Technically I’ve been working from home this week. Actually I’ve been eating everything in the kitchen and making overly elaborate Shepherds Pies for tea. In between times I’ve wandered in Rossmore Park and thought of rearranging the kitchen to make it more conducive to practical work…and then decided against it and played with the cats.
That’s a lie.
I played with Tuna, our nice cat, and was ignored by Pasta, our condescending supreme overlord.
Pasta arrived with us from Mad Siobhan’s house a little over a year ago. She was fussed over and spoilt rotten from day one. Tuna was a feral cat that seemed to adopt us out of pity. Tuna was ignored by everyone in the house, except Jake, Robyn, Elliott and I. Strict instructions were issued that on no account was ‘that cat’ to be fed. We had our own lovely cat and had no need to be attracting wild ones. This instruction was strictly observed by everyone, except Jake, Robyn, Elliott and I. Eventually Tuna became a much loved indoor cat, with outdoor privileges. Most loved, and loving of, my Soulmate.
Perhaps its simply down to Tuna’s early life fending for herself outside that means she seems kinder, friendlier and generally more appreciative that Pasta. Or, as I genuinely suspect, it’s down to the fact that Tuna is just a regular nice cat, whereas Pasta is evil.
Due to an earlier incident , we do not have a functioning lock on our bedroom door. This incident happened when Jake was 4 and managed to lock himself in our bedroom one day. I was summoned from work and immediately set about asking Jake to do everything that my Soulmate had already spent and hour asking him to do, before she called me. The door was locked and the key was stuck in the lock. I can’t quite recall if we happened to have a ladder long enough to reach our window, or I had to go to our neighbor Kieran and borrow one. But I do remember climbing up the ladder. I remember it very clearly because in the whole time that we’ve lived in this house, 15 years, I’ve climbed a ladder against the outside of our house a total of three times. I’m not exactly afraid of heights, but I’m not exactly not not afraid of heights, which stems from my Dad perching me on the battlement of a round tower somewhere in Cork or Kerry when we were kids in order to get a ‘good’ photo.
So I bravely scaled the ladder all the way to our first floor bedroom window, and asked Jake to open the window. Jake tried to open the window, but it was one of those clever windows with a tiny key in a push button lock that required the co-ordination of a gymnastically trained horologist, and Jake, despite being blessed with many talents, was lacking this co-ordination.
My Soulmate and I had an emergency meeting back on the ground where it was suggested that I break the window. I was not keen on this idea for many reasons, number one among them being that it meant climbing that ladder again. But I was persuaded to face my fears and duly scaled the great heights of the first floor on the ladder, armed with a rolling pin. Before you feel it necessary to ask why didn’t I use a hammer I should point out that my toolkit was in the locked bedroom with Jake, ironically to sort out a problem with the lock on the en suite bathroom door. So I got to the top of the ladder and asked Jake to step back and then swung the rolling pin with all my might towards the window. It pinged off the window and I had to hold on to the ladder for dear life, forgetting that the act of swinging my arms wildly would rock the ladder. I made my was back down….slowly.
Now our plan was to shoulder charge the door , like the old cop shows. I offered to look after Robyn, who was 2, while my Soulmate barged in the door, but was told that I was the one who was to do the barging. I manfully made my way upstairs and ran at the bedroom door. I bounced back with a dull thud. My next three shoulder charges weakened it sufficiently for my Soulmate to eventually say, “ Out of the way” before she kicked the door in with a single elegant ninja move.
Jake was asleep on our bed at this point.
Suffice to say that I haven’t yet got round to fixing that lock, and so it is that each morning this week , sometime between the hours of 5 and 6 am I can hear the ‘padum, padum,padum’, as Pasta runs across the landing and hurls herself against our bedroom door in order to open it. She them whines with increasing intensity before jumping on me and then I get up and go downstairs to feed her and then let her outside where she does unspeakable things to mice.
Sometimes I think , as I make my way back to bed for warmth and another dream, ‘I should really fix that lock’. But more often I think…it’s not the worst way to start the day and I smile and I dream…of owning a dog.
Cheers,
Paul
P.S. Delighted to have got tickets to the Fontaines DC gig…are they still called gigs …in McKennas on December 13th. Have a listen hear FONTAINES.
