Day: February 8, 2017

Meep Update

“Do you have a cigar?” my wife asked.

I used to smoke them but haven’t in over ten years. “No. Why?”

“You’re a new father.”

“What?”

“Meep is officially our cat.”

We’ve been feeding Meep, aka the Ginger Prince, for a few years. Finding him huddling outside time and again, we added bringing him in to protect him from inclement and freezing weather to our practices with him a few years ago. What was once in while became every day and night. He’s flourished under the arrangement, gaining weight and improving in every way imaginable.

Another neighbor, Sue, came to tell us the news. I wasn’t home. My wife related it to me: Meep’s people moved away.

I’d always been doubtful they were his people. Meep, by my estimate, spends about eighteen hours a day in our house. The woman who came to tell us told my wife, “They were worried about Meep.”

“Wow,” I said. “They have a strange fucking way of showing it.”

My wife went on, “They were concerned that Meep is an out door cat. I told Sue, ‘You mean the cat that’s asleep on my chair right now?'” She then related that Meep loves being indoors and spends most of his time in our house, really only venturing out two or three times a day. He’s generally back within an hour.

I regret the life he ‘lived’ with them, and wonder about the back story. But it pleases us that he’s officially a member of our household. He has a mite problem we’ve been treating, but we’ve always been a little circumspect, to respect the boundaries of his ‘owners’. Now that’s removed so we can take him to the vet, etc. He’s a little sweetheart with a water fascination, although he is too willing to fight with Tucker and Boo. Tucker and Boo also don’t get along. The fur has flown, let me tell you.

We make it work. It’s not always easy. Tucker is segregated from gen pop, forced into isolation in the snug, where we work, generally read and watch television. We let him out in the yard for a few hours each day. Boo, likewise, is kept in isolation, in the master suite. He’s also authorized outside time. Each have food and water bowls, and kitty litter boxes. Meep is set up in the big room with food, water and a litter box. I play and talk with each several times a day. It’s a little exhausting, with the segregation and isolation. Boo also suffers PTSD, and general anxiety. Tucker, meanwhile, has auto-immune problems and is a grain-free and gluten-free diet.

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Only Quinn, the refugee from another neighbor, is permitted to visit with the rest and wander through whatever room he wants. He, alone, gets along with all.

 

5

One of Those Days

This is one of those days when the world is pile-driving my head, pulverizing my soul, and my defenses are breached and falling. I want to hide from my shadow, escape to an isolated beach, or maybe just stay in bed with the covers up to my chin in a dark room.

But I’ll walk. I’ll write. I’ll find moral and emotional sustenance and comfort in these routines. Maybe I’ll go have a beer somewhere, drain the glass by a fire, watch the weather, and enjoy this perk.

That’s for later. There are things to do now. I might go get a haircut. I don’t know how that will change the day’s balance, but I’m overdue by about two weeks.

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The Note

I dreamed, of course, several dreams, but they’re broken today and heap in my head like pieces of broken glass.

One dream fragment is best remembered. It’s dim and busy with the red-black-amber noisy ambiance of a late night club. I’m handed a note. I don’t see who hands it to me but I thank them. The note is folded. My full name is typed in twelve pitch Times New Roman font in black on the front. I’m surprised, pleased, and giddy to be receiving this note. Unfolding it, I read my future history in typewritten paragraphs.

And that thrills me. I’m so excited. But now, I remember none of it. I only remember that I was handed a note with my name typed on it.

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Today’s Theme Music

I enjoy stream-of-consciousness writing. This song, by Suzanne Vega, came out in 1982 but I didn’t become aware of it until the early 1990s, when I was stationed at Onizuka in Sunnyvale, California. Then, after hearing it, I kept trying to learn the name of it, and failed for a long time. People were vaguely aware of it but nobody was certain of who performed it nor its name. Eventually, the Internet came along. A successful search led me to answers: ‘Tom’s Diner’, by Suzanne Vega, and the rest.

‘Seinfeld’ was my favorite show for a long time, and remains my favorite comedy show. I liked Jerry before he was big. When his pilot was first announced, my wife told me, “That comedian you like is getting a television show.” I saw the pilot air on Armed Forces Radio and Television Services through our local channel in Germany. I enjoyed it but didn’t know what happened to it, as we didn’t get the series for a while. Eventually a few episodes of the first half year were shown. Then I returned to America and discovered it was a weekly series.

The connection between the song and the series is Tom’s Diner. Tom’s Diner was a place Vega frequently as a college student and was the setting, as Monk’s, for many ‘Seinfeld’ scenes. Learning that, I thought, This must be a great diner.

BTW, a famous actor is mentioned dying in the song. People figured out from when the song was written and various other clues that the actor was William Holden, someone she’d never heard of. Anyway, after that laborious intro, here’s the song, ‘Tom’s Dinner’. 

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