Suzy Says

It’s raining a little more now than it was earlier today, and I was happy to see Henry curled up in his blanket on the couch when I closed the blinds for the evening. I wish he’d actually get under the blanket, but I guess having it at all is better than the way he spent the other winters before he had his faithful servant.

This morning, the air was just atomizing my face gently, like an Evian mister during a first class trip to France, when I ventured out to do some shopping. I didn’t realize how much I had overdone my mental provisions (the library) and physical ones (Safeway) until I started trudging up the hill towards home. My bags seemed to get heavier with every step, and the mile stretched before me. Was it getting darker? Would I be soaked to the skin before my arms fell off, or after?

As these gloomy thoughts drifted through my gloomy head, a man passed me with two dogs. I remarked on their beauty, which was considerable: one a long-legged lady, a grey and white Great Dane and the other a handsome lad, a black Lab/Shepherd mix. It turns out they are both rescue dogs, the female being fostered until a home can be found, and the male belongs to the man. We fell into a conversation, and he walked me most of the way home. My bags had magically become lighter along with the skies as all four of us walked companionably together. I hardly noticed them by the time we parted ways.

As I neared my house, I noticed a beautiful black cat sitting on a fence, gazing at me with huge, golden eyes. She stood (or sat) her ground (or fence) as I passed, telling her how lovely she was, though she clearly already knew this and accepted it as no more than her due.

It’s amazing how total strangers, human and animal, can really make your day. Even a rainy one.

I had a conference call at 6:00 this morning, so I staggered out of bed in the early morning darkness. As I made coffee and tried to remember the dream I had so summarily been yanked out of by the alarm clock’s shrill voice, I noticed that the screen door of the porch was flapping maniacally in the wind.

When the call was over and it was light enough to see outside, I went out and discovered that it was warm but very windy, much as it was that day back in November. Most of my laundry had been blown off its hangers* on the porch, and the doormat was crumpled up like a used Kleenex. Henry was watching the leaves fly around in the wind with apparent distaste. I propped the screen door open with a cinderblock and it has stayed that way all day, though as I write, the front door just slammed shut, either from the wind blowing in the back door, or a poltergeist. I wonder if these warm, wild days are our version of the Santa Anas that blow through SoCal this time of year.

It ended up being a record-breaking warm day, which I enjoyed as I strolled to Farmer Joe in my t-shirt and sandals (don’t worry, there were other clothes in between). As I walked home with my fuchsia Chico bag full of Petrale sole, broccoli, and brown rice for dinner, I enjoyed the warmth of the sun on my face and thought, “Can it really be the middle of January?”

*I don’t have a clothesline, so I hang up the clothes and drape them over chairs on the porch until they’re dry. Mostly because I’m too miserly to use the dryer, but partly because clothes last longer that way. As my brother observed, when you clean out the lint trap, “That’s your clothes in there!” In addition to minimizing my PG&E bill, I have at long last discovered the solution to the mystery of the missing sock. You know, the one that somehow disappears during the laundry process. Since I stopped using the dryer, I haven’t lost a single sock. So it really is your clothes in there!

Audrey and June watch Henry TV

It was an exceptionally beautiful day today. Clear blue skies, around 65 degrees (or 17, if you prefer – I always think Metric makes everything sound worse. Temperatures are colder, and distances longer). I had the doors and windows open most of the day, and it was nice to hear the drone of lawnmowers (not mine, though I really should do something about that grass before it starts raining again), the rush of cars on the freeway, the lonely hoot of a passing train. I still have them open, even though it’s nearly 6 in the evening and the sun just slipped into the Bay in a dazzle of pink and violet. I have noticed this past week that the sun is staying around a little later, instead of hastily packing up its things and dashing off at five, like a bored office worker.

The kittens love having the doors and window open. They can watch passing birds and people and smell the grass and flowers. They can keep a much better watch on Henry, too.

Ever since he moved onto the porch at the start of the winter’s rains, they have been fascinated. He’s like a Wii or something to them. They spend a lot of time watching him, from my desk (which can get crowded when I’m trying to work, but has the best Henry view), or the window in the kitchen. I’ll know if he moves from the couch, because the girls hit the floor and I hear their busy little feet running into the kitchen to watch him.

The past couple of days are the first ones this winter that have been warm enough to open the house, so it’s been very exciting for June and Audrey to have just a screen between them and Henry. It’s HD Henry TV!

