Interval, with cats, without snow

You know that my spoiled rotten cats are just swell.  However, there are times when I head home writing in my head, scribbling on disparate pieces of paper on the bus, knowing what I’ll key into the computer when I arrive at that blessed place, Home, and then I get home and discover the cats have knocked the window seat onto the food tray and scattered water and kibbles and bits and whatever all around the kitchen.  Suffice to say, new chores confront me on my return.  I suppose I should not feel the need to deal with such mundane matters, and just go write.  But no one else is going to deal with anything, so I am pressured into action. 

These are the times when I put the lines on the “good” and “naughty” sides of the board in my mind.  Left side — good cats.  Last night both Chick (a.k.a. Chickabetty) and Wilbur got good cat marks because they noticed me scream and run away (accompanied by Mama Millie, by the way) from the waterbug in the bathroom.  Next to the heating unit.  Which means it came up — or down — through said heating unit.  Great.  Subsequently Chick (my little huntress) and Wilbur killed the beast and left it in plain sight in the hallway where I could sweep it out the front door.  Good cats. No, I did not take pictures.

Then this morning, the three of them were hovering and sniffing around the floor of the bedroom.  I started to panic.  Then I saw what they were eating:  my lunch.  Anything in a plastic bag is fair game, I understand, but it was only there for ten minutes!  They couldn’t get into the soup containers, but my sandwich had become theirs.  Three marks (Chick, Wilbur, and Millie) in the naughty cat column.

I might not have been as annoyed had I not been awakened at 4:18 a.m.  I don’t have to get up at that hour, I just woke up.  The cats did not wake up. There were three cats leaning on one side or another of my legs, oblivious.  A blistering headache (yes, going to bed with wet hair does have ill effects, no matter what modern science says) and a song woke me.  Excedrin eventually knocked out the headache (I believe in NSAIDS no matter what my allergist says), but it took a while for me to hear the song clearly enough to identify it.  It was not from a car out on the street.  It was not coming from a neighbor upstairs or next door, or some maniac in the basement.  It was in my head.  I realized it was the Mamas and the Papas and eventually I recognized the song as ”I Call Your Name,” written by Lennon and McCartney.  Why was it in my head, and why did it coincide with a blistering headache to waken me?  I’ll probably never know.  Great song, though. I prefer it wake me around 7, not 4.

Tonight I intended to finish up my review of The Woman in Black (I’m up to version 5), and the kids managed to spill their water around the dinner tray and the kitchen floor.  Waterbug in the bathroom last night makes me very sure I don’t want them splashing water in my kitchen!  This leads to one more naughty cat mark. (If I don’t know whodunnit, I can hardly blame all three.  Which would probably be valid, but I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt.)

On the bus stop tonight I heard a woman (young enough to call a girl, but I don’t want to sound old and crotchety) telling someone on her phone that it was snowing.  It was not snowing.  I got off a bus in Queens at 8 pm and it wasn’t snowing.  It was misting heavily and the air was cold enough for my breath to be frosty, but it wasn’t snowing.  It’s not snowing now.  And yet when I got off the bus, there seemed to be a soft coating of something whitish on some bushes.  Some windshields.  Presaging something downright wintery, without actually going there. 

I would have taken a photograph when I got home had there been the tiniest bit of frosting on my big blue spruce.  But, no.  Not a bit. Exhaust fumes from the highway have apparently melted away any hint of frosted windowpanes.  Oh well.

Meanwhile, I’m still working on that review.  Just thought the kids needed a little credit for killing the waterbug.  If not for munching on my lunch. 

~ Molly Matera, signing off.  I promise, I’ll finish my review of The Woman in Black and post it tomorrow night!  And I do not understand why Microsoft’s spellcheck does not comprehend the word “waterbug.”  It’s a waterbug.  It exists.  Believe me.  I don’t examine it minutely to be sure it’s not a cockroach. No, I do not want to know the difference.  Microsoft, catch up.