Walter and Sid

It's going to be hot today; mid-90s, and humid. Every year I wonder how I'll survive another August. And every year I do, or have. So far.

There's a huge maple tree right outside my window--yawning up into the sky higher than I can see, from here. The trunk at the base is enormous; it'd take three of us joining hands to encircle it. On this side of the trunk there are peculiar knots in the tree, and the bark twists around them, and I swear you can see faces. One of them is laughing--a wide-open mouth, head thrown back. One of them disapproves. Of something. One looks off to the side, above the fray. The kids have named this tree Walter. They're too short to get the approbation in the eye from the disgruntled one. I haven't told them he's there; it's my little secret.

The vet told me that Sidney's too fat. I tell her he's just big boned. She doesn't even respond. He's a tiger--an outdoor cat with fierce shoulders and six fingers on his front paws; he could take down a fox. If he's fat, he's not getting that way on what he eats here. He's indulging elsewhere, no doubt in a natural selection kind of way. It's hard to imagine him doing that, though; I know he loves to bat around a chipmunk now and then, but when they stop running he loses interest. Hmm.

It's Tuesday, and I have a ton of work to do, and I'm sitting here writing about my tree and my cat. This is also, perhaps not incidentally, day 3 of my no-caffeine kick. I swear, if the fog doesn't lift by noon I'm downing a case of diet Dr. Pepper.