Day 122 of 365
All week, I have been cat sitting my daughter’s cat. Her cat, Marley, is magnificent. Marley used to be our whole family’s cat, but Marley and Sophie didn’t get along, so when my daughter moved into her own apartment, she took Marley with her. My daughter adores Marley too, so it was a win-win. But my daughter is in between apartments this week at a time when there is a housing and rental shortage is so many parts of our state. Maine is experiencing an influx of new people.
So I am hanging out with Marley all week, but our last day together is tomorrow. It has been a treat. She’s just this fantastic cat, and I am thankful for the time with her. It will be good to get back to giving Sophie my full attention since she is so near her end, but Marley has been wonderful to get to know again. She’s very sweet and loving, and she has just one eye. We don’t know how it happened. We adopted her from the Humane Society when she was about 2 years old, and she already had just one eye then. In fact, her mystery was a part of her appeal.
Ron said cats with one eye can see into the spirit world, so you know we had to adopt her. I still wonder if, somehow, she can. She has been looking deeply into me this week, and it feels like a powerful stare.
It started the first night she was here. I was sitting next to her, and she raised up and leaned into my face and just stared. I think she was remembering me more deeply than she remembers me when I see her at my daughter’s house. She just stared and stared at me–with her beautiful eye–and I, of course, I wondered about her other eye.
She has done this several times since that first night, but she has not stared so long and so deeply as she did that first night. I wonder what all she thinks about me.
I love to study our animals (dogs, cats, chickens, and ducks–and we used to have a few fish). I try to study them from my personal observations, and then I will research and read everything I can on what is known in the scientific community about their behaviors and intelligences. I probably should have studied Biology in school. I was just raised that girls didn’t “do science,” though I remember setting the curve on every single Biology exam in college, and there were at least 150 people in those classes. I only mention this to say, though I love to teach writing, I wish I could go back to school and get some degrees in Science. I think I might have been good at it, and I have deep worries about higher education right now. Of course, going back to school very expensive, and I still owe from my first degrees, so…I’ll keep studying our animals and researching the science journals and magazines myself.
I’ll also try to enjoy Marley tonight before she goes home tomorrow. What an honor it has been!
Farmer-ish 