Change Can Be Good

Rich, deep green world – this was a spring unlike springs in recent memory. Everything was darker and wilder.

Sometime after running Linnea-Irish to the bank and DMV that morning, I sat in the Big House living room watching Snuggles the cat try to swipe my mug of lunch rice. Yesterday, it was the cinnamon rolls. After he polished off the remains of other lunch dishes on the counter, he began scream-meowing for more food.

“Snuggles!” Carrie-Bri finally yelled at him.

“He doesn’t like his cat food anymore,” Mom explained.

Carrie offered him a little sympathy. “Get over it!”

He really is a ridiculous cat. I made sure he didn’t get a single whiff of the York peppermint patties I had stashed in my book bag that I wasn’t supposed to be eating. Yes, he’d definitely try to share them with me.

During carpool, Heidi and I waited together in the foyer for one of her pals to be released to our after-school play hour.

“I like your shirt,” Heidi told me.

“Thank y…”

“I like your headband.”

“Thank yo…”

“I like your nails.”

I think I’m more popular now than I ever was back in high school.

While I washed up dinner dishes that evening, Puck pondered the likelihood of us moving over the summer. We finally needed to be closer to work and school.

“So we’re definitely moving, Mom?”

“That’s the plan, bud.”

He turned around to watch the now very full grown wild bunny hop around outside the shed in the back yard, the same bunny we’d watched grow up over the years from a little baby. When he turned around again, I could see a couple of tears in his eyes.

“But, Mom, I was raised in this house. I know this home like the inside of my pocket. I don’t want to move.”

I know, kiddo. Change is hard.

He recovered easily enough with a bowl of big fat strawberries, the Minecraft soundtrack, and some Vat19 videos. Sometimes, change can be good.