many happy returns

The super-saturation of my online life, the electronic representation of the muck and mystery that is being me (being any of us), means that I sometimes forget that I haven't returned here, to this place, to share or update. I don't want all my thoughts and considerations to be watered down to 140 twitter characters or very quick third-person facebook status updates, but I can't deny I'm attracted, like a bird (fast and shiny), to the ease. It's just so efficient to tap out a line, what's for dinner, how are you feeling, what's going on, so fast, and not worry about cohesiveness and grammar, not get stuck, thinking slowly with my fingers, in front of the laptop, when I really should be doing other things. So that's why I sat down to write this very glad entry last Thursday, but abandoned it to more immediate tasks and dispatched our happy news elsewhere. So, maybe you already know, but maybe you're a steady lurker (do I have even one?) who did not yet hear: Binx is back!!

Now we've all heard stories of little cats caught in moving trucks and missing for months. We all know cats who have gone walkabout for long periods, only to come back again, scrawny and starved for affection. I kept a solid, neutral, hopeful front up for the children, but I didn't really think this story would turn out well. I was speaking in past tense. I was preparing to move on. He's so tiny, so sweet, not at all the sort of scrappy cat who can make it out there. I thought he was a goner.

Our doorbell rang last Thursday morning and it was our across the street neighbor, holding Mister Missing-Six-Days, just like that. We spent hours out looking for our little guy every day, so I can't believe he was always so close. I suspect he wandered far away and was making his way home. At any rate, we were/are thrilled and grateful.

Six days is enough time for a just getting plump and healthy cat to become all bones again. He was weak and sleepy, but happy. Purring like a purr machine, curled up in laps and on pillows.

Now, home for almost four days again, he's less hungry, more playful, but just as sweet and purry. We are being extra vigilant in monitoring cats and open doors, though he doesn't seem (yet) inclined to leave. And if some kind of guilt-driven forbearance has him sleeping at our heads, instead of our feet, I'm sure you can understand why. We sure missed that little kitten and we don't want to lose him again.

And since I'm already here and all, I should mention that it only took me fourteen months of living here to set the clock on my range. It's an analog clock and smaller than is really so functional in the kitchen and I hardly noticed it anyway. But I set it and guess what? It keeps time (which is noteworthy, as every secondhand wall clock I've brought into my timekeeper-less kitchen has not, nor does my undercabinet radio/docking station, which gets faster and faster each day and I never know what time it is when I'm in there, a problem).

I actually set the clock to see if I could use the Time Bake function on the (old and unattractive but I can't complain) oven. The clock ran like clockwork and the Time Bake feature is fine. I remember it vaguely, a vestige of my childhood and Sunday roasts after church with potatoes and carrots. My mother would set the Time Bake and we'd come back home to a hot lunch, ready for us after changing out of white shoes and slicky underslips, Sunday dresses. So it wasn't after church, and it wasn't pot roast, but it was a busy gone-all-day day and coming home to lentils and rice and baked potatoes. I opened the door and smelled dinner and felt a little like someone else had been there all afternoon cooking for me. It's a nice way to come home.