Carpe felis

I’ve just learned a new rule for living: If an avocado is at its peak perfection of ripeness, eat it. Eat it even if it’s 10:30 at night and you’re heading for bed. Who knows if you’ll even wake up in the morning? Who knows that someone won’t break into your house while you’re sleeping and steal the perfect avocado? What if there’s nuclear annihilation overnight and you passed up the chance to eat the avocado, believing there would be another day? (Such a cheery optimist, aren’t I?) If you paid a whopping $2 for the doggone thing at Whole Foods, savor it at its moment of perfection.

Today the weather was spectacularly gorgeous. I let my feline child go out in the backyard (under my vigilant supervision) because I simply couldn’t refuse her. She has had a tough week—trip to vet to have blood work and they got a urine sample by withdrawing it from her bladder with a hypodermic needle. I am grateful that I can pee in a cup when so instructed. My poor old kitty is about 120 in cat years and she has health issues, so letting her sit outside in the sunshine seemed like a good idea. She sat under the cherry blossom tree, stretched out on the mulch and let the cherry blossoms fall on her. Honestly, I could tell that she was full of the simple joy of sitting in sun, feeling the breeze and the cool earth beneath her tired old bones. I just sat on the back steps, seemingly for hours, watching her watching the squirrel that chattered in the tree above her, seeing her one blast of youth when she made a futile attempt to go after a robin. I kept thinking, who knows when or if she (and I) will have this chance again.

My old girl had a good day and she is now curled up, sleeping on the sofa in my office. I had a good day. I ate that avocado. I savored the moments.