Cat-22; scene

The neighbors' cat, Snickers, is 16 and looks it. Her mottled orange and black fur stands away from her thinning flanks, dull and dirty. "I think she has stopped grooming herself," says Kristine, who is explaining to Nora how to tend the cat while Kristine and David are away for a long weekend.

"Does she like to be combed?" Nora asks. She is 11, five years younger than Snickers, and seeks cats the way streams seek oceans.

"Not so much, but we can try," Kristine says. She fetches a steel-tooth cat comb and demonstrates where Snickers prefers to be combed, when she tolerates combing at all.

The big cat weaves around Kristine's ankles then escapes to a worn blacket in a corner of the master bathroom.

Kristine leads Nora out into the hall. "I'm afraid she might not be that interested in playing," she cautions. "I can't believe she's so old already."

The first evening Nora comes to feed the cat and scoop out the clumps out of the litterbox, Snickers eases into the bedroom, an expanse of cream-colored carpet and glistening blond wood furniture. The cat ignores the fishing oole that dangles a finged bit of cloth in front of her nose, rubs her fur along the catnip mouse Nora tosses on the floor, and stares at Nora.

Snickers hisses, flattening her ears and switching her tail.

"She doesn't like me, Mom," Nora says, staring at the cat.

"Give her time," her mother answers. "She needs to get used to you."

[more about how Snickers acts worse and worse]

xx
Several years ago, when visiting an aunt with two cats in Chicago, Nora wanted desperately to play with the felines. Both cats were standoffish, but one took a particular malevolent attitude and began stalking her down the hall one morning, looking as if she might pounce at the first good chance. Nora's mother took to standing between the cat and her daughter, as a defensive mechanism.

Nora loves cats. Cats flee from Nora. She tries to cozy up to them; they hiss; she flees from them.

"She tried to attack me five times!" Nora tells her father later.

"Just twice," interjects her mother.

"I'm rounding up," Nora says.

"She tried to attack me," Nora says. "Can we go over in the morning?"

First Stitches

Santa Claus makes toys in his atelier. Lauren makes wedding dresses in hers.


-- Tempting start, to clue people in to what an atelier is (a designer's workshop). But how much is Santa going to figure in the rest of the story? Let's see: Santa works in a white season; wedding dresses are typically white. Santa brings joy; so does Lauren. Santa works all year long toward a single, special day; Lauren works with a client 3 to 6 months to pull off a creation for the bride's special day. Santa has elves; Lauren hires her mother and is trying to set up a stable of women who can do the handwork needed for the dresses.

-- And how key to the story is the word "atelier" anyway? It surprised me on her business card, but it's standard jargon for dress designers and interior designers. They don't have offices; they have atelier. (Always sounds a lot like "chandelier" and "hotelier" to me, but what the heck.)

Lie Down Until It Passes

"Mommy, I need to go exercise," insists my 11-year-old daughter. She is curled up with a bag of microwave popcorn in the next room, watching a Seinfeld rerun. I hear her through the phone intercom, which I have on speaker. She probably has her handset on speaker as well; she loves to talk on the phone that way, making a whole room an audience to her conversations.
     I don't want to move.
     I have to feel guilty. In this age of obesity, I should support every whim to exercise that my children manifest.
     But I don't want to move.
     The dog is folded beside my desk, one foreleg bent at every joint and one extended, his enormous ears half up, hoping to hear my daughter drop a piece of popcorn in the next room, both hind legs to one side. My sleek black dog looks like a black Lab puppy, all legs and ears and tail. He stands up and shakes himself, so relaxed that it looks as if one of his limbs will flop off.He looks at me, hoping I'll decide to take him for a walk. I know this because this is his constant desire.
     One reason I don't want to take my girl to exercise is that she wants to go to the exercise room in the apartment building where my brother used to live. He got an extra electronic device to get into the building for me. I used it plenty when he was there--after all, I cosigned the lease--but I feel like a fraud going in now. I sigh. Why don't I just turn in the device?
     An object at rest will remain at rest unless acted up. X law of thermodynamics. I hate it when people include definitions in speeches, but it never bothers me if they quote one of the laws of thermodynamics.
     "Mom," her voice comes over the speaker. I'd forgotten it was on. I'm trying to pull together some research on how people react to male nurses. I'm also trying to decide if I should focus on a different topic. And play the daily jigsaw puzzle on the computer and decide when I'll start dinner.