Well, the girls just survived a visit from The Louie.
Mimi: Egads!! What the hell is that thing?!
Bella: Did you just say “Egads”?
Mimi: Yeah, and?
Bella; Well don’t look at me on that thing. Hell, you came from the “down there” you should know … and please don’t say “Egads” again … ever.
Mimi: Hey, I’ve been up here for a while thank you and anyway I don’t know this one. I’d surely remember such a slobbery mess.
Bella: Yeah, well a HAPPY slobbery mess since it’s eating all our freakin’ food!
Cricket: Hey, what’s goin’ on you two?
Mimi: Oh, it’s disgusting. Where’d that human of ours go? He didn’t leave us with this abomination did he? And what’s with all the snorting?
Bella: I don’t know, a truffle hunt identity crisis? And I think he just went to the “down there”, he didn’t say goodbye like 30 times like he usually does during the week.
Mimi: That is kind of annoying huh? Just say goodbye once and get the hell out already.
Cricket: Hello?! Anyone? A little help you two, blind over here ya know. What’s happening?
Bella: It’s just one of those noisy, slobbery, snorty things from the “down there” eating up all of our damn food!!
Cricket: Oh, that’s all? Ok. let me know when it’s gone. I’ve got more blind circles to pace.
Mimi: Hold on I hear footsteps. Save us human!!! And please clean those bowls and Adam’s to go’s before you put more food back in them. They’re all freakin’ gross and spitty now.
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I had popped my head downstairs to say Hi to Celie who had just gotten home, along with her son Matt, and I was grabbing the last of some things in the dryer. It is a benefit of living here that I’m able to keep the sundries and other such wearing things clean on a weekly basis without having to outsource it to some spot where quarters are at a premium, uncomfortable sitting is required, even a good book not enough to distract and I’d have to have sanitizer at my hip on a worn leather belt like some sort of gunslinger in the Covid age.
After a quick hello to cats and Celie humans and an insistant bird and a retreat back to a soon hamper fill I made my way through the mudroom where the washer/dryer sits as well as the door to my upstairs. I did a quick dog count and a “goodnight” at each count head check.
Got ‘em all, Pea, Polly, Georgia, Chrissy with head pets and bellys and under chins and … Louie? But wait … There wa’nt no Louie. Where the hell was Louie?
Seems I had left my door ajar. Louie knows all about doors ajar. Well, it was no longer “ajar” but fully open and seeming to invite Louie to venture.
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I stopped at PetSmart earlier today on my way home from a little sendoff for my brother Nick, who is bound for Louisiana, a new step in his Entergy world. He has worked at Indian Point for years I can’t count now as some stuff and time melds, but with it’s soon closing he is off to a new spot to continue to patrol places we never really think of but provide us with light to write words.
It was a nice sendoff. Brothers in Beacon, NY, a place with pizza, they probably call it artisan, but a menu beyond that, I’ll have the chicken scarpariello with those cherry peppers and jalapenos please, a place that has been the go-to for so many years of our family moments. Beck (my sis) and her guy Buck, in the coolest of hats, a similar fedora type thing I rocked from the Cherry Door thrift shop so many years ago in college, gave Nick a Christmas present that he didn’t get back when we were Christmasing from afar, a really nice Marines t-shirt that could kick my ass just from looking at it, I gave him a small box of some Alan Parsons CD’s for the to Louisiana drive because of course I did.
Mom was there with Al, her guy, who genuinely, almost accidentally laughed in his stoidness at some of my and our stupid stories, especially the one about that time years ago where I came to find myself wearing my ex-father in law’s underwear (story for another time) and Ma sat being Ma gathering her collar in the chill that was an outside sit (my only stipulation on going to a restaurant). Can’t really ask for more than that. A Ma, and a proud new hairdoo with some new blonde highlights Ma. There is a disconnect as things slide, but Ma was a Ma today surely cursing somewhere in her head why we had to be sitting outside with her gathered collar in the not quite cold almost warm of a Saturday Spring but still cold to her “Stephen I’ll brain you for this chill as it’s all your fault”.
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I only went to Petsmart for a few things, all double masked up and head down. No Ron DeStupid Florida type stuff here. Other than Price Chopper early in the morning once a week or so I don’t usually stray, but it was on my way, and I wanted some cans of that food that have a fancier look, ones that claim Farm and others that claim Ocean and cost a few more cents, but gain an extra nose and an extra lick and a bag of Royal Canin dry food that I can only blame Bob Miller for. He’s the morning show guy for WBPM here and when the last of his best passed not too long ago he gave me what was left, even though there were now kitten newbies, a let go and a start anew I guess, some foods that I gladly took not realizing at the time that Mimi The Quirky, Cricket the Blind and my little Bella would find the Royal Canin to be the greatest dry cat food since the big dry cat food bang.
This shit’s almost 40 bucks a bag BOB!! I wanna see your portfolio. What dry cat foods are you invested in?
Motherfucker.
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Louie cleaned house. He went past the ajar and just vacuumed, not a hard bowl or plastic Adams to go box left with even a morsel. But the girls were fine, each in their own computer chair, when I made my way to the fast realization follow up the stairs, calling for and shooing a Louie away.
Just stares from two out of three of the chairs, a nose up from the third wondering of the sloppy mess that is a Louie, more curiosity than anything else was all I had to be worried of it seems.
I stepped back down to note to Celie and to Matt of a Louie and whatever words I could find to convey the funny of a Louie mess in my apartment but they were heads in on another furry project. A blind one who’s needs superseded anything that I could imagine.
Me: You’re all good girls. Ya met Louie I’m assuming? Yeah, I know. He’s a pain in the ass. Hard bowls and Adams to go’s are back in order now, and I de-louie’d them. (Mimi: Oh, thank goodness!!)
Me: Thank goodness indeed Memes.
Mimi: Woah!!! You can hear me?
Me: I can if I’m the one writing this and, well, I am a crazy cat lady guy, that would only make sense right?
Mimi: Freaky.
Me: Oh, I guess it’s a good thing I stopped at PetSmart on the way home now that everything needs a refill. Loaded up on that fancier looking Frisky stuff you three like and got another bag of the Royal Canin. Freakin’ expensive stuff, gotta kick Bob’s ass and definitely gotta keep Louie away in the future, but you’re all set now.
Mimi: Ummmm … thanks?
Me: Welcome.
Mimi: Hey Bella guess wh…
Bella: Don’t look at me, I ain’t saying a word.
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