here is a poem from earlier this semester

Break-up Telegram


                                                          your message

through the     white years

            desires only to echo

                                                  STOP.

                                 allow me, please.

                                                     I DON'T LOVE

YOU STOP                          STOP.

      for something like half            of one hundred

and sixty five linear feet

Judy, I cleaned our cats.

Today Risto was making hamburgers with his George Foreman grill, and I went to the balcony door to empty the old grease in the tray outside. On the way out, though, I spilled meat grease on Flynn, who was sitting in his favorite spinning chair near the door. He just sat there and stared at me in disbelief and disgust. I tried to wipe the meat grease smell off of him with his chamomile kitty wipes, but he still smelled like meat, and he was driving himself nuts trying to lick the smell away. I decided I'd just have to give him a bath. Flynn is a really good cat, and he just huddles up next to me with his little wet self and meows forlornly. I've only given him one other bath, but that's what he did then too. He tries to escape, but he doesn't scratch me, and I don't scruff him because he really hates being scruffed and it seems to make him more upset instead of calming him down. So then I decided to wash Zooey and Josephine, too. They were a lot more trouble. Zooey got me pretty good on the inside of one palm with one of his back claws, and he got really scared and tried to climb up the shower curtain, but all in all I can't blame him. No kitties ever like baths. Josephine didn't scratch me at all actually, since I'd already instituted the kitchen gloves and the soap-him-outside-the-bathtub method. She did knock over every single thing in the bathtub, though, and she climbed up onto the soap dish and put her paw through the middle of the soap. She ended up getting held under the faucet because she was just over holding still and getting rinsed off. I should have probably just washed Flynn, but I get this crazy idea that I need to make all my kitties smell good once I start. So now they all smell awesome, and are fluffy and soft and pretty, and Flynn and Zooey like me again already. Even Josephine has come out a few times to say hi, but she did try and bite me through the glove, so I figured she'd be a little more angry. I also didn't attempt to use the hair dryer this time at all. Before I thought it might help them get warm again faster, but I think it ended up being the most traumatic part, because they just hid behind the toilet. Risto was pretty helpful, he stood looking into the shower and talking calmly like I asked him to be sure and do. Now all the kitties are fast asleep, worn out from their eventful day, but gorgeous.


update: Josephine likes me again now.