The house needs a lot of work. I personally haven’t gone more than a day or two without paint in my hair since March, but the cats are new to this process. Tuesday, I primed a built-in shelf/cabinet whatsis in the bathroom that felt unpleasant to touch and impossible to clean properly. When I climbed down off the stepstool and started cleaning up, I discovered that someone was experimenting with a new medium down the hall and up the stairs to the attic. This is an extreme close up of a detail of the artist’s new work. Note the artist has eschewed classic signature technique for a more literal form of identification. Certainly, as a person who’d studied art for some time at an advanced level, I thought I would recognize the artist right away.

You know what you never want to see when you finish a project? Signs that another artist has touched your work. By the time I’d washed out brushes and put away drop cloths, I knew something was amiss. But what? I saw one experimental painting, much of which came up when scrubbed so I knew the artist was more interested in the performance aspect than the permanence of the canvas. When I examined both prospective artists and found both sporting sticky patches of art supplies, Pete said, “It’s bath time for our artists in residence.”

Everyone’s a critic.

The other day, I was reading around the Blogosphere, as I am wont to do, and this made me spit my Joint Juice:

I’m going to guess that “men” (and by men, Gallagher also means several women, none of whom count because hey look ocelots. [sic]

Long story short, men have a culturally bred higher tolerance for risk which has a lot more to do with generations of expectations that men go out and risk themselves to provide while women stay home and tend to what’s provided. Except when women do it, which again doesn’t count because jungle cats!

Naturally, I resented this because Resentment is my middle name. Also: Frances. See how those go together? Anyway, the thing I learned was that we’re not looking at enough adorable ocelots, so here is one.

I feel smarter already.

Yesterday, I stayed home from work, where they get very distressed when I lie on my cubicle floor and complain about my back, not to mention my shoulders, my neck and that I’m not allowed to drink delicious, painkilling scotch on company time. But that’s not important. What is important is that I was at home, trying to hold very still when the doorbell buzzed. Sharkey hates my doorbell. He says it sounds like Dad got the wrong answer and here come Richard Dawson’s lips. Anyway, I grabbed a kimono because it was Grandma’s and who was more modest than Grandma and answered the door. My hair was standing up straight. The super asked if he could show my apartment so he could, you know, rent it. I looked at him. I looked at me in foundation garments, a cotton nightgown and my grandmother’s kimono and said, “Gimme ten minutes” knowing full well that if I hadn’t been there, he would’ve marched the people waiting on the sidewalk right through my door.

After the people left, I could not find Topaz and Drusy. Hang on, then –

Ocelots are the cutest thing since pink noses. Sometimes they have those! Anyway, I hunted for the invisible pussycats all over the one bedroom apartment. I searched the bathroom and the litter boxes. I searched the kitchen near the food. Nobody came running! I searched the carpet-covered cat-scratchy pillar o’ cat fun thing. I searched the top of the curtain rods, the laundry shelves and the dryer. I searched windowsills for inflatable stairs like for plane emergency exits. No dice! Topaz and Drusy had gone Full Kitty Invisible. There was nothing to do but wait for my darlings to reappear.

As I’ve moved things out of the apartment, new kitty resting spots reveal themselves – to the cats, anyhow. Drusy’s new favorite place to nap is the top shelf in my closet. I looked there. You’ll note this closet, pictured, is empty of anyone resembling Drusy or Topaz, but this is not my closet so that’s not really a surprise. I’m at work, where I don’t have digital images of my closet. Do you? Duh!

Anyway, after about half an hour, the Invisibility wore off and there was Drusy at my feet, making that adorable bugling sound that refers to me. I believe the cats all call me “Shep” but it’s a family name so I don’t mind. And there was Topaz, reflecting light again. I didn’t even ask where they’d gone. I was just glad to have them back.

Also: I called the super and told him to make an appointment next time. If I’m surprised I might be wearing something very high risk.

Pretty Princess Drusy cannot let a goblet of water go un-gobbed. We must share! It’s like a Greek wedding with somewhat fewer assaults around here! Thus, at Casa Rococo, we’ve gone unbreakable – though just this morning an unwary ancestral demitasse cup took a header off the sideboard while lovely Topaz said, “Who, me?” The demitasse cup miraculously survived its swan dive with but a mild splash and the carpet rippled coyly. I blame the East German judge, who remains annoyed that she’s an anachronism.

What, your cat doesn’t play with her trebuchet?

We’re packing and moving my things a little at a time. My landlord seems to know this, since no new lease arrived last month for me to fret over and send back. It seems symbolic, but I’m not sure how. If there’s nothing to worry over I shouldn’t worry, right? But with my landlord it’s not like that and I keep waiting for another shoe to drop. I could save myself some worry, I guess, by packing and moving my shoes.

Making lovey-dovey, not war, Madame Topaz blinks her eyes slowly, which cat afficionados assure us is the kitty version of blowing kisses. Wherever Pete sits, Topaz’s lavish lip-prints fly by and stick to the wall. As you can see from this glamorous shot, Topaz has white lips. I’d buy her white patent leather go-go boots to work this look but she doesn’t have the legs for it. Which I’m not going to tell her. Noooo. I tell her I’m still catalog-shopping for just the right pair.

Once again, I’m working my tapered fingers to the bone at the family store. I wish I were at home, where Topaz reclines in an alcove of Dad’s cookbooks, manuals and dictionaries. Pete and I refer to this as Topaz’s Room. Like any girl with a jealous feline sister of approximately the same age, Topaz defends her turf. I’m sure she’s going to cut up Drusy’s Shawn Cassidy posters. Daria and I, sixteen months apart, were scrappers from the beginning but we knew sisters in high school who were so mean they gave each other shocking nocturnal haircuts. I’ve warned the cats about bobbing one another’s fur.

If you can believe it, the first cookbook my family ever gave me was English. I should have sensed their hostility and run away from home immediately. This being before Google the Great and Powerful or rides to a real library, I was left to puzzle out what rashers of bacon might mean to quiche, and why the pictures made food look slightly hysterical. I’d seen desserts before, but never an emotionally overwrought Pavlova stacked with nervous kiwi.

In the first picture of lovely Topaz with her delicious new feathery bell toy thingy, the English cookbook is backwards in the stack. I still use it sometimes to demonstrate my claim that I make a gateau that’ll make you cry, especially if you’re wearing an expensive outfit.

Topaz is far too sleepy and too refined for such silliness.

A watchful Topaz

The weekend wore me out, I admit. This morning, I dreamed of my grandmother’s apartment. In it, I found people I knew setting up a promising business. One of them was Morgan. Another was a friend who is now in the diplomatic service. Two women were friends of a friend. The decor my grandmother painstakingly put into place more than twenty years ago was starting to fall apart. In the dream, I knew this was not possible. I sat on the floor with them and made pointed remarks. When I woke up, I was sure I’d written something on the blog I had to correct, but it wasn’t true.

Defenseless toy.

Over the weekend, we stopped at a pet store and bought new cat toys. The living room floor is littered with sticks inexplicably glued to feathers, which contraptions are irresistible to our cat friends. A week ago, the cats, Pete and I made a traumatic trip to the veterinarian. Topaz got antibiotics, Drusy got an anti-emetic shot to stop her from yakking. Pete got an eye-opening education about stuffing cats into boxes. I came away with scratches up and down both arms. a split lip and my confidence shaken.

Drusy, demanding I quit loafing and play with her.

So we were mostly okay until yesterday, when Drusy once again tossed her waffles twice. This morning, when I called the vet I expected bad news. I was prepared for bad news. The thing is: Drusy and Topaz were chasing each other from one end of the apartment to the other, back and forth, at top speed. While it was a little annoying to wake up to, it was an utter revelation. I mentioned this to the vet. “She’s playing and tumbling and her eyes are bright.” He seemed startled. He said I should keep track of when she throws up again, but unless it’s more than a few times a week, I shouldn’t worry. She might still be sick, but we can’t know. I am still trying to calm down. My job here is scribe, not prognosticator.

You’d think I’d know that by now.

This weekend, Pete and I pushed really hard to get the kitchen painted. This morning, Pete hung the black grids I had leftover from a play I did in 1996 and he took some pictures. The green is an intense color that matches a bottle he brought back from the Virgin Islands years ago. The silver radiator is a visually exciting retro touch, and the black shelves and grids provide a lot of storage. The ultra white trim reminds us of sun-drenched beaches. I have pictures from South Beach where the water was this green and the sand this white. The rest of the kitchen is lined with neutral pine cabinets, most of which I can’t reach, so the hooks for pots and pans are a big help.

For the past week, Drusy has been throwing up, so I’m back in the position of chasing a sick pussycat with a bowl of food, asking the pussycat to take a bite. The vet thinks our beautiful, long-legged debutante has a heart condition. I don’t even know what to say. I’m giving myself until tomorrow morning at 9 a.m. to develop a plan we can all live with.

Monday, Darla emailed that Edgar had been killed by a fox or an owl.

These pictures were once in chronological order, but even that didn’t tell the story of a sweet, sweet cat friend who would have been eleven years old next month.

Edgar loved to drink Darla’s tea, sit cozily in boxes and cuddle up to Darla.

Edgar was very vocal.

If he was outside, he’d tell you he wanted in, and if in, he wanted out.

When Dad was sick, Edgar’s mild complaints irritated Dad, which meant I ran around after Edgar for weeks on end.

Even so, it would have been very difficult to hold a grudge against the giant orange pussycat who wanted nothing more than to be near his persons, though mostly near Darla.

This spring, Edgar often climbed trees, then found himself in the very uncatlike position of being unable to get back down.

Darla said the first thing every morning, Edgar put his head under her hand for scritches.

It comforts her now that the other cats curl up to her morning and night.

We say goodbye now to this little one. He was a lovely companion and a charming catfriend.

I am sitting at my desk in a brown and tan dress I bought Sunday when my former mother-in-law died. Interesting coincidence: the husband of my co-worker drowned in the Atlantic in a storm, which is a lot easier to explain than drowning in one’s garage, for instance; even so, there would have been significantly less need for explanation if he’d been wearing a life jacket. Probably. And now I’m wearing a big old dress and my department’s caravaning to a funeral home below sea level.

Lovely Topaz lounges on the table next to my spot on the couch. The pussycats are shedding like mad now. Pete’s surprised when he scritches Topaz and enough fur comes off that we could knit ourselves a kitten. For her part, Topaz will now sit between us on the couch sometimes and let us pet her. This trust is new and we pretend not to notice. It’s funny to lie to a cat.

Madame Topaz is a sweet and timid person disguised as a lovesick teenage pussycat, except that on very rare occasions she will fall asleep on my lap. Mostly, Pete’s lap and mine belong to Drusy, but once in a blue moon the black cat is Topaz. Here, she is napping a foot from my face, listening to me talk. Topaz always knows when I am talking about her and pretends not to eavesdrop when the topic is anything else.

I dislike the idea of wishing away time but can’t wait for this week to end.

Wendy’s dog Zaidie is six brilliant months old. You remember Zaidie –

Good boy!