where's my pillow

This day started with a fool's errand to the post office in which I failed to check the open hours thus arriving 20 minutes before it opened. It ended with a sink load of dishes and cat puke on the living room rug. There were many things in between, one of which included running into a friend walking hand in hand out of the grocery store with our mutual friend's daughter. I love this small town feature of Brooklyn. Thankfully there are only a handful of people I dread running into, and unless I unexpectedly come face to face with said dreaded persons, I can cross the street to continue in stealth mode. Parked cars and a general state of distraction aid and abet my hermit tendencies. Tonight I relished the encounter, and it was difficult to decline my three year old friend's invitation to go on a ginger ale search for her under the weather parent. Sadly, I had to feed myself or risk a serious melt down and then I had to prep for my trip down to VA to attend the funeral services for my sister-in-law's father. Wild Friday night plans in every direction. And now that I've checked the last box on my to do list for the day, I'm going to crawl into bed and get comfortable before the cats make it impossible to turn over. Charrow is visiting her parents for the weekend, and you would think that might mean more room in the bed. Whoever thinks that clearly does not own pets (or doesn't allow them on the bed, which is cold, I tell you. cold.). And now a haiku about what it's like to fold laundry with cats (or the dog, but he's not home right now).

walk away from piles
of fresh laundry, return to
a slumber party

(too many prepositions, but I'm not fixing it)

picture: the fatter, bossier of our two cats curled up on my dresser in an old apartment, Brooklyn, NY, July 2009, digital 

demands

There a lot of things that evoke homicidal urges, albeit fewer now that I don't work in food service, which is frankly TOO much interaction with the underbelly of humanity to maintain equanimity off the clock. One thing that really sets off the boil is the @!$%^$ cat screeching at 2am, or 4am, or 1am, or any am except the am at which we are meant to be done sleeping. You see, she takes our middle of the night bathroom breaks as a cue to begin Operation Breakfast. It used to be the signal for her "midnight" snack, which we managed to eradicate about two months ago. What does the operation entail? She goes into the bathroom and howls at the top of her little lungs. For extra acoustic fervor, she will get into the tub where it echoes off the porcelain. Crafty little shit. Sometimes a harshly toned "HEY" is enough to settle the issue with short-lived results. But I finally figured out a solution that makes her go silent after about three minutes, and you will find it in the last line of today's first haiku.

howling falsetto
rings in my ears until I
shut the bathroom door

//

her belly sways as
she scurries to the window
to binge and purge plants

top picture: the kitchen sink of our apartment in Atlanta (pre-dog), August 2008, digital 
bottom picture: same apartment, demanding food, May 2008, digital