Tales from the Shark Tank

My dad had an appointment with his surgeon/ oncologist this morning to discuss further treatment options. Unfortunately, as sometimes happens, Dad was “indisposed” when it was time to go and somewhat beyond. So….

Mom went to his doctor’s appointment. Without him.

Cloud got the last of her kitten-booster vaccines this morning. The vet says she’s incredibly healthy, which pleases me. (His pettings and obvious admiration pleased her.)

Of course they weighed her as part of the process. At 5 1/2 months old, she weighs 7 pounds, a far cry from the pound and a bit scrap of fur that mewed at the door in July. She’s also already bigger than Sophia, our mom-cat, was when she arrived early in 2006, full-grown and pregnant. I suspect the primary difference is the nutrition factor. That’s much the same, whether for cat or kid.

I was teaching high school Civics, Government and Geography today. Most of the kids were juniors and seniors, and as is usual, I got into conversations with them on various topics.

Come lunch time, I was going down the hall, walking stick in hand because I’ve learned that attempting to rush the healing of a sprained knee only results in having trouble for a longer time, when a little group of kids called out to me. I went over, to find half a dozen seniors in a clump, with a very earnest young woman at the front. “We just wanted to tell you” she said, smiling “that you’re the tightest lady we’ve met.” It was very clearly meant as a compliment, so I smiled back and thanked them.

Then I went and found one of the regular teachers and asked for a translation, the simple fact being that I had not the least idea what she’d really said to me. Turns out it’s the current superlative.

It has been borne in upon me that I don’t speak teen anymore. I guess that makes me officially middle-aged.

I can tell that cold and virus season is picking up speed. I’m getting 2 and 3 calls to substitute every day. It’s nice to be popular.

Our kitten is an intelligent little girl for someone with a brain the size of a walnut. She has figured out that humans gathering stuff up, like a backpack or a purse, means that the door will be opened and that the humans thus encumbered will not be able to catch a small cat on mischief bent if she is sufficiently fleet of paw. She has also figured out that when primate-mommy has a stick in one hand, she isn’t moving very fast.

Primate-mommy, otherwise known as your humble chronicler, sprained her knee the other day. It’s not bad, as such things go. The first day was pretty miserable, but now its down to a dull mutter so long as I don’t try to go too fast or do something stupid like leave my walking stick behind. I got the thing as a prop for my medieval reenacting, but it also serves admirably as a prop for me. The only problem comes when I wear my favorite fall coat, which happens to be a silver-grey cape – makes me look like an escapee from a Lord of the Rings party. Be that as it may, I’ve been hobbling around with that thing, and the cats have figured out both that I can’t chase anybody very effectively and that keeping tails out of my path is a Good Idea(tm). Cloud, in particular, has made good use of this observation.

So this morning, the door opened to let J. catch the school bus, and even as I said “watch the cat doesn’t get out”, she zipped past my husband’s ankles in a mad dash for Freedom and the Land of Intriguing Smells known as our yard. Our kid, who has helped catch her in her prior escape attempts, had to get on the bus. So my husband headed out the door to catch our little Avatar of Mischief, muttering “I am no d**n good at this…..”

Prior recaptures have generally required at least two people so we can bracket her. I figured even if I couldn’t run (now there’s an understatement) I could move around to her other side and assist at least that much. So my husband came up on one side, and I on the other. She ran toward me, then zig-zagged a little and shot past, headed for the barn. There she paused to sniff at the door. She glanced up at me, saw me moving at a rate normally reserved for things with orange triangles on the backs of them, and dismissed me, keeping her eye on my husband. So I kept moving, slowly and quietly, and just as slowly and quietly bent down, slipping a hand under her. Suddenly that hand scooped, and she found herself deprived of traction entirely as all four paws left the ground. The look she gave me was very easy to translate, something along the lines of “Mommy! No fair!” as I carried her to the house, asking beloved husband to open the door because one hand was full of kitten and the other of cane. Or, as my husband put it before he headed off to work, “Opposable thumbs and treachery have once again beat youth and enthusiasm.”

So will the ability to plan. There is a new rule in the house now. Before people leave, someone has to be holding the kitten. Today, as the only person home, I held her in one hand while putting my things on the step outside – then bent down and tossed her gently into the dining room before quickly shutting the door.

My son’s fourth grade class put together a little “newspaper”, which he brought home to show us. His contribution was so characteristic that I would have known who wrote it even without the byline.

Northern Weather Report.
What happens when you add snow plus low temperatures? You get winter! Snow’s falling in the northern Great Lakes. Lows are in the 20s and 30s and highs in the 40s. Bundle up! Winter’s coming!
J.D., age 10

We warned our son several times that if he left something with small pieces out when he was done playing with it, it might quite possibly become a kitten toy. That often leads to demolition accompanied by the scattering of the aforementioned small pieces, which our boychick finds distressing. (It’s probably as well he’s never had a younger sibling, but I digress.) Having issued the warning, we let him deal with the consequences of failing to heed for himself.

