I promised myself that tonight I would be on my stationary bike by 8:30 p.m. and in bed by 10:00.
Missing the bike objective, I set a new one: 9:00 p.m.
William and Ernest
So I sit here at 8:55, watching the minute hand make its way toward the 12, and I think, Should I push that goal back to 9:30?
Doing so would push bedtime back to 10:30 or thereabouts. Too late, really, for someone who sincerely desires to reestablish normal sleep patterns. As in, sleep while it’s dark, etc. and so forth.
Oh dear, oh dear. I’m about to miss the 9:00 p.m. bike time. In fact, I just did. It’s one minute after.
Perhaps it’s not necessary to begin biking on the hour or the half-hour. Perhaps it’s possible to bike for 16 minutes, or 23, or 27. Perhaps getting to bed by 10:03 would be acceptable.
Black-and-white thinking impedes progress. I’ll get on the bike as soon as I’ve finished this post. And if the minute hand happens to be atilt, so what?
At Christmas play and make good cheer For Christmas comes but once a year.
~ Thomas Tusse
David and I met friends Geoff and Emme at the Root Cellar yesterday morning for a belated Christmas breakfast. Our plan for a Christmas-David’s Birthday-New Year’s dinner in December fell through when both Emme and I came down with whatever people get at this time of year and we had to cancel.
The breakfast worked out better, however, because we dressed less formally (if such a thing be possible) and because I didn’t have to make a salad.
The gift exchange comprised books, homemade granola, a kazoo, cute little plastic thingeys to bind cords and cables, and a Christmas ornament.
The best, however, were the gifts exchanged by the cats and Geoff and Emme’s dogs, Tuck and Abbey. Tuck and Abbey received toys best described as big blue squeaking Scrubbing Bubbles covered with jiggly cilia. I would describe Tuck and Abbey, but I can’t do them justice, except to say that if you turn your back and walk away from Abbey, you’ll never do it again. More info in the form of photos will be provided at a later date.
Ernest and William hit the jackpot. They received fancy sequined mice and a variety of balls, most with noisemakers–jingle, rattle, clack–inside. In little more than twenty-four hours, half the balls have disappeared.
William and Ernest have always found it convenient to store toys under the bed for spontaneous midnight romps. By morning, I may know where they’ve hidden these.
Toy basketChristmas Eve giftGift basketCautionary measure
Christmas Day
SnufflingTrying out new doormat (itchy)AssemblingKibitzingMore assemblingStill assemblingStill kibitzingExaminingAdmiringCharred cheese toastGreek yogurt with scruffy sections of clementineMessing with Texas (aka litter)Cleaning upWatching the clock
The rest of the story: David and I watched the clock for twenty minutes and then headed for the nearest movie theater to see Hitchcock. Of the seven viewers, six lasted to the end of the movie. One bailed out early. He looked too young to know who Alfred Hitchcock was. If he’d stayed, he’d have seen a pretty good show.
Tuesday marked my first visit a movie theater on Christmas Day. For my first four or five decades, my mother’s family clumped together every Christmas, singing carols, tearing into packages, eating too much, laughing, watching my grandmother try out a toy in the living room accompanied by protests that we kids had to play with them out by the garage.
But time passes and things change, and now David and I are the family. Our holiday was quiet. Since we’ve been married, I’ve cooked Christmas turkey, duck, Cornish hens, and goose, the last in homage to the Cratchit family. The experience of parboiling a goose prompted me to give up the pretense of enjoying domesticity. After the movie, we went to a Chinese restaurant, where the scales fell from my eyes. Everybody in Austin was at the Asian Lion, most of them queued up in front of David and me. But the chicken and green beans made the wait worthwhile. I came away feeling no guilt for breaking with tradition.
That wasn’t the first time I stepped out of my comfort zone around the holiday. Our first Christmas together, David and I spent Christmas Eve night in Cuidad Acuna, across the Rio Grande from Del Rio, Texas. It was cold. David managed to turn off the hotel room heater the wrong way, and it refused to come back on when needed.
