And a Cat

The New Cat

Well. I never expected to live on a farm. And I REALLY never expected to have a cat. But sometimes the universe decides to challenge you, and you just can’t say no.

So, at the gas station, I saw a cat run out from under my car. And I thought I saw it run back under there. But when I was ready to leave, no sign of it. I pulled away slowly. Then at home, when I stopped to get my mail, I heard my car meowing. Yep, the cat was in my car, somewhere, and had been for the whole ten mile drive from town.

My husband found the cat tucked in my engine, somewhere next to the super hot exhaust manifold. He says he was burning his hands just getting it out of there.

We called the gas station, but they said no one was looking for a kitty, but that people leave them in the dumpster there all the time :(.

And the cat is very very sweet. Even though I have always been a dog person, I just can’t deny this cat. Besides, Schrodinger liked cats. And Annie Dillard. So they can’t be that bad, right?

Some casual observations: the first 24 hours of having a kitty versus having a puppy are drastically different. I forgot the thing was even in the house. It disappeared and I found it sleeping in some towels in the laundry room. If a puppy disappears, you know you’re going to find it pooping or peeing or chewing on something it shouldn’t be or all three at once.

Also, this whole cat-bothering-me-while-I’m-trying-to-type thing is not as exaggerated as I thought.

My daughter has decided to name her Carmel, which, at two, might be her first pun.

Still trying to convince the Coonhound she’s not a squirrel. Other than that, I really don’t know the first thing about having a cat. She’s kind, which I didn’t think cats were. The vet says she’s about three or four months old. And, thanks to the universe, now she’s ours.

So, yesterday we were cat-owning Walmart-shopping people (had to get all that cat stuff!) Oh universe. What to do with you.

About a Cup of Coffee

Part of my daughter’s language that was not part of mine growing up: concaves from a combine

Hello again!

I’ve been carrying around a simple phrase for a few weeks. It was something my grandmother said. She and my grandfather were up (from Iowa) for a rare Minnesota visit a few weeks ago, and they treated us all to dinner and coffee. We were talking about taking cream with our coffee, and about how my grandfather takes his, and she said something along the lines of it doesn’t even color the coffee any but she just couldn’t wean him off it.

She could have said how he barely takes any cream, or that he puts just the tiniest amount of cream in his coffee, or why does he even bother to put any in. But instead, she found this other beautiful way to say it. This descriptive and poetic yet not at all frivolous way. What’s her secret?! Though I’ve been thinking about it for these last few weeks, I realized right away that this is how my grandmother just naturally speaks, that her everyday language is this way. And then I realized that, though I am the only one from my family to pursue writing professionally, I am surrounded by– I was raised by– incredible storytellers.

I have to admit, too, that I have thought about the language on my dad’s side of my family a lot lately, mostly because it is so different than the language of this place I now live in. Iowa compared to northern Minnesota, you know. And for all of us in/ from the Twin Cities who think/ thought the fabled Minnesotan accent isn’t real, come up for a visit and you’ll change your mind!

I used to think, too, that everyone in Iowa sounded like my family. But I’ve since learned that that’s not true. I think it might just be my beautiful family. Not that the language up here is less beautiful, it’s just not one of the languages of my childhood.

The other language, that on my mom’s side, is different and beautiful, too. It’s more formal. It’s more restrained, more exact. They feel like two sides of a binary to me, these two languagues, because they are my binary. But they aren’t really opposites.

Anyway, that’s where my mind has been lately. On the languages of my family, on my language, and on exploring them in my writing and my life.