So he left a Lego structure half completed in the middle of the floor while he bounced off to do something else. Sure enough, he came back about an hour later to find that a foundation and two walls remained of his structure, and that his entire carefully laid out collection of necessary remaining pieces had lost all semblance of organization. He got angry and frustrated, demanding to be told how this could have happened. I pointed out that we had warned him of the potential, and that having failed to take the precaution of picking up he should not expect sympathy from me.

My parental straight face failed me when he whirled around, pointed to the youngest member of the feline contingent, and yelled “Cloud, you, you, you….KITTENIZER!”

Someone on LiveJournal has come up with an idea for “Pretend to be a Time Traveler” day. The general notion is to costume yourself and pretend to be someone from either future or past dropped into current society. It sounds kind of fun, but more like “fun to watch” than “fun to do”. It’s not that I’m settling down a bit as I near my half-century, though. I’d have enjoyed creating a character but would never have had the nerve to actually do it in public, or at least not unless I was part of a large group.

I had a professor in college who gave us an assignment somewhat along this line, though. He said we could choose three items from our current closet, and one object. Then we were to tell where and when we would be landing as time travelers from the mid 20th c., what we were wearing and what we would do to make a place for ourselves in the society, preferably without being denounced as witches. (Lower case “w”, not upper case; neo-pagan Witches, as a religion, are a 20th c. invention.)

Now, I’ve been doing medieval reenacting since my mid teens, so my closet was about half-and-half everyday clothing and 12th c. Saxon. So I chose a light unbleached muslin underdress, a green linen overdress, and my (fake) fur lined wool cloak, along with the appropriate accessories – belt, small belt knife (stainless steel, of course), veil, amber and pearl necklace, and so forth. My “object” was a monster herbal that gave medicinal uses of several hundred different herbs along with instructions for preparation and use. Then I set myself down in the Jewish Quarter of York in the early 13th century, where I would have only a minimal language barrier, and set myself up as a midwife.

My professor gave me back my paper and told me to rewrite it, saying that while he knew I sewed, he had specified that I had to choose garments currently in my closet. I thanked him, took it, and went off to my next class. The next day I handed it back to him unchanged – but I was wearing the garments described, though I’d left the knife and veil off for practical reasons. Not only that, but it was clear that they’d been worn before, as they had a few small stains and had clearly been washed more than once. I have to give the man credit; he paused, stared a moment, and then burst out laughing, finally shaking his head and saying that the joke was on him for forgetting about the Society for Creative Anachronism. I also got an “A” on the assignment.

Every so often, my husband or I will look at all the things that need to be done, look at the other and say “I’m sorry. I need an “arrrrh” day.” In the household shorthand, that’s a day to be aimless, go nowhere and do nothing that requires thought or much energy.

I have noticed that going to a con is good for the soul, but invariably leaves me feeling the need of an “arrrh” day or three. Some of that is that the nature of cons is that sleep seems optional. There’s pretty much always something interesting going on. You can find a good conversation or a music circle more easily at 3:00 a.m. than at 8:00. Indeed, if you’re up at 8:00 a.m. you may well have all the privacy you could ever hope for, and certainly there will be no line for breakfast at the hotel restaurant. Music conventions are, if anything, worse for that than regular science fiction conventions.

This last was a music con, and did nothing to dispel the reputation. I had a wonderful time; got to hear some really excellent musicians, talk to some people I care tremendously about that we see no other time, and even sing a little myself…solo, not just harmony. For whatever reason, I’ve had a hard time bringing myself to open my mouth for years now. That’s very odd, because I have no doubts of my singing abilities, but there it is. Some of it is that one signals a desire to sing by playing an intro on an instrument, like a guitar, and I no longer carry one, my “instrument” of choice being my voice. So I can’t comply with that convention, and no one has yet worked out anything for an a cappela singer that isn’t horribly awkward. But some of it is that these are singers well known in that community, and I’m simply nervous. I don’t know why I should be; there isn’t a more supportive bunch. Whatever; this time I didn’t just think about doing it, I did it. And having done it once, perhaps I will do it again.

I did get one comment from a woman whom I shared an apartment with, back when I was in law school, whom as happened was the one who introduced me to this type of music. It was that she’d forgotten just how much of a soprano I was. She said she was thinking that no human being could hit the note that came next, and wondering how I was going to modify the song – and then I hit it solidly. We shared a hotel room with her and her 15 year old daughter, which was fun. It’s interesting to see the teenager, especially as I remember her mother as an only slightly older teen.

But once we were in the car to come home, and the stimulus of company was gone, exhaustion took over. I slept pretty much the whole way home, and have done more sleeping during this week since. But if the body is tired and in need of an “arrrrh” day, the spirit is much relaxed. OVFF happens once a year. Sleep can happen any time.