the bargain.

see the kitties live indoors all day while at work. when home in the evening and on weekends, the back door is open and they are free to play outside and scratch trees and flop in the grass and dash around the yard and explore and sleep under bushes and patrol the grounds and what have you. but they all come in for dinner before bedtime and they stay inside during the night. most of them, sometimes all of them, sleep in the bed as well.

and they all know the drill. the schedule. the pattern.

and bono was always the best about coming when called. heck he practically used to run to me from a house or two down the block -- i’d call for bono buddy and he’d come running and leap into my arms. but the last few nights he has not been responding. and i’ve found him, for the most part, in the forbidden zone across the creek in the neighbors’ yard -- a huge and cavernous sprawling two or three acre lot grand-fathered into the area somehow full of piles of old rusty junk and car parts and tall weeds and boxes and crates and scraps and tires. they used to raise geese and ducks and chickens but we almost never see those anymore. they have dogs and a ferral cat colony and there are raccoons and foxes and skunks galore. it is a cat paradise. a veritable disneyland of activities and cubby holes and hunting grounds.

and he knows it’s verboten territory and yet he’s been pushing the boundaries and not only that, not only pushing the boundaries but refusing to come in when called. just flat out refusing to acknowledge the call. and i’ve had to go all the way around the fence down the block and around to the front of the house through the junk and the wire and the cars and the house with the loud barking dogs and the machine shop and ask for permission to head back behind into the wild to retrieve my stubborn cat.

and after doing this two or three times this week, he was put in solitary confinement as a punishment for his refusal to respond. he was put in the bathroom with the door closed for a good half an hour. i am a cruel mother i guess. it was supposed to be a lesson. a statement, a training session if you will.

and well. i guess i have now been fully trained.

for you see, friday night he was completely gone. he would not respond. he would not even show himself. he was missing. and i combed the neighborhood calling for him, driving all the neighbors insane with my constant bono buddy bono buddy bono buddy to no avail. and i felt the panic set it. and the fear. and for the life of me i could not place him. my gut feeling was that he was nearby but i couldn’t find him. and normally we have a bond between us and we have interior locator devices and i always know that he’s over under the bushes next door or across the street under the neighbors porch or hiding in the weeds at the back of the driveway at the pink house. but he was just plain gone and not responding, not cooperating, not coming in and not revealing or communicating his whereabouts. finally i broke down and came in the house and all the fears started to take over that i might never see him again. that maybe he decided to relocate. maybe something terrible happened. maybe he was trapped somewhere. maybe he was hurt.

this was not like him. in eight years he's never done this.

something just had to be wrong.

yet through the panic, over and over, whenever i calmed myself down enough, i knew in my heart he was ok. i could hear him telling me . . . you just don’t own me. you don’t own me. it's all about free will.

and then after a couple long hours of torture and aguish and worry, just like that, he showed up at the back door. and i picked him up and he sort of braced himself. he knew i was upset and he thought i was maybe going to put him in the bathroom again but i just held him. and he purred and purred and then reverted completely back to his normal rubber baby bono buddy state and we had a very long extended affectionate reunion moment together. he licked my tears and he apologized and i apologized for trying to control him and we said we loved each other over and over.

and saturday, when the doors were opened up early in the morning to let the cool air in and the beasties were released, he went outside and then ran back in and leaped into my arms and then ran back outside. and all day, whenever i called for him, he came in the house and purred and reassured me that everything was back to normal and he was nearby and he’d tell me if he needed me and all was back as it should be.

and so.

so anyway.

there is so much i can not control so much i have to let be as it is so much to accept so much to be grateful for so much that is all part of the play so much so much the list is endless. can’t control relationships, cats, the weather.

it’s just another hot summer night at the cat hotel. and probably one of many more to come.

and i have a glass of ice water rapidly melting beside me. echoes on the radio.

jack’s in his basket. harley’s alternating at my feet and up on my chest to wash my face for a minute and then back down to the feet. dante is on the back of the chair. izzy is sleeping by the tub. pepe’s in the laundry basket.

and bono is in position upstairs in bed. he’s stretched out, lounging under the swamp cooler, waiting for me to join him.

and i think i'll accommodate him.

posted by: limine at 22:29 | link | comments (7) |

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