Perhaps Kittens Were Conceived

Today (Thursday) is my brother's birthday, which is a little bittersweet. I'm thankful he has been blessed to see another birthday, but sad that he will spend it in jail; although that's of his own making. My brother turned 32 on this birthday. That doesn't even seem possible. It sounds so weird to say that my brother is 32 when to me he will always be a kid. Weren't we just in high school yesterday?

A few days after bringing my brother home from the hospital (I think is how the story goes), my mom thought my brother had been kidnapped. She heard what she thought was a baby crying outside and looked in my brother's crib and didn't see him there. (He was there by the way - maybe she didn't turn on the light - maybe she was drunk - ha, just kidding mother!) Anyway, I can't remember all the details of the story, but the end result is that my brother was in his crib the whole time and the baby crying was actually some cats outside. I think we were always told the cats were fighting - perhaps that was to protect the innocent. So, it comes as no surprise to me that in the wee hours of May 3 (my brother's birthday) I was awoken by the sounds of cats "fighting" which sounded like a crying baby. Perhaps May is the month of mating or fighting for the feline species.

I went to bed at my normal time of 10:00 p.m. and about 12:30 The Tide woke me up because she was trying to sit up in the bed and kept scooting against me and acting strange. In my sleepiness was rather ticked that I had been brought out of a silent slumber. However, after a trip to the bathroom (too many details?) I realized that she must be having trouble with her legs and when I went back into the bedroom and turned on the lights, my suspicions were confirmed. The Tide has been having some issues with her back legs for about a year and a half now. As you may know, she had hip surgery on both of her hips and I think the older she gets the more arthritis and what not sets in. Long story short, on occasion she has "spells" (why, yes, I am from the south) where her back legs basically become paralyzed. It's quite frightening because she cannot put any eight on them as they won't hold her up and they basically clench up I guess is a good way of saying it. They shake like they are under a lot of pressure and her eyes bulge out and she looks terrified. Like I said, pretty terrifying. Anyway, I rubbed on her back legs for a while and got her into a comfortable position and the "spell" passed after a few minutes and she was back to normal. So, I finally fell back asleep thinking I wouldn't wake again until my alarm clock went off a few hours later - boy, was I wrong.

About an hour later, I was awoken once again but this time it wasn't because of The Tide, it was because of those cats who at times sounded like a crying baby. I mean, these two were so loud I'm surprised they didn't wake the whole neighborhood; who knows, maybe they did. It sounded like they were clawing each others eyes out, but I have since been told they were probably making sweet feline love, or something like that because it sure didn't sound sweet. It sounded like a cat war. Y'all, I really cannot even put into word the sounds or loudness that was this cat "fight". OH MY WORD!

The Tide would occasionally stick her head up when they got even louder, but I dared not move lest she start barking and then there would be no hope whatsoever of returning to a peaceful night of rest. I don't know how long these cats carried on, but it was a long while. I think I finally managed to doze off around 2:30 or 3:00 and then was up for work at 5:30. Needless to say I had to start the day with an iced coffee because I was dragging. I made it through most of the day okay but by the time the afternoon came around I was dragging again and was in desperate need of some sleep. There was more than one delirious moment in the afternoon hours of work. I told the girl I share a cubicle with that I had better not see any cats on the way home or I may run them over. I sure to heck hope these two don't start it up again tonight or I might go crazy!