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.

This one feels miraculous because we had several seemingly insurmountable obstacles to overcome and, as of a week ago, still didn’t know how we were going to resolve things.

But the logjam broke on Friday, and just about the whole staff leapt into action (including our dear Fulfillment Manager Sarah Patamia, who made a mid-afternoon coffee-and-brownie run to help Melissa, Mel and me through an energy lull, then turned around and went out to buy us a fan, since it was the hottest day of the year and our air conditioning had died), working together to birth the issue.

And in other semi-miraculous happenings:

• My 20-year-old son, Reeve, who historically has been cautious (and sometimes seems to have inherited my knack for anxious imaginings), went on his first solo backpacking adventure Monday night. Stuck it out through rain and hail and mosquitoes and made it back home in one happy but exhausted piece.

• Thursday night, unable to wind down after getting home around 11 p.m. (See: anxiety regarding insurmountable obstacles, above), I went out for a walk with Reeve. Bent down to pick up a lucky quarter I saw in the street and almost couldn’t get up again. Muscle spasm. Lower back. I’ve heard about them but never experienced one. Five days later, I can almost put my shoes on without wincing. Huge perspective check. I’m very, very grateful that this was not something more serious. And thrilled to be almost back to normal. The human body is its own miracle. . .

• After one of the cooler Springs I can remember—this seems impossibly quick, but—it appears to be summer. And it’s been toasty (for Santa Fe, anyway: upper 80s, low to mid 90s), but lovely. To celebrate, Tim and Reeve carried our kitchen table out back last night for supper in the cooling evening air.

So, now I’m full of gratitude for the miraculous (or even the merely remarkable), have taken a couple of days off to restore mind and body, and am just about ready to dive back in and get to work on September–October.

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Photo: Ah, summertime! Our oldest cat, Koufax, observes the morning from the mud room. We’ve been sleeping with the back door wide open at night; no need for screens because, miraculously, Santa Fe doesn’t have mosquitoes. (Yes, that’s a litter box, right by the back door. It’s there because, ironically, our still sort of feral kitty, Twombly, refuses to go out back.)

College boy Reeve

It’s wonderful to see him, or, more accurately, to hug him. In this day and age of Skype and email and Facebook and cell phones, we’re usually in pretty close touch. But electronic communication, though immediate, and definitely a good thing, is no substitute for everyday interaction, lovely moments of low-key hangout time, and the very real physical presence of our child.

So why do they call it being in touch? . . .

Since Reeve’s room has been converted into the nursery (When mama cat Twombly, gave birth under his bed—a convenient choice, since, other than the bathroom, Reeve’s room is the only one in the house with a door—we sealed the room off to keep the other feline residents out until the kittens are bigger.), Reeve is sleeping on the fold-out futon couch in the main room where Tim and I sleep, on another fold-out futon couch. (There’s just 10 feet and a book case between the two couches, so it occurs to me this is kind of like a grownup variation on cosleeping.)

Anyway, this morning, I awoke to hear Brutus (our 2-year-old tabby), meowing adamantly / persistenly, and Reeve mumbling, “Brutus. No.” and “Don’t poke me!” and then, “What is it, boy? What’s that? . . . Someone’s stuck in a well!? . . .”

You can’t get that on Facebook.

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Top photo: the spare bed/couch/futon in our front room.

Above: Can’t believe I have now actually referenced Lassie twice in this blog . . .

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That’s kind of the feeling around here since Friday night, when Twombly, the feral kitten who came in the back door in June, gave birth to five kittens in the quiet dusty dark beneath Reeve’s bed.

We hadn’t realized she was pregnant til last week. (Hadn’t even realized she was female til mid-January!) Because she’s still very afraid of us—except when we’re horizontal—our attempts to catch her in order to get her to the vet to get spayed were embarrassingly unsuccessful. (In retrospect, though, we now realize she was already pregnant the first time we made an appointment for her, back in early January.)

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 Friday night, Tim heard the squeaks of little ones.

Since Mama Kitty had chosen a chilly and near-impossible-to-reach spot (we had been advised to handle the kittens as early as possible to help with their socialization and so that Twombly doesn’t “teach” them to be feral like her) Tim and I spent a couple of hours Saturday morning crawling around under and over bed (mattress is elegantly held up by cinder blocks, so we couldn’t just move the bed—and too low to crawl very far beneath), grabbing kittens and transferring them to a nice warm towel-lined box.

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!

Of course our concerns were unfounded. Of course her maternal instinct was intact. Of course. Silly us. She finally joined her babies long enough for me to take a few photos—and then moved them to a different spot under the bed when I wasn’t looking.

Cigar, anyone?

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Soon after, there’s a movement near my left arm, and it’s Twombly,* our 5-month-old kitten;  never very far behind Brutus, his perpetual sidekick.

Twombly settles in on my upper arm, purring more loudly than Brutus, leaning toward him, resting his kitten head on the bigger cat’s flank. Then the ritual begins. Brutus stretches out a front leg—reaching with his paw, claws retracted—and softly pats me on the chin. Twombly squirms up my arm to get a little closer, then reaches out his paw, claws in, and pats me on the chin, as well, his rhythmic purrs so loud I think he’ll wake Tim.

I thrill to this. Not because it’s a unique occurrence (happens almost nightly) but because not so long ago both of these cats were feral kittens who showed up at our back door, tiny and trembling and in search of food—lured, we figured, by the smell of our other cats. Each was terrified of us, would start at the slightest movement and dart away, through the cat door and back into the seeming safety of the outdoor world.

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.)

That was two years ago; Brutus is now a beloved part of our household, the most affectionate of all the cats we’ve had. And now Twombly appears to be following suit, still a little skittish when we humans are vertical, but coming along nicely, thanks to Brutus.

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*Named for Cy.

Photos were shot on my cell phone early this morning, once I managed to extricate an arm.