Kit's doing fine, the vet said. You can come and get him this afternoon.
Well, good. I doubt if "fine" is exactly how Kitten would describe how he's doing, but nobody's asking him.
We've had enough searching conversations with cat savants to lower our expectations considerably about what this surgery will mean in terms of moderating his behavior. He might still jump on Ben -- he walks across the bed toward him on his hind legs, his front paws swinging wildly, like a pair of fists. Even to me, it's a frightening sight, and I outweigh Kitten by a fair amount.
You'll notice that I still call him "Kitten." I intend to keep doing so, because I think it's so cute. I expect still to call him "Kitten" when he's the size of the coffee table, which I reckon will be soon -- that cat can eat. Q uses "Kit," which he thinks is more manly. This is rather like the armed truces that develop between parents, in which the dad wants to cut off his little boy's beautiful curls and the mom can't stand the thought of such a thing.
It has not escaped our notice that we use the cats as surrogate children. We found each other late in life, Q and I; being parents already, we did not have children together. This was before parents were as ancient as they are now -- why, if we had been more aware of current trends, we might be the parents of a teenager today. Just thinking about all the things we're missing makes me want to take a nap.
The cats have now completed all the education they're going to need. It looks like their teeth won't need straightening. They never did idealize us, so we won't have that walk through the valley of the shadow of dumbness one has with human teenagers, who simply cannot believe that anyone could be as dim as their parents are. They will not get pregnant or marry Philistines. They will never learn to drive.
God is so good.
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Check out the News and Events page on the Farm for a great new Farm writer, as Tim Schenck's "Clergy Family Confidential" makes its Farm debut this very day. He joins current regular guests Lane Denson and Brian McHugh.
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