Uh, oh, we are on the way to that other place where that guy fiddled while the city burned. Our cleaning person there, Tanya, a very, very nice lady from Ukraine, marvels at me every Tuesday and Friday when she comes to terrorize me with that contraption that sucks things off the floor. Signora Susanna, she says, you mean you can leave out this chicken breast on a plate in the kitchen and Lou Lou won’t go bananas? She says this in Italian because she works here in Italy and I don’t think Ukrainians say ‘bananas’ but she says zbyrayetʹsya banany instead and I preen and stretch and look all sophisticated for her and send her cat kisses because she thinks I’m the cat’s meow, so to speak, when it comes to manners in the kitchen.
I just don’t see any reason to get up there and steal chicken and make everyone crazy because I like a peaceful existence and mama and papa don’t yell at me about anything, even though once mama put her arm in the wrong place when I was freaked out about some sudden noise and my claw went pretty deep into her wrist.
No one paid any attention but that night, mama’s wrist was double the size and red as raw meat and the doctor got her started right away on one of those ‘cillan things people take for infections and even thought she hit the bed and didn’t get up for 12 hours because of feeling so, so bad, she was fine in a day or two. Good thing papa didn’t bite her, because human bites are even worse and I sure don’t want to get one of those, ever.
Which brings me to just when humans were purported to bite cats, as in vile rumors many years ago after the war when ‘rabbit’ was suspect in the restaurants around here and probably in France, too. I’m talking about Rome, where I now am for another three weeks until we go back on that thing that goes over water to that other place I reside. No one ordered rabbit for fear of what it was, and if a cat went missing, uh, oh. Order pasta.
