Time to pick up crumbs and pet cat (09/17/07)

Gracie, the cat, is happy now. Baby Emma and her mom have flown back to Texas. Gracie wants to cuddle and be petted. I want no part of it as she hissed at my daughter and granddaughter and even me for a full week. Her new name is "bad kitty." I may shun her for another day or two in retaliation for all the threats.

Besides, I feel like shunning something. A week of sticky hugs and kisses and repeated requests of "Again!" have left me craving more. I hear tiny phantom voices saying, "Pat, pat, pat, pat, pat, pat . . . blast off!" It's from some cartoon I had never heard of before last week. I miss hearing her call my husband "Gamma" when she knows full well that he is "Poppa." I miss cutting stars out of French toast and coloring on the sidewalk with oversized chalk. I suppose I could still do those things but it wouldn't be the same.

I do have a few good stories to share. We took her to the Fort Wayne Children's Zoo. For the most part we could have stayed home. She was not impressed with animals in cages. Then we got to the tigers. The big cats were bored to death and were pacing. Emma spied them and announced, "Kitty!" I told her that the kitties were called tigers. She started repeating, "Tiger, tiger."

I held her up so she could see them and when we got close to the viewing window I let her down. She was right next to the glass when suddenly there was a tiger staring her right in the face. Its head was twice as big as Emma's whole body. She yelled, "TIGER!" and backed up faster than I realized she could move. I picked her up and she said, "Bye, bye, tiger!" She had enough of the big kitties.

We also stopped at the petting zoo. The ubiquitous goats were shamelessly begging for treats. Emma wouldn't touch them. I remembered the last time I took my daughter to the same petting zoo. She had a sun suit on and it had little ties (she was quite a bit younger then). The goats were nibbling on the ties and she thought it was trying to eat her. I guess that means that neither of my favorite girls is that fond of goats.

The hit of the entire zoo was a train that the children could climb on. Emma loved it. Her mom was feeding crackers to the ducks and peacocks while I watched Emma. A peacock was headed for some free crackers when Emma decided to run to her mama. You've heard the expression, "to stop on a dime," that is what Emma did. She was inches away from the peacock when she realized it was there and yelled, "BIRD!" as she came to an abrupt halt. The bird gave her a look that clearly said, "yeah, I'm a bird. Now give me some crackers!"

We also visited my brother and his family. Emma decided that their son, Jadyn, was properly called, "Boy" and the two of them played on the trampoline. Emma would command him to go "night-night" and they would both fall over and pretend to snore. Then it was a wake up call and they would do it over again. I think poor "Boy" did more sit-ups that evening than he ever did in gym class!

We reconnected with a long-lost cousin (second-cousin?) that we hadn't seen since he was a little boy. He and my daughter had been close for awhile then we all lost touch. It was good to catch up and find out what had happened in the intervening years. He lives in Piqua now with his wife and daughter so maybe we can visit more often since we know where he is.

In all, we had a good visit and now it is time to start picking up the leftover cracker crumbs and get back to our usual routine. I will make nice to the bad kitty and round up all the stray toys and clothes that were left behind. I will probably be sending things for the next few weeks as it usually takes awhile to find everything.

Letting them go is always difficult but necessary. And it makes the cat happy to have them gone.[[In-content Ad]]