I’m Sure This Is Totally Normal Behavior

I do not own this cat.

Should I be under surveillance, anyone observing me in my natural habitat would notice a weird habit developing over the past few weeks: several times a day, I make a small pilgrimage betwixt the windows on the first floor of my house. I start with the front porch door, then the actual front door (on the side of the house). Then, I move to side kitchen window, the back kitchen window, and finally, the back deck sliding glass door. Sometimes I may press a hand or my forehead to the glass. Always, I crane my neck to see as far as I can.

The casual observer would wonder: “Is she paranoid?”

She is not. She, that is to say me, is obsessed. Not with the goings on of the neighborhood around her, or the anticipation of a package from the Amazon truck, but with a cat that is not her own.

Her name is Portia. Well, it is probably not actually Portia. But that’s what we call her—this pretty kitty that has been visiting us a couple times a week for about six weeks or so now. My kids and I adore her. She is so sweet, and well-cared for—she is front declawed and has a collar, and clearly has a home and an owner. But she has chosen us to be her buddies, and we feel so honored. And we all check for her multiple times a day.

We are pet-starved in this household, on account of my husband’s severe allergies. (Asthma for days, trust me, we cannot have pets.) Now that my kids have gone back to school, I look forward even more to Portia’s visits (we named her Portia as a play on “porch cat” since she always hops up on our front porch to look for us.) I grew up with cats and I love, love, love them. And her sweet affection has soothed my anxious soul in these pandemic times. It really is the little things, I guess.

Last Friday, she was already on our porch at 7:10 a.m. when my kids left for school. They were sad that they didn’t get to stay and play with her so of course I texted my daughter like 6,000 pictures of her to brighten her day. I have taken so many pictures of this cat who isn’t mine over the past few weeks that my Google photos app made me a photo book of all cat photos the other day (no, I did not buy it.)

So yeah. I’m obsessed with someone else’s cat. I am not sure where she lives or whose she is, but dang it I wish she could be mine! And I hope she never stops visiting me. When she’s here, I drop everything and sit with her til she leaves unless I absolutely cannot. That’s totally normal, right? I love this cat so much I’m like three seconds away from getting a baby carrier and putting her in it so I can get stuff done and snuggle her at the same time.

Yeah, I have problems.

But I’m trying to survive a pandemic, and I’ll take all the emotional support I can get! Even if it’s from someone else’s cat.

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Déja Vu Kinda Sucks

Yesterday my babies went back to school. At the beginning of this &(%!# pandemic, I had a sophomore, a seventh grader and a third grader. Now I have a SENIOR (God help me!), a freshman and a fifth grader. I began their last school filled with dread and ended it with hope. By the end of the year, after all, their father, myself, and the two teenagers had been vaccinated.

We had a great summer.

Then Delta came.

And now, déja vu. I am beginning this school year filled with dread. Yes, I am thrilled that 2/3 of my kids are vaccinated, but ye olde Delta seems pretty good at breaking through, and we need to keep my ten-year-old protected. This year there are no mask mandates to help with that, which is a shame, because the fact that masks worked last year and kept my kids in school ALL YEAR IN PERSON is undeniable. My ten-year-old is wearing a mask but he is one of only three in his class that are doing so.

Last year at this time, Ohio had a few hundred COVID cases a day. And masks at school were mandated. Now we are at about 1500-1800 daily. And no masks at school.

My head hurts from banging it on my desk. I pray that we can keep COVID out of our home, because I want my family to be healthy, and also because a quarantine on my husband will have a pretty negative financial impact on us. COVID repercussions can ripple out widely and long-term. But that doesn’t seem to concern a whole lot of people in my world for some reason.

I pray for my kids, but I also know the rain falls on the just and the unjust. Bad things happen to good people. Is it our turn now? I sure hope not. I can only control what I can control, and I’m doing my best.

P.S. Aren’t my babies lovely? I am so proud of them, and how they’ve handled all of this.