Three random cats have passed randomly in front of my office door in the last 2 days. I've never seen a cat outside my office in the 7 months I've worked here; do coastal kitties hibernate in the winter? The first one I saw, I jumped up, opened my door and called to it "here kitty kitty!" I'm not sure why my first thought was to invite her in, share gossip over a cup of tea, and I'm not sure what I'd have done if she had accepted my offer. I'm not a stranger to conversing with stray animals: dogs guarding their pickups at the grocery store, cows chewing cud in the pasture, sheep frolicking in the field. I frequently give the waddup nod to the animals I pass and I've forever felt an almost psychic connection to them. Granted, the convro I carry on in my head is probably imaginary but it seems to be real at the time to me. (This shouldn't come as a surprise to you at this point, remember I do have a official DSM-IV diagnosis). But, apparently I'm not the only one who bonds with animals, people in the US spend over $50 billion annually on their furkids.
Ursula has never been an animal lover but she acquiesed when we moved to a rental house in 1982 that came with mama cat and her brood squatting under the porch. We kept 2 of the kittens; Mistopher lived to be almost 17 years old, surviving long enough to meet both of my kids, and to this day remains the best cat ever. I still miss him at times. Since then we've always had a cat, or two and sometimes three. My brother almost qualifies as a "crazy cat man" and has had several of the furry beasts shared amongst roommates. My childhood dream was to live on farm and I fantasized about milking mooing cows, gathering eggs from clucking chickens and running through the tall cornfields. Watching Stephen King's Children of the Corn on HBO tampered down this last dream a little . . . However, my kids have grown up with an occasional rabbit, hamster, chick and a dog.
My last semester of college I was required to take a course outside of my major and I truly enjoyed and learned from my Animals in Human Culture class. I even started to wonder if animals, rather than human health, was my true calling but at that point it was a little late to change direction. Maybe someday I'll be able to combine the two professionally. Hippotherapy is fascinating; the American Quarter Horses's gait mimics that of people and riding horses causes the hip to move in a natural fashion that is difficult to simulate otherwise. Many children who don't have the ability to control their body or walk benefit from this physical therapy. We even have a local therapeutic riding center, Bright Horizons, that is always looking for help. Melody had looked into volunteering there but wasn't able to due to school, work and sports, but nothing (well except me being lazy and anxious about new things since I went off zoloft to not interfere with a potential intrauterine parasite aka a baby) is keeping me from doing it!
Random thoughts:
- Still not knocked up, am I too old? Are my eggs already hard boiled?
- Shout out to Buzz Malone! Thank you for your encouraging words about my writing. It's not often that a real published author applauds your talent.
- Sometimes the substitute is good enough. Store brand, Journey cover band at the casino, Elvis impersonators.
- Mean Girls is still the best (and most quotable) movie ev-uh!
- I really want to start zumba again, I miss shakin' my hips like a 41 year old white woman with no rhythm.
- I love spring and sunshine and flowers!
- There's a 30% chance that it's already raining! (see Random Thought #4)
- It causes me mental anguish to end a sentence in a preposition. Thank you, Mrs. Stevens, you were the greatest 5th grade teacher ev-uh!
No comments:
Post a Comment