seeking a contented cat

My cat has become very demanding. She mewls insistently for attention, sits in my lap vibrating, and periodically nudges me for greater attention and petting. She wakes me up in the morning by climbing up my body and howling in my face till I touch her. I am not going for some gross innuendo here; this honestly is my cat. Her name is Fiona. She is watching me type this, or rather, sitting disinterestedly, hoping that my paint speckled fingers will quit their venture across my keyboard and pay attention to her, dammit. Instead, I am typing my daily cup of tea and listening to the rain pour down on my backyard jungle. The last two days have been the perfect version of Hilo weather; a morning dawning bright and clear, allