Chemistry

A trip to the Charlotte PetSmart cat condo on Saturday yielded me no cat. I’d gone there to visit with a 10-week-old Maine Coon mix named Roxy who spent most of our time together hiding under a roll-around food bin. Was it me or was it all the noise and distraction?

My Greenville-based adoption adviser tells me that my expectations are too high, that kittens have no attention span at all, that they’re either hiding from or playing with something 100% of the time. Or sleeping. One doesn’t “bond” with a kitten during a 15-minute PetSmart encounter, my adviser says. Nor does one approach such an encounter expecting chemistry. Yet, at the same time that Roxy was squirming to get away from me, Roxy’s brother Archie nearly fell asleep in the crook of another person’s arm. “That’s how male cats are,” my adviser says.

As things stand at the time of this writing, I’ve declined to adopt Roxy, but nobody can accuse me of not taking the process seriously. Another friend says that I’m probably taking the process too seriously. Could be.

There remains the possibility that I’ll change my mind and that Roxy won’t have been adopted by somebody else before I do. Closure would be nice. A companion would be nice. Some living thing to come home to. Some warm blooded “other” to lounge around with and dote upon.

Shooting continues on “Bratwurst” and Jay Spivey’s “Last Word” column for the August issue of fête. In the can thus far are interviews with filmmaker Jeff Sumerel, actor Peter Saputo and Fine Arts Center director Roy Fluhrer. Jay’s column is mostly done and next week we’ll shoot the vintage footage. I am so making this up as I go along.

My share of this week’s CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) allotment included an eggplant with a … well, let’s call it a nose.