Mesa

For longer than I care to count, the kitchen table has been my desk more than a food supporting item. Started as a place to dress and have breakfast without waking Dylan, at ungodly hours of the dark mornings. I would listen to the radio, NPR, read comics as they slowly loaded via modem. I would cook and eat a couple of fried eggs, drink some tea, wake up enough to drive, and off I'd go.

Nowadays, Dylan is almost always long awake before me.

So my desk, where my computer sat with me, was also the kitchen counter/table. Having a separate room would mean a lot more burned food and forgotten tea, so yes, in this case, this woman's place IS in the kitchen. I've considered this, and I don't think there is any way around it. It probably helps me keep the room clean, if not the table.It tends to catch everything, so keeping it mostly clear is impossible. Hair ties, nail clippers, earrings, hand lotion - the sort of stuff I need to be ready for work. Tie up the hair, trim the ragged nails, decorate in my small way, heal the dry hands. Pens, cat toys, potholders, books.


Eleanor started standing by my right hand, as I sit here reading or writing, and I must reach down and pet her. She leaves, returns for more, over and over, until she's contented. Zeppo watched her for a long time, until he got his courage up.

"That looks nice, maybe I can do it too."

At first out of reach, then only enough so that I could touch his tail, then let his long tail trail through my fingers, then the occasional head bop to my hand. Sometimes he would sit and query me, and I would invite him.

"C'mon, you can come up here." He would look, and consider, then invite a tail brush, then off he'd go.

"No, nope, not yet..."

He'd jump up to the table when I was not around, then scamper away.

This morning we talked about it again, and, after extensive calculation, he hopped up to the table. Did not want me to touch him there, but he stayed a good half minute. A triumph, a step toward courage, followed by a head-fist-bump after he was back on the ground. His head, my knuckles.


The proper place for a cat.