Some days, just getting through has to be enough.
And if 1) no one has gotten seriously hurt; and 2) there’s been no major collateral damage; and 3) no kittens have died,* all the better.**
That long list of things you fully intended to take care of today, but failed to? It will still be there tomorrow.
Forgive yourself and go to bed. It’s OK.
*Last March, a new family standard of measure was established as we were trying to figure out how best to take care of our semi-feral mama kitty and her five newborns. At one point, Tim said, jokingly cavalier, “What’s the worst that can happen? The kittens die.” And Reeve responded: “Dad, ‘the kittens die’ IS the worst thing that can happen.”
**There’s also my age-old end-of-the-day perspective check of “At least I wasn’t trapped in an overturned Porta-Potty today!”—but that’s a story for another time.
Photo: Twombly, our sometime feral kitty, hanging out earlier today on the back stoop where she first appeared in June of 2009.
We have a July-August issue! Or we will shortly.The magazine was on press Tuesday night, so we’ll be getting the bound copies next week sometime.
College boy Reeve came home last night for a short visit (has a voice competition in Albuquerque today), ostensibly to see us, but I’m guessing the fact that we have two-week-old kittens here didn’t hurt.
Ever had one of those dreams where you suddenly realize you just had a baby? Didn’t even know you were pregnant, maybe gave birth in the bathroom, like those stories of uneducated high school girls who went to the loo with a tummy ache and then Shazam! New baby!)?
So last week Tim and I pretty much simultaneously came to the same eleventh-hour conclusion: boy, that kitty sure is FLUFFY . . . Because she’s never allowed us to pick her up, it just didn’t seem that obvious. (Seems laughable, now, our cluelessness. That large, lumpy “just went shoplifting” midsection. . .)
And then panicking when we realized she wouldn’t go near the box, wouldn’t let us catch her to put her in the box, kept retreating to hide under the bed. We were afraid her fear of us would override her young maternal instinct, nervous that we’d screwed everything up by moving the kittens . . . That old familiar parental panic: What have I done?! I don’t know what to do!
I’m lying on my back in the dark, in bed, arms at my sides, covers up to my chin. Brutus, our two-year-old orange tabby, climbs onto my chest, scooting up so that his face is close to mine. Through the thick comforter, I can feel his warmth from my belly to my neck. He is purring. I’m effectively pinned by his weight and my sense of his affection, his catness.
It’s hard to remember now, but shortly after Brutus first showed up, I awoke in the early hours and saw that he was sleeping with our cats on the daybed where they congregate (a.k.a. “the kitty divan”). As I crept over to get a better look, Brutus awoke, saw me, and leapt to the floor, heading for the door. I bent down and (not really thinking) scooped him up, wanting to reassure him, I guess. Well, 14 puncture wounds and a couple of days later, I was at the urgent care clinic with swollen purple fingers, getting shots. (Afterwards, I found online a site where an expert likened handling a feral kitten to wrestling with an animated cactus. Believe it.)
© 2009 Mothering Magazine