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Category: Pets in an apartment

February 26th, 2022 – Saturday afternoon

February 26th, 2022 – Saturday afternoon

Yes, I made this 🙂

When I moved to York, Pennsylvania, I did it on a whim. Arriving with what fit in a 4×6 U-Haul trailer, over the past year and a half I’ve moved to a second apartment, acquired possessions, and made a life for myself. Most of what I own came from a second hand shop on Carlisle. A few things were in boxes and required serious assembling. Each time I purchased something I had to ask myself if the accumulation of yet another possession would make it necessary for me to remain in one place. Having little, as before, made it easy to travel and move about. I loved that part of my life and miss it more than I have words to describe.

I often have little arguments with myself concerning my tomorrows and my nexts. I’ll probably have more tomorrows, but what will they look like? Unplanned bills keep cropping up. Dental work. Cataract surgery. Can I be more thrifty? Continue working at minimum wage jobs? What do I WANT to do when my current lease runs out? Stay? Have I settled in too much, making a move more difficult? I convince myself I’d probably better stay put. Then a couple days later I’m drooling at the sight of a travel trailer or the thought of getting to visit friends and family again, taking my cat and my own bed. My turtle shell. Its nice getting to visit people. I love it. Yet I love having my own little turtle shell to rest and recharge in. So my little arguments never get resolved, because both sides of it are good.

My life is like my refrigerator

My fridge contains Greek yogurt, organic milk, homemade apple butter, organic eggs, a casserole, Mission BBQ leftovers (salmon and half a chicken), a variety of teas, spinach, brussels sprouts (did you know its spelled like that – I didn’t), and Pepsi. I suppose it represents my desire to eat healthy, sensibly, to succeed quite often, yet fail all in the same day. So my life goes. Trying to do the right things. Exercise. Lose weight. Get plenty of sleep. Earn a little money to save a bit or spend on surprise bills.

I have two rooms. I’m kind of sandwiched between apartments above, below, and on two sides. I like that. The windows are very drafty, so the more walls that don’t face the outside the better. My floor looks like a big patchwork quilt. The lease states that tenants must cover the majority of the floor and it helps insulate.

The cat’s room

My half of the room (yeah, right)

The other end of the room is my computer room and art room, kind of. I separate the two spaces with a tri-fold partition. In just the short time I’ve been here, I’ve rearranged things several times. Most of the time its because of the cat (Sophia). She demonstrates how clever she is. Curtains have been pulled down half a dozen times. Anything on any flat surface (no matter how high) is fair game. In her eyes all things are toys or places to explore. I’m teaching her that the art table is my domain. I know she gets it. She just choses not to remember. I invited her to nap on the top shelf of my art cart and she likes that.

Sophia aspires to be an artist, too. While studying pens and colored pencils at this time, she hasn’t decided how she’ll fit paper clips into her projects. Perhaps after a nap, it’ll come to her.

The other room (you can see the closed door) is the bedroom. Its very small and gets very cold, so I keep the door closed on winter evenings.

The kitchen is in the main room and its the most beautiful kitchen I’ve ever had, even though its quite small. The cupboards don’t go all the way to the ceiling, so I put my prints up there and light them up with strings of white lights. The view warms my heart and cheers me. I don’t have room to store the prints, so displaying them up above works very well. No one will ever see them anyways. I have no way to sell them and no one comes to my apartment. So it works good to have them where they are. I enjoy them.

I’ve always been a dog person

I’ve always been a dog person

Not that I, personally am half human, half dog. I love dogs and have had one in my life as far back as I can remember. So it surprises me that I have a cat now. Part of me is resigned to the fact that my life will be alone. I think I’m a great person. My life has been filled with adventures of all types. Yes, many of the things I’ve done have scared me, but I did them anyways. About three years ago I went to Japan and went Scuba diving and zip lining. The zip line was a confidence course with nine parts. I don’t think I even made it through half. The one that did me in was a segment where I had to keep my feet on a cable and hold on to a higher one with my hands. It was an uphill trek and took a tremendous amount of arm strength. Before that I’d been very proud of my arm strength. In college I was the arm wrestling champion in my ROTC class. In later years I did so much photography and filming that my shots were extremely steady. I helped build two log homes in recent years. So when I got to that part of the zip line trek, I was so discouraged. Age seemed to be catching up with me after all. I did complete that trek uphill, but when I saw that the next segment required you to climb a pole to reach the line, I went and found a place to sit down. Enough.

Scuba diving. I did go. That first and only time was right in the Pacific ocean and the bottom was beautiful with colorful coral and many species of tropical fish. When we got out far enough that we could no longer touch the bottom, I knew in my heart that it wasn’t for me. Tremendous fear washed over. I doubled back to shore. Never again.

My life has been an adventurous one. However, I’m an introvert. Enough so that it takes time to get to know me and I don’t think many people are willing to give it that long. Just making friends has not come easy. Once people get to know me though, we are life-long friends.

My life consists of a small black Jeep Wrangler, a two room apartment in the city, a few books, a lot of art supplies, leather portfolios filled with artwork, a bin full of stories I’ve written, a couple bins of photographs, a few pieces of very comfy furniture, and a cat. I’m scanning the photographs and one day those bins will be gone.

Since Sophia was with her siblings her entire six months of life, I was warned that for a couple weeks she would miss them. She did indeed cry for a while on the drive home. Once in the apartment, I was prepared to open the door of the cat carrier and leave her be until she was ready to come out on her own. I opened the door and she slipped right on out. She walked a bit hunkered down, like she was on a dangerous mission. Once she had checked out every inch of the apartment, she searched me out to be petted and talked to. I felt as though I’d been given the stamp of approval. I took the photo above at that time. I think she looked a bit weepy.

Night time was probably hard for both of us. I went to bed and during the night when I stretched my legs out, I bumped her with my feet. She leaped away. The next time I awoke she was laying at the head of the bed, where a second pillow would be. That seemed to work well for her.

Today Sophia figured out favorite places to spend her time. She likes the window seat, but only for a little while at a time. A young couple was down below, trying to befriend one of the three cats that hangs around down there. My Sophia plays quite a bit. She has a flat round disc that has a circular track for a ball that goes all the way around. She bats at it and it goes shooting around the track. When she’s tired or bored she just plops down somewhere and takes a nap. Usually she does this on the floor near my feet. A couple times she’s gone to the door and cried a bit, then returned to find something else to do.

So here I am, a cat owner. Our first whole day together was good. I took lots of opportunities to talk to her, which brought her to me for petting. She’s very affectionate, but enjoys her alone time as well. Maybe she’s an introvert, too.

This is where she spent one of her naps. She laid on my art table, underneath two lights, as though she were sunbathing. Perhaps she’s going to be okay here with me.

Here Comes Sophia the Cat

Here Comes Sophia the Cat

Sophia is one of five kittens in a litter being lovingly fostered by friends of mine. I heard about these kittens three months ago. I moved to a new apartment earlier this month and found out that the tenants can have a cat. Last Saturday I got to see the meet the kittens. Sophia melted my heart and yesterday I signed the adoption papers for her. Today I will drive the hour to where she is and bring her home. I’m excited and nervous at the same time. My new apartment is very small. It has something she might like though. The windows have huge sills. If they were just a bit bigger, I could climb up and have a nap there myself.

This morning I’ll go to the store and buy a few necessities for Rose. For now its nice to spend a little time by myself. I want to remember how it felt, being alone and how welcoming it will be to have her in my life. She’ll be my companion for the rest of her life and since I’m sixty-six, maybe the rest of mine. Today is day one.