Click clickety click click squeeeeak!

I open one eye.

Click clickety click click squeeeak!!

I open both eyes, remove my Marilyn sleep mask, and feel around for my glasses. Looking over at the window, I see June clawing at the glass, behind which Henry sits in oblivious glory on his couch. If you think nails on a blackboard are bad, try claws on glass first thing in the morning. Telling June to knock it off, I put on my amethyst velvet slippers with the embroidered toes and stumble out to the kitchen to make coffee.

On my way through the living room, I can’t help but notice that Audrey is batting away at the metal blinds, making them clang unnecessarily loudly, especially this early in the morning. I pause to pull the blinds up, giving her an unobstructed view and hopefully stopping batting practice. Instead, she reaches up to bat at the folded blinds, which of course have much better resonance.

While the coffee is brewing (hurry up!!), I reach into the refrigerator for the pink Brita water jug, and notice that the package of chicken I left to thaw overnight on top of the refrigerator has been tampered with. On closer inspection, it appeared that the kittens had decided to see if it was thawed yet, and then to do some serious quality control. I had foolishly thought they couldn’t get up there. Sighing, I put the mangled poultry into the refrigerator, which I hope the cats still can’t open.

Once caffeinated, I fed the naughty kittens and went out to the porch to feed Henry.

Henry wasn’t there, but he’d left me a lovely parting gift.

A very mysterious parting gift.

Both his bowls were empty of everything other than strange black dirt. The plastic storage bin where I keep his food was lying empty at the bottom of the stairs, but the lid sat quietly on the porch. Not only was it full of food, it also contained the “I (heart) NY” mug I use to measure the food, lying on its side with food still in it. How he did this is completely beyond me.

Wonder what they have in store for me tomorrow?

I finally put the tree away under the house this morning, after, appropriately enough, laying the wreath on top of the box. Henry was the only mourner as I interred the white box under the house. Rest in pieces, shiny tree. Maybe I’ll see you in the hereafter.

As I write, I’m eating a green apple Jolly Rancher from my Christmas stocking. Given that Twelfth Night is upon us, I’d better stop acting as if it’s still the holidays and perfectly acceptable to eat candy all day, especially in the morning. I should probably take off the remnants of sparkly polish Jessica applied to my nails on Christmas Day, too. But if I do, the fun is officially over.

Maybe I’ll wait until all my candy is gone.

I already took the Christmas tree down, and I already miss it.

I used to wonder what was the matter with those people whose trees were at the curb the day after Christmas. Now I know: they have kittens.

Mine started their siege as soon as the battle of setting up the tree was finally over. They merrily chased the string of lights as I wove it through the branches. They relentlessly hunted the gorgeous glass peacocks (with real feather tails!) without a license. What was I thinking? If the cats live to be 22, as a friend’s cat did, they’d still be after those birds. I still regret their gorgeousness hidden away in a box, possibly forever, when they should be delighting Me and passers-by on an annual basis.

~sigh~

The entire time the tree was up, minus nap time, was occupied with pouncing on the tree, chewing on the tree, trying (and succeeding) in pulling the tree over, jumping on it, and driving Suzy to despair. Armed with a plant mister, I squirted them with water during the tree attacks, which diverted them temporarily, but only temporarily. Yelling at the cats and squirting them made me so sad that I just packed it all up, even though everyone knows that packing up the tree before Twelfth Night is bad luck. And I did want one more night with the tree sparkling and the candles in the fireplace flickering, but being a grown-up is one big disappointment, and you’d think I’d be used to it by now.

Henry fled as I dragged up the heavy trap door in the floor of the porch where he was comfortably ensconced on the couch. I have noticed that cats, quite reasonably, frown on any kind of housework-related disruption to their otherwise civilized lives. I got the box out, and dismantled the tree far more quickly than I had assembled it, though the kittens’ participation was equally enthusiastic on both occasions. June even jumped into the box of tree parts for one last desperate chew.

By the time I was finished, I couldn’t face the perilous journey under the house in semi-darkness, so I left the box on the Henry-vacated porch, where it remains to this day. After I put the box outside, I had to vacuum up tree residue, which made the kittens flee in terror of housework. They’ll have to think of other ways to drive me crazy, and I have total confidence in their abilities. Henry has returned to his comfortable porch and seems to have forgiven me, since he let me pet him two days in a row when I fed him (my only petting opportunity).

I’m still clinging to my wreath for now.

