On Erin's couch. Eating artisan granola with my hands and wondering, could this be the fourth day already?
After these few days away from home, I am just beginning to decompress. Like a beach ball losing air and growing soft, the taut plastic panels giving way to puckers and dips.
I am not in the woods or at the beach, or even beside a park, but in my daughter's Beverly Hills apartment on a corner of one of the busiest crossroads in the city. Even so, I am finding something rare (at least for me nowadays), solitude. I am not completely alone. Her cat, Charles, is the main reason I'm here. To feed him, brush him, and play with him, and to keep this cat who I've known since he was 2 months old, company.
The once scrappy little Charles, who grew to be a teenager and became a feline who could play hide-and-seek for hours, is not ancient, but at age 12, has grown stodgy and slow.
Charles--an Abyssinian--is social, and follows me non-stop with his eyes. He seems to remember the games we used to play, but rarely shows up to confront me where I'm hiding. In those old days on Woodcliff Drive in that sprawling 3-bedroom house with its long, narrow hallway, we used to run and chase and scurry from room to room. But now, when I hide, I wait and wait, and Charles does not come to poke his head in curiosity around the corner, or rub his back against the door. Instead, I finally lean out from my hiding place to look and find him sitting 10 feet away starring at me with stunned anticipation. He has silently and stealthily crept from the living room through the office into the kitchen. When he sees me appear, his ears twitch and his head starts, but that is all.
I will then dart out and rush toward him, but he does not flee like in the past, scampering all the way across the house like a rabbit to hide in his favorite place under the couch. Today, he just sits and flips his tail, as if to say, "Go on now, hide again. I'm enjoying the show. Continue to entertain me."
Hello Lovely Readers,
It's delightful to see you here. This is not the first time I've introduced Charles on this blog. He can be found in several posts here: "Charles,"Nov. 30, 2010; "Running Away From Home," April 4, 2011; "Greetings From Charles," Sept. 15, 2011; "Winter Sights," Jan, 2013.
You can find me on my Facebook page: "Anitra Ford's Celebrity Page,"
as well as on my artist's page: "Anitra's inspriation."
Sending you all cool summer breezes and warm wishes,
Sincerely, ~ Aneet
P.S.: My next post will be in 2 months on the 15th of September. It would be lovely to see you then.**
