Just after Christmas, my best friend received a beautiful wooden box. Inset on the lid was a little metal plaque with 25 hash marks embossed onto it. And when you slid the lid off, resting inside on a bed of soft green material was--a chunk of asphalt.
This is no ordinary asphalt. This is well-traveled asphalt, but not in the sense that many people have traveled over it. No, this particular piece of asphalt has itself traveled near and far. It all started one day when a couple of young men were in a parking lot, and saw a chunk of asphalt lying there, disconnected from the lot. For whatever reason (do you really need a reason when you're a male in your early twenties?) they picked it up and put it in the car and took it away. And thence began its odyssey. That asphalt turned up all over the place. There were a little over a dozen of us friends who tended to hang out together, mostly from our church, and any one of us were liable to suddenly find this asphalt one day among our belongings, especially those who were away at college, without it being clear how it appeared there. It even showed up in the freezer of a frat house at Northwestern University.
At some point, of course, we all starting getting married, and sometimes to each other. I don't remember exactly when the asphalt started showing up as an honored wedding guest, but it started a new tradition, being passed along from one freshly married couple to the next. And it soon acquired a shiny coat of resin, and then a plaque at the top which read "The Guilty Parties", and a small plaque for each couple listing their first names and the wedding date. By the time Stu and I got married, one of the name plates from the top row was gone, victim of a marriage which did not survive. The good news is that all these years later, only two plaques are missing. The holes they leave are testaments to sadness, but the many remaining are equally testaments to joy.
And so now the asphalt is on its second time around. The hash marks on the lid of the box stand for years, and my friends received it a little while after their 25th anniversary, to keep until the next 25th anniversary comes around, at which time they'll send it on to the next honored couple. We won't receive it again until 2012, and I just pray that there are no more missing name plates by then. That chunk of ordinary road material has great sentimental meaning, a celebration of ordinary people who have achieved hundreds of years, between us all, of marital steadfastness, and many more years than that of friendship. I'll only possess it for a week in 2012, before it moves on to the ones who got married just seven days after we did, but I'll cherish that week as a reminder of love and connection and youthful silliness.
Love, Spud.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
24/7 Cats
We have two cats, and last night I came to an interesting conclusion about them. We have a DayCat, and a NightCat.
Both cats are very protective of me, which I am amused by. The one time in my grown-up life that I actually passed out (food poisoning--you don't want to know), I woke up to find both cats sitting at my head, applying wet little kisses to my face. And last month, I was sitting in the dining room when I saw something out of the corner of my eye that was moving, so I turned my head to look, and there was a spider at the end of a thread of web right in front of my nose. Naturally I gave a yelp and batted it away. Then I looked down, and there were both cats, who had not been there the second before, with expressions of alarm and anxiety in their eyes. I could almost hear them saying "Mom! Mom? Are you alright? Mom!".
Tiger is a skinny little black tiger cat. In summer he has allergies that give him eczema and make a lot of his fur disappear, especially off of his legs, flanks, and rear end. He gets to looking pretty pathetic, like a BarenakedCat. But in winter it all grows back, and his fur gets thick and lush and soft. He appears to gain five pounds in winter, but it's all hair. Tiger still really feels the cold though, and if I'm sitting down once the chilly weather comes, he's in my lap. I love it. He gets so desperate for warmth that he turns himself into all sorts of interesting shapes in order to take advantage of whatever amount of lap is available. And I swear this is a weight-adjustable cat, because he makes himself heavy as a cannonball to weigh me down so I don't get up and lose my lap. Tiger is a real sweetie. But once I go up to bed, the cuddle ends. He'll jump up and curl into a ball on the bed, but he makes sure to do it just out of my reach. At some point, probably when Stu comes up to bed, he gets down and goes to find some corner of furniture to sleep in for the rest of the night. No human contact once we settle down for the night--although I have no idea why not. Tiger, plainly, is DayCat.
Jenny, on the other hand, is a large meatloaf of a cat, a beautiful mostly-white calico. Jenny is vocal. She has a loud voice and she's not afraid to use it, especially when I am doing something that involves the dishwasher. It's not clear why, but apparently Jen sees the dishwasher as evil and dangerous, and she warns me with loud cries if I have my hands in there. Silly cat. She is fat and furry all year round, and does not seem bothered by winter except at night. During the day, she really doesn't want human touch, or at least not much. Sometimes she can't stand it and comes looking for attention, but one stroke of my hand and she moves away again, to sit and look at me and say incomprehensible cat things in her loud voice. There are only two times when Jenny permits affection. One is when I am falling asleep. Once I get to bed, Jenny hops up and walks up me--she doesn't walk on the surface of the bed, just on me, and by golly is she heavy. She proceeds all the way up to my pillow, where she wraps herself around my head, settles down, and begins to purr with an engine that can surely be heard down the street. When my alarm goes off in the morning Jenny thumps off the bed, and once I am out of the shower she puts herself squarely under my feet. I give her a good scratching, and hear that grand engine again, and then that's it. No more physical touch for her, and absolutely no more purring for the rest of the day--until I go to bed again that night. Jenny is NightCat.
