The Other Two Roommates

I have been very quiet for a long time because I was trying to keep a secret. I don’t like secrets, but I don’t like events that don’t reflect well on me, either. To jump right into it, I didn’t tell you that when I acquired a roommate, two additional roommates came along on the deal. Two cats now live with me. I’m not proud of that. I’m not a cat person, nor a dog person, nor an animal person of any kind. Even stuffed animals fail to get an a-a-h-h out of me! So how did I react to Mr. and Mrs. Catz? Not well, I’m afraid.

I did think that since I am larger, and presumably smarter, I would have the upper hand, and so I would be nice about them. What a farce! They moved right in and they took right over, I can tell you. It took them a little time to teach me the new rules. For instance, absolutely no cut flowers anywhere in the residence. And I love cut flowers. They came through, knocked over the vases, let the water run everywhere and tossed the marbles and the pebbles as far afield as they could. Guess who caved? No more cut flowers. No more anything that might even be confused with cut flowers, if you were a cat. But cat toys were now appearing everywhere. Most of them I ignored, some of them frightened me. But Mr. and Ms Catz decided they liked me. They rubbed up against me, the dragged their long, sharp nail though everything that kept us apart, like blankets, pajamas, tee shirts. All to get closer to me and show me how much I meant to them.

They also tried to keep me company…everywhere I went. They thought it would look uncaring to let me go to the bathroom alone. Same for trips to the kitchen, where my food, and theirs, is stored. Same for lying in bed, trying to read. It’s difficult when a large hot-bodied cat stretches out right across the book. Incidentallly, they must have had meetings when I didn’t know about it, because they never did any of these things in tandem. It was always one at a time. So I had twice the chance of not being lonely.

Incidentallly, Mr. and Mrs. Catz are not related. They are of the same breed but not the same generation. Ms. Catz is several generations older than Mr. Not that you can tell by looking at them, and not that you can tell by their actions. Ms. Catz is a flirt, and it takes the form of trying to jam her nose up my armpit. I don’t know what she has in mind, should she achieve this, but I can tell you, as I told her: I will not let this happen! I find armpits off-putting. At least Mr. Catz has no such disgusting habits. One of them, or both of them, do throw up from time to time, and that’s pretty disgusting, although relatively rare. (Now I am making excuses for their behavior! I must stop that.) I notice that my guests do not have my same reluctance to socialize with animals. Now, when they visit, (the guests, that is) they bring along cat treats and spend much time cooing at the damn felines. I don’t usually feed my guests, they should not feed my roommates. Don’t they know that?

Anyway, that’s all I know about them Catz and all I wanted you to know. Now that it is not a secret, I feel better, and let’s never talk about them again. Agreed?

Do I Ever Get a Break?

This process of moving has been insanely hectic, to say the least. For weeks now there has always been something to do, something to finish, something to buy, etc. Gigi sees me running around and trying to get things done all the time and stops me any chance she gets to ask when I am going to take a break, lay down, get some rest for a day or two.

When I finally got that rest day, a Saturday of lounging in my bed watching movies and television while going in and out of sleep, I was abruptly met with Gigi “marching” (more like slowing sliding) into my bedroom to demand an explanation. She wanted to know what I was doing in bed, why I wasn’t finishing taking care of the rest of the boxes, all in this “how dare you” tone. When I paused my movie, sat up, attempted to get my legs out from underneath her ass, because yes, she just sits down regardless if my body is in the way or not, I tried to explain how I was finally taking a rest day like SHE had told me to. Gigi isn’t one for truth or reality, as we all know by now, so throwing back at her her own statement actually shut her up for a second. It was as though she knew there was no arguing since she would be arguing with herself, a beautiful quiet moment that doesn’t happen often washed over the room for about 2 seconds.

Once she got her bearings it was on to interrogating me about what needed to be done still and if I was going to make sure everything was moved and tidy and organized, etc. I decided to hit her with a mixture of my “please leave me alone” tone of voice and “I’m so stressed out” tone of voice while explaining all the hundreds of things I still needed to do. After that explanation, I was then told how I really needed to give myself time to take a break – I thought I was going to explode! That was my break! She was ruining it! 

Little Thoughts

Hi, fifi again, or almost. You will see I do not have the energy to present myself with initial caps. It is strictly lower case fifi today. And the reason? As usual, perfidy in other places. Someone has launched a rumor, only rumor, mind you, that I am the instigator, the perpetrator, of ghastly bodily sounds. Rumblings, so to speak. As we know by now, to be accused is to be found guilty. That is, after all, the basis for the Dreyfus Affair, non? My code of etiquette would not permit it. Possibly a small sneeze may be acceptable, but even that has become an obsolete possibility since the disappearance of handkerchiefs. A sneeze and a glimpse of a tissue is not the same thing at all.

I will recover my spirits, but it will take a little time. Which gives me the opportunity to share some tiny thoughts with you. I want to define what I see as my role in this interchange. It’s up to me (self-appointed, admittedly) to carry the flag for those on the more mature side of the population. You will note I shy away from using the word “older.” That’s because unless you were born this week, everyone is older than someone. I don’t approve of any of the words or phrases coined so far: elder, senior, who knows what? Therefore I had to improvise, to come up with a word that carries no historical baggage. No negativity at all. I have decreed that the word is Agents. I am the speaker for the Agents. Notice how subtly “age” is incorporated in it, but no one really knows what it means in this context, except me, and you if you have been paying really close attention. So the battle cry is Dignity to the Agents. Their time has come to show a little muscle. A little resilience if that image suits better. Enough cringing. I am feeling so empowered I can almost ignore the canards whistling round me. So Fifi and the Agents feeling the wind at their back. An historical moment, non?

Cat Pee?

Here is a prime example of why living here is testing my patience as a human being. My grandmother, at first, is against the idea of me bringing my two amazing cats with me; then she starts to come around; then goes back to hating it. We did that dance for quite a while.

Now, there was no way I was coming here without my cats – that is a family known fact. So the cats are here now and she is obsessed with them. Whether it is asking me if they enjoy it in the apartment, how they are feeling, if they have enough food and water, or the more extreme: randomly calling me into her room to complain of a smell that she swears is cat pee. For those of you who have never had the pleasure of smelling cat urine, let me explain, it is the most foul smelling piss ever, there is no mistaking it. I know for a fact that my cats would never “mark” their territory and even if that wasn’t enough – there is NO CAT PEE SMELL!! If she is smelling something, it is NOT the cats. I’m not sure how many more times I can explain this cat urine phenomenon to her before I end up buying cat piss on the black market and letting her smell it and understand what I am saying. And as much as she wants to play it off like she doesn’t care – let’s not forget, I can hear everything; so yes, I hear when she talks to them all night and all day. I hear her asking them how they are doing, what they are doing, if they want love. Someone who shouts without realizing, can’t hide from me. 

It Takes Two to Tango

First off, let me set the record straight – I was offered a bedroom and everything that means, including, but not limited to, decorating it as I see fit since I have to live in it. I was not about to spend the majority of my time surrounded by a little town on the walls and having shelving sit, literally, on top of my head.

And it’s not like this move was sprung on her at the last minute, this has been in the works for years now –since I first started college 6 years ago. As well, there were numerous conversations about this, not only over the years, but especially in the last year; conversations about the move, how to redecorate the room, if not the entire apartment, what was going to be thrown away, what was going to be brought in from my apartment at school. Everything was spoken about until the entire family was blue in the face.

One thing we all have to keep reminding ourselves – my grandmother is NOT the victim, whether it is in this situation or EVERY situation. This is a woman who has the intelligence and brain power to manipulate any situation she is placed in. She is the queen of the backhanded compliment – something to get into at a later date. She plays dumb, acts like a child, does whatever she must to have the upper hand regardless if it compliments or harms her “image.”

Let’s not forget about what I have to deal with in this situation. I am living with an 88 year old woman who can’t hear herself when she moans, groans, coughs, sneezes, squawks, hacks up mucus or uses the bathroom. I, however, a spritely almost 25 year old, can hear all of these things – whether I am awake, sleeping, door open, door shut or even in the shower. At first, I was worried that these were sounds of her dying – then quickly realized, it’s just her. How does one explain, sans embarrassment, to a friend hanging out, “oh hey, don’t worry about her, it only SOUNDS like she’s dying.”? 

And So It Begins...

My name is FiFi. It isn’t really, but FiFi gives more of the impression I am trying to project.

Realism is not my friend, because reality does not do justice to the image that I want to establish. Realism would give you a totally false picture of what is going on here.

I need to tell you about my roommate; this is a new situation for me. Not counting husbands, I have not had a roommate since approximately 1952; so I come to this whole situation with a fresh outlook and few prejudices. My present roommate is approximately 65 years younger than I am, so I do not expect her to bring to our arrangement the depth of experience and knowledge of people, places and things that come so naturally to me. I also did not expect her to bring the worldly goods—in terms of clothing, toys and accessories—that would be more appropriate in terms of volume for an entire sorority house.

Let us agree: in terms of worldly goods, she is over-endowed. In terms of normal self-esteem, she is similarly over-endowed. Or maybe not, maybe this is her defense against what she perceives to be my decided advantage in this situation.

To be fair: I offered her a room, without thinking that I would have to denude it of my own possessions, that have been filling every inch, prior to her arrival. And she arrived in stages, so I was not initially overwhelmed by the THINGS that accompanied her. Over a six month period these THINGS never stopped coming. It was a relentless onslaught and one that I assumed would stop when all available storage space was filled.

In retrospect I should acknowledge that I am probably better off now without the household files I thought so essential to modern life, with the wallpaper samples that spanned the duration of my tenancy, perhaps fifty years, without the clothing for a variety of places and temperatures that I will probably never again experience.

It was something like the pouring of cement into the foundation of a new home: THINGS and THINGS and THINGS into every crevice until it was a solid mass of accumulation.