In which our heroine attempts to adjust to life in exile.

January: Cool Cornell. Sharks and Energy Domes. Film Noir Fabulosity.

February: Water bill weirdness.

March: Long-awaited license plates.

April: Bad day. Great week. Blog birthday (7!). Breaking and entering. The beginning of the Florida Fiasco.

May: Middle and end of the Florida fiasco.

June: Hello, Henry. Adieu, Margaret. Wildfires.

July: Kittens’ first birthday. Stevie Wonder. Steely Dan. Ant invasion. The mystery fire.

August: Birth of the Cool. Trip to the country.

September: Mr. Wilson. County Fair. Car Trouble.

October: Pretty Pasadena. Political Pumpkin.

November: No Neil Young. Elating Election.

December: Christmas tree carnage. Hail storm. Happy holidays!

And as the old year passes, it takes some beauty and style with it: Paul Newman, Bettie Page, Cyd Charisse, Charlton Heston, Eartha Kitt. Evelyn Keyes, whose performance I enjoyed so much during the Noir Festival (and in that little flick, Gone with the Wind). Dorian Leigh, sister of the glamorous Suzy Parker – the original supermodels back in the 1940s. The tragically young and tremendously talented Heath Ledger. Yves St-Laurent, who left the world a chicer place (and an exhibit of whose clothes I’m hoping to see soon at the De Young Museum). Isaac Hayes, Odetta, Levi Stubbs of the Four Tops, and Miriam Makeba. Bill Melendez, who animated all those classic Charlie Brown cartoons we love so much, especially at the holidays. George Carlin and Bernie Mac. They will all be missed. And Mr. Blackwell is now up there to critique them (and us!) all!

My brother came over to my sister’s house before I left and took the helm at the stove, making pancakes with the huckleberries that didn’t fit into the Christmas pie. Just add pure maple syrup and leftover apple wood smoked ham, and you have the real breakfast of champions!

While we ate, he told us that he had just returned from a call to a chimney fire. The directions weren’t very useful, so dispatch called the guy to ask for clarification – do you live on Road A or Road B? – and the guy couldn’t, or wouldn’t, answer. When the firemen finally found him and the remains of the fire (apparently, about 90% of chimney fires are contained by the time firemen get there, but they still have to go), he actually yelled at them for taking so long. Can you believe it? I think I know someone who got some coal in his stocking this year.

The sun was sunny, and the trip home uneventful, other than a disagreement between my car’s side mirror and a tree (which the tree won, necessitating an immediate trip to Kragen to avoid a ticket for driving while mirrorless) and a mysterious slowdown on the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge, which allowed me to admire the San Francisco skyline for quite a long time. When the cars finally speeded up again, it was for no particular reason: no visible construction, accidents, or anything like that. Still, it was much better than the trip out. Note to Self: do not attempt to go anywhere on Christmas Eve unless you’re Santa.

When I got home, the kittens came running to the door. I was as happy to see them as they were to see me. It’s embarrassing how much I miss them when I’m away, no matter how much fun I’m having. The tree, on the other hand, looked quite dejected, leaning against the window as if sobbing quietly, with one of its branches amputated and halfway across the room.

Henry also seemed to be glad I was home, even though he had lots of food and water left. He even let me pet him before settling back onto the couch.

It’s good to be home, and to have happy new Christmas memories.

This morning’s arrest…

…was right outside my window. I was getting ready to go and visit Henry in his new and improved quarters on the back porch when I heard the siren. It stopped right outside my house, as you can see from the photo above.

Neither rain nor hail nor policemen can keep me from my appointed task, so I put on my coat and went out the front door. I no longer go out the back door when feeding Henry, since it scares him and he runs away. When I approach from the porch door, he either comes to meet me or stays on his couch and mews while I fill his dishes and talk to him about nothing.

Going out the front door also gave me an opportunity to see what all the fuss was about. One cop was handcuffing the guy, who seemed to be perched on a kid’s bike, and the other was doing something in the car. The cold morning air was full of incomprehensible radio sounds. I can’t imagine what kind of law you can be breaking, or trying to escape from, on a kiddie bike, but there you have it.

When my sister was briefly here last week, she said that she pretty much expected to see Henry in the house one of these days. I laughed this off, but she pointed out that first he was roaming around in the backyard, then he was under the porch, then he was on the porch. Clearly he was moving closer all the time. And that’s not even mentioning the bed and tent I have acquired for him, and accessorizing the couch on the porch with a fleece blanket. This morning, I attempted to cover him up and was rewarded with a couple of impressive scratches. Ah, gratitude!

