All day long I hear all these words, words, words, and I glean from them (another of my favorites—sounds like glow and clean run together, which is what I do most of the day—not run together, that is, but sort of shine and groom), I actually feel a kind of osmosis of language like sound waves all around my little black and white body and I go in an out of words and somewhere along the way, some of them stick so that I know what mood my mama is in (and my papa because he does get in a few moods every now and then and who wouldn’t with some of the problems he has right now), and I feel that she is elated to be in the grandeur that is Rome (hey, I know my history; it has come down from the cats of antiquity since that guy gave that speech to his friends, Romans and countrycats and ended up with me, a 21st century kind of kitty who, if I ever get out of that garden, will gladly pass it on to future kitties) and I know the love she has for this magical place because when I was let out of that little traveling home—let’s call a spade a spade—that $%#@!! cage they make me sit in while they gallivant all over creation—I found myself in a third storey apartment overlooking piazza Collegio Romano, aptly named since that’s where we are, and through the French door that looks onto the piazza I can watch silly-ass seagulls swooping and diving with no apparent purpose whatsoever, calling out in the most unreal squawks to one another and wishing there were a fish market nearby. There isn’t.
But there they are, soaring and yakking and probably even mating or trying to up on the rooftops of Roma; who on earth would want to mate with a seagull? Do you know what they eat!
As I mentioned, I was put on this disgusting diet of expensive kitty food from the vet and cat and dog shop around the corner and mama tried everything to get me thinner than I think I already am and you cannot imagine the taste of that s…t. I don’t use words like that but oh, boy, it was garbage. It was ground up hooves and cast off snake casings and things like carrots and other things cats would never eat in the wild, let’s say, and then, after Thanksgiving, which is that day celebrated by Americans when they ate with the native Indians and gave thanks for not be persecuted and ostracized by the Brits who wanted to get them back or at least teach them a lesson and later on came over on boats to kick ass but it didn’t work. There is probably a cat or two today brought over on a ship wandering around Boston or somewhere saying, I say old cat, would you like a game of cricket, or something like that, but I’m off the subject.
So here we are, fourteen of us including two pretty cute little darlings that are really real grandkids of papa but who mama calls her nipotini finti, which means fake grandkids, but these kids are far from fake. They have more engergy in a fingertip than all the Jack Russells in France, and I start by hiding under the bed when a large group of guests shows up here and then I’m too curious (hey, trite but true) and slink out among the madding crowd and let them ooh and ahh over me a bit and try to feel my incredibly soft coat (extra virgin olive oil, organic, from the farm belonging to the sweet family downstairs who own Il Buco, a trattoria that has been there since papa’s father had a fight with the waiter over the bill, something he did with great ease and regularity, which doesn’t sound very nice but he did have regualr fights with waiters often) and when they have petted and cooed over me for awhile, I’m outta there until the turkey leavings hit my bowl. Man, I had no idea how good turkey is right off the bone, cooked the way mama’s mama did it with white wine and broth made from all those things I wish they’d give me, the neck, the liver, the gizzards (another great word—GIZZARD, GIZZARD, ech!) and roasted just right so the white meat isn’t cardboard as is the rumor about most Thanksgiving turkeys. After a couple of hours of kids laughing and sometimes screaming, Pepe got the drumstick, then mama takes Marghe, his little sad, screaming, teary sister, this adorable nipotina finta, into the kitchen and says, here, Marghe, you take the wing—Pietro doesn’t have a wing and look how brown and crispy it is and then Marghe, joyful and grinning, takes her wing into the room where their own little eating table is set up and holding it like a gun, points it at Pietro and gloats over her treasure and peace is restored and everyone eats the purée of mash potatoes (into which mama has slipped some cream cheese this time, thanks to her ‘aunt’ who is really not her aunt but the sister of her real aunt who is 96 and dancing toward 100 and who has given her the recipes that the southern women use in Arkansas and Texas and all those places mama went when small, and they love the cornbread dressing and white radicchio salad, the recipe of which was given to mama at a market near papa’s ex-wife’s cousin’s apartment and that has crushed toasted walnuts mixed in with little bits of tart apple, and after that comes the pumpkin pie made by one of the guests (is this getting too complicated?) and the pecan pie made by mama who found pecans in Rome, a miracle in itself, and then there are dark chocolate truffles, which if they did not make me sick as a dog, haha, I would eat from now until doomsday, and then, everyone goes home and mama and papa clean up real fast because they’re used to that because papa is a real man and does the clean-up since he figures mama has cooked all of it why shouldn’t he clean up, and mind you, this happens every lunch and dinner. What a guy!!
I know because I try to sneak in the kitchen to get at my dry food for a snack and wouldn’t you believe it, there he is crushing a Ferrarelle bottle or even worse, putting in a new garbage bag and I’ve never run so fast to be under the bed with my Feliway-sprayed blankie to sooth my shattered nerves. Jesus, you’d think he knew by now what stress that causes poor little kitty, me. Fear of plastic bottles being crushed is almost as bad as mama thinking she was driving with some really bad guy in the back seat whom she had not seen get in the car and finding out that it was a bag of potato chips rolling around!!! This was in Berkeley during days that some people may not have been exactly as straight as they could have been…..
Then again, maybe I’m not such a poor little thing after all. I remember hearing that woman they call the veterinarian say, when they took me get ‘fixed’ and shot up with all sorts of vaccines and anti-thises and anti-thatses, I remember she said, boy this kitty is one lucky kitty, and I guess I am after all, even with the garbage bags popping and that sucker-upper screaming through the house without even thinking that maybe I am snoozing on my little blankie within earshot.
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