I was thinking about this last night, and thinking what a shame it was that Tiger would not cuddle up with us at night in bed, because that's the coldest part of any day, and if he just tried it once he'd be hooked, and warm and happy. And why won't Jenny sit in laps, or at least beside laps, during the day? Why does she only allow herself happiness when she thinks I am asleep and won't notice it? I'll never know why, but my kitties have divided up the days into two clearly demarcated and opposing shifts. I have a cat for day usage, and a cat for night usage, but never two lovey-cats at once. DayCat and NightCat. Their ways are mysterious, indeed.
Both cats are very protective of me, which I am amused by. The one time in my grown-up life that I actually passed out (food poisoning--you don't want to know), I woke up to find both cats sitting at my head, applying wet little kisses to my face. And last month, I was sitting in the dining room when I saw something out of the corner of my eye that was moving, so I turned my head to look, and there was a spider at the end of a thread of web right in front of my nose. Naturally I gave a yelp and batted it away. Then I looked down, and there were both cats, who had not been there the second before, with expressions of alarm and anxiety in their eyes. I could almost hear them saying "Mom! Mom? Are you alright? Mom!".
Tiger is a skinny little black tiger cat. In summer he has allergies that give him eczema and make a lot of his fur disappear, especially off of his legs, flanks, and rear end. He gets to looking pretty pathetic, like a BarenakedCat. But in winter it all grows back, and his fur gets thick and lush and soft. He appears to gain five pounds in winter, but it's all hair. Tiger still really feels the cold though, and if I'm sitting down once the chilly weather comes, he's in my lap. I love it. He gets so desperate for warmth that he turns himself into all sorts of interesting shapes in order to take advantage of whatever amount of lap is available. And I swear this is a weight-adjustable cat, because he makes himself heavy as a cannonball to weigh me down so I don't get up and lose my lap. Tiger is a real sweetie. But once I go up to bed, the cuddle ends. He'll jump up and curl into a ball on the bed, but he makes sure to do it just out of my reach. At some point, probably when Stu comes up to bed, he gets down and goes to find some corner of furniture to sleep in for the rest of the night. No human contact once we settle down for the night--although I have no idea why not. Tiger, plainly, is DayCat.
Jenny, on the other hand, is a large meatloaf of a cat, a beautiful mostly-white calico. Jenny is vocal. She has a loud voice and she's not afraid to use it, especially when I am doing something that involves the dishwasher. It's not clear why, but apparently Jen sees the dishwasher as evil and dangerous, and she warns me with loud cries if I have my hands in there. Silly cat. She is fat and furry all year round, and does not seem bothered by winter except at night. During the day, she really doesn't want human touch, or at least not much. Sometimes she can't stand it and comes looking for attention, but one stroke of my hand and she moves away again, to sit and look at me and say incomprehensible cat things in her loud voice. There are only two times when Jenny permits affection. One is when I am falling asleep. Once I get to bed, Jenny hops up and walks up me--she doesn't walk on the surface of the bed, just on me, and by golly is she heavy. She proceeds all the way up to my pillow, where she wraps herself around my head, settles down, and begins to purr with an engine that can surely be heard down the street. When my alarm goes off in the morning Jenny thumps off the bed, and once I am out of the shower she puts herself squarely under my feet. I give her a good scratching, and hear that grand engine again, and then that's it. No more physical touch for her, and absolutely no more purring for the rest of the day--until I go to bed again that night. Jenny is NightCat.
I was thinking about this last night, and thinking what a shame it was that Tiger would not cuddle up with us at night in bed, because that's the coldest part of any day, and if he just tried it once he'd be hooked, and warm and happy. And why won't Jenny sit in laps, or at least beside laps, during the day? Why does she only allow herself happiness when she thinks I am asleep and won't notice it? I'll never know why, but my kitties have divided up the days into two clearly demarcated and opposing shifts. I have a cat for day usage, and a cat for night usage, but never two lovey-cats at once. DayCat and NightCat. Their ways are mysterious, indeed.
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