Left: sugar plum chutney; right: pickled beets.
I am too depressed to talk. Between the sudden death of Tunch, the George Zimmerman acquittal and a strange turn of events in my family, I feel a little broken. Maybe tomorrow will be better.
At 11 pm on a school night and in the space of ten minutes, max:
My phone rings. It’s the upstairs tenant from the other side of the house. Her voice is trembling.
Kathy: Is Pete there?
Tata: He is!
Kathy: I caught a mouse under a wastebasket in my bathtub. How did he get in my bathtub? I don’t know how it got there, but it’s there and I’m terrified –
Tata: We’re on it! [To Pete] Kathy caught a mouse in her bathtub.
Pete: [Reading juicy gossip on Facebook] Goddammit!
Kathy: – if you guys weren’t home I didn’t know what I was going to do. What if you guys were away for the weekend? Was I going to leave it there? I didn’t know –
Pete: Grrrr grrrr grrrr….
Tata: [To Kathy] Oh, I know! Oh, I know! [To Pete] Get up, I’m goddamm Sybil Fawlty!
Kathy: – how I could take showers and what if mice were in my closets and can he come up here and help me?
Tata: He’ll be up in a minute.
Kathy: Okay.
Pete got up and made for the basement. Over his shoulder, he said, “Tell her I’m getting gloves,” which seemed mysterious until I heard a door slam on the other side of the house. Out in the hall, Kathy was sweating and nearly hyperventilating. Makeup formed generous rings around her eyes. I ushered her into our house.
Tata: Pete’s gone to get gloves. Come in, come in, please! Can I get you a glass of water?
Kathy: No, thank you.
Pete marched past us grimly, gloved hands in front of his face like a surgeon on his way to the operating theater. I opened the door for Ben Casey and Kathy cycled through her story again.
Kathy: I caught a mouse under a wastebasket in my bathtub. How did he get in my bathtub? I don’t know how it got there, but it’s there and I was terrified –
Tata: How about a glass of water?
Kathy: – if you guys weren’t home I didn’t know what I was going to do. What if you guys were away for the weekend? Was I going to leave it there? I didn’t know –
Tata: You really don’t want a glass of water?
Kathy: – how I could take showers and what if mice were in my closets? How would a mouse even get into my bathtub? Did it come through the pipes? After I found mouse droppings in my kitchen, I put everything into plastic containers. There’s nothing for the mouse to eat, so how did it get there –
I got up, put ice into a rocks glass, poured cool, filtered water and handed it to Kathy in the living room. She took a sip and noticed three black cats had come to see her. The blind kitten scampered off, breaking Kathy’s concentration.
Kathy: She just walked away! How does she know where to go? She’s in the kitchen!
Tata: She runs, jumps and plays. She’s really smart.
Kathy: How does she know where the furniture is?
Tata: She remembers.
Kathy: Who is this one?
Tata: That’s Topaz. She normally doesn’t engage with new people but –
From the other side of the house, we both hear BAM! BAM BAM! BAM! Neither of us flinches.
Tata: – she likes you a whole lot. Drusy over there is our hunter. We’ll be happy to lend you a cat if you have this problem again. Drusy and Sweetpea would make short work of any mouse problem.
A door slams, then the front door slams.
Kathy: Drusy? She seems so tiny.
Tata: Yeah, but she’s ferocious.
The front door slams again. Pete walks through the front door.
Pete: Well, next time, we’ll lend you a cat. They love this stuff.
Kathy: They catch mice?
Pete: Yep. Sometimes, Drusy runs by with a victim in her mouth.
Tata: It’s hard to hear, what with all the screaming.
Kathy: The mouse?
Tata: No, me.
Pete: I cleaned up the tub and took the mouse out to the garbage.
Kathy: Thank you, thank you!
Cats: Amateur!
Darla’s medical records paint a grim picture of three months in which the kitten’s survival was in doubt. Drusy, however, is interested in literature for literature’s sake.
Tonight, we moved the kitten’s litter box from the kitchen to the attic, which we refer to as the cats’ room, but we pretend not to know it’s also the lab where they’re building robots. We wink when the mailman delivers parts. We know exactly where to look for missing screwdrivers and small power tools. Cross your fingers: Topaz will soften and we’ll find kitten-size lab coats in the hamper.
Brown rice paella, which is easier to make than you might imagine, if you imagine it’s not easy. But it is. If you can boil water, you can make paella and should!
Black kitten emerging from a dark room. When I imported this image it was so dark I saw no kitten at all.
One of my oldest friends is very ill. I’m restless and having trouble finishing –
Mistakes are shiny.
Pete looked up and discovered the tiny kitten perched atop the pillar. He panicked. She climbed down and skipped off to climb something else.
Topaz is not speaking to me. Sweetpea is unsure of our commitment to one another. Drusy here is not speaking-ish. That is not stopping her from trying to have me all to herself.
Moments later, the tiny kitten discovered climbing onto the couch would mean jumping off it later.
Pete says the new kitten’s name might be Minky, but only time will tell.
We are about to embark on a series of concurrent adventures, which means I can’t pick a pair of kicks.
Mysterious Topaz rests in fresh breezes and lazy afternoon sun.
Any damn thing could happen this week. By dinnertime tomorrow, I may demand Pete build me my own window sill.
Poor Impulse Control 