The Answer is 'Uhhh'

The other day, I bought Teddy a new toy, a little stuffed hedgehog wearing overalls that grunts instead of squeaking. You might know the kind of toys I mean. I've been buying stuffed hedgehogs for various dogs since 1996. My dogs loved their hedgies and I loved the replacement of the squeaker inside with the breathy grunt. Uhhh. It was a happy sound, even when the toy itself was being eviscerated, fluff flying and entrails, the squeaker mechanism, strewn half out of its poor hedgie body. I still love that sound.

Does anyone know if real hedgehogs make sounds? I knew someone once who had an actual pet hedgehog and it didn't make any noise the one time I saw it. I remember wondering if this new acquaintance, the woman, not the hedgehog, was rather strange and whether I could judge her personality based on her choice of pets. Why would anyone want to have a pet that you had to be careful petting to keep from being skewered? I've never trusted a snake man and I've never even bothered with anyone who would have a spider. I could barely trust the rat man though I tried and it eventually poisoned any chance of my hanging out with him. The rat circus at the renaissance faire helped me regarding rats, but there is still part of me that judged that pretty girl based on her choice of rats as trainees. Yes, I'll admit that I'm a pet bigot. If the pet is exotic, or in my terms, strange, the person hosting them might reflect that. I'm a dog person. And I like cats, mostly.

I'm very sorry if there are warm and friendly people out there who have pet snakes. I try not to be a pet bigot, but it's a failing of mine. Steve Irwin went a long way toward making me think snake people could be okay, but he went and got himself killed by a stingray and he kind of undid some good work.

I still miss Steven Irwin. Nick was a big fan and when he was a baby, the Steve Irwin toy went into the bathtub multiple times and still said, "Have a look at this little beauty," so I kind of equate Steve Irwin with a little miracle that happened over and over in our household every night at bath time. Somehow, I always figured Steve Irwin was an exception to the strange-pet rule, mostly though I never met Steve Irwin in person to judge.

Toy hedgehogs? Right, sorry. I drifted off there for a minute.

So, I was standing in the living room, stepping repeatedly on Teddy's current hedgie and trying to get Teddy to play when I casually asked Nick a question, "How was school today?" He had settled onto the couch and gotten involved with his video game.

From his spot? Silence.

I rocked mindlessly back and forth on the hedgie. "Uhhh," it said. Teddy didn't move from his spot under the coffee table.

I tried again. "Do you have any homework tonight?" I asked. Nick said nothing, just made brief yet friendly eye contact before continuing with his game.

I leaned forward and pressed on the hedgie again. "Huh," it said.

By now, I was on a roll. I have learned to entertain myself in the face of video-game loneliness.

"Do you have any plans to see friends this weekend?" Just then, Mike walked into the room and heard at least one of my questions.

I immediately pressed on the hedgie's neck. "Mmmm," it said.

I walked over to Mike and leaned in for a kiss. "Did you have a good day at work?" I asked.

"Uhhh," he said, perfectly mimicking the hedgie, with a grin on his face.

Thank you for listening, jb

Wishing for Toilet Fairies

I haven't written to you in a very long time. I have to admit that I haven't been able to keep up with things lately. Vacuuming, laundry, dishes, spring cleaning the screens, donating unused items so we can put other stuff away. It's overwhelming. I groan when people tell me they've begun to mow the lawn. It's exhausting and deadening, cleaning. No, I'm not a Merry Poppins kind of clean-up girl. Not. Don't even start whistling 'a spoon full of sugar.' Just don't.

For example, there's laundry. I'm okay doing the wash, even emptying the contents of the dryer onto an unused bed, but I have to admit that I'm terrible about getting around to folding the pile of clothes. Are you appalled? Bathrooms? Can we say Exxon station? I look at my kitchen counter tops sometimes and am appalled. I try to keep them clean but I come along an hour after I've wiped them clean and there are crumbs or a smeared hunk of mashed potatoes or a splash of Louisiana hot sauce on it. Sometimes I give up for a while. I'm just very careful about not letting prepared food touch my counters. Forget the floors. Tonight, I stepped on a lump of mashed potatoes that someone, SOMEONE, dropped and didn't clean up.

