Off Topic: Milestones

Over the past several months we’ve had a number of family occasions.

First off, the kittens, now cats, turned one and shortly thereafter celebrated their first anniversary in our house. They were unaware of these events but appreciated the tuna nonetheless. Most cats attach themselves to one person in a household and are that person’s cat. With our previous cats one was mine and the other clearly belonged to Mr. J, even though I fed them both. The new cats are littermates and belong only to each other. The people in the house are secondary. It is not uncommon to find them curled up together napping or next to each other, one with a paw extended to touch the other. We are hoping they will continue to entertain and comfort each other. They are still young enough to chase each other around and we are used to sudden bursts of cat energy and mad scrambles around the house with long periods of quiet in between. I had initially thought they were in the “cute but dumb” category but they have since shown that they are as devious and sneaky as all their species. They are especially fond of waiting until I am engrossed in cooking dinner and either attack my shoe stings or, and this is particularly startling, run into the kitchen, jump up, sink their claws into my backside and then run away.

Another milestone affects me personally. I had a birthday and turned forty-[mumble]. The zero birthdays don’t bother me but the [mumbles] do for some reason. And this one is hitting really hard. Perhaps because any way you slice it there are now as many or more years behind me as there are in front. I married young, had children late, and in between took liberal advantage of employers’ tuition assistance programs and made judicious use of passport. With this birthday I seem have hit a midlife crisis, only instead of buying a red Ferrari and running off with the paperboy I set up 6 bottles of Diet Coke in the backyard and dropped Mentos in to watch them explode. I had my annual alcohol – 4 wine coolers in a 3 week period, pretty extreme for me. One day I went out for a belated birthday lunch with a friend. The diner had a tempting menu so I had an appetizer of onion rings, followed by a grilled cheese (two types of cheese on sourdough bread) with bacon, and French fries (hey, they came with the sandwich). Later on I had a bowl of ice cream with M&Ms added in. I spent the afternoon in my office listening to my arteries clog and coming to the realization that when you are forty-[mumble] you just can’t eat like that anymore. On the other hand I see the end of mortgage payments approaching, which brings a satisfaction that even vanilla ice cream with M&Ms added in can’t match.

The kids had birthdays, too. The oldest little Jane is narrowing the gap in our heights with alarming speed. This past year saw the end of bedtime stories and “night songs” as we called them. Last year the oldest little Jane requested that goodbye kisses be given out at home and not on the schoolyard. Everyone in the house can read now, with varying degrees of ability. We put away the bedrail for good. As we approach the beginning of the school, with the bills for supplies and clothes, I wonder what will have fallen way and what will have been added by the time school ends.