Wednesday, May. 23, 2007 - 9:28 p.m.
Reverse of Fortune
********************
phone call
8 pm "Your cat is in my backyard "
OK I will come and get him and away I go
Its only a few blocks away
and there he is
on their driveway
playing with their little daughter
I asked jokingly if they had fed him
" Ohh No"
but
the little daughter confessed
she gave him some gum
"Did he eat it? " asked the dad
" I don't know " she replied with a guilty kid voice "Where did you get _ GUM? " Dad quizzed her without mercy as he walked slowly towards her on her little pink bike
I don;t think she was supposed to have gum
and her incriminating statement of offering gum to my cat implied she had a secret stash of contraband.. I picked Jinky up and slipped away before the gum cops arrived and took her away for further questioning.. being five & cute is no excuse
It is a balmy energetic night and I thought
why take him home
where we will both be bored?
Why not take him down to the lake
and let him see the sunset and the water and rocks and whatever else is there ??
He followed me at a distance sniffing here and there stopping to walk into somones yard en route to drink out of their lilly pond .. I waited at the iron fenced gate till he was done, I felt like a suicide bombers assistant..but soon enough he emmerged licking his lips..satisfied ..
and we made it to the par
by the lake in under ten minutes
of sniffing down sewers
and squinting at dogs in yards.
At the lake it was glorious..
the lake was calm and gently undulating ,
and had taken on a soft pink colour
from the sunset.
There were tourists
taking photos of the sunset
and kids on the beach
throwing stones into the water..
I coaxed Jinky towards
the steel stairs that lead to the water,
I knew he would want to go down
if he saw kids there..
He took one look
at the supernatural beach
from atop the grassy knol
and he started sniffing the air
for signals to descend down the starirs.
I went first and encouraged him
to take one step after another,,
he made all 24 stairs
and raced onto the beach,
dashing amongst the breakwater boulders
and pieces of absurd lakey smelling driftwood, slowly making his way towards the cluster of kids.
They saw him and shreiked out
" look!! a kitty !! "
that was more than enough
for Jinky to wiggle up to them
and accept their pats and coos..
..he is used to being admired..it was OK
he stayed near to watch them
as they threw handfulls of gravel
into the lake and the crazy splashing patterns
such violent activty produced,
He was very impressed,
I watched from further along the pebble beach not interfering with his games,
At one point the kids offered Jinky
a small dried out dead fish on the end of a stick. When he approached it to smell
they called out in unison 'Euewwwwww"
Their Mom called them to
keep away from the water
but I let Jinky go right up
to the lakes edge
and explore
the rhythem of the waves
lapping at his feet,,
and the gentle spinny noise
it produced on the gravel
at the waters edge,-
that eternal sigh of living water,
one of the many the greatnessess
of the Great Lakes.
It was wonderful to watch
Jinky taking this all in,
blinking at the vastness of the horizon,
the warm sun being devoured
by a bank of pink clouds,
the peeping of Venus in the sky,
the silloettes of the driftwood
and the silent unchanging boulders..
the cliff swallows winging in frenzy
just over the surface of the water
scooping up a meal of bugs
that formed small clouds
of mating swarms...
the soft tall spring grass hissing
as the breeze sweeps through them
the distant shreik of happy kids
the purr of passing cars
the satisfying thump
of distant screen doors slamming,
the coughing of a motorcycle
gearing up up far away,
the swaying of the willows,
the sheer
wonderfullness
of
everything
all
at
once.
Tonight jinky met
- a pair of old Corgi dogs
- five teeneagers on bikes
with disposable cameras
left over from a wedding
-a Black St Bernard dog
drooling a gallon of spit
- my neibour walking past
with his estranged daughter
who ran away two years ago
to be bad in the city
- a deaf old lady
who thought his name was Kinky
_ Lebanese family who
wanted to know where the highway
to Niagara falls was
-golden age power walkers
huffing as they passed
- some smiling old golden retreiver
wearing a red bandana
who made Jinkys fur stand up
Just before we had to go home I saw Jinky walk up to a clump of grass and start eating it
I suppose this is car barf grass
they know the good stuff from
the regular lawn grass and prefer it every time. So after he had eaten his fill
I pulled up the entire clump
to replant back here
so he can barf in style
in the comfort of his own home
I biked him home and he laid on
the fresh barf grass
and seemed to enjoy
the breeze on his fur
...but...
he seemed as little disappointed
when we got home
and back to this normal existance
...but...
- there is always tomorrow
the lake will always be there
and it just gets better
as the summer comes on
he has never seen a summer
he is going to love it
beyond my powers of description
