When Timmy got agitated, which was often, he’d go to the wooden frames throughout the house and scratch. That or the carpets. He’d left the leather sofas alone but they were still ruined from him jumping up and down on the arm rests. And he’d learned to bait me and push my buttons by jumping on surfaces where I didn’t want him to go. Like the bookshelf in the den or mantle, where we kept special things. So I used an aerosol can with a motion detector that blew a dubious substance that was not good to inhale or get on your skin. And a spray bottle I once put vinegar in until I was told not to by my family. I sometimes aimed for the eyes.

To help dissuade the scratching on the frames I got a double-sided tape made expressly for that purpose called Panther Armour, available on Amazon, with helpful videos featuring cats like Timmy angrily ruining carpets and chairs, outed on video in their natural habitat for what they truly are, domestic vandals.

The Panther Armour came in rectangular-shaped panes with peel-off backing, cut to size, with a mean-looking cartoon panther flexing and its claws out, Wolverine style.

Timmy watched me apply the tape to the doorframes and squeeze the air bubbles out. He then used his teeth to try to peel it off from the corners but couldn’t, looked despondent (or bored), then roamed off to another room. Cats sleep 17 hours a day I’m told. They do maybe five other things and for Timmy, cuddling’s not one of them.

Unlike dogs, I’ve always admired the independent, take-it-or-leave-it attitude of cats. The unabashed vanity and self-absorption. Timmy about to slide off the edge of the leather sofa, licking himself. That nonchalant look of indifference, taking each digit one by one. Luxuriating in each stroke. Tail flapping in rhythm, beating the upholstery.

I made plans to meet a colleague who was in from New York. I had to get out of the house. I’d drive a half an hour each way, pay way too much for parking, and only meet with him for an hour but it was worth it just to get a break from being indoors.

Here was the morning sky seen from a different angle, my car, driving on the freeway with the morning commute and remembering what that was like when I drove into Seattle every day in a minivan with other workers. How you could be gifted a view like this on some random weekday: pink skies and fresh snow on the Olympic mountains. Almost made the drive worth it.

I got two vaccines in the same arm and waited to feel sick, a strange pastime I picked for Fridays to confine my illness to the weekends and lie low. We watched a horrifying film about witchcraft which our youngest dismissed as propaganda and a trope, but was so upset by she came into our room in the middle of the night asking mom, would you sleep with me please, allowing me to stretch out in bed, also bothered by the film, with the sense I wasn’t really alone and what was that odd sound, that breathing? Timmy.

Categories: Creative Nonfiction, Diary, Humor

Tags: Creative Nonfiction, pacific northwest