Found

For days now I've been stuck behind lumber trucks. On the freeway, as they make 12 point turn-abouts on small streets, idling just a foot too far to the left so I cannot get around. Lord knows where these lumber trucks are going, if they are all part of some huge wooden thing being built somewhere, or if maybe they exist just to be in my way. (I am fairly certain it's the latter.)

On Tuesday night Nacho went missing. Our new house is at the base of a mountain. There are bobcats and coyotes, mountain lions; at the very least our next door neighbor has a husky with one blue eye and one brown. 9pm is Nacho's curfew, and when he hadn't come in by 11 I began to worry. Don't worry, he's just off cattin' around, Bryan said, so I gave one last clink of a can against his catfood dish and closed the door. The next morning I went out in my bathrobe, calling softly at first, then louder. Maybe my bathrobe opened a bit too much but I didn't care--I was worried.

I had my (scheduled at the last minute) interview yesterday afternoon, and I had Zoey all day. I had a playdate in the morning and a cat that had very possibly been eaten by the mythical Suburban Sprawl Yeti. I had laundry to do because it was a day and this is my life and my life and my days consist of whites and darks, fishing Chapsticks out of pockets and collecting change. I had too many plans but really no plan so I grabbed Zoey's hand and we went out to look for Nacho. We walked up the hill past a parked lumber truck, then down to a small street where eventually we found Nacho stuck way up high in a tree, a tiny speck of fur and mew. Of course this would have been no problem if, say, I lived in the pulp of a cartoon where the fire department rescues cats from trees and might call me ma'am without making me feel old, but I do not live in the bubble of a bad Family Circle so when I called the fire department they laughed at me. Laughed. And I felt old.

This story is getting much too long, this I know, because when I told it to Bryan last night he said I really need to get a job and he sounded tired. So yeah. First I climbed on top of a recycling can and then when that wasn't tall enough I found a ladder that was at least 3 feet too short. I took some of our good Chianti Salami and wedged it into the bough of the tree and if I stood on my tippy toes and stretched my fingers I could maybe just barely almost touch Nacho's nose. Far on the ground beneath me Zoey pelted me with questions. Did Nacho run away? Is he sad? Does Nacho have a heart face? Is he going to die? Can I go pee pee on the leaves?

I went to the interview with my cat stuck in a tree. I answered questions, I smiled, I asked questions. I paid bridge toll and parking and took an elevator up 15 floors. When I got home my cat was still stuck in a tree. At nightfall we finally found an extension ladder and pulled him out of the tree like a scared velcro bean bag, if velcro had the ability to be scared. Which it should. Nacho had been on that branch for over 24 hours without sleep, without food or water, unable to lie down. We forgot to grab our good Chianti Salami so it is still up there, an $8 tube of compressed salty meat in the bough of a tree.

This morning I came out to find my tire had been punctured by a very long nail. It was flat. I got it fixed. Now I am doing yet more laundry. Yesterday sometime during the day our landlady gave Zoey a Princess Jasmine costume, and now she refuses to take it off. She is particularly fond of the wig, a black pompadour thing with a high ponytail that makes her look more like John Belushi's samurai than Princess Jasmine, though how could I break that bit of news to her as she pulled strands of polysynthetic hair out of her bowl of mac 'n cheese last night as if it were spun gold. I want this job. I do. If only so I can feel justified at getting increasingly pissy while stuck behind lumber trucks, if only for somewhere to go.