Jerome Creek Wrap-Up

These “last things” entries are always longer than I expect them to be, and this one will be no different, I’m sure. And so, diving in:

Doucely. Doucely, it turns out, was never gone. Well, she may have been gone for a couple days because I definitely went to the loft more than once and didn’t see her, but she returned and it was definitely her. When A. called from Barcelona the day before I left, I cleared up the two main mysteries, namely 1) Doucely is a small, black cat. 2) She has never worn a collar. I have no more information about gray cats or collared cats. I suspect that my own personal memory of petting a collared cat was merely my brain retrofitting Doucely with a collar when circumstances led me to believe she’d had one.

Toby. Toby is fine, and will be ready to ride any day now (in fact, has maybe been ridden already). Shadow has attacked her before in close quarters, long ago. A. very kindly comforted me with a bit of advice from her vet, shared long ago when Shadow had bullied Toby up a bulkhead and scraped all the hair of Toby’s legs—“They are independent creatures, and try as you might, you cannot always control everything they do.” Too true. Oh, too true.

Janet. Janet is fine as well, none the worse for wear from her fall. In fact, the morning after, as she was packing up to go, she kept swinging her arms and saying “I’m euphoric! I can’t believe I was ever scared of accidents! This was great! I can’t wait to tell everyone at co-housing!” And, to answer the obvious question, no, she had not fallen on her head.

Me. I, too, am physically more or less fine. I have an appointment with a body worker next week to work out the remaining spine-crushing (metaphorically speaking of course) kinks from my fall, undoubtedly exacerbated by the 2,000 miles I put on my car in 17 days. That makes me sound crippled and really I’m not.

Until next time . . . I remember something more to write about, that is.