Monday, September 14, 1998

        Last night Pyewacket was racing around the house, as she is wont to do, running from one room to the next, up and down the stairs, jumping into the windows, then careening off into the hallway, and the jumping off the stairs and skidding into the kitchen. On her last trip, I noticed that she was all puffy. Well, not all puffy, just her tail.

        When Doña would get scared, the hair on her entire body would stand up. She looked hysterically funny when that happened, although we tried not to laugh at her, since that only made the humiliation worse. When Pyewacket gets scared, only the hair on her tail sticks out. She looks just the same as she always does, except that her tail is this huge bottle brush affair. I went and picked her up and comforted her, having absolutely no idea what had caused the terror. It was probably nothing, of course. She probably just scared herself.

        She was just now frightened by my shoe. I had kicked my sandals off onto the floor next to the footstool, and was sitting in the chair getting my email. She came into the dining room and tried to climb into the plant next to the chair, which she does continuously even though I shove her away every time. I wouldn't care so much except that it's a dieffenbachia, which I understand can be harmful to animals. I suppose I should just get rid of it, but it's old and it's a nice, big bushy plant and I'd hate to throw it (or give it) away.

        So she tried to climb into the plant, I said, "No!" and pushed her gently out of it, and she sort of stumbled and fell on one of my shoes. She jumped about a foot straight up in the air, and came down with her tail about triple its normal size. As she landed, she realized that what had scared her was an inanimate object, and she sniffed it thoroughly, trying, I assume, to convince me that she really did have a justifiable reason for being terrified by a shoe.

        It's been a long time since I moved, probably 12 years or so since we moved into this house, but I remember that one of the best things about moving was having a new neighborhood to explore. Finding a new grocery store, drug store, post office, bank. Figuring out the best way to get to work. Going out to run errands on Saturday with an air of expectation, of discovery. It wears off soon enough and everything begins to seem ordinary again, but those first few weeks are magical, or at least that's the way I remember them.

        A new job is sort of the same way. Or maybe it's like starting a new grade at school, or starting at a new school. Finding your locker, and worrying that you'll forget the combination, and trying to remember which corridors lead to which class, and learning the teachers' names.

        I was thinking about all that this morning on the way to work because I needed gas. I was thinking how at certain times in our lives we start creating new rituals and habits and traditions. I'm driving farther to work now. I'm using more gas, and it's more important that I think of filling up the car ahead of time. It's not as easy to just stop at the gas station down the street as it was when I worked a couple of miles away. I've been getting gas on the weekends, just as I've been paying bills on the weekends. I'm using the weekend days more constructively, getting more done then. That way I can relax more during the week and not have to think about the details.

        I noticed that I needed gas on Saturday, but I knew that I would be out on Sunday and could get it then. But I wasn't out on Sunday. I didn't leave the house at all, and I didn't think about needing gas. So I had to stop on the way to work this morning. I stopped at a station that I'm not familiar with, which is no big deal, but the gas wouldn't start. I put the hose in the car, pulled up the lever, and nothing happened. I pushed all the buttons, jiggled the handle, moved the lever down and back up. Nothing. So I went into the station. There were two people working there, one woman helping someone and a man on the phone. I stood there looking agitated, I'm sure, and finally the man noticed me and put his hand over the phone and looked at me inquiringly. I asked, "What do I have to do to get the gas to start?"

        He said, "We've been having some gas problems. It should start in 30 seconds or so. We've just been having some gas problems. It should start right up. 30 seconds."

        And I thought, maybe it isn't that good of an idea. What does "gas problems" mean? Bad gas? Water in the tank? What? Did that mean that I was getting the very first gasoline after the "problems," whatever they were? Was that why I had to wait 30 seconds, actually more like a minute? Well, what the heck, I was committed now. I thought I'd take the chance. I'd already spent more time than I should have there, anyway.

        Anticlimax: Nothing happened. At least not yet. But you never know.