At least I'm cooking. Mike has been sending me emails and text messages with recipes he'd like me to try. I told him it's worse if he says, "I don't care." Tell a woman who has cooked her family approximately 8800 meals that you don't care what she cooks for dinner tomorrow and you might inadvertently get a spit package deal with your next meal. See, it's exhausting trying to figure out what to make day in and day out. It's great when they ask for something easy and you have all the ingredients. It kind of makes you feel like they enjoy your meals and it's not so much of a drudgery then. Sometimes you might even sing in the kitchen though it embarrasses your teenaged boy as if someone, anyone might overhear you. God forbid you dance in your kitchen too.

It's also not too bad when your husband sends you recipes he might like, but the problem there is the combination of an untested recipe together with the uneven job of buying groceries to match. Which Louisiana hot sauce is better? I'm telling you that the one I used tonight almost peeled my tongue but Mike and Nick both loved it. I'm more of a mild spice kind of person. So, they're going to have to deal with the one I used last time. Now the recipe is nearly tested and I'll probably end up buying both kinds and use some of each to compromise somewhere between scalding my sinuses and engaging their tastebuds. Or I could just buy what I like and they have to deal with it all since I'm the damned cook and my stomach lining matters to me. Theirs is just a preference, right?

So, I'm cooking new things and it's kind of making me happy though my kitchen counters need more attention than ever when I cook. I think I've needed to be cooking. Along with seeing art, cooking makes me happy.

Now, I just wish someone would sweep through without judgement and clean my house from windows to toilet seats. Maybe they could mow the lawn too. I wouldn't mind that at all.

There are no laundry fairies, I'm afraid, and definitely no toilet fairies. Damn. What a world it would be if there were toilet fairies in it.

Thank you for listening, jb

Forgiveness

If I'm going to write about forgiveness, you're probably going to hear some stuff I need to be forgiven for.

I'm not good at listening.

I sometimes yell at Nick to get him moving.

According to my mother, my unforgivable sin is that I moved away from home. I'm here to tell you that, even if I did it to save my own life, it's hard for me to forgive myself for this.

And one time, I nearly punched a twelve year old girl in the jaw.

I'm not all that interesting, really. I haven't had any affairs. I never hit anyone though I came very close once. My ex-best friends in seventh grade kept yelling, "brain does not compute, beep-beep" in my face. Over and over, these two would line up in front of me and scream it. The year before, they'd loved that I was smart. They'd been nice to me. We'd giggled about boys, talked about our clothes, and worried over grades. Then, a summer passed, just six weeks, and we went to a different school together, junior high.

Suddenly these two were an exclusive gang and I wasn't in it. They told secrets that I wasn't supposed to hear. They turned their backs on me when I joined them by our lockers. It was hard not to join them because I shared a locker with Yvette and Toni's locker was the next one over.

I was miserable. What had happened to my friends? I was the same girl I'd been the spring before, I thought. In retrospect, I probably was quite different. My dad had been diagnosed with cancer and I imagine I was more serious than I'd ever been though no one at school ever knew any of our family's troubles. I probably looked a little rough around the edges too since my mother no longer had time to choose clothes for me or do my hair. So, I probably looked and acted differently, but at the time, I didn't realize that and I just wanted to know why my best friends were suddenly enemies.

Being shunned was painful.

Worse than that was the taunting. In grade school, it had been mostly okay to be a smart girl, but somehow in junior high, it wasn't any more. Toni and Yvette began to yell at me instead of ignoring me and excluding me from their conversations.

"Brain does not compute, beep-beep, brain does not compute, beep-beep" they yelled. The words weren't actually all that mean, but their faces said it all. I burned with shame whenever they approached me. I could even tell when they were about to begin, their beautiful faces would transform and the ugly words would come out and assault me.

