MindSpinner

You know that bowl of spinach you just ate does not smell good when the orange kitten sniffs the bowl and then scratches earnestly all around it as if to bury it in litter.

Spread newspaper on table. Find good short paring knife and the first of several required bowls. Place laptop beside newspaper and turn on NPR because snapping an entire bucket of beans will take a while and could get a little dull. (After checking a bean for spots, it is possible to read a sentence or two online while breaking it.)
Grab a couple of handfuls of beans and put them on the newspaper beside bowl.
Trim each end off bean and snap beans into 1″ pieces.
Put Orange Stripey Dude down off the table.
Trim beans and snap.
Put Orange Stripey Dude down off the table.
Trim beans and snap. Grab another handful of beans from bucket.
Put Orange Stripey Dude down off the table.
Trim beans and snap. Hold Orange Stripey Dude for a few minutes and scratch under his chin before putting him back on the floor.
Trim beans and snap. Grab another handful of beans from bucket.
Put Orange Stripey Dude down off the table and give him his very own bean to play with.

Who knew how much fun a grean bean could be? Not me. Sounds of chasing and batting come from under the table.

Trim beans and snap. Get another bowl. Note that Orange Stripey Dude has grown weary at last and is falling asleep, lying with his back against the refrigerator, his left front paw resting atop his green bean.

1) I checked the beans yesterday and have a bucketful, so I’m pulling out the canner. I have enough tomatoes to make a small batch of sauce, too. I am happiest in the garden and least happy bumping about by myself in the house, ordering aimlessness with a to-do list. Today, however, it is steamy hot out. I’ll save the outdoors for evening.

2) I had thought that cats were loners of the animal world, that they preferred their own territory. Certainly Bobby, our five-year-old cat, has never liked other cats; he tolerates dogs better because he is more accustomed to them. Presented with a neighbor’s Rhodesian Ridgeback puppy (a creature bred for lion hunting), he will chase it around in the spirit of fun. Presented with a new cat, he will hiss and spit. And so he did at first with the orange kitten who has come to stay. Orange Stripey Dude, for his part, unabashedly expected to be loved and played with and would have no demurring. So now they play, they bathe each other with their tongues, and they often curl up together for a nap. So much for cats being solitary creatures.

3) The new academic year planners do me good. They have “November 2008″ printed right in front of me on physical pages, promising that the next presidential election really will come, and George Bush really will have to leave office.

4) My fifth period sophomore class of about 25 students has at least one precocious student who performs at college level, three who read at fourth grade level and one who reads at first grade level. One expects a range of abilities, but this mix is unusually challenging.

Whenever I run the water for my daily bath and step into the water, the kitten (AKA Orange Stripey Dude) insists on presiding. He wears a new expression on his face as he peeks over the top of the tub at me and down into the water. His eyes wide, the look is something between grave concern and mild alarm. He seems to be saying, “You aren’t going to drown, are you? Please tell me you are not suicidal. Don’t you know that it’s possible to drown in a mere two inches of water - I’ve never heard read this, of course, because I don’t read, but I know it because I am a cat, and cats don’t need to read things in order to know them. I’d say you’ve got four inches of water in there, not two, which likely doubles your chances of perishing. Be careful! Go easy with that sloshing about. Now, look what you’ve done.  Your ears are wet!”

The application of shampoo to my hair elicits even greater concern and two or three steps back. Orange Stripey Dude’s green eyes widen even farther and his back hunches a little. I don’t need a mirror to confirm that I’ve been transmogrified by suds. He is a question mark in striped pajamas. “Are you still you? Or are you becoming something else? Why does your head keep changing shape? Aaiyih, jump back! Part of your head just fell off, and it’s floating away there, in the water!”

This morning I read in the New England Journal of Medicine online about another cat, a cat named Oscar. Oscar assists patients, families, and medical staff on the third floor of Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Providence, Rhode Island. If Oscar curls up beside a patient, it’s time to call the family.

I am being assisted today in all my activities, including typing, by a marmalade kitten who could be yours. I heard small and plaintive meows this morning, thought I’d better check outside, and found the source instead in the guest room, eyeing me from the top of a bookshelf. A brief interrogation of the usual suspects turned up the facts. Catapult Kid and Dark-Haired Daughter found her on the side of the road last night; Dark-Haired Daughter kept her in her room most of the night but finally put her out in order to go to sleep.

After an hour of strenuously expressing her undying devotion, the marmalade kitten has relaxed enough to curl up next to my right hip to go to sleep. Before her green eyes close, she watches me with trust, even faith. She knows I’ve given her one dish of food and been here for an hour beside her, and on that basis, she is willing to believe that everything is better for now and for always. She has no clue that it takes money I don’t have to get her shots, to have her spayed and to buy twice the cat food and litter.

Yes, she could still be yours, but you’d better hurry up and claim her, or I’ll be asking for donations to the marmalade cat maintenance fund instead. More realistically speaking, I’d better get her to the animal shelter within the hour .