“Everyone moves with grace if they are in their proper element”Well, I am not sure what my proper element is because I do not move with grace.
Water Dancer by Jennifer Levin.
I am sort of a clumsy, uncoordinated person. I make messes. Some sort of clean-up will almost certainly be required after any activity in the kitchen that involves stirring, pouring, measuring, or transferring something from one container to another.
Yesterday at church I picked up a doughnut with chocolate icing. “Oh look,” said the woman next to me, “you’ve got it on your fingers and it’s on the table.” Sure enough. I did have it on my fingers and there were chocolate smears on the table. So she got the napkin and cleaned the table while I cleaned my fingers.
I mentioned to her that I was almost exactly like the wonderful character played by Joan Hackett in Support Your Local Sheriff!, who got flour all over her face in that hilarious scene where she is cooking dinner for her father and the sheriff. I burn my fingers now and then, but have never caught myself on fire. Fortunately.
This is probably going to be too much information, but bear with me here so you can grasp how awful this was. Our cat drinks a lot of water. We have had her tested for diabetes and other imbalances that might cause an animal to drink a lot of water, and everything was negative. So she also pees a lot. She is an indoor/outdoor cat, but she prefers to come inside to use the litter box.
She always pees right against the edge--sometimes over the edge, so I have to put plastic underneath the litter box--so instead of small, scattered clumps that can be sifted out with the slotted scoop, there is a thick ledge of it, usually running right across the back of the litter box, which I have to scrape off with the small shovel I used back in the day to scoop ash out of the wood-burning stove.
The last time I cleaned the litter box, which I do once a week, I bumbled this huge clump of urine-saturated cat litter. It hit my left foot (wearing house sandals), and a piece of it of it broke off and landed on the wood floor, where it left a big wet spot.
So I spent some additional time scrubbing the floor and cleaning the sandal and my foot.
We have had cats as pets for 35 of the 37 years we have lived here. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate cats. I am just tired of them. She is 18 years old. She can’t live forever, right? Well, I have been assured by two different people who know folks who have had cats that lived to 24 years. So we may have her a while longer, but I know that we will never have another pet cat.
Never.
Ever.
I mean it too. Never
2 comments:
:) I understand...I am a bit of a clutz also. You could have six more wonderful years with that cat!:)
Awwww. This was not quite what I expected when I followed the link you provided! But I understand. Pets are a huge responsibility in so many ways and it can be frustrating. Being a control freak myself, I can see how you have reached this decision. About being messy and accident-prone ... oh dear. I can and often do trip over my own two feet. I cut and burn myself in the kitchen all the time -- just last night, slicing some roast beef, I let the sharp knife skip to the left and it grazed not one but two of my knuckles. I wore bandaids to bed. I need at least three big napkins at every meal. It's disgraceful as in, no one will ever call me graceful, haaaha xoxo
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