“Ok,” I told him cheerfully, and went back to reading my book.

I’ve got a wacky set of new dietary restrictions, you see, which means that even in a household overflowing with food, I might just starve if I don’t fend for myself. When friends invite me over for dinner, I bring my own dinner but join them for the company. When friends invite me along to go out to eat, I either decline or eat first and then hang out with them while they eat.

Why? Because I’m no longer allowed to eat most of what goes into a normal meal. No grains at all, no sugars but fruit and honey (no fake sugars), no dairy except for a few special cheeses and special yogurt that I have to make myself (because it has to culture for at least 24 hours), no canned things, and no starchy things like potatoes or corn. So yes, I’ve become a true carnivore.

I eat meat and veggies and nuts and fruit, and bananas have to have speckles on them or else they have the wrong kinds of sugars/starches in them. And I can eat some specific dried beans but only if they’ve been prepared a certain way. So it’s not the end of the world, but I have to be so very strict about everything that it’s just easier if I have complete control over every ingredient.

And so I brought my own bananas to Grandma’s house, because what if hers aren’t speckaldy right now? Then what would I put my just-peanuts peanut-butter on? Then what would I eat for breakfast?

So if you see me pondering bananas at the co-op, you’ll know what I’m weighing. How many more days will my stash at home last? Will this bunch be speckaldy by then? Will this bunch be just the right size to eat while it’s speckaldy but before it rots? Oh, and will I run out of nuts to munch on before I need more bananas? Because if so I should really restock the nut supply today…

She visited a few weeks ago with the sole purpose of stocking my refrigerator, cooking for me, and cleaning the house. One morning we were joking about something or other that involved saying “I love you” and she got serious for a moment and said, “You know, I don’t often say it, but I do love you.” And I pointed to the breakfast she’d made for me and the lunch she’d packed for me to take to work. “I know,” I said.

I have a wonderful spinning wheel, carefully chosen to be both beautiful and supremely functional. Many spinning wheels sacrifice either beauty or function, but mine manages to look like it was plucked straight out of a fairy tale’s illustrations while also managing to keep a steady rhythm with very little effort. Very little effort, that is, until I adopted a cat 6 years ago. Ever since then the idea of fending off a crazed feline or listening to him yeowl from behind a closed door has been enough to make me flip on the TV or pick up a book rather than touch the wheel.

But yesterday evening, as the sunlight angled steeply from the west and the cicadas sang to me from the trees, I carried the wheel and a nearly-forgotten bag of roving outside, sat down under my tree, and began to spin. What I had thought was a bag of generic white sheep’s wool (utilitarian spinning at best) turned out to be buttery merino. What I had thought would feel horribly conspicuous (who spins outside even in a tiny little city?) felt cosily tucked under the tree, beside a hedge, and behind an aging picket fence. Even the ants stayed away.

And so I listened to several chapters of my book on iPod and filled half a bobbin with milky white strands of merino wool.

I think I’ll do that again this evening if the weather cooperates. Besides, summer won’t last forever, and I need new mittens.

He’s also being spoiled by the family dog, which is pretty darn adorable. At first the dog was pretty interested in him as a squeak toy, which wasn’t so great. (Though in her defense, he does sometimes sound exactly like her toy duck.) Then all of a sudden her maternal instincts kicked in, and now every time he makes a sound she jumps up, sniffs him all over until she’s satisfied that he’s ok, and then reports his status to the rest of us. She was pretty displeased with us last night when he was doing his happy baby calisthenics and all of us were eating dinner. She wasn’t satisfied until one of us got up from the table and went with her to make sure these were happy sounds. Mom did the honors, told the dog everything was fine, and then we could all settle back down to eat. The dog also forgoes all romping with noisy squeak toys while the baby is downstairs. By now, the dog is almost as tired as the parents.

I thought of that scene this morning when I gave my cat his new treat dispensing toy, complete with 4 of his very favorite treats inside. He realized that there was something very important in the fact that he’d seen me stuff those four treats into the nasty hard thing. Very important indeed. Maybe if he yelled at it (and at me) the treats would appear before him… No dice.

I batted it for him a couple of times, letting out one treat. He thought that was awesome. Then I walked away. He was puzzled. He knew there were more treats in there, but I’d left, so now what?

Stealthily, wondering if he was allowed to do this on his own, he batted tentatively at the toy. Nothing. He tried licking it. Nothing. He tried sitting on it. Nothing. Maybe if he tried licking it harder… this time with some biting action? No. Hmmm….

SWAT

And out came a treat, much to his surprise and delight.

When I left for work, he was carefully keeping his back to me so that I couldn’t scold him in case he was being naughty, and he was batting the toy around the kitchen wondering exactly what he’d done that last time to make the glorious treat appear.

I wonder how many times people look at me and see instantly that I’m licking at the problem when I should be batting at it.

Then a minute or two later the dad and two older brothers also drifted into the restroom, the boys’ eyes wide and worried looking. And from inside the crowded little room the youngest had started to cry.

Evidently shooed out of the restroom, the two brothers were clearly at a loss about what to do with themselves while their parents were in there with their baby brother. Picking me at random, the oldest boy, maybe 7 or 8, came to tell me, “My brother just suddenly threw up. Next door. Did you know they’re having a sale next door? Well they are. 40% off. They’re going out of business.”

He went back to check on his brother, only to be shooed out of the restroom once more. He wandered down the wall toward the front door, his middle brother trailing after him. Wandered back. Came over to me again. “We didn’t know he was sick when we left this morning. And then he just threw up next door. But luckily he missed the rugs. There were two of them, right next to each other, but he threw up right in the middle of them. We didn’t know he was sick until then.”

His middle brother hung back a bit, sucking his middle fingers and looking at me silently, glancing over his shoulder at the restroom door every once in a while. From inside we could all hear the baby brother crying. Finally the two boys wandered over to a table and sat down by themselves, talking quietly to each other, waiting.

As the family left, crying youngest boy in his dad’s arms, the oldest boy told the couple sitting nearest the front door, “He’s crying because he threw up. We didn’t know he was sick.”

If you don’t know Maru, here’s the second compilation video. (The first and third are similarly funny viewing, particularly parts where he dives headlong into small boxes.)

I find that I’m particularly fond of Maru’s love of diving head first into boxes. And his love of very small boxes. He gets really frustrated if he can’t get into boxes. And pretty much anything called “Desperate Maru” is worth watching for the sheer persistence of the thing (there are a few videos named that). Apparently he also likes to put bags on his head (he does this in several videos, including one with bubble wrap).

And today, just to round out my cat video tastes, I watched this one of a kitten dreaming. I watched it several times. How many, you ask? Several. I refuse to say more.

Yes, I am becoming a crazy cat lady.

Apparently, my Dermatographia has gone “haywire.” (That’s the technical term, as used by my brand new-to-me dermatologist.) Apparently now all it can take to induce hives is brushing up against something, feeling a breeze, getting warm or cold, or wearing clothes. In other words, now I’m allergic to the sense of touch.

I’ll take Ridiculous But Hilarious Diagnoses for $1000, please.

“Members like you make this possible,” an anchor’s voice informed me, “We are grateful for your support. Please contribute online or call…”

Wait, what?

Oh, right, this must have been the end of a montage of recent stories meant to remind me of the high quality reporting NPR provides.