Crickets and Hooty Owls

Snowbelle conducts an orchestra of tree frogs in concert; she lifts the sound of primeval croakings to crescendo, turns, bows, then stops out for dining at LeChez FeuxFeux before going back to the loft apartment at the Hillard. Applause surrounds her every move, we wish we had her specialness, her taste, her uncanny timing. This obviously is in her delusional haid until I raise a pillow to flop in her direction with cuss words only grandpas usually know, learned by cleaning carburetors on stubborn Pontiacs. This is the only way I can explain her biting a lovely, miniscule hole in my CPAP tubing, ending in a pressure drop and me waking at 2 in the a. m.

Froggery is only what I can imagine goes on in that cat's noggin, for she sees, hears, and thinks in the sort of logic found in the religious studies department of any university. She's pure white, but not deaf; her part Siamesie-ness evident by azure blue eyes which give no clue to the popcorn carny show inside. Her spine is missing a vertebrae, and the knee caps are luxated which means out of place. Walking is a hoppity gimp with tail in a perpetual sickle shape that swings from side to side of its own barometric readings.

Who knows where other anomalies may occur? She can run, climb, and gave birth to two babies before I found her at the city shelter in a vinyl box with sores on her neck from hanging her head over the edge. But there is something living in that little white head largely unexplored, which causes electrical stops and starts sometimes resulting in bleeding tread marks on me when she bolts. Pedal to the metal, that one.

All the cats are unafraid of the CPAP business that I now employ, and try to cuddle on top of the heated hose which is slid under a blanket to keep condensation down and cats away. Princess @#%$ Snowbelle is the only one who gets that half-lidded look of love in her eyes as she nuzzles the hose and will mouth it, gently, delicately, as if she is trying to pick up the tiniest baby kitten, then chomp.

I now roust her out at earliest inclination once I figured her game, and game it is for unless I am there and hooked up to the air pump, she could care less. And she knows that I know that she knows better. She knows better, I swear. She's not stupid, perhaps it is some mission dictated to her by the brain frogs she carries in her cranial cavity. The finality is that I now have a hose with a hole.

Online, the forum recommends duct tape which is fine with me once I procure some. Surgical tape didn't adhere to the inevitable crevice this teensy pinhole is in, for the thing hissed till morning until the alarm went off. I swore at the cat. The cat didn't stay around to listen. An order through a company on eBay is cheaper than going to my local supplier with free shipping and no tax, and will be here by midweek. Equipment will be sustained by duct tape until then, with a rewrapping of the hose in the makeshift cover of cut-off sweatshirt sleeves tied together, the epitome of living cheaply.

Princess Snowbelle, or Tish, is taking her afternoon nap. She is dreaming of different days and nights, of the evening before the summer solstice brings shorter daylight hours back to the northern hemisphere. Up here on the ninth floor, she may be the only one hearing crickets in the grasses of her dreams; maybe she is catching frogs in her old habitat further down the way in Lakeview where she was named Ashley and had her kittens. She can try to terrorize the others, but now even Tulip the Timid stands up to her, laying in wait to swat her white business with a pawful of even-Steven. I don't blame her, Tish made life hell for Tulip for several years. No one gets hurt, only small things are ever broken.

I have supper at a friend's and made the ubiquitous but always welcome brownies, and there is a rhubarb cake in process. Min is next to me on the arm of the chair, Tulip is on a rug in the hallway near cooler air, away from the warm Sunday in session. I will go get ready and be home later tonight, when the real crickets are naming temperatures, and frogs in the canal near my friend's house in the Old Ward are singing for supper at moonrise.

Sleep well, my friends. There is so much to be and do, be ready, be refreshed, move forward. The cats send their love. Me too.