Sometimes, I tried to run away, but they ran with me, chanting as they ran. I tried not to be noticed but it was as if they had radar for my presence. I couldn't get through the lunch line and outside to eat my tenderloin sandwich and French fries in peace without them at my heels.

"Brain does not compute, beep-beep. Brain does not compute, beep-beep."

What could I do? I couldn't bother my mother. She was always at the hospital with my dad, either before or after a surgery. At night, after I'd walked to the hospital and waited for all of them until visiting hours were over, my mother was exhausted and could only talk about my dad, if that.

She peppered her conversations with words like, "If we have enough faith, your father will be okay." It was almost a mantra to get her through each day. She couldn't even think things all the way through the possibilities. How could I possibly bother her with my trivial concerns?

So, during the day, I experienced Toni and Yvette's assaulting words, "brain does not compute, beep-beep." And at night, all I knew to do was get my homework done and stay out of the way so my mother could concentrate on "having enough faith so Daddy will survive."

One day, I'd finished my lunch and was sitting on the edge of the old stage at school reading a book when I saw that Toni and Yvette were stalking me. I could try to leave, but I knew that would be futile. I had to do something different.

"Brain does not compute, beep-beep, brain does not compute, beep-beep," they screamed. Toni came so close, I could have l put my hand over her mouth.

Something was different in me. No one was going to help me. Nobody cared. I had to solve this problem on my own and I could feel my power rising. It was as if lava came up into my throat and arms and was going to blow out the top of my head and out through my fingertips. My elbows went back and my right fist closed tight of its own accord.

Toni saw me shift and leaned in closer, spittle landing on my face.

"Brain does not compute, beep-beep! Brain does not compute, beep-beep! Brain does not compute, beep-beep!" she chanted. Seeing that something was different, Yvette stepped back behind Toni and her voice dropped down. Toni's was commanding enough. All of the kids stopped eating and watched us at the stage. Sitting on the edge of the stage, I had a height advantage over the two of them. Everyone else was rooted in place. No one stood up to help me. I was completely on my own in this life.

Suddenly, the lock holding my elbow sprung and I let out a right hook toward Toni's jaw. I knew this was going to hurt and hurt a lot. I was not a little girl. I could feel everything in slow motion, a globule of Toni's spit hanging in midair, the full power of my fist moving toward her jaw, the look on her face shifting from fury to fear. Inches from her face, I brought my fist around her chin and followed through without ever touching her. She knew I'd pulled the punch. I glared into her shocked face. Her chant died away and Yvette grabbed her arm and dragged her away.

Truthfully, my memory of these two, except that they continued to be together all of the time, faded away. I ignored them when I got books out of my locker. I ignored them in the halls and in classes. They never looked in my direction again. After a week or so, it got more and more natural to ignore them. Eventually, they meant no more to me than the day I learned how to shut someone down without actually hitting them.

I was raised that it was wrong to get angry with people. It doesn't make sense now, but back then, standing up for myself was the worst course of action I could take. So, I felt bad that I had nearly slugged a girl who had once been my best friend. I never felt bad enough to apologize, but I felt bad showing Toni and Yvette how mean I might get.

For years, I felt that I should feel bad about the whole thing. After I graduated from college, I immediately moved to New Jersey before I lost my nerve to move out. Once there, I had to learn to stick my elbows out and put a 'don't mess with me' look on my face. I learned that it was okay to channel my inner grizzly bear. And I stopped feeling bad about that look on Toni's face just before I almost hit her.

Okay, this isn't truly about forgiving myself. I haven't had an affair, killed anyone, or even injured anyone. I'm a terrible listener. I sometimes yell at Nick to get him going. And sometimes I blurt out the most insensitive thing I could possibly say to someone.

So why do I wake up at three in the morning sometimes feeling so incredibly bad?

I talk to God, but I don't trust the answers that I hear are divine, are anything but my own voice. I don't seem to be able to let some things go. Forgiveness isn't too hard with other people. I don't doubt that Toni and Yvette are decent people with their own problems now, and they don't honestly figure much into my consciousness.

So why can't I forgive myself for running away from home when I left for good reasons? Why can't I let it go? Why do I have to work so hard, and repeatedly fail, to forgive myself for things that I know have saved my life, have made me a happier person, and have not been done in an attempt to injure someone else?

Why are these my sins? The other things, talking too much and yelling at Nick sometimes, are easy in comparison. I will admit to you that forgiving myself is a concept that I just don't know how to resolve.

Thank you for listening, jb

The Benefits of Wheatgrass

So, I make these smoothies for Nick and I in the afternoon. He's the usual starving fifteen year old after working out and I don't eat much midday except salad greens and I forget how to make dinner because I get so hungry. Okay, today, I baked a portabella mushroom with cheese and onion for lunch. It was delicious, but by 4pm, I was hungry again and couldn't think.

I offered to make Nick a smoothie about the time he threatened to eat three or four peanut butter and jelly sandwiches out of the good brioche buns I bought for tomorrow's dinner. I had a plan. It was going to be delicious.

Here's the thing - I almost always put spinach in our smoothies. Nick knows and tolerates this because of the strawberries and bananas. The green of the spinach doesn't show up until the whole thing melts and by the time it turns from pink to a sickly green, Nick has sucked down all but a tablespoon of what I blended.

I like making him smoothies. It's a treat, like a milk shake, except that I sneak in some healthy stuff and sometimes rice protein to tide us over until the next meal.

Yesterday, I was diverted from my normal plan. If you didn't already know, I'm a sucker for beautiful produce. I can make myself walk past the tulips in varied hues, but you walk me past avocados, heirloom tomatoes and a neat row of lush wheatgrass, and I'm hooked. I usually end up bringing at least one if not all of the the pretty colors home with me. Yesterday, it was avocados and wheat grass.

When I got home and unpacked my groceries, I had an idea and cut the tough roots of the wheatgrass and put a chunk of it in a low vase on the windowsill, reserving the rest by the sink. Very pretty. The bonus was that Seth, who usually chews my potted plants to tattered ribbons, could have a treat too. Finally, an arrangement he could eat and not get yelled at. I made sure he couldn't get to the wheatgrass by the sink. He wouldn't need to. He had his own bouquet.

For Christmas, Nick bought me an orchid that was so pretty I needed to name her. At first, the only name that came up was Lily. You can't name an orchid this way. She would have been tormented for life. So, I named her Fifi and I prayed that she lived past New Years. She kept her showy blooms for two months and finally dropped the last of them last week. Seth has been trying to chew on her leaves but must not have liked her flavor. He mostly leaves her alone. I've read that she won't poison him, but I just didn't want her to start looking like my poor spider plant which eventually gave up the ghost because Seth tormented him daily. Fifi is managing fairly well so far, but I wonder if she'll ever bloom into her glory the way she was when Nick brought her home. I don't care. I love her anyway. So, I was particularly pleased with my wheatgrass distraction.

Seth jumped immediately to the windowsill and got to work. After he was done, it was a bit shorn but still very pretty, except that he went into the laundry room and puked up a little green wad of wheatgrass with yellow bile puddled around it. Yuck. There is always ugliness in every act of beauty. Think about it, the gorgeous girl with the ugly hands, the dramatic cliff side view that leaves no way down, the sleek lines of the cheetah, the efficient stalking machine. But I had additional plans for my  wheatgrass. It was going to be luscious.

This afternoon, when Nick asked for his usual smoothie, I took out my kitchen scissors and sheared a hunk of wheat grass from the half I didn't offer the cat. I did this instead of adding a handful of spinach to the usual smoothies. I added the same other ingredients, bananas, strawberries, rice protein and all. I cut another hunk of grass for my own smoothie minus the bananas. I can get a sugar overload from bananas.

And I blended.

As I popped in a green straw and handed Nick his smoothie, I said, "So tell me what you think. I used wheat grass instead of spinach."

He took a big sip and gave me a noncommittal nod. What the hell is that supposed to mean? But he kept sucking at the straw, so I assumed everything was good.