He had originally wanted to spend Christmas in San Miguel de Allende, but I knew we would be beset by banditos or federales and wouldn’t get home for New Year’s, so he settled for Acuna. I should have kept my mouth shut. I didn’t realize at the time that David knows what he’s doing, and he has no intention of walking into danger. But the moment has passed, and now I’ll probably never get to see the church that I’m told looks like a birthday cake.
Come to think of it, there was an atmosphere of anxiety during the trip. That was the Christmas Osama bin Laden had threatened to attack the U. S. At that time, I was oblivious to the possibilities (as were most of us before 2001), and focused on eating tacos Tapatios, tacos pastor, and tacos barbacoa, and on using as much of my thirty-year-old Spanish as I remembered, which consisted mostly of saying to David things like, “Como se llama soap?”
Anxiety arose on the way out of the country. A lot of traffic goes across the International Bridge every day, and pre-9/11 it seemed a mere formality. But, showing my drivers license to the guard, I remembered that this weekend, authorities were on alert. The guard asked where we were from. David, with his lawyerly background, answered the question he was asked:”Austin.” The guard looked a me, and my mind shattered: I was from Austin, well, I’d driven from Austin, but I lived in Fentress, but I was born in Luling…” I forgot to mention three years in the dormitory in San Marcos.
The guard gave me a l-o-n-g, speculative stare. I looked him straight in the eye. Finally, he nodded us through. I resumed breathing. I’m sure he’d concluded that if I had a secret, it would have tumbled out by then.
Well. I started out to say we had a good Christmas, and I wind up nearly eight hundred words later trying to get back across the Mexican border. But it’s a pleasant memory, right down to my bare feet on that cold, cold tile, so I’m glad I allowed myself to meander.
Several readers have commented about Ernest’s eyes in the Halloween post, so I will clarify: their evil glow was merely the reflection of late-night lamplight.
Similar to the eyes of a wild animal caught in the headlights on a dark, deserted highway.
But there’s nothing wild about Ernest. He generally looks like this:
Or this:
That trick of light is the scariest thing about him. He’s three years old, and when he hears a knock on the door, he still runs upstairs and crawls under the bed.
We’re proud of the recent strides he’s made. After hiding from guests for over a year, he’s started prancing downstairs, snuffling shoes, and jumping into the lap of one human per evening. We thought at first he wanted make friends. It finally dawned on us that he always zeroes in on the person sitting in the recliner. That’s my chair. He considers it his chair. I am allowed to sit there, but he wants strangers evicted.
Speaking of scary, the most frightening thing in our house is William in repose. Because this snuggly strawberry blond is a canny creature, sharp and shrewd, possessed of a sly wit and a subtle intellect. William doesn’t sleep. He schemes.
Last night, while I was working–aka playing Bookworm–William jumped into my lap. Fortunately, the camera was within reach, so I was able to document the adjustments he made searching for the perfect position of repose.
Note on Position #1: What looks like a spot of mange near his tail is merely the result of being rubbed too hard, too often, in the same place. He approves mightily of the petting, but I’m afraid to withstand even a Texas winter, he will require a pair of pantaloons.
Position #1: Kitty plants posterior firmly on my chest.Position #2: Kitty drapes torso across keyboard.
Position #3: Kitty shifts from right to left.
Position #4: Kitty discovers burning tiles.
Position #5: Kitty settles into state of companionable repose.
We got the official word today: William weighs nearly 19 pounds. To my sorrow, the veterinarian said he’s not overweight–he’s just enormous.
Español: Rudolf Nureyev, gran bailarín ruso, haciendo un “Entrechat l´air” (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I’m sorry because I had hoped she would put him on a diet, reduce him by two or three pounds, and thus save me several visits to the massage therapist. Lugging his carrier from house to car and from car to receptionist’s desk has more than once resulted in parts of my sacroiliac going AWOL.
