Four-fifths of the way there

Longtime readers might remember this post of four years ago, in which Papa Cat turned 80 and said, having blown out his candles, 'Right, now I'm striking out for 85.'

At 8 this morning, knowing him to be an habitual early riser, I decided it wasn't too early to ring him and sing Happy Birthday. He had already had breakfast, read the paper, showered and shaved, done two loads of washing and watered 'what's left of my little garden in the heat', and was now settled down to watch the news on breakfast TV with the cat.

It was sad, he said, about the beans and tomatoes that he'd lost when they fried in the 40 degree heat the day before yesterday before he'd thought to put some shade cloth over them. 'But then I thought about those poor bastards in Queensland, and that put it in perspective.'

He just keeps on living his life

Eighteen years ago, when my parents were mere spring chickens of 65, the most recent in a long line of family moggies padded off to the big litter tray in the sky, and they swore off cats, they said, for good. 'No, no,' my father said when it was suggested they might get another. 'We're too old to start another cat.'

Shortly thereafter my sisters trundled back to my folks' place from the RSPCA with a large and rather scared grey tabby who'd been brought in by a man whose father had died and left his cat, then age 2, to be dealt with. 'Ah,' said my friend D when informed of this new development. 'An adult cat. With habits. And eccentricities.'

Tiger saw my mother through her last six years, and my dad through three bedridden months after he fell off the roof, then widowerhood, then remarriage and finally divorce before he and one of my sisters finally took her off on that last sad trip to the vet a couple of months ago.

I went to visit him today. 'Come and see the Christmas present I bought myself,' he said, and opened the door to his bedroom. A small, lithe kitty, cafe au lait, chocolate and white with bright blue eyes, leapt up off the bed and came to meet us, twining and purring.

Cecil is a rescue cat, who'd been brought in as a stray and had had a hard time before that, brought back to health and condition by the dedicated people at the Animal Welfare League. He's a snowshoe cat. Cecil is seven. My dad will be 84 in February.

Late twenties blues

He was one of those miserable men of about twenty-eight, which is a very bad age to be in authority, too old to be generous and too young to be wise.

-- Peter Walker, The Courier's Tale

At twenty-nine, Hamilton had passed into that border country where middle age is still remote, but where failure (for the ambitious) can scarcely be afforded.

-- Christopher Koch, The Year of Living Dangerously


If these people are right, it might be better to go straight from 27 to 30, like those buildings in New York that have no thirteenth floor.

Not that this is of the slightest relevance to me. Besides, I remember 28 and 29 as pretty good. A tad desperada, but pretty good.