Francis is up here, paying me a cheerful visit.
It took him an hour and 45 minutes to waddle into the room, and then another seven years to crawl up to the desk. I really wish I'd have paid attention, actually, to how he got up here, because usually I have to lift him. Now he is up here hissing down at Tallulah, who is barking up at him. They can't stand each other. It's like I have FOX News and MSNBC together, here.
In the meantime, Winston just strolled in and effortlessly leaped into the window. It was kind of sad, thinking of when Francis used to be able to do stuff like that. I wonder when the last time was that Francis could just leap up like a normal cat, before he got arthritis and all fat and old and such?
Do you ever think about stuff like that? The last time stuff happened?
Two summers ago, Marvin and I went back to Michigan because it was our 10-year wedding anniversary. We decided to spend the night at the bed-and-breakfast where we got married.
Here I am, on our 10-year anniversary, reenacting my wedding pose.
The real picture doesn't have a line through it; it's just the ding-dang scanner.
Anyway. So we went to my mother's house before we went to the bed and breakfast, because said B&B is in my hometown. My Uncle Jim dropped in, and we went in the back yard and sat, and then my Aunt Kathy came, and so did my Aunt Sue, and finally my stepfather came home from work. We were all just sitting around laughing and talking while my mother ran back and forth with 2937749235 items of food as she always does. Tallulah was there, too. She was just a puppy.
I remember my Uncle Jim laughing while Tallulah ran around my mother's back yard. I knew from the way he laughed that he thought my dog was cute, and I was proud of Talu.
I really didn't want to get up and go to our romantic dinner and evening, because I was having so much fun. But I think we had reservations, so we finally left.
That was the last time everything was normal with my family. The next time I saw my uncle, he was in the hospital with cancer. We all sat around and laughed again, but we all knew he was really sick. That day of our anniversary, July 18, 2008, was the last time everyone was healthy.
Am I the only one who thinks of stuff like that? The last time stuff happened? The last date you had with anyone else before you met your spouse, the last normal phone call you had with your best friend before you broke up with her, the last weekend to yourself you had before you had kids.
I was thinking about Francis the other night. He slept with us every single night without fail until the day we got Tallulah, and he's never slept with us since. Tallulah slept in a crate for her first year, so Francis could have kept on in the bed, but he was too mad. I think about that last night in February 2008, when poor Fran had his last night sleeping with people. Since then he sleeps alone on his angry chair.
Do you ever do this? Think of the last time something happened? Or am I just Sylvia Plath?