Quasimodo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
It happens every time we board them: We stuff the cats into their crates. David carries Ernest; I carry William. Four hours later, changing planes in Atlanta (or Charlotte or Chicago or Houston or New York City or Seattle), David hoofs it down the concourse like a cross between Rudolph Nureyev and Roger Bannister, and I limp along twenty yards behind, Quasimodo dragging a carry-on.
And since William has been pronounced a perfect 10, so I will continue.
When I left him at the vet’s this morning, I wasn’t convinced he was healthy. He’d had a minor tummy problem, one the Internet had assured us was probably nothing to worry about. But when it’s your kid, or your cat, you worry anyway, at least a little.
The doctor, however, agreed with the Internet. The cause of his ailment isn’t clear, but it falls under the heading of “Sometimes Cats Do That.” We hauled him home. He’s happy to be back with Ernest and has said he might someday forgive me.
We also hauled antibiotic (1/4 tablet, twice daily, use a syringe to keep fingers out of danger), oral paste (1 dose twice daily, wait 30 minutes after administering antibiotic, just push it through his teeth), and a week’s worth of dry and canned catfood (gastroenteric). Both cats will eat the food. There’s no way we can separate them at dinner time, which lasts 24 hours.
William was a gentleman while in the examining room, which is more than I can say for him at the beginning of the expedition. He squalled from door to door and kept up the screeching even after being deposited in the vet’s reception room next to a pit bull awaiting vaccination. When Ernest sees a dog, he clams up and concentrates on making himself invisible. William says All Places Are Alike to Him, and if the dog objects to his caterwauling, he can just get over it. That’s the same message he gave me when I tried to shush him.
The vet asked one question that still hangs between David and me, unanswered: “Has William been under any stress?”
We discussed it over dinner at the Magnolia. David has been under stress. Ernest has been under stress (Ernest has an overly active fight-or-flight response). I have been under such stress that I couldn’t even put a meal on the table this evening.
But stress and William don’t move in the same circles.
Except once. Less than a week after William became part of our family, Ernest developed a severe gastrointestinal upset and had to stay at the hospital. The next morning, William stopped eating (unheard of), ran a high fever, and became lethargic. He lay unmoving in my lap. Almost catatonic, no pun intended. I raced him to the vet. She checked him out and then put him in the cage with Ernest.
Six hours later, when I called for an update, William’s temperature was normal and he was “eating like a horse.” All better. He just needed his brother.
But for the past three years, William has been serene. He’s not reactive. At times I wonder whether he even has reflexes.
Only two stimuli energize him: his partner in crime, and his toys.
At present, William lies across the room from me, his back turned. He knows he’s supposed to swallow 1/4 tablet before bedtime. He remembers I’m going to push oral paste through his teeth. He knows he’s nowhere near critical condition. He knows I know it.
He’s waiting me out, hoping I lose my nerve.
Frankly, my dear, his plan is working. I’m going to bed.
And as for the inevitable showdown, I’ll think about it tomorrow.
*****
Note: I shan’t really continue lugging William to the kennel. In future, I have dibs on Ernest. He weighs in at 16 pounds.
Every Christmas, David gives me a gift commemorating our visit to the UK ten years ago. The latest was a small figurine of the Queen, which resides on the lamp table beside my chair. The Queen seems comfortable there, upright, smiling yet dignified, never the focus of unseemly familiarity.
The Queen
Yesterday, though, returning from my critique group meeting, I found her toppled over and lying supine on the marble table top, a position she would not have assumed voluntarily. Then, this evening I caught Ernest standing on the back of the couch, his front paws on the table edge, snuffling her glove.
I shooed him down, but he refused to leave.
Ernest not leaving
Instead, he settled on the couch and gazed up at her, his green eyes wide.
It took just a moment to discover the reason for his interest.
Ernest and the Queen
On top of the Queen’s handbag is a solar panel. In the lamplight, it prompts her to move her hand at the wrist, back and forth, in a royal wave.
Last week, Ernest claimed the chair I consider mine. When I got out, he jumped in. When I wanted to sit down, I had to wrestle him out. That’s why the photo shows Ernest lying in the chair.
