A Kitty Veteran

“The Zanzibar Chest” has gotten off to a good start. Somehow the version I have has lots of rollicking quotes that compare it to things like “The English Patient” that gave me pause after I’d ordered it.  Fifty pages in its wonderful.  Aidan Hartley sets up a rich, intergenerational tale that weaves early twentieth century British colonialism with the horrific East Africa of the late twentieth century that he covered as a reporter.  His father, an administrator and farmer who raised him in region, apparently suffered from horrible dreams.  He believed he was haunted by dead spirits.  The son has similar sufferings and is convinced that spirits have returned to reckon with him, as well. 

It’s a good thing I have a book.  Tickets not withstanding I won’t be traveling anywhere.  All flights canceled tonight.  Head on home.  Return early tomorrow to see what happens.  There is lighting in Shanghai.  I don’t want to fly into lightening I suppose.  The day before my birthday in 1595 Ricci’s companion, John Barradas was who traveled from Shaoguan to Nanjing was killed in a boating accident.  Travel’s gotten safer.  Emphasis on safety more pronounced.  I guess I should be grateful, it’s only my own bed I have to return to and sleep upon. 

Our cat was spade.  Our cat normally tears around the house at enviable speeds, clawing at furniture, rolling on her back, demanding attention, calling out, omnipresent.  She is now in crude kitty bandages that make her look like a kitty veteran of the battle of Verdun.  She has an absurd cone on her head to protect her from scratching and biting herself, but she is utterly disoriented and now takes futile back steps to retreat out of the head cone.  She’s been treated with lots of human food (tuna cans, mostly) and petting and affection. 

Something had to be done, as we were planning to leave for the summer.  This would mean she’d go with the ayi to her village for two months. and I insisted that it wasn’t fair to do that, unless she was spade.  I told my girls, perhaps a bit too graphically that if she had a litter of kittens some of them would invariably starve to death.  Getting a cat spade was basic kitty etiquette.  Any thoughtful kitten owner should do this. But now seeing the poor animal limp about in recovery, I’m not so sure.  

Monday, 06/12/17