Maybe it’s the narcotics. Generic, but still….The notion occurred to me that emulating my cat would be a good thing to do while recuperating from knee surgery. So far, Addie, my lovely gray over green one-year-old cat, is winning the sleeping portion of the contest. She’s pushing four hours straight and I’ve done about 45 minutes with a ten minute interruption due to shooting pain. Despite the fact that she is lithe and limber and I am neither of those things (even pre-surgery), I do not wish to invoke the handicap system used for under par golfers. Fair is fair. Unless I lose. Then the rules will be summarily resorted.
While my children are most caring and attentive, and though I lie here prostrate, a ridiculously high pile of pillows supporting the operative knee, none of them has rubbed my belly, or scratched behind my ears, or offered a brusque yet loving chuck beneath the chin.
Addie gives me a knowing glance, flicks a paw and begins the ceaseless licking that rocks the bed as though the mattress were filled with water. Not to be outdone, I too flick my paw, er, wrist and study my hand, marveling at how little bruising I have where the IV was inserted. Rather than lick the back of my hand directly, I lick the tip of my right index finger and gently rub at a bit of particularly stubborn adhesive. When her seemingly inexorable cleansing ceased, her purplish pads land her silently on the floor and she scarpers off to the kitty box. I draw the line. My orange-stained leg stumps along, swollen and stiff with puckered sutures erupting in tufts in an isosceles triangle shape and blue marker lines giving the knee the look of a hurried football game maneuver.
She descends the stairs with the poise and elegance of a ballerina. I grip the banister with one hand and palm the wall with the other, taking it one slow step at a time, not unlike a toddler and am relieved to have made it to terra firma without a humiliating and painful prat fall.
With an alacrity only attributable to felines and Olympic hurdle jumpers, Addie leaps from a standing position to the kitchen counter, landing silently and flicks her tail at me in a, there, now you try it. Even with a running start of twenty feet, I couldn’t land atop the counter – well, perhaps head first, and certainly not with the grace that Addie showed. And, I remind her, I am under doctor’s orders not to run.
She knocks back a few ounces from her water bowl and I slug from a bottle of water. She swats at her catnip toy and I down another pain killer. Together, we slowly mount the stairs for the sanctuary of my room where, presumably, we’ll have some groovy dreams.
While my children are most caring and attentive, and though I lie here prostrate, a ridiculously high pile of pillows supporting the operative knee, none of them has rubbed my belly, or scratched behind my ears, or offered a brusque yet loving chuck beneath the chin.
Addie gives me a knowing glance, flicks a paw and begins the ceaseless licking that rocks the bed as though the mattress were filled with water. Not to be outdone, I too flick my paw, er, wrist and study my hand, marveling at how little bruising I have where the IV was inserted. Rather than lick the back of my hand directly, I lick the tip of my right index finger and gently rub at a bit of particularly stubborn adhesive. When her seemingly inexorable cleansing ceased, her purplish pads land her silently on the floor and she scarpers off to the kitty box. I draw the line. My orange-stained leg stumps along, swollen and stiff with puckered sutures erupting in tufts in an isosceles triangle shape and blue marker lines giving the knee the look of a hurried football game maneuver.
She descends the stairs with the poise and elegance of a ballerina. I grip the banister with one hand and palm the wall with the other, taking it one slow step at a time, not unlike a toddler and am relieved to have made it to terra firma without a humiliating and painful prat fall.
With an alacrity only attributable to felines and Olympic hurdle jumpers, Addie leaps from a standing position to the kitchen counter, landing silently and flicks her tail at me in a, there, now you try it. Even with a running start of twenty feet, I couldn’t land atop the counter – well, perhaps head first, and certainly not with the grace that Addie showed. And, I remind her, I am under doctor’s orders not to run.
She knocks back a few ounces from her water bowl and I slug from a bottle of water. She swats at her catnip toy and I down another pain killer. Together, we slowly mount the stairs for the sanctuary of my room where, presumably, we’ll have some groovy dreams.
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