Friday Cat Blogging: Late To Supper Edition

The car next to mine honks. It's been so long since I made friends in parking lots that I don't notice until the third time and finally I turn around. It's Mom, which I can tell from a distance because Mom's little truck-like whatsis is a special electric blue that seems to have short-circuited the factory since nothing else on the road is that same exciting hue.

Mom: So many people beep at you you don't look around anymore?
Tata: Yes, Mom, strangers honking are just friends I haven't met. As we know, in close proximity to libraries, you are rendered invisible to my eye.

I work in the university library where Mom worked when I was a kid. One day more than ten years ago, I learned not to stare at my feet as I walk when I was leaving the building and found my path blocked by a pair of feet. I tried to go around but the feet stepped into my path again. I looked up and found myself about to curse out Mom.

Mom: I've been chasing you for minutes. Didn't you see or hear me?
Tata: Since you've cut me off, at some point it may come in handy to know you can outrun me.

Right: so no racing Mom for the last life preserver. No wonder I spent my teen years grounded. We're now exchanging oxygen for carbon dioxide outside the public library.

Mom: Did you pick up the yogurt maker?
Tata: Not yet. The food bank's drop off bin is right inside the door.
Mom: I'm returning a book. Look at my knitting!

She's sitting in the truck-whatsis, explaining why she chose eyelash yarn and I'm asking through the open window about a casting-on gesture her mother taught me. We look like middle-aged drug dealers in in bright colors and sensible shoes conducting an unwise transaction in the municipal complex. I persuade her to lock up the eye-catching vehicle and go inside with me, where I slip a bag of canned goods into the bin. I remember I'm also on my way to her house to drop off a gift from Miss Sasha just as Mom gets a call. We both walk outside and I skip for the gift to my car and back. As if by magic, I can't see her again.

I have been gone for about a whole minute and in that time, I've lost her. I ask a woman standing by the door if she's seen the lady I was just talking to. She says the most interesing thing.

Woman: She went outside with you.
Tata: That's what I thought but now I've lost her.

I go outside and look around again. I go back inside and look in a reading room, around the reference desk, past the circulation desk, and there's no place to go but into the stacks. There she is, picking out a book. I hand her the box.

Tata: Turns out you're actually invisible near libraries. The woman by the door thinks you're still outside.
Mom: That's just silly. Have you read Janet Evanovich's books?
Tata: Yes, and while they sometimes make me laugh, the constant eating of disgusting, sugary foods makes me sick. I haven't read the last two because I fear diabetic coma.
Mom: The books on tape are even better. This comedienne reads them and does all the voices. You should here her do Lula and the stalker sounds like, "Stephanie!"
Tata: I'd rather read it myself than get in my car and drive to...nowhere...and drive home after a denoument.
Mom: This author writes about the backwoods Pennsylvania Dolly Parton of detectives.
Tata: My stars! Possum and perm solution!
Mom: These books are very, very funny.
Tata: Since you're visible again, I'm leaving now. See ya!

I drive to her house to pick up the yogurt maker and stand on the front lawn, shocked. She and Tom are rearranging stuff in their truck-things. I shouldn't be surprised since this is my mother and we go way back but I'm flabbergasted. How does the person who's always three hours late move faster than I do?



Mom calls Larry, the little black cat bent on stealing your soul, "my grandkitty." Mom's grandkitty is quite neurotic about eating in front of his human friends - or as he likes to call us prey. If I walk into the kitchen while he's nibbling kibble, he'll gaze at me over his shoulder, past his ivy topiary and around the washing machine. If I don't turn on my heel and leave, he runs past me, muttering. Though the cat spends every possible moment perched on me, he wants to eat alone - unless he wants company. There's no telling what with the fickle pussycat!

On the fridge: a red Q. I have magnetic letters, which means the cat may secretly be spelling. Perhaps he'll be more successful communicating in the mysterious language of magnetic, plastic cats. Watch your refrigerators for the feline news crawl.