It wasn’t daylight, but a little bit of light trickled through the curtains.

I wasn’t quite awake. I knew that a cat had been headbutting my arm for a little while, purring very loudly.

Suddenly, I was in pain. My forearm. Ow. My forearm. Ow. My eyes flew open and six inches away were another set of eyes. Cuthbert’s eyes.

His teeth were in my arm.

His paws were wrapped around my arm.

His eyes were on mine.

His body language spoke of delight in tackling this large cat toy.

I twitched my arm. He held on. I squawked. He held on.

I blew a puff of air up his nose.

He let go and bounced away.

He came back later, but I walloped him with a pillow.

Deaf cats who think I’m a chew toy are extremely annoying.

That is all.

Steve died six months ago.

I can still hear his voice. I haven’t lost that.

He would have loved Cuthbert. Maybe not as much as he loved whiny Albert and sweet Bertram. Cuthbert isn’t as needy as they are. Steve was especially drawn to the helpless ones, and I’m especially drawn to the troublemakers and fighters.

Six months without my biggest troublemaker. It feels like yesterday. It feels like years.

It’s as if the maker of this video lived in my house.

Uh, I hope they don’t live in my house.

Wait, I guess none of my floors are that clean. Whew. Not my house.

After a week of Cuthbertification of the Carter household, I think I can say that a deaf cat is a little harder and odder to deal with than a hearing cat, but there are pluses to go along with the minuses.

Pro: He didn’t yowl in the car, not even when I turned up the radio and yowled myself.
Con: If you want to feel like a complete idiot, you’ll talk to a deaf cat. It’s even more pointless than talking to a hearing one.

Pro: He doesn’t care if the other cats growl at him.
Con: He doesn’t care if I growl at him.

Pro: He still has funny little chirps and tweets and mrrraps.
Con: He sounds like an adolescent Wookiee when he meows. Raaaaaaaarr.

Pro: He’s not jumpy.
Con: Not even when I’m trying to get him to STOP DOING WHAT YOU’RE DOING YOU SILLY CAT!

Pro: He can’t hear the crinkle crinkle crinkle of a plastic bag.
Con: He still loves plastic bags. Why? WHYWHY? *crinklecrinklecrinkle*

Pro: He can’t hear the rattle rattle rattle of a paper bag.
Con: HE STILL LOVES PAPER BAGS! WHYWHYWHYWHY??!?!!

Pro: He doesn’t come running whenever he hears a can opener.
Con: That’s because he was already sprawled underfoot. Mrrap!

Pro: He’s pretty adorable.
Con: Which makes sending him away to join the circus more painful.

Ah well, I guess I’ll have to live with him.

I’ve been thinking of this old poem of mine and the cruelties of heat and harvest.

The Parting-Month of Spring

I am too deep in June. I feel the death
of spring in every nighttime twitch, in skin
that naps when pressed by crumpled sheets, in breaths
too slow to fill my lungs. I’m trapped within
a disappearing tadpole-tail, or buds
unfurled to rotten lace. I suffocate
in puddles burnt to oxygenless mud
or buzzed with mayflies. Summer desecrates
the green with brazen gaud and cocksure joys
too hot for memories. As harvest reigns,
the way young corn turned hills to corduroy
is hidden by a profligacy of grain.
And sleek July’s utility decoys
us from her deadly manners once again.

Just throw your heart in the air, see if it gets caught.

There was a delay in me getting Cuthbert home, but he’s upstairs. So far, he’s been utterly silent and is such a dead ringer for Albert* that it’s kinda creepy.

*Well, aside from the fact that Albert never ever stops talking, usually in a complaining tone because he’s being persecuted horribly.

Go here if you’re interested. They are desperately looking for more players.

I’m playing in this one instead of stomping on it with my jackboots of fury modding it.

My sister has been doing crochet and made me a lion. The last picture are other adorable animals she has been working on–sheep, pig, giraffe, bear, and there’s a dog and a tiger, too, but they aren’t visible.

The lion she made for me. I call him Rufus. He wouldn’t be an excellent hunter, that’s for sure.

Her secret love affair with this tiny stormtrooper is about to come out.

From the terrifying geniuses at Something Awful. If you go there, you will be offended. You have been warned.