The laptop is in the chair because one night several months ago, when the laptop was sitting on the floor beside the chair, its usual resting place, Ernest chewed through the cable running from the laptop to the fan beneath. The cable was hardwired, so I had to buy a new fan. The next night Ernest chewed through the cable running to the new fan. Fortunately, that cable was replaceable.
Ernest had never shown interest in any of the cables decorating our home, and he’d been peacefully coexisting with the fan cable for two years. I don’t know why he snapped.
I’ve now treated all wires and cables with dishwashing soap.
Anyway, since Ernest’s oral fixation got the best of him, the laptop has spent its nights in the chair, covered by a pillow. William sometimes sleeps on the pillow. On the day I took the photo, Ernest took possession of the chair before the laptop was tucked in.
That’s why Ernest is lying on the laptop.
While we’re on the topic, here’s a picture of the stationary bicycle I bought in January. At Academy. Brand new.
(William, I fear, though he’s neither gnawer nor clawer, may not be entirely innocent in this matter.)
When I discovered the bike’s new look, I wasn’t pleased. I’ve managed to convince myself, however, that function is more important than form. And form can be altered.
I could knit the bike a sweater. And buy Ernest a straightjacket.*
*
*I can hear readers saying, “What is wrong with this woman? Why does she put up with this?” For three reasons: 1. I love the cats, even Ernest. 2. They’re not generally destructive–don’t tear up carpets, baseboards, cabinet doors, so far haven’t broken any china (although I once came upon William on the verge of pushing the salt shaker off the table, so china isn’t a slam dunk,) and spend most days sleeping and being cute. 3. I don’t want a divorce.
The first screening of “Invisible Men Invade Earth” was an unqualified success.
I should say the first two screenings.
David’s video was scheduled to run at 7:00 p.m. However, due to the enthusiasm of the folks operating the projector, it began at 6:47, right after the Doc Bloc had finished.
Most of the audience had left the theater for the break, so very few saw “Invisible Men.” Just in time, however, the manager appeared and announced the mistake. And “Invisible Men” ran again at the official time.
Now about the unqualified success: The audience laughed. Those who saw it the first time returned after the break telling others, “It’s about a space ship and aliens and cats.” Then they watched and laughed again. So did newcomers.
I don’t know what David learned from the experience, but here’s what I took away from it: When making videos, cast cats in starring roles. Viewers laugh at cats, even when said cats do nothing but lie around being cats.
Viewers laughed at David’s script, too. One line in particular drew a roar. It elicited the same response during a showing for friends in our living room.
The laughter of friends is good.
But when strangers laugh, you know you’ve done something right.
And if David doesn’t know that, something is radically wrong. Because Mrs. Producer Davis has informed him of the fact at least ten times this evening alone.
“Ever had one of those days that no matter how hard you try, you screw up everything you do?”
My niece posted that on Facebook tonight.
As soon as I’d read it, rice pudding popped into my head.
Back in the olden days, my high school faculty had frequent potluck lunches.
Having forgotten how to cook, and determined not to relearn, I always had trouble thinking of a contribution that wouldn’t tax my vestigial skills. That was before I discovered fruit salad (chop up fresh fruit, put in bowl, grab spoon, take to work) or my favorite, paper plates. I thought I had to turn on the oven.
So the day the sign-up sheet read “Southern Food,” I despaired. Southern food, by my definition, comprises fried chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy, sweet potatoes, rice, gravy, collard greens, black-eyed peas, peach cobbler, chicken and dumplings, peach ice cream, gravy…Nothing I was interested in tackling. Then rice pudding came to mind.
(I think it’s really rice custard, but rice pudding is what my mother called it, so pudding it stays.)
I didn’t have a recipe, but I didn’t need one. Boil rice, drain, and pour into flat Pyrex or CorningWare baking dish. Beat eggs, milk, sugar, and vanilla, and pour over rice. Sprinkle with cinnamon. Set dish into shallow pan filled with water. Bake until case knife blade inserted into middle of pudding comes out clean.
