Carl Sandburg has obviously never been to my house. There is nothing silent about the haunches moving around in here. I am certain that my downstairs neighbors moved out because they got tired of hearing the fog roll in like thunder at about 2 in the morning.
Since I last blogged about my four-legged companions, the feline contingent in my home has doubled in size. Perhaps if I spent more time blogging and less time collecting cats, I wouldn't have these problems.
The $800 alleycat will celebrate his ninth birthday on Saturday, along with at least four humans that I know. I find it rather amusing that I know so many people born on Halloween; I can't think of any other day of the year that's a common birthday for more than two or three people.
The first new addition, no longer an alleykitten, has grown into a pretty pastel tortoiseshell about half the size of her big brother. She still thinks she's tougher than he is, though.
"The littlest one" is technically a "foster cat" on a long vacation from the House of Mews. She broke her leg last summer, and it had to be amputated. She came to stay with me as she adjusted to life on three legs, and instantly developed a crush on the alleycat. It's hard to argue with true love, so she ambles about on her unique version of "cat feet" and still expects to be congratulated when she jumps onto the dining room table.
"The baby" is still technically a kitten, yet she's bigger than the littlest one (obviously). She appeared one night in the parking lot outside the restaurant where my fiance and I had just had dinner. My fiance made the mistake of saying, "oh, baby, you can't rescue all of them." Determined to prove him wrong at least once, I managed to load the wide-eyed, skittish kitten into my car. Amazingly, she rode all the way home without a sound. She has found her voice (I think the alleycat gave her some lessons), learned to like being cuddled, and enjoys chasing her older siblings around the house.
Which sounds a lot more like a stampede than fog rolling across a bay.
Friday, October 30, 2009
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Taking Care of Friends
One of my few -- ok, probably my only -- pleasant memories of the infirmary on my college campus came in my senior year. A good friend of mine was stuck there with a genuine illness (as opposed to the self-inflicted ones that landed me there from time to time), and I was among a team of well-wishers that tried to boost her spirits. I was probably the only one who tried to cook her dinner, which I think that she actually pretended to eat.
On the particular visit that I remember best, I read aloud from The World's Best Rejection Letter. As seniors, we were all furiously applying for jobs and graduate schools and planning for The Future. The economy being in better shape back then than it is today, most of us eventually got hired. I was applying for jobs in theater, which meant that most companies apparently felt that their not-for-profit status and limited budgets absolved them from having to send out rejection letters. In response to what seemed like a hundred resumes and cover letters (back in the days before email when you had to actually print, sign, and mail such things), I received exactly one acknowledgement postcard, exactly one job offer, and The World's Best Rejection Letter.
The Letter, which included the sentence "I feel like a jerk" (I couldn't make this stuff up), came in response to my resume, which had apparently been received after the position I wanted had already been filled. The company's director, however, realized that the ad I had referenced in my cover letter actually stated that the application deadline was much later. Apparently, this oversight upset him so thoroughly that he felt compelled to apologize to me quite profusely. Unfortunately, he didn't feel compelled to change his mind and offer me the job.
By the time The Letter arrived, I had begun to despair that anyone anywhere was going to hire me. The fact that someone wrote me a letter suggesting that he had looked at my resume long enough to see which job he wasn't going to give me was a huge boost to my ego. And yes, I'm fully aware of how pathetic that sounds.
On the day that I received The Letter, I brought it to the infirmary room where my sick friend was staying and read it aloud with great expression to the genuine amusement -- and amazement -- of my friends. At that moment when The Future seemed so daunting to all of us, I think we felt better realizing that there might actually be real human beings out there in the world. And at least one of them wasn't afraid to use the word "jerk" in reference to himself.
Twelve years later, I still pull out The Letter when I need a good laugh, or a some encouragement, or a little of both. So, knowing that a friend of mine could use some of the same, I thought I'd dust off The Letter -- and my much-neglected blog -- and remind her that I'm still around to boost her spirits.
On the particular visit that I remember best, I read aloud from The World's Best Rejection Letter. As seniors, we were all furiously applying for jobs and graduate schools and planning for The Future. The economy being in better shape back then than it is today, most of us eventually got hired. I was applying for jobs in theater, which meant that most companies apparently felt that their not-for-profit status and limited budgets absolved them from having to send out rejection letters. In response to what seemed like a hundred resumes and cover letters (back in the days before email when you had to actually print, sign, and mail such things), I received exactly one acknowledgement postcard, exactly one job offer, and The World's Best Rejection Letter.
The Letter, which included the sentence "I feel like a jerk" (I couldn't make this stuff up), came in response to my resume, which had apparently been received after the position I wanted had already been filled. The company's director, however, realized that the ad I had referenced in my cover letter actually stated that the application deadline was much later. Apparently, this oversight upset him so thoroughly that he felt compelled to apologize to me quite profusely. Unfortunately, he didn't feel compelled to change his mind and offer me the job.
By the time The Letter arrived, I had begun to despair that anyone anywhere was going to hire me. The fact that someone wrote me a letter suggesting that he had looked at my resume long enough to see which job he wasn't going to give me was a huge boost to my ego. And yes, I'm fully aware of how pathetic that sounds.
On the day that I received The Letter, I brought it to the infirmary room where my sick friend was staying and read it aloud with great expression to the genuine amusement -- and amazement -- of my friends. At that moment when The Future seemed so daunting to all of us, I think we felt better realizing that there might actually be real human beings out there in the world. And at least one of them wasn't afraid to use the word "jerk" in reference to himself.
Twelve years later, I still pull out The Letter when I need a good laugh, or a some encouragement, or a little of both. So, knowing that a friend of mine could use some of the same, I thought I'd dust off The Letter -- and my much-neglected blog -- and remind her that I'm still around to boost her spirits.
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