Catastrophic Thinking

I’m watching the neighbor’s two dogs run loose in the neighborhood. The tall golden one with tail lifted like a flag trots ahead, footloose and fancy-free, while the short-legged corgi-type scampers along like a caboose. They seem to be enjoying this lovely summer morning while we neighbors fret about them. One neighbor has corralled them once already and returned them to their back yard. She and my husband confer when the dogs free themselves again: What to do? No one is home at the dogs’ house and obviously the back yard cannot contain them.

People here care about their neighbors. My observant, friendly husband walks our dogs every morning and garners news or dispenses advice. I wonder if anyone has noticed we have a new housemate. Our 18-year-old granddaughter has moved into my daughter’s old bedroom to work and attend the local community college.

This has wrought a monumental change in our methodology. That bedroom was the bedroom of our two foundling kitties for the past two years. It was where we sequestered them to keep them safe from the dangerous outdoors when the doggie door was open for the beagles. I wanted indoor kitties when we adopted them because we once lost a cat to a predator, we think, and we once had a cat mauled. By this time, the young cats know their room, and they gallop into it with tails high at night, or whenever enticed by shaking a tin filled with cat food.

Since the advent of Lalas, as we call our granddaughter, the cats’ material goods have been moved into our room, and the cats are confused. They dash to the closed door of what used to be their habitat, and stare at it. At night, they wander our bedroom, wreaking havoc, opening cupboard doors, climbing the blinds, terrorizing the beagles, generally creating mayhem that keeps us awake and grouchy.

Twice last night in the dark I tripped over a frightened beagle who didn’t know which way to run: away from the cats, or away from the human feet. So she froze and was tripped over with great cusswords. By midnight, I was considering divorce. I’m a catastrophic thinker.

Thank God the weekend brought an AA convention to our area. At least for pockets of time I was not crazy. The Friday night speaker, Cliff R. from Southern California, gave me food for thought. He quoted Mother Teresa, and I wrote part of the quote on the back of my name tag:

“The fruit of prayer is faith, the fruit of faith is love, the fruit of love is service, the fruit of service is peace.” (Mother Teresa)

I suspended my plans for divorce this morning and made a date with a newcomer to meet her at an AA meeting today. I want some peace in my life, and the only peace I’ve ever found from my catastrophic thinking is in the oddly wrapped gift that is Alcoholics Anonymous.