A turn for the worse?
Typical:
The kitties are in another room, entangled together in a fierce struggle, emitting hideous sounds. … Panting, Jasper staggers out to us. He settles into his favorite laundry basket. I get up to search for Ziva, to make sure that she hasn’t been killed.
Probably she’s fine, says Karin. Jasper hasn’t got any blood on him.
(True enough.)
Ziva cautiously emerges. I advise her: Remain on the other side of the room, little Ziva.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
On Thursday night, the kitties fight for control over Jasper’s laundry basket. Let’s bring out a different basket for Ziva, I suggest to Karin. But when we do put Ziva into a different basket, Jasper climbs into it; they fight even more alarmingly in the tinier space.
My feelings on this particular night are raw already, due to Ecuador’s defeat against Brazil …
and due, also, to my having taught poorly the previous day’s lesson of Spanish. …
(Why don’t the kitties give me a break? Why don’t they just be nice to each other?)
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
In the small hours, Ziva crawls all over my body, rests her side against my nose and mouth so that I can’t breathe. The little dear is smothering me.
Jasper, who never used to do this, imitates his sister. It’s worse when he does it. He’s heavier, and he has longer fur.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
At Bethel, waiting to teach, I sit, haggard, in the empty classroom, my feet up on the desk. A student comes into the room.
I’ve been talking to the other students, he says. We all have a lot of sympathy for you.
Oh yes?
I mean, he says, what you’re trying to do – teaching a foreign language – it must be really, really hard.
What exactly are you saying?
Just that we have a lot of sympathy for you.
OK.
The other students file in.
Before I re-teach the previous lesson, I say, I want to thank you for your sympathy. But know that things aren’t all that bad for me. I have three jobs, and two of them are going very well. What’s bothering me more is that Ecuador lost last night against Brazil. We’d been playing better than Brazil these last five years. With this defeat, my world came crashing down a little. Now, the lesson.
I re-teach it. This time the students follow what I’m trying to say. They leave more satisfied. In the afternoon, six of them come to my office hours. As long as they keep doing this, the class should go all right.
Ziva and Jasper continue to fight, but, I now notice, the fighting has a distinctly playful quality. Karin shoots this precious video of them:
The kitties are in another room, entangled together in a fierce struggle, emitting hideous sounds. … Panting, Jasper staggers out to us. He settles into his favorite laundry basket. I get up to search for Ziva, to make sure that she hasn’t been killed.
Probably she’s fine, says Karin. Jasper hasn’t got any blood on him.
(True enough.)
Ziva cautiously emerges. I advise her: Remain on the other side of the room, little Ziva.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
On Thursday night, the kitties fight for control over Jasper’s laundry basket. Let’s bring out a different basket for Ziva, I suggest to Karin. But when we do put Ziva into a different basket, Jasper climbs into it; they fight even more alarmingly in the tinier space.
My feelings on this particular night are raw already, due to Ecuador’s defeat against Brazil …
and due, also, to my having taught poorly the previous day’s lesson of Spanish. …
(Why don’t the kitties give me a break? Why don’t they just be nice to each other?)
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
In the small hours, Ziva crawls all over my body, rests her side against my nose and mouth so that I can’t breathe. The little dear is smothering me.
Jasper, who never used to do this, imitates his sister. It’s worse when he does it. He’s heavier, and he has longer fur.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
At Bethel, waiting to teach, I sit, haggard, in the empty classroom, my feet up on the desk. A student comes into the room.
I’ve been talking to the other students, he says. We all have a lot of sympathy for you.
Oh yes?
I mean, he says, what you’re trying to do – teaching a foreign language – it must be really, really hard.
What exactly are you saying?
Just that we have a lot of sympathy for you.
OK.
The other students file in.
Before I re-teach the previous lesson, I say, I want to thank you for your sympathy. But know that things aren’t all that bad for me. I have three jobs, and two of them are going very well. What’s bothering me more is that Ecuador lost last night against Brazil. We’d been playing better than Brazil these last five years. With this defeat, my world came crashing down a little. Now, the lesson.
I re-teach it. This time the students follow what I’m trying to say. They leave more satisfied. In the afternoon, six of them come to my office hours. As long as they keep doing this, the class should go all right.
Ziva and Jasper continue to fight, but, I now notice, the fighting has a distinctly playful quality. Karin shoots this precious video of them: