Cosmic Convergences and Other Pains

You have mornings like this, right? You wake up. Maybe you lay there for a couple of minutes, gathering yourself. Eventually you throw the blankets off and get out of bed. It all seems okay.

You start your day. If you do as I suspect most people do, you hit the loo and take care of that. Maybe you make the bed, next, or you get in the shower, next. Whatever. You do what you do in the order in which you do it.

Then, along the way WHAM! The wheels fall off, things go sideways and suddenly what seemed like a normal, ordinary, comforting morning becomes anything but. Then you scramble to try and get it back upright and on track.

Yeah, well good luck with that.

That’s how my morning was yesterday. It’s what I call a Cosmic Convergence where everything – good or bad – seems to come together in some way that it all hits at once.

We keep Sam, our eighteen year old cat, in what we call The Cat Room at night. It’s the spare bedroom. It’s our way of ensuring that he doesn’t maraud through the house while we’re trying to sleep.

Once, we did try to let the cats out at night. This was when we had Sam and Oscar, probably about twelve years ago now, right after we moved into the house we’re still living in. We let them roam the house at night once and only once because while we were trying to sleep, they insisted they had to race from one window to the other – across our bed – to check on the goings-on outside. After that, they were kept locked up. It was easier on everyone.

So, now that Oscar is no longer with us, it’s just Sam and we still keep him locked up at night. Which, given the result of yesterday morning, is a very good thing.

He's old. When critters - cats, dogs, people - you know, critters, get old, things don't work as they once did. Muscles relax and cause alarm. That's why people buy things like Tena and Poise pads and so on. Well, cats don't do well if you try to put a Tena on them. They get upset. So the things that don't work the way they're supposed to get out of control.

Back to yesterday. I got up. All seemed right with the world. I did my thing, wandered downstairs, got my coffee, sat down and posted yesterday’s blog. I glanced at the clock, not quite six. Okay I think to myself, I’ve got a few more minutes.

I spend another few minutes and glance up again – oh, CRAP! Where did the time go? It’s like Fate or Chronos or someone hit the hands on the clock, knocking it fast forward. It’s suddenly almost 6:20 – I’m five minutes late.

I leap up, put my computer away, glug some coffee (which is only tepid at this point, so at least I don’t burn myself!). Race around getting my mother-in-law’s nutritional drink, setting up hubby’s coffee, throw my lunch together (basically grab and go so it doesn’t take more than a minute).

Then it’s six-thirty. Okay, that’s do-able. I’ll have to hurry, but I can make it.

Except for Sam. Sam had other ideas. Probably, since he’s a cat, they weren’t long drawn-out deliberate ideas, but they were effective.

I open the door to his room and… He had trouble during the night. Something he ate seriously did not agree with him and it’s here, there and everywhere around the room. Poor thing! I can’t be mad at him. It’s not like he planned it. It’s just bad timing and my being behind that makes it a problem. In the meantime, he’s looking at me like, ‘I’m sorry, Mom.’

Well, there goes my morning.

I need gloves because I am not going to deal with that bare-hand. Crap! No gloves in the drawer where I keep them. Downstairs for a box of gloves, back upstairs and get to work. There are seven places, plus the tray in front of the box which is supposed to catch the litter. Well, it’s caught some other stuff too, and the box needs to be changed.

Finish the carpet, take the tray into the backyard and hose it off, change the box. This is more fun than any one human being should be allowed to have… Get it done. It’s not quite seven o’clock and Sam is standing on the counter in the bathroom. He needs water.

He has a waterer in his room. It’s not a bowl. It’s a basin with a recirculating pump, but he refuses to drink from it. Instead, he insists that he must drink from the tap. Crap! I set up the bowls to catch the water, turn the tap to low and get my shower going. It’s seven o’clock. I should be well on my way to work by then, but I’m not. I’m naked and wet and I am decidedly not happy with the way my morning has gone.

Out of the shower, into my clothes and out of the house at almost 7:20, I’m thirty-five minutes late and, given the time of day, seriously screwed. There’s going to be traffic on the highway. Everyone else is trying to get to where they want or need to be and I’m at the back of the line.

Flying at a low altitude I make it – “only” thirty minutes late. Whew! I took the back roads and drove faster than I should, but didn’t meet up with John Law. I didn’t run over any nuns or into a school bus full of children. No cyclists or dog walkers went under my wheels so, yeah, it is a good morning after all.

Given all of that, if that’s the worst thing that happens on any particular day, I’m be grateful. I took a short lunch, made up the time, and all was right with the world.

Hope you have a lovely, Cosmic Convergence free day!

Best~

Philippa

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