I went back into the kitchen and blended my own smoothie. My mouth began to water. I wasn't sure why, but the whole thing reminded me of summer. This could be the beginning of spring, flowers blooming and food getting so fresh it didn't need you to add much. I love cooking this time of year.

I chose another green straw in celebration of my wheatgrass concoction. I took a big sip and held it in my mouth before I swallowed, ready to savor the fresh new flavor.

It tasted like I had paused while mowing the lawn and stopped at the pile of grass clippings for a snack. With the second taste, I got a hunk of chewy unblended grass in my mouth. The little green and yellow cat puke I'd cleaned up in the laundry room came to mind.

Welcome to spring.

Thank you for listening, jb



 

Trying Not to Practice My Drop-Kicks

The cat is sitting smugly on the back of the recliner. I have pushed him off of it multiple times, especially when I had been sitting in it and his tail kept swishing my nose and his weight on the pillow at my head made my neck hurt. He claims it as his own spot now and only reluctantly leaves when I play the game of leaning back and forth in it so that Seth can no longer keep his balance. That just pisses him off.

Love is a battlefield. Pat Benetar had it right, but not between Mike and I. No. I'm talking about the household cat.

When I first laid eyes on Seth, he was a kitten bounding across the living room floor toward me as if he already knew me. He was cute, but there was a mischievous spark in his eyes.

"That cat is a bad husband from a previous life," I said. After ten years of his 'love' I'm sticking with this explanation.

Have I told you how, in the middle of the night, he'll come silently into the room, jump onto my feet and walk my full length until he gets to my head, whereupon he drags his furry belly across my face in an attempt to get me to pet him?

Have I told you how he sometimes stands in the hallway crying in alarm? This morning was that way. At 4:17am, sleep let go slowly but I came awake in a slurry of anxiety. What was wrong? Why was Seth in the hallway sounding his alarm call?

He does that sometimes when he's bored and the moon is up.

He does that sometimes when coyotes are howling. 

He does that sometimes when he gets a wild hair and wants to play mind games. I read once that in concentration camps, they blared loud music in the night to torture the captives with sleep deprivation.

Seth does it at times when people are up and he thinks I should be apprised of the situation.

"Meow!" These days he stands in the hallway knowing that I'm a crack shot with the squirt bottle in the dark. I know because once I've gotten up, I have actually petted him if I could keep myself from using him for a field goal and many of those times, he was wet. I've learned not to touch him at all when I feel tempted to use him for a field goal. It passes quickly.

"Meow." Field goal, but he's out of reach and I'm still practically paralyzed with my need for sleep. Seth says this the same way Harrison Ford would say it to the older Carrie Fisher off set. You know, more like growling than purring.

"Me Ow." Seth is frustrated by the fact that my feet aren't yet on the cold floor and I'm pretending to ignore him. He can tell by my breathing that I'm awake. He waits for the field goal moment to pass before he jumps only my feet and begins the balancing act of walking the length of my body.

"I'm up, damnit. I'm up." And I twist him off my hip before I get belly fur in my mouth.

Five minutes later, as I stand, bleary-eyed, in the kitchen light, Mike walks in carrying Seth in his arms. I stand there with him for a minute, petting the beast.

"You're up early."

"Uh huh."

"Good morning, honey." Mike leans across the cat and kisses me. Mike is kind in the morning, if not a little too cheerful.

"What time did you get up" I ask him.

"Oh, about 4:15." See what I mean?

Thank you for listening, jb

Why I Need to Tell You

We're old now. Mike's got a bad knee and I've got a few extra pounds and hypoglycemia. I don't imagine myself sleeping on the ground any more either, not even with the best inflatable lightweight mattress my money can buy. Shoot, I have trouble sleeping in my bed with four pillows and memory foam. But still they come up, those trips Mike and I took. They rattle around in my head, reminding me of how I picked Mike, or how my heart did. Sometimes I think I didn't have a thing to do with any of it. My heart just wandered after him like a lost puppy and finally he picked it up and took it home and fed it.

Twenty-eight years ago, he said on one of our early dates that he'd make a good husband. And after the first of those trips, a canoe trip, I knew he was right. He held my hair while I vomited. He paddled back in the rain across two lakes and two portages to pick up a sleeping bag, his sleeping bag, that I had left behind and he didn't even yell at me. I still work to learn that patience from him. He laid out on rocks and laughed into the night with me and watched abundant stars until he got too cold and sore from that unforgiving stone and then he kissed my forehead and went into his tent to sleep. I never did like sleeping in a tent. I've slept in a canoe, on that hard rock by the lake shore, and I've slept in a lawn chair in my bivvy sack in the rain. Mike always goes for our tent after a while. And I always feel so free and safe looking at it, usually only fifteen or twenty feet from where I was camped.

Oh, I slept in a tent with him in the middle of our adventures, when I was too in love to be more than four inches from him in the night but before I was willing to tell him the truth about needing to breathe cool air at night and get up when I needed to. I did sleep with him, sometimes with a wet, smelly dog. I did, but when I did I always shuffled from side to side on my thin mattress and woke him with my zipper in the night because I always have to get up in the night to pee. Always. Mike never complained when I woke him up.

So, I find myself trying to tell these stories to people. Have you noticed that people don't listen to stories any more? About half way through, they either interrupt you and tell you they know exactly what you mean when you know they couldn't possibly understand because you haven't had a chance to say what you mean just yet, or they start looking at their phones, probably checking how many likes their last post brought them on Instagram. So, the stories of thunder across the water, of bears in camp, of waves splashing over the bow of the canoe, of Mike heating up water just so I could wash my hair, all these stories stay wrapped up in my head and I'm still not sure why I need so badly to tell them.

There's something in these stories that I want to remind myself of when things get routine here at home, when he's under the sink asking me to hold the faucet in place while he seats the bolt, when it's not working and I accidentally open the tap and water starts dripping down into his eyes, and he still doesn't yell, not even then, and when I can stick my finger into the hole and reach the loose bit but my finger's not quite long enough to keep it in place while he seats the bolt. It's still the same with the two of us only those trips, the ones on the river, they don't read like everyone else's love stories. Oh, I know that love stories are unique to each couple and everybody has one, but how many people do you know who fell in love across fifteen or sixteen waterways in eleven different states? It's a story, dammit, and I want to tell it.

So ...

Thank you for listening, jb

True Tales of Furred Siblings

We have a battle going on here at home.

I usually remember to brush the cat and the dog about the time the cat pukes a hunk of wet fur the size of a mouse. It's gross. Fur-butt appearing on black pants or fur-shoulders can remind me too, but that's usually when Nick is about to go into karate and he's covered and we're not at home right then anyway. I never notice when I have a bad case of fur-butt myself because I don't have many mirrors that reflect that. I don't look for trouble, folks. But when Nick is walking into the dojo with a layer that he might be proud of on his head when he hits fifty-five, I think that maybe, just maybe, I should groom the dog.

Sometimes I'm reminded to groom them when the cat takes matters into his own hands and grabs an implement in his front paws and starts the process himself. Today, he had the rake upside down and looked to be poking his eye out with it. Four years ago, I had to get the rake because when Teddy lost all of his long beautiful fuzzy locks as a puppy, the Furminator wouldn't even go through it. His fur was too thick and the poor puppy began to think of grooming as a torture activity, yelping included. The Furminator worked perfectly on Seth though, and I've since used it in between shedding seasons on Teddy with lots of success. What you need to know with an exuberant cat who loves the Furminator is that it actually cuts hair. Seth got a little thin on his back once after a particularly loving and attentive session. Teddy still doesn't like it all that much, but it has its uses.

You know, I wish they made a Furminator without those two corners on them. That would have made Teddy much happier when I was using it on him as a pup. A curved comb would be perfect. Plus, I wish it had a knob instead of a handle because when Seth gets excited, the handle keeps getting in the way. Can you picture that? Or maybe a place to wrap your fingers in on top like the new silicone oven mitts that look like Kermit the Frog when you buy it in green.

