flashingreds...
lood/flitter
(2002-10-17, 3:08 p.m.)
A bit more about the cat. He could�ve died; I have a right to blather on.

Dad surprised me by stopping last night. I�d left him a message with the good cat update, since he�d been in New Jersey and was driving home yesterday. I knew he knew the bad news, and relaying the good news was such a relief. Though Dad�s always been very gruff and full of bravado about the cat, I knew he�d have been worried. Last fall Fuzzy spent lots of time with the parents, since I was in Chicago most weekends. My mother openly dotes on him; Dad puts up an anti-cat front. We know the truth. He�s been caught plenty of times sleeping in his recliner with the cat on his lap. FJ is not a lap cat, though if you pick him up and put him there, he might sometimes stick around. But Dad�s true feelings were revealed when he scooped up the cat as soon as he walked in the door and held him for a very long time. Mom, of course, did the same when she stopped to drop off the new bed.

I didn�t sleep well last night. Most nights the cat gets in my way, I get mad and move him, and he goes away until I�m asleep again. But last night I didn�t want to bother him, so there are kinks in strange places. He probably didn�t sleep too well, either, since I periodically rubbed his chin to make him start purring, just to be certain he was still alive.

I do recall a wakeful thought that men would be much more appealing if they�d snuggle up against rib cages and purr. Lest you accuse me of bestiality (now I�ve done it�ensured lots of traffic here at flashingreds), I would like to retract that statement. Mostly.

I feel as prepared as I�ll ever be to resume normal life. Please correct me if I�m wrong, but it seems we haven�t yet gone to war, we haven�t caught the sniper, we�re still debating about the propriety of calling the aforementioned murderer a sniper, and New Jersey�s still debating about asking Amiri Baraka to step down as the state poet laureate because of this poem.

I�m getting my bearings. And I don�t mind Amiri Baraka, because I think his whole point is to be rather out there, to shock and get people to think and talk.