Relative Something

This morning, we are lounging in bed a bit longer than usual, enjoying a day off from work, and a day off from holiday events. The excitement has been enjoyable for the most part, but there is something precious about the return to normalcy that follows.

Not all of the excitement has been the kind we wished to experience. On Christmas eve morning, as I bent forward to put on a sock, the pressure on one of my degenerating discs was too much, and I was served up a dose of prolonged discomfort. Oh joy. The kids arrived and we had a nice breakfast and exchanged presents.

Later, as we were preparing ourselves to leave for an overnight visit to Cyndie’s parent’s house, I spotted the tail end of one of our two recently adopted cats, Mozyr, moving past the glass of the door to the deck, and somehow he was on the outside of the glass! We do not mean for these cats to be outdoor cats, and we were about to leave for a day, with the temperature headed below zero (F) outside.

Julian was still here, so he was able to assist in wrangling Mozyr, but the poor cat was not showing any signs of understanding we were trying to act in his best interests. It was a bit of a keystone cops escapade, with me indoors, just out of the shower, and wrapped in a towel, Cyndie, with a flashlight to look under the deck, carrying a bowl of food for enticement, and Julian, in tennis shoes, treading in the snow around the house, moving about a half-house length behind Mozyr as the cat did nervous laps around the building.

At one point, on the deck, with Julian on one side and Cyndie on the other, I was trying to get to the door to the right of the fireplace to open it, when Mozyr leaped into the closed door on the other side. The impact startled him into a panicked sprint out and around Cyndie, and he returned to another batch of tentative laps around the house.

When, finally, all things lined up to allow a door to be opened where he was able to find it, Mozyr dashed in the house and sprinted at top speed for the safety of the furthest spot under our bed.

We are home again, and the cats appear to have survived their first night alone here. It’s too bad my ailing back doesn’t return to normal in that same amount of time. I expect my problem is a result of the departure from achieving a daily walk, and sessions of exercise. I intend to remedy that situation with a renewed priority to find a way to fit it in, regardless the usual obstructions of my current working schedule.

I’m ready for a little break in the excitement department for a few days. Hopefully, the cats will be thinking along the same lines.