a small but cat-happy control

Even though it was only 6pm when I got to Dad’s today, it was later than I usually get there (I was delayed by hunting for my damn ATM card), and he had given up on me and gone to bed. “I thought that this was the holiday and you were raising hell, so I went to bed,” he said. By “holiday” he means gay pride.

He had forgotten to eat the dinner that Marie left in the microwave, so once he got up, we sat down to eat. Lately, he’s been preceding meals with a countdown: “1, 2, 3, go!” and this time he shouted “go!” so loudly that he made himself cough, and then said, “I think I overdid that one.”

After talking to Kate S. on the phone, he asked me, “Is she ever going to get weightless?” causing mental images of Kate S. floating around his apartment.

Short on things to talk about, I wind up telling cat stories, like how my missing phone turned out to be under Tiger Lily. “Maybe there was some electronic thing that made the cat like it. You’d think that a lump, even a small lump, would be uncomfortable for the cat. It probably had a small but cat-happy control,” said Dad. That explains it! My phone has a built-in cat magnet – that’s why cats seem to magically find their way to me.

Then I told him about Mr. Wednesday and how he always wants to be let into or out of the bathroom. “Does he want to be in the bathroom to take a bath?” asked Dad, as though cats make a practice of walking into the bathroom, turning on the water, and settling in for a relaxing soak. My cats actually did turn on the water the other day, but they didn’t get in, just watched it run. “You have quite a cat life,” said Dad. “Do you plan to have more cats? Like, another 20?” he asked, in the politely inquiring done of someone asking a newlywed couple if they plan to have children. “No, Dad,” I answered and tried to explain – while laughing – that I didn’t plan the fifteen I have. “Are there professional cat-growers?” Dad asked. I tried to explain that animal shelters are professional organizations with large numbers of cats, but that they collect them rather than growing them.

“I’m harvesting strawberries in the garden,” I tell Dad. “Do you sell them?” he asks. “No,” I tell him. “I only have two a day.” “Two boxes?” he asked. “Two strawberries,” I explained. “I thought you might have a big field of them,” he said, leaving me wondering where in New York City one could have a big field of anything. “Strawberries are the most important berry in the world,” Dad declared.

Dad is reflecting on his overall health at age 85: “the doctor says ‘you’re one of the strangest persons. Everyone else gets sick and dies or gets eaten.’” Gets eaten?

I tell Dad that the brick guys are coming to start repairing my house tomorrow. “They’ll stop for the holiday,” he says. “Dad,” I say, “I don’t think they celebrate gay pride.”

Dad is exercising his neck by turning his head from side to side. When he stops, he says, “My neck is still grouchy.”