Chicken’s Corner: Cat Desk

The cats are alive and well—or, at least, mostly well. Chicken continues to feast on his expensive veterinary diet of which Tuna has an occasional crumb, and the vet has confirmed they seem to both be in good spirits, which involved growling, hissing and scrabbling away during attempts at palpation and a couple of shots to the butt. Tuna has his own expensive veterinary diet consisting of a pill down the gullet once a day, so we all have our own gifts.

I had a long summer apart from my guardian lions, and our reuniting has been glorious, if also somewhat anticlimactic. Chicken spends 98%+ of his waking hours outside, returning only to eat a few times a day, and to sleep overnight. It amazes me that he even returns to us to sleep overnight, but who am I to question miracles. He does occasionally wait for us on the fire escape or the rooftop terrace, and the odd time he meows at me I know I am loved and deeply understood and that also that the cat is probably hungry and displeased with me. Tuna is usually watching from the window (Tuna being an indoor cat), totally non judgemental but a bit labrador-esque in waiting for us all to come home.

I think both cats got used to an unoccupied desk over the last couple of months, and now we’re all back at it, Caleb with his reluctant return to numbers and letters, the cats sharing the limited space with Dog Man and homework and well-organized stacks of cards (Marvel, Magic, playing). At various points in the day and in his life, someone has ruined one or more his stacks by knocking them off a desk or sliding on them on the floor to their own life’s detriment (the cats, Jon, Naomi, Junia, me, himself) and it’s Caleb’s Sisyphean burden in life to continue to organize and re-organize his decks while someone else is on the floor moaning about a sprained ankle.

Life continues on, too fast and thick and full of anxieties and mysteries and a bit of that dust of delight and cat hair mixed together. Swelling up with it all and glad for every minute of it.