words?

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one of the things that happens to me when i get away from my life for any length of time in a non work way is that i start forgetting how to talk. ask anyone who has spent any time in the bush with me and they'll tell you that by day three i'm a smiling moron who can hardly string four words together.

this doesn't only happen in the bush, i'm minded of a canada day weekend i passed a little over a year ago and i never went more than ten blocks from my home but by the end of it i was speechless with bliss.

i don't really get it per se i just know that somehow i end up incapable of speech the happier i get.

it's often extremely hard for me to reenter my life when the time comes to get back to it.

it won't be so bad this time because i got home in time to go climbing and do some laundry and watch a little television so i've sort of started to dial back into my life. but sometimes i do something like walk out of hillside and try to teach three hours later.

it's almost impossible.

fortunately my clients are used to their teacher being insane, but that's still no reason to wander back into town mumbling under my breath and waving my hands around instead of talking. sure the nice waitress at the breakfast joint comprehends pointing and smiling but try getting six people over forty who are trying to do pilates to get what you're saying if you're refusing to use words.

yeah, it's hard and strange.

all i want to do is wander around and smile and use maybe fourteen words and it's all good and there i am in my car when bam. yeah dudes, we hit TRAFFIC heading back into town at two o'clock in the afternoon on a holiday.

what's strange is that i think i may have needed it, in fact, i think without the traffic that i might not have been able to make words today at all. i would have gone to the climbing gym and smiled at a few people and fallen off a problem or two and that would have been that.

instead i went and talked to a couple of poeple while running off to hide in the corners that didn't have people in them.

works for me.
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okay so harriet.

that little bitch.

er can she be a bitch if she's a cat? is there a rule? i mean dogs can be bitches but can cats...?

hrm is there an arbiter or this stuff we can ask?

anyway yeah so harriet takes off on thursday afternoon, like she somehow just knows that i'm about to go on a lovely camping weekend with my best friend. like she's figured out that i will be distracted enough by her missingness that i will actually worry when i should be camping.

hell, she's thinking to herself that if *i* can go on an adventure then so can she. yes she is.

i know this because if she hadn't been thinking that way she would have been whining outside the window of the home we share within a couple of hours of her departure.

but was she?

fuck no, she was off gallavanting about the universe at that point. in fact, being smart she didn't even try to get home until after i had left to go camping. left with messages scattered about that suggested things to the people left behind.

actions they might take if she were to show up magically when they were here to feed mouse.

but i was so sure she wasn't coming back that i even asked mouse how long she wanted me to wait before i got her another kitten. mouse, needless to say, just looked at me like i was high.

i can't explain it but it just felt like she left. so you can imagine my surprise when i got a call in a campground on othercat's phone to tell me that she was home.

and how was she home?

did she get found and taken to a shelter?
did one of my neighbours find her and stuff her back in her house? (as has happened several times before)
did she come to the window and climb back in?
did she meow outside someone's apartment?

oh no, none of that. instead she broke in to the kitchen window of the apartment next door.

broke in, walked down their wall with her muddy little paws and basically informed them that they were taking care of her until such time as her home was available again.

of course, because they've met her?

they bowed down to her wishes.

in due course the neighbour with a key to her home arrived and let her in here whereupon she promptly stalked around demanding food. covered in mud and happy to be home.

smart little bitch. she knew if i was here when she walked in all stinky and covered in mud that she was having a bath so she came home in time for me to hear about it and calm down before i saw her.

she still isn't getting any fuss made about her. little bitch.

yes, of course i'm glad she's home, that's a stupid question. i'm just furious with her for taking off like that and i *know* damm well she's going to do it again.

oh yeah, campy pics... here's one:

the rest, and the post, are on othercat's blog.