it's probably not about the cat

Laura has not been home for two weeks and yesterday I almost got a kitten. Coincidence? My beloved sister Ellen thinks not.

In order to get anything done in life, we've all learned to compartmentalize kittens. It's easy, in general. But if you see one, if it's looking right at you, you have to actively resist the impulse to take it home. Kittens hypnotize you -- you can see them trying. For the vulnerable human, it's like that resisting the impulse to scream thing I wrote about, but more intense.

So when I got an email from someone searching for a home for these abandoned kittens, an impulse began, like a little itchy rash. Which is actually one of the many symptoms I get when I am around cats. But that's beside the point.

The one I'm not going to get, not going to get, Not Going to Get is the one with the white forehead. Yani is thinking of the name Luna, for the moon on her forehead. We would call her Lulu.

Our current Zen Master cat, Juni, could train this new kitten, I'm thinking. Juni would be so happy to have a kitten to take care of! She would take Lulu around the yard, model caution around cars, show her that trees make so much better scratching posts than furniture. Lulu would nestle in the curl of Juni's warm body at night. She would only kill birds under extreme duress. She would be just like Juni, only 14 years younger.

These are the fantasies of the kitten trance I am was in. I did not at any moment in time think it was, in fact, a good idea to get a kitten. But I sent an email saying we were interested in the one that so obviously wants to be our cat. And Yani and I drove off in the general direction of New Britain, where the kitten Sirens were singing.

I said to Yani, "If I could figure out a way of getting the feeling I am looking for, I could resist this kitten impulse." She said, What about a bird? Well, the pet store is right next to the hardware store we were standing in. Let's go see if I have a feeling when I check out the birds. Maybe I am just looking for a feeling.

It was more of a gruesome fantasy than a feeling that came over me as I watched the birds flitter about in their cages: Juni may be a Zen Master, but she can't resist finch tartare. Plus the birds actually seemed to be saying, please don't take me home. Just get me outta here.

We looked at rats, hamsters, mice, gerbils: No way; what's with the tail; hi there, but no; and no thanks, respectively. Yani suggested I might like the hermit crab and tapped on the glass to get its "attention." Har har.

Laura gets home tonight and I'm hoping she can talk me off the Lulu ledge, though in truth talking people into things is more of Laura's thing. She is, after all, the one who followed the sign to "free kittens" and surprised the family with Juni so many years ago.

This morning the kittens' foster dad is down to one kitten: It's Lulu. Could I decide by the end of the day, he asks.

Getting a pet is never just about the pet. I know that. So I'm trying to figure out what it is about, right here, right now. By the end of the day.

Could someone please tie me to the mast?