I woke up this morning on the sparkling water under a greeting card sunrise. I dipped my toes into the lake and stretched asana-style as a float plane geared up off the mirrored surface. It's one of many times in the past year my heart has skipped and I've said outloud, to no one in particular (and everyone at once): "I live here. Yeah I do."
Did you ever get someone a birthday present so perfect that you couldn't bear one more hour waiting for them to get home and open it? That they're 3,000 miles away and all you want to do is show up on their front porch holding out a box the size of a refrigerator filled with felicitous goodness? I got one of those going right now. 7:00 PM is too long to wait, nevermind May 18th.
(I just realized that the Cloudroom is playing on the radio right now. If that's not Aloha, I don't know what is.)
So I'm putting away laundry last night, cleaning the boat (Hi. I live on a boat.) and my nutty little Siamese mutt cat has finally crawled out from under the bed. She's adjusting well. In fact, I think she gets bored if there's no upheaval in her life. One more thing we have in common. So she's rolling around on the floor licking her paws, and then she's in the cabinet flopped out watching me fold shirts. She's all stretched out, eyes half-closed and sleepy on the first shelf.
Then her Siamese mouth starts flapping and I look up to see her tail disappearing inside. I have no idea where the hole in the back of that cabinet leads. I drop the shirts and dive for the cat, grabbing her hind legs, but she slips out of my hands and into the great unknown, yowling the whole way.
I immediately start calling her, and she's meowing back, pretty excited at first, and then her meows get further away and a little panicky. I can't see her or reach her, and now her voice is echoing under the floor.
I don' t know about you, but I'm pretty clueless about how boats are constructed. I've seen the bowels of this one, and it's not encouraging. There's dirty water, and life jackets, and I have no idea what connects to what. There's all sorts of trap doors in the floor, and I'm running through the living room, chasing the meows, pulling one hatch after another open.
And then I hear nothing. Silence.
I totally freak out. I grab my phone and call the Boy, figuring he could at least tell me where point A might go on the way to point B. He's playing soccer and his phone is off.
I'm like every mom I've seen in the movies who watches her child disappear and helplessly stands there, repeatedly screaming her name into the silence. I imagine Delia falling deep into the hull and drowning, trying to get to me. And I failed her. The tears are flooding my face and I'm sitting on my knees in the middle of the living room. Helpless. Terrified. Wailing her name over and over cinematically.
There's a knock at the door.
It's the cat.
Nevadelia, soaking wet, dirty, yowling her head off at me to let her back in. Her adventures took her from inside the drawer of the cabin through the bilge, under the floor and outside, through the hold in the front deck. She emerged, wild eyed and dirty.
I threw open the door and dragged her in. I clutched that cat so tight that she squeaked a few times and then shut up. I dried her off and gave her What For and put her down on the floor. Figured I'd give her a few minutes to calm down and not be so scared. Let her get over the trauma.
I had to race her to the cabinet. She was going right back for more.
Just one of many animal adventures to come aboard the Octopus of Love. I can't wait until Clementine moves in.
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