Cras! Cras!
Sunday, September 28, 2014
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| Helianthus annuus September 28, 2014 |
Today Sunday after a
night of insomnia I went finally asleep and woke up with deep melancholia.
My female cat, Plata
is now 16 years old and she is obsessed in wanting to eat all day. She nags me
constantly. She may have some version of feline dementia as many times there is
still food in her dish. I pick up the dish and stir the contents around with a
spoon. Plata eats. Sometimes, I have to admit I get very angry at her nagging
and I say (sometimes in a raised voice) to her, “Plata, if you want more food
ask your mistress. I’ve had it with your constant begging.”
This morning Rosemary
said something close to this, “Our cats are two faithful remnants of our life
and we should appreciate and care for them. They really don’t expect nothing
and give all.”
Rosemary left for a
Master Gardener clinic at Garden Works in Lougheed Highway. It is a sunny day and I
must finish pruning and shaping our very long laurel hedge.
I decided to postpone
that to perhaps later in the afternoon. I made my breakfast and brought the
tray to bed where I finished the last of yesterday’s (the Sunday Times is
delivered on Saturday night) Sunday Review. I prevaricated (that sounds better
than that term dithering now associated to Obama even by his followers). I
procrastinated.
With me, by my side
was Plata stretched out so elegantly as only cats can, having learned in their
past from the dancers in the courts of the ancient Egyptian pharaohs.
My mother and
grandmother, two very Roman Catholic women prayed to the many saints connected
with problems encountered. St Anthony of Padua
was promised funds for charity should he help them find a lost earring or other
trinket. When things became desperate they turned to St. Jude Apostle, the
patron saint of impossible things (and situations).
One day my mother
whose name was Filomena arrived from school desperate. “Alex, the pope has
de-listed St. Philomena. She never existed. I no longer have a patron saint.” Years
later, no scandal in England
as far as I can tell, the Roman Catholic Church asserted that St.
George, had never existed so he could never have slain that dragon.
With no internet and
Google to check out useless facts my mother and grandmother never knew of an
Armenian centurion Expeditus who was martyred when he converted to Christianity
in 303 AD. It seems that while pondering
on his decision a crow appeared and squawked “Cras, cras,” Latin for tomorrow.
Expeditus not only ignored the bird but he stomped him and promptly converted.
Not clear in my
investigation of Expeditus is my confusion of exactly what he intercedes with
God for us. Does he help us not to dither? Does he justify our act of prevarication?
Is he the long lost saint of that 60s mantra that we were going to be showered
with leisure time? Obviously St Expeditus
could have never predicted the rise of the iPhone and how that gadget keeps us
from true, substantial, melancholy, a meandering of thought, inspirational and
even artistic daydreaming.
I believe that St.
Expeditus and St. Jude should get together and
decide with precision and without delay to intercede for us and help us achieve
true procrastination.
While I have been
scanning my garden roses now for some ten years, this year I have become enamoured
with my Lillooet daughter’s sun flowers. In early spring she brings these
plants in big black pots. I help Rosemary plant them in our back lane garden
and wherever else we can find a sunny spot. I have been delighted with the long
span of this annual. From beginning when I can note their buds to the end of
the cycle when the plants droop and the flowers become untidy I have noted a
beauty that while not competing with my roses, have an elegance, an ordinary
elegance that can almost, as today, almost wipe out my late summer melancholy.
Rosemary is right. I
shall attend to Plata and give her more love and less shouting. I will try to
ignore her nagging and just feed her. With so many of my human friends
disappearing (do they dither?) it is comforting to have a friendly allegiance.