Okay. Enough. I would redesign the world if I could. Can openers? Don't get me started.

So, I had begun to use the Zoom Groom on the cat when the dog came over and bumped my leg. Of all the implements, the animals like the Zoom Groom the best. It's a silicone thing with knobs on one side that massages and brings up clumps of dirt. Oh, I haven't met a creature yet that didn't love the Zoom Groom. There are no sharp edges. It helps to keep them clean. It pulls out old fur that had detached and threatens to form mats. I've been using the same Zoom Groom since 1995 with at least five pets. I wish I had someone to use a Zoom Groom on my back.

When I looked down at Teddy who kept bumping my leg, he stared up at me as if to say, "I thought you loved me best. You love me, right?"

So, I let him sniff the wad of cat fur that I was not going to have to clean off the carpet next week in a wet hunk of putrefaction. Seth bumped my hand with his head and I got back to brushing him.

"I'll be done in a minute. Then it'll be your turn," I said to Teddy. Seth stared down at Teddy.

"Not on your life, snot-sucker. Do you see her attending to you?" Seth can be cruel sometimes.

Seth stood up, walked in a circle, and looked down at Teddy's pitiful eyes again. How is it that a cat's eyes can convey such superiority? He seemed to say, "I'm going to take my time, puke-muncher. This is obvious evidence that she loves me more. It's my turn ... forever." And Teddy whined a little bit and looked away.

I gathered a hunk the size of a Brillo pad and tried to gauge when Seth would start to bite my hand to stop. We were close. I always try to stop well before he reaches that point. The problem was that Seth hadn't declared that we were finished. But I had.

I held the implements in one hand and called Teddy. I slipped on Mike's outdoor slippers. Teddy slid through the door with a look at Seth that said, "I told you she loved me." I tucked the little Brillo pad of gray cat fur into the terracotta pot where I put old fur. It's February. It's time to make sure the extra fur gets into that pot for cozy nests and warm fledglings.

Suddenly, I became aware of cheering chickadees in the trees. Had they been singing like that before I came outside? Was I imagining their excitement? All the fur I'd left on the ground at the last grooming was gone. There was still a tiny clump of old wet fur in the pot.

Teddy stood in his spot, waiting. Seth, on the other hand, stood on the other side of the screen door and wailed.

"She loves me best, hump-meister!"

"I do love you," I said to Seth. "I brushed you first. Remember?" I started on Teddy with the rake and pulled up a lot of old undercoat. The chickadees cheered as I added a hunk of cream-colored fur to the gray stuff in the pot.

"That's not fair. She can't possibly love you, you bagless-mongrel."

"Of course I love Teddy too. I love both of you." I switched to the Furminator and worked on the little spot on Teddy's thigh that turned pink when he licked his butt too long. Last week, with me on the couch harboring a cold, pink fur became the new black. I added a little wad of pink fur to the pot.

"It's going to be my turn in two seconds, butt-sniffer," Seth seemed to spit. The pot was beginning to look like a pretty knitting project. Cream and gray with a touch of pink highlights. I could knit a sweater out of these two. I smiled as I thought that the chickadees were going to do just that. I wish I could see one of those nests. I imagine they're seriously pretty and functional too.

I finished with the Zoom Groom, pulling long guard hairs out of the knobs and tossing them into the ivy.

"No, not the Zoom Groom! That's mine, you flocculent eunuch! It is my turn, now!" And I was finished. I swiped my hands together and collected my tools. Teddy leaned into my legs a little bit before he walked over to where the cat was staring, burning holes in the screen door.

"See, she really does love me," Teddy seemed to say.

I opened the door to the screen, slid the over-sized slippers off my feet, and dropped all but the Zoom Groom onto the floor by the coffee table. Seth jumped onto the back of the recliner where I casually rubbed his back and neck with the Zoom Groom, collecting no more than a pinch of loose fur.

"But she loves me more, zit-licker."

Thank you for listening, jb