I’d seen it done a thousand times. Whenever rice was left over after a meal, Mother made rice pudding.
Granted, some of the details had escaped me. Like how many eggs and how much sugar, milk, and vanilla. And whether vanilla was an ingredient at all—I might have rice pudding confused with homemade ice cream custard, to which Mother sometimes forgot to add the vanilla, but no one cared. And at what temperature to set the oven.
Minor details.
I set to work boiling and beating. I slid a large, square, low-sided pan into the oven, filled it with a half-inch of water, and closed the oven door. Then I set the CorningWare dish on the kitchen table, near the oven, and poured in the mixture of pre-rice pudding.
As usual, I had made almost more than the dish would hold. Sweet, eggy milk lapped at the sides. The CorningWare was heavy, and its contents made it heavier. I steeled myself for the task of getting it into the oven without slopping liquid onto the floor.
I turned and opened the oven. I turned back around for the dish.
That’s when I saw Christabel.
Christabel LaMotte, named for the poet in A. S. Byatt’s Possession, was a big, black, velvety, green-eyed hussy of a cat. She was heavy as lead and built like Jello. She had a quick intellect and a healthy sense of entitlement. And she was sitting on the floor, eyes trained on the edge of the table, calculating the distance, the angle, the thrust needed to launch her to that higher plane.
“Don’t. You. Dare.”
Before I got to dare, she had achieved liftoff. But she hadn’t factored in the dishes sitting just inside the edge. Landing off balance, she belly-flopped into the milky mess. Surprised, she scrambled off the other side of the table and ran out of the kitchen and down the hall, through a bedroom, and into the living room. I ran right behind, yelling for her to stop.
I caught her in the dining room, carried her back to the kitchen, closed both doors, set her down, and said, “Bathe!”
Then I repaired to the living room, where I flopped into a rocking chair, listened to Dan Rather, and let milk, eggs, sugar, and a hint of vanilla dry up and stick to a length of long leaf pine and three rooms of carpet.
Mr. Rather having reminded me of why I should count my blessings, I returned to the kitchen to check on Christabel’s progress.
I found her sitting where I’d left her, in the same position, staring straight ahead, the same evil gleam in her eyes. The egg and sugar were where I’d left them, too.
I fetched a couple of damp wash cloths and a towel and joined her on the floor. She didn’t like the bath much more than she liked the goop, but she tolerated it.
After being scrubbed, Christabel went away to locate her misplaced dignity. I mopped up spilled gunk and contemplated my situation: I still didn’t have a Southern dish for the luncheon.
I did, however, have the makings of rice pudding. Right there on the table. The oven was hot. All I had to do was pick up at the point just before Christabel became airborne.
No one would know. The heat of the oven would kill any kitty germs floating around in there.
In the end, ethics won out. I scrapped it. Nearly a dozen eggs, a pile of sugar. A few black hairs, the extra-ethical reason to toss the stuff.
The next morning on the way to work, I ran by the grocery store and picked up a package of Oreos. Good Southern food.
Now. I started this piece with a question about a day spent getting everything wrong. Then I wrote about one culinary disaster. An English teacher reading this piece would say I got off the topic.
But you can believe me when I say that one instance of a cat landing in uncooked rice pudding is the equivalent of several days of screw-ups.
And speaking of rice pudding, I need to say something about the approximately 1000-word scene I wrote last week and then realized I couldn’t use. Several people commented about my willingness to scrap the scene.
What I didn’t mention is that the 1000 words, taken as a whole, were pretty bad. They were first-draft, just-get-it-onto-the-page-quality words. They were rife with cat hair.
If I had revised and revised and revised, as I usually do while I’m drafting, and had turned them into much-better-than-first-draft-quality words, I wouldn’t have been so blasé about the affair.
I would have scrapped them, though. They weren’t right. They had to go.
But not very far. There’s a little file in my documents folder labeled Excisions. And even the scenes infected with kitty germs get tucked away there. I never know when they might start looking good.
M. K. Waller 