I have to admit that the other day I had the back door open and he was peering through the screen door and talking away. I couldn’t help thinking about opening the door and letting him in, though I imagine carnage would ensue and The Beautiful June Bug’s little pink nose would be put severely out of joint. And I don’t see how I could let him out while keeping the girls inside…

My sister may, as usual, be right.

I went outside this morning to leave offerings for Grey Cat, and was astonished to see a hearse speeding down my street, its tires squealing as it went around the corner. A speeding hearse is a strange sight indeed.

About a week ago, I started leaving food and water under the porch for Grey Cat, a handsome stray who often suns himself on my garage roof. It occurred to me that he might be having a hard time finding water now that the winter rains are over and we might have to start rationing soon. And if I’m leaving water, why not food?

I wasn’t sure if he was the one emptying out the bowls, but this morning, I saw his tail slipping under the porch, and the kittens watched carefully. Eventually, he emerged and had a bath, which made me happy. I hope that eventually I can get close enough to pet him and maybe even get him to the vet for a check-up and spay/neuter. He can be my outside cat. I should think of a better name than Grey Cat, though.

I should also get packing for this Florida thing. I’m hoping to get by with carry-on, since I get to Tampa at 9 pm and then have an hour’s drive to the resort where the conference is being held. Apparently they are going to send a car for me, which is the most exciting part of the trip so far. I’ve always wanted to be one of those people who are met at the airport by a chauffeur holding a sign. I can pretend to be a movie star!

Yesterday, I printed out the agenda, and it is disturbingly full of cocktails and assorted social events. As you all know by now, I am by no means cocktail-averse, but I have never liked drinking with coworkers. I don’t know what’s worse: seeing your boss tipsy, or having him/her experience your alcohol (in)tolerance. At my old job, there was a guy who got so tanked at our yearly conference that he peed in the bar manager’s office, mistaking it for the bathroom. More than a decade later, I still remember this event, and I’m not the only one, since it came up every year at annual conference time.

So I think I’ll stick to soda water and avoid disgracing myself any further than I already will by not being an actual grown-up. If anyone asks me about it, I’ll get all tragic and murmur “rehab” and “recovery” and see how embarrassed they get.

June searching for Santa, Christmas Eve.

You will be relieved to learn that I can now relieve Self without fear of turning my lawn (still unmowed) into a toxic waste dump. I finally reached the landlord and she in turn reached the Roto Rooter guy. He loomed into view on a stormy day (my house has a big front window and the front door is mostly glass, so visitors just appear, practically in the living room), wearing big rubber gloves and a rain slicker, as popularized in horror movies. But there was nothing horrifying about him, except his job. He fixed the vintage plumbing and aftermath in the pouring rain. I felt really sorry for him, even though he kept saying things like “sanitary products”. ~shudder~

Although The Beautiful June Bug looks like her mother, I didn’t want her to act like her and end up a pregnant teenage runaway, so a trip to the vet was in order. Fortunately, there is a vet nearby with excellent accreditations and a kindly staff. I still nearly cried when I left her there. They kept her overnight, and kept me posted on her progress. I couldn’t wait to pick her up the next day, and beamed with pride when they complimented her beauty and good manners. June is so stoic and brave and never complains, even when stuffed into a carrier for twelve hours at a time.

The Adorable Audrey Grey, on the other hand, complains enough for two cats, and then some. She takes after me. She is also precocious, and has decided she’s ready to date, though she’s not even 6 months old yet. Like most parents, I disagree on this point. She may have her eye on the stray grey cat who lounges on the garage roof, the cat equivalent of a leather-clad, tattooed and pierced older guy on a motorcycle. Of course she wants to go out with him.

Her escape attempts have increased along with her demands to go out and have fun like all the other kittens. Today she actually climbed up the chimney, which is fortunately blocked. Thankfully, it’s her turn at the vet’s tomorrow, and not a moment too soon.

These kittens today.

I didn’t do a thing for Christmas. The tree stayed in its box, the door remained unwreathed, presents unbought. I spent the whole day in my pajamas, reading the new Sue Grafton. In the evening, I lit the candles in the fireplace and sipped champagne. It was the most peaceful Christmas I’ve had in a long time.

Hope yours was, too.