"We interrupt our regularly scheduled essay..."

"Squirt guns!  We need squirt guns!"

Sam has taken an unhealthy interest in the bonsai on the shelf at the back of the couch and I'm remembering one of the essential tools for coming to an accommodation with a kitten.  It's been a long time since there’s been a kitten in the house.

Lynn stops at the Dollar Tree and picks up a pack of three and the next evening it takes just one shot to persuade Sam that there are many other interesting things to investigate.  He finds a worn spot of carpet to tug...  Lynn grabs the gun...

I haven't been without cats since I moved out of the apartment with Sandy and into my own place over thirty years ago.  A large part of why I took the apartment I did was that the manager's cat had just had kittens and I could have two them.  When I moved in with Lynn, she had three (oh, the epic battles for dominance between her Molly and my Merline!).  In the decades since, cats have come and gone.  At one point we had six (which, even for us, is too many), but never fewer than two until a year ago when Tonks died and there was only Mrs Weasley.  By then we'd had Jemma, the Golden Retriever, for eight years, so evenings while we read in the living room there was still a comfortable family of life forms.  But, death haunted as I am, I couldn't help thinking about the time to come when it'd be just us humans.  A grimly gray and unpleasant thought.

After McGonagle died (in 2016), Lynn had insisted that we wouldn't get any more cats after our remaining two passed on.  The litter boxes, the feeding, the inevitable diseases to contend with.  It’s a lot.  And with my disability, there's so little I can do to help.  The daily burdens of managing the house all fall on her as it is; much as I grieved her decision I couldn't argue with it.

So I was astonished when she called me to my window a week and a half ago.  The weather is fine so I had my study window fully open, looked down and there she was out front with next door neighbor Karen, who was cuddling a small gray kitten.  She looks up at me and says, "Do you want a kitten?"  I don't know that in my writing I've ever had occasion to use the word "thunderstruck" but this would be a good time.

"Uh... uh..." I murmured, with my usual flair for language.  "That's entirely up to you, isn't it?”

The next day we took him in.  Karen had found him in a nearby parking deck.  She’d’ve kept him, but she travels a lot.  We took him to the vet, everything looks good.  Their estimate is that he’s about nine weeks.

Marian’s been helping me rearrange my study, so I’d still been trying to figure out just where I want things to go.  Now there’s a cat bed and a scratching post and the food dishes and the litter box and the toys (twinkle ball!).  We’ll get it figured out.

After a vigorous morning hour of exploration he’s ready for a snooze and has definitely gotten the kitty memo that the best place for a kitten to sleep is on a writer’s keyboard, preferably when the writer is trying to use it.  We’re working on that.  Yesterday we had a full hour with him sprawled across my lap in a position that left my hands free to type.  We’re each learning how to harmonize our own rhythms with the other.

I’m still stunned.  So unexpected.  Lynn says she hasn’t seen me smile this much in years (I’m not much of a smiler).  I’m sure that’s true.  Possibly not since granddaughter Josie was a kitten herself, eighteen years ago.

I thought I’d never have a cat to snuggle up with again.  One more reminder that every time I try to predict my future, I’m wrong.

When I started this Substack, my stated goal was to put up a new piece every two to three weeks and (except for an extra week around Christmas) I’ve been able to stick to that.  And I’ve got a couple of things in process that I’m optimistic about.  But when Sam bounds across my study wanting to show me his latest trick, do you think I’m going to ignore him, saying “I’m working on this tremendously important piece of writing”?  When he scales my leg to get into my lap insisting that it’s time for some serious cuddling and rubbing and playing with my hand do you think I set him aside, saying, “I’ve got serious people things to do”?

Of course not.  I may be an increasingly quirky and eccentric old guy, but I’m no fool.  I know when the universe, with a mighty assist from my beloved Tambourine Grrl, has tilted an undeserved gift in my favor. 

“C’mere Sam!”