Stray Cats and Streetlights on a Saturday

It was an unusual Saturday. It was the first Saturday in the history of the USA that a guy named Joe was president. Also unusual because Lynn was feeling sick for the second day in a row which is two more days than usual. 

Typically, she’s up at 6 with all kinds of marvelous things to do while I’m still in bed trying to catch up on the nap that I call sleep. My real sleep takes place during the afternoon. The difference between napping and sleeping is that when I sleep, I fall asleep as soon as I take off my glasses. When I nap, I have to work at convincing myself to give up the attention that I’m paying to everything in my conscious or unconscious other than sleeping. This usually keeps me awake until dawn when I finally wake up from my nocturnal nap and go to sleep.

On that Saturday, Lynn remained in bed. She continued in bed. She stayed in bed.

Like a fool, I asked her if she was still sick to which she responded that she was in bed wasn’t she.

I asked if I could help her in any way to which she responded with the same question carrying a different emphasis....Can YOU help me in ANY way?

We both answered that one simultaneously....”I don’t think so”.

I came back an hour later.

“Do you feel well enough to take a walk” I asked cautiously.

“Do I look like I’m ready to take a walk” she answered my question with another question that once again we both answered simultaneously.

No

I came down an hour later and she was watching a rape revenge movie starring Kevin Bacon attempting a fake DeNiro. She asked me what the hell I wanted and then answered her question correctly. “I suppose you want to go for a walk.”

Before I nodded I asked her how the movie was going...she assured me that it was a piece of shit.

Then I nodded.

She asked me if i was nodding because I agreed that the movie she was watching was a piece of shit or because I wanted to go on a walk without her.

Again, after a moment of silence, Lynn and I answered her question together.

“both”

“Well then go on your walk on this beautiful day while I lie in this bed watching this shitty movie”, Lynn decided.

Within a minute I was walking down Serenity towards Vanguard when I saw something unusual.

A man was pushing a streetlight down Vanguard Street and while pushing the streetlight, he passed two women who were walking a dog.

The women turned on Drake Hill where we began to walk past each other.

I doffed my Bills cap and they waved hello.

I asked as they passed, “Excuse me but was that a guy pushing a street light or were my eyes deceiving me.”

The younger woman spoke first “No your eyes are fine that was a guy pushing a steet light.

“that’s something that you don’t see every day” I observed.

Both women agreed with smiles.

The younger woman suggested that maybe the guy had received the streetlight as a present or maybe he was gonna give the streetlight to his wife as a present.

I Imagined aloud the conversation....”Here honey, I’m sorry and happy birthday.....here’s that streetlight that you always wanted.”

The older woman said “Men do give women some strange gifts. On her last birthday, my son-in-law gave my daughter a leaf blower.”

To which the younger woman responded that if “she were walking down a dark street she would much rather see a streetlight than a leaf blower.”

The older women said “ in the dark you wouldn’t even see the leaves anyways so you wouldn’t be concerned unless somehow a street light appeared and then you would be so startled by the sudden appearance of the light that you wouldn’t notice the leaves.”

We all laughed again.

They went their way and I went mine.

I turned up Drake Hill heading home when I walked right into the talking cat.

I hadn’t seen that Cat in months. I thought maybe he had disappeared.

As I approached the cat, I wondered if I should speak first.

The cat answered this question when walked towards me and purred his feline version of hello.

I responded with the human version of the cat purring hello which came out “hiya”

The cat purred back”hiya.” which sounded like both of our versions of “hiya.”

At about this time I decided I needed another session with Dr. Kristin my on-line hypno-therapist.

I returned to my house.

Lynn had made some chicken noodle soup which she left on the counter for me before she returned to bed.

When I walked into the room, Lynn wanted to know where I had been for so long. She had made some soup for me but it was probably cold already.

She was watching a documentary on the electrocution murder of Ethel Goldberg and how the first blast of Old Sparky hadn’t killed her because she was too small for the chair so they had to restrap her all over again and send yet another fatal current through her body which resulted in a plume of smoke rising from the top of her hear etc.

I went back to the kitchen and tasted the soup.

It was cold but good.

Stay tuned.