⚡ January 31, 2019
Meet Harvey Wallbanger 🐹
Welcome to my cliché. There’s no other way to say I am sorry for ever looking past, with a cold heart, other people and their pets. Now, with the wisdom of a grandmother, I have said yes to a persistent little voice in my head that whispered Harvey! when I posed the question to myself about which is worse – the shrine I set up for the mice or getting a cat? I distinctly heard the name Harvey come echoing out of the void. I put it aside and wondered if, perhaps, a pooka might be lingering nearby.
So, in early October my niece Corrine (whose Facebook link I could add, if proper) sent me the photo at the top of this blog post, and I fell in love. This is a serious love, even more enveloping than my infatuation with our boat Espirita del Mar when I first climbed into her and felt her incense invade my senses. She was made of mahogany, a special deep black mahogany and had been floating in her berth just waiting for us, heaving with relief when we came aboard. The heart wants what the heart wants.
Bill has also become spellbound with our new Love Kitty. We now apologize to our old dock friends Ron and Ariane who actually named their hidden black cat Love Kitty. They also restored a wooden sailboat, yar; only now do I understand the concept, generically.
My children owned the pets we used to have, and I hardly saw any of them when they were growing up and I was trying to build empires and also pay the rent with more than my writing. The trickle-down theory doesn’t work, and all my precious attention went to the kids and never did any drips of honey reach the pets. We were never alone.
But now, Harvey makes everything better. Making the bed! It’s high adventure with the waves of nubby wool and fluffy down. Washing the dishes! He’s a tense observer on the cold windowsill as the hot water bubbles down below. I do love this cat. I just didn’t know I could or would, but I’m awfully glad my sister heard the panic in my voice and it was still OK. I didn’t hold him at all until he came to me. That’s how horribly cult-like this attraction is. I’ve subscribed to KitNipBox and eagerly await its arrival.
Sadly for the mice, Harvey has caught 16 so far, and he’s not yet 6 months old. They were harder to train than I thought, but our new system is better for all of us. Harvey catches and plays a bit until Bill picks up the poor prey with long dedicated barbecue tongs and flings it off the bridge and into the creak that flows past our house. Sage, if necessary, and balance is restored in Tallahatchie.
Until last night when he might have caught a lizard because it looked green in the dim light of our Tiki Tree as it sped around the room. This might explain why Harvey was pretty freaked out a couple of nights ago (because he’s just that sensitive and mature) and I surmised it might have been a particularly hostile mouse … but if it’s a lizard here in our country estate, I might have to check the perimeter for openings and take evasive action.
I have learned to embrace the inevitable. We all should, really … I figured this out at my first childbirth. No use in freaking out … that child will come out. Nature has a course and She is taking it. We are merely little leaf boats floating on the stream, floating and gathering may flies for the winter strudel.
Another question I ask myself: Might I have been just as wrong about psychedelics and psilocybin as I was about pet ownership? 🐔