Hello, fellow inmates.

How are you all, in your various states of incarceration? Are you enjoying your state-sanctioned rapid races through grocery stores, averting your glance from the stationery section?

Have you, like me, forgotten how to stand appropriately except in line? Do you find yourself wearing a mask to bed? Alone?

I’ve lost a cog, myself. My skin is degrading through lack of exposure – not so much to air as to the laughs of friends, the scent of acquaintances, the wind blowing through my car window as I head off on an adventure.

We shouldn’t talk about my hair. I have some, and most of it is in the right places but other than that we shall maintain a respectful silence. It’s misbehaving though. Maybe because I have somehow lost all of my taming instruments when doing a madness inspired cleanse of my apartment. Perhaps, as a dog groomer told me once in all seriousness, the hair I brush off my head falls and re-roots in my face…

Still, I was hanging in there for the most part, despite a cross-country move and the consequent enhanced isolation. That is, until my cat died.

Didn’t handle the grief well. Then, I made a mistake. Desperate for the love of a cat, I ran to the humane society and adopted another, a known behaviour problem cat. No matter, I thought, I KNOW cats. I’m calm around them. I can manage this.

Did I stop to consider that I could have been behaving irrationally, full of grief and loneliness as I was? Not me. (Did I mention I have a problem with impulse control? (I blame the MS lesions in my head but that’s probably not fair as I leapt about before they started))

So I adopted. Only to find *this* is a 25 pound meowing constantly, shedding often, and pouncing mass of risk. With crazy eyes and the ability to fly across a room into window screens, claws extended.

It’s a bit alarming.

So we played until she fell aside, weary, and I fed her treats in an appropriate manner, and set up a cozy house for her to hang out in when she felt stressed, in fact followed Jackson Galaxy’s recommendations almost to the letter. He does know what he is talking about. Her hissing and panicking ended after the first day.

She grew more comfortable. Even let me touch her now and then. She can be quite cute. But the reign of terror started last night and I suspect she thinks she has the drop on me. Her pouncing became more aggressive, her demands for attention more strident. She begged as I ate dinner, claws into my leg, gently, but enough to let me know she could do more.

So, we’re re-evaluated. I’m too old to put up with a lot of malarkey, and the thought of spending the next 15 years of so wrestling with any irrational creature is unappealing. (This is why I live alone…) For her part, I think she’d prefer someone who a. had a bigger house and b. played with her more than I can.

Ah, pandemic thinking. It seems to have knocked me off the track a wee bit. How about you? I have eaten way too much chocolate, played way too many meaningless computer games, watched too much mindless entertainment. In my defence, what with the variants of concern and the politics of concern, my panic levels have been pretty near the surface. The temptation of having a comforting furry roommate was too much.

But a tooth and claw sharp one that is given to leaping all over me with all 25 lbs centred on her feets? Hmmm. Somehow that seems like one stressor too much.