Mary Vettel
  • WELCOME
  • INTERVIEWS
  • UPDATES!!!
  • ABOUT ME
  • MY WRITING
  • THE BLOGERAGE
  • LINKS
  • HEADS UP!! (CONTEST WINNER)
  • CHADMAN BREACH
  • A VISIT FROM FATHER GUIDO SARDUCCI
  • MORE SHORT STORIES
  • HAMMOND HOUSE
  • BOXO & EMMA
  • CHILDREN'S PICTURE BOOKS & SONGS
  • MORE CHILDREN'S PICTURE BOOKS
  • HOMAGE TO EDDIE IZZARD
  • MR. JINGLES
  • HADASSAH JONES
  • SOME OF MY FAVORITE THINGS
  • GALLERY 1 - IRELAND
  • GALLERY 2 - LONDON
  • THE KNOTTED GUN
  • GREETINGS FROM HELL!
  • MY WRITING
  • HEADS UP!! (CONTEST WINNER)
  • DEATH AT THE DRIVE-IN
  • CHADMAN BREACH
  • CHILDREN'S PICTURE BOOKS & SONGS
  • MORE CHILDREN'S PICTURE BOOKS
  • NOOKS & GRANNIES
  • THIS AIN'T NO COWBOY MOVIE
  • BROGWIN FRAYNEY AND HOW HE NEARLY SAVED A KINGDOM
  • GATSBY DELANEY - 7TH GRADE IMPRESSARIO
  • DEAD SERIOUS
  • HEAD'S UP
  • JAMAICA MOON
  • A SCOUNDREL'S TALE
  • MOTORCYCLE BABIES
  • TUT'S HICCUPS & GLITCHES/ UNDAY RUNCH/ ARISTOTLE
  • UNDAY RUNCH
  • PINKIE
 

My Life as a Cat

9/6/2011

1 Comment

 
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.

1 Comment
julie fedderson link
9/7/2011 04:30:41 pm

Zooks! I hope you are doing okay, but I laughed all the way through this. I could completely see you coming down the stairs. And I'm glad you drew the line at the cat box--girl's gotta have some pride.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Picture

    Wordsmith

    I write, therefore, I am.

    Archives

    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    June 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    March 2011
    February 2011
    January 2011
    October 2010

    RSS Feed

    View my profile on LinkedIn

    Categories

    All
    14th Century
    Accepting
    Accomplishment
    Amish
    Baby Boomers
    Background
    Balloon Sculptures
    Barn Building
    Bastille Day
    Beetlejuice
    Billy Joel
    Bit Parts
    Blog
    Bronco
    Bungie Cords
    Cameos
    Cankles
    Car Bras
    Cary Grant
    Cats
    Cerebration
    Cgi
    Chinese Philosophy
    Clark Gable
    Clown College
    Clowns
    Colin Firth
    Commercials
    Constitution
    Contest
    Customers
    Dictionary
    Electronic Reading Devices
    Evil
    Extras
    Facebook
    Fan Base
    Feng Shui
    Gettysburg Address
    Gone With The Wind
    Howdy-Doody
    Imagination
    Invisibility
    Johnny Depp
    Kardashian
    Key Light
    Khrushchev
    Lady Wood
    Literary Agents
    Lorne Michaels
    Madonna
    Martin Short
    Medieval Times
    Metaphorical
    Michael Keaton
    Minstrels
    Money Bags
    Murder Myster Dinner Theatre
    Muse
    No Backsies
    Observing
    Paddy Chayefsky
    Peter Finch
    Poodle Skirt
    Possession
    Preamble
    Prequels
    Psychic
    Publishers
    Remakes
    Rodeo
    Sarkozy
    Sequels
    Shakespeare
    Slapshoes
    Slow Burn
    Snl
    Social Media
    Splinter Group
    Stupid Phrases
    Success
    Terry Gilliam
    Thongs
    Thurber
    Time Bandits
    Tramp Stamp
    Triumph
    Troubadours
    Twitter
    Vocabulary
    Walk-ons
    Warts And All
    Westside Story
    Writer
    Zeitgeist

    Categories

    All
    14th Century
    Accepting
    Accomplishment
    Amish
    Baby Boomers
    Background
    Balloon Sculptures
    Barn Building
    Bastille Day
    Beetlejuice
    Billy Joel
    Bit Parts
    Blog
    Bronco
    Bungie Cords
    Cameos
    Cankles
    Car Bras
    Cary Grant
    Cats
    Cerebration
    Cgi
    Chinese Philosophy
    Clark Gable
    Clown College
    Clowns
    Colin Firth
    Commercials
    Constitution
    Contest
    Customers
    Dictionary
    Electronic Reading Devices
    Evil
    Extras
    Facebook
    Fan Base
    Feng Shui
    Gettysburg Address
    Gone With The Wind
    Howdy-Doody
    Imagination
    Invisibility
    Johnny Depp
    Kardashian
    Key Light
    Khrushchev
    Lady Wood
    Literary Agents
    Lorne Michaels
    Madonna
    Martin Short
    Medieval Times
    Metaphorical
    Michael Keaton
    Minstrels
    Money Bags
    Murder Myster Dinner Theatre
    Muse
    No Backsies
    Observing
    Paddy Chayefsky
    Peter Finch
    Poodle Skirt
    Possession
    Preamble
    Prequels
    Psychic
    Publishers
    Remakes
    Rodeo
    Sarkozy
    Sequels
    Shakespeare
    Slapshoes
    Slow Burn
    Snl
    Social Media
    Splinter Group
    Stupid Phrases
    Success
    Terry Gilliam
    Thongs
    Thurber
    Time Bandits
    Tramp Stamp
    Triumph
    Troubadours
    Twitter
    Vocabulary
    Walk-ons
    Warts And All
    Westside Story
    Writer
    Zeitgeist

 
Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.