As Usual
“They’re acting like evil twins,” Puck announced with solemn observance.
Another six-am groggy wake-up call.
Crackers and Stinkerbelle were still mad at each other, for no apparent reason, which proved to provide an excellent ride on the way to the vet in Chesterfield that morning. Stinkerbelle meowed mournfully from the basement stairs…
“Keep quiet, cat. Or you’ll hurt your froat [throat],” Puck commanded from his overlord throne at the kitchen table.
The hissing continued, with Puck arbitrating…
“Her heart is angry with me, I think,” he explained.
When we corralled the two felines into the car for an early trek into Tuesday traffic, I realized that maybe shuffling two animals and a boy into the humane society is sort of my version of delivering a congressional speech. Possibly just as stressful. Particularly when small cat… body fluids… are involved.
Before we hit Chesterfield, however, there was an issue of flashing lights and slight cacophony. Some unfortunate soul from the world of Fed-Ex had meandered his possible brake-failed double-trailer truck off the highway into the grassy ditch of the roadside. Smooshed boxes and debris were piled on the shoulder. So unfortunately if you’re one-of-a-kind French Byzantine stained glass window was being imported across the country today… well… Poor chap. A crumby way to start off your morning as a Fed-Ex employee. On the way back, about a dozen flashing and construction vehicles still crowded the scene.
Our afternoon continued with a cold, light rain. Somehow the gray tiger sisters left each other alone for a few hours. The mail could not have been more uninteresting. Puck’s pinata duck now sported a paper Krispy Kreme hat on his dresser. The Puckster roller skated for a couple of hours, clomp-clomping across the old wood floors without a thought to volume. A little high-paced Central American pan pipes. As usual.
A thick band of tangerine light cut through the settling rain. Stinkerbelle was still unnerved. Puck wasn’t exactly helping the situation…
“She hissed again. I did my mad scientist laugh.”
Meanwhile, I decided to be smart. Kate Middleton had left me a Target gift card for some work I had done in the office over the summer. I tend to horde instead of spend. But now was the time. While everyone else was huddled at home WWII bomb shelter style wrapped in blankets eating potato soup around their televisions, I would take advantage of the post-apocalyptic silence of the retail world, which I would never have otherwise done.
Bwah-ha!
Plus we needed mayonnaise and blueberry jam.
But then it was dark and cold and wet and The Bear had another headache, so…
I exchanged one seclusion for another, with the added bonus of Stinkerbelle throwing herself against my legs growling for cheese.