Tag Archives: jitterbug blues
Plot Twist
The great thing about having rheumatoid arthritis is that I learn something new–almost every day.
Today, for example, I learned that it is possible to get isolated fever in the heel of one foot and the ball of another at the same time. I also learned that my Fred Flintstone feet suddenly have more curves than Marilyn Monroe.
Whoda thunk it?
I can’t walk today. I’m sort of dragging myself around only for mandatory things such as coffee and voiding coffee.
Important things.
So: Plot twist. No work for me today, even though I have piles of stuff to-do sitting on my desk. No work for me even though I have calls to make, people to chase down, lists to put together, things to type, and supplies to order. No shopping for me even though I’m dangerously near to being out of coffee and coffee creamer. These are two things that, along with dog food and cat food, I MUST, MUST, MUST always have in the house. Toilet paper, I’ve discovered, is definitely desired, but not mandatory since, in a pinch, other paper products can fill its space.
But coffee? Coffee creamer?
There are no substitutes.
Since I can’t do housework today (oh, darn), I can at least spend some time in the cat’s head again. The novel, while not exactly “ticking along,” is definitely moving along. Slowly. As if it were moving toward coffee despite its best intentions to stay perfectly still.
I hit 28,000 words a couple of days ago.
It’s a story of an almost Zen, smart-assed cat who loathes dogs and seems to have an opinion on everything. It’s a fun place to be.
A domesticated feline (my words, definitely not hers), she misses her wildness, her freedom, her nights spent hunting and her days spent napping in stolen sunshine.
I had read where authors speak of “letting the character show you who they are” and that the writer is merely an observer, not a creator. I didn’t really understand it until I got claws-deep in this project.
Her opinions are different from mine in some cases, and, I think I’ve held her back. Correction. I know I’ve held her back. Censored her. Because I didn’t want “that kind of book,” or I didn’t want her words attributed to me. Because we are similar, but we are not the same.
So. Plot twist. I’m letting her out of her proverbial carrier, removing the kitty muzzle, and letting her go.
There’s no telling where I’ll end up with a cat in charge.
Image sources:
- Plot Twist : Grammarly on Facebook
- Fred Flintstone https://retiredruth.wordpress.com/tag/fred-flinststone/
- Marilyn Monroe: http://shannonmarie1510.buzznet.com/photos/bettypagemarilynmonr/?id=68045773
Fabulous Friday: The Bad, the Bad but Really Good, and the Really Good Friday
“I have bad news,” I told my friend earlier this week, “news that sounds bad but is really good, and actual good news. Which do you want to hear first?”
“I’ll take the bad news first,” she said. “Let’s get it over with.”
So I told her about Jitterbug. I didn’t cry, but I did find myself saying “I’m not going to cry,” several times. After several searches through the house, including heavy furniture in rooms that haven’t been used in months, I’m convinced she managed to get under the fence. There’s a hole in the far corner of the fence, a hole I’ve plugged with large chunks of broken concrete. The woods hosts many animals, dogs and cats and snakes and squirrels, and the dog likes to hold rather aggressive conversations with them. She prefers that they don’t enter her territory, but she’s not above digging through to theirs. Thus the rocks.
The wild thing, the gray, nearly tailless squatter, however, likes to push the rock through the bottom of the fence. She, who has been a climber since she was a wee thing, climbing the playpen in less than three minutes when I first brought her home, prefers to go under the fence when she returns from her adventures. She climbs to go wandering; she goes under to return.
I’m sure there’s a message there.
I didn’t think that Jitterbug could fit through the hole, but I noticed that, not only was the rocks missing, but that a bit of dirt had been dug out as well.
Plus, day five and no discernible smell in the house. So, there’s that.
Continue reading Fabulous Friday: The Bad, the Bad but Really Good, and the Really Good Friday
Jitterbug Blues
As I write this, I am taking a break. There is only so much search-and-rescue one can do without taking a break when one possesses joints the size of baseballs.
I’m grieving, and I haven’t even seen her yet. She’s there, somewhere in the house, her silence so very loud in my head. She was a mouthy one, that one, especially as the dementia crept over her, draping her in continual confusion, a fact she quite often vocally advertised.
The silence is so very, very loud.
She’s missed three meals; she’s never been a girl who would miss a meal. Despite the fogginess that surrounded her, she could never ignore the sound of a cat food can cracking open, its aluminum rim squeaking as the tab freed that nasty meat-like product.
When I called her, she’d holla back in her best Edith-Bunker voice, telling me she was pissed and that I needed to come. Come now. Bring your hair. I need to drool. Now. Bring the food. Now. I need to eat. Now. Leave the dog. Dumbass. Now.
May would have been 17 years with her; over one-third of my life. Forty-point 46341463414634 per cent of my life.
Is that an irrational number? Hell, I don’t even know, but it would be fitting. She never was that rational.
She wasn’t particularly beloved; I joked that the only reason I kept her around was because she had tenure. I know a lot of people don’t get cats. I am not sure that I particularly get cats. But I did get her.
Lyrical Fool 