Without Words

Inspirational song: Communication (Pete Townshend)

I hate wasting days. I spent almost all of this one unable to speak, or move around very well, thanks to the two inch wide pipe that I swear was jammed into my right eye socket. I shouldn't complain too much. I've been spoiled lately. I haven't had very many migraines in the last year. In years past, I would have several in a month, sometimes several in a week. This is the first real migraine I remember since last fall, and it wasn't all that bad. I just had to wait it out, taking it easy all day. It's almost gone now, and I didn't even have to take any sort of meds for it, not even OTC stuff. I think that's a huge improvement. I just wish it hadn't come on a day when I was supposed to be at a birthday party.

I've been still and quiet nearly all day long, which the animals find very unusual. I'm generally pretty noisy, between the television and the constant chatter about nothing. (Yes, I talk to the animals and talk back to the tv. Otherwise, it gets eerie around here.) I left it up to the animals to tell me when they needed things. I got an awful lot of meaningful stares from the professional eater dog. I never did figure out what she was trying to tell me. If only she had words.

For a week I have had a tab open on my laptop to a livestream of a litter of kittens who are eleven days old as of today. I've never gotten to raise a whole crop of kittens in my house, not with a nursing mama. It's doubtful I ever will. Athena is the closest I've ever gotten to such teeny babies. I don't count the failed attempt with the bottle-fed pair who didn't last 48 hours in my care. (I still have to remind myself that they were dreadfully sick when they gave them to me.) But because of that horrible experience, I find myself nervous every time I tune in to the kitten cam, worried that someone will have died during my absence. Late last night, the kittens suddenly started making a ruckus, and my big black bear of a cat (who seems to be over her melancholia) looked at me like she caught me watching porn on my computer. There was an accusation of betrayal in her eyes. So I turned the screen to face her, and she was riveted. She watched from the back of the couch for a full minute, and then stepped down to stand on the keyboard to get closer to them. I wish I knew what she was thinking about it. She never struck me as the maternal type, so I don't know how to read her.