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With a suspected pinched nerve in my lower back, I've been forced to 'take-it-easy,' primarily cuz I have no choice!! If ya can't walk upright, there ain't much ya can do!! Both "The Young Miss Lovely" and I are voracious readers; she just having finished a book, me having run out of unread books, I picked up the seemingly, most readable book in her library:
Homer's Odyssey, by Gwen Cooper.
Ms Cooper's sub-title for the book:
A Fearless Feline Tale, or how I learned about love and life with a blind wonder cat.
I want to highlight a specific quote in the book, but first let me set the stage. The principal character is Homer, a blind--eyeless--black kitten. Homer was found as a two-week-old orphan with infections in both eyes so severe that his eyeballs had to be surgically removed to maintain life. Ms Cooper adopted Homer soon after said surgery, before the stitches were out; before that silly cone-around-the-neck had been removed. Homer was the third cat to populate the Cooper household, with two adult, sighted cats.
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| Homer inspecting canned tuna |
Prior to the break-in, I had been on exacly one date where the man in question made it past the front door of my apartment and into the apertment itself. He'd arrived on a Thursday evening to pick me up, and I'd invited him inside for a drink before we set out. I went into the kitchen to mix us some cocktails. When I came back into the living room I found Homer trapped in a corner by my date, who was standing in front of Homer and hissing loudly at him. There was a wild, terrified look on Homer's face as his ears turned rapidly back and forth, as if he was trying to hear his way into an excape route.
I nearly dropped the glasses I was carrying. "What the ....?"
"He came over to me," my date explained. "Black cats are bad luck."
Most people made a point of being kind to Homer. A small few were indifferent and simply left him alone. But I had never witnessed anybody going out of his way to frighten a blind cat. The voice I heard in my head sounded a lot like my mother's.
What kind of a person does such a thing? Who raised this man?
It may have been the one time in my life when I wished I were a man, ecause what I wanted more than anything in that moment was to haul off and belt that guy in the face. I had a delightful vision of smashing the glass I held, Sopranos-style, against the side of his skull. My hands clenched into fists around the ice-filled glasses until I thought frostbite would set in, but my voice was measured.
"The cat lives here," I said.
"You do not. Please get the hell out of my apartment."
Not only this adventure, but Ms Cooper had moved from the 'South Beach' area of Miami to new employment just blocks from New York's Financial District, only months before muslim terrorists leveled 'The Twin Towers!' This led to more adventures in getting Gwen reunited with her cats on the eleventh floor of a residential tower near "The World Trade Center."
Homer has his own Facebook page and a blog. His book is available here.
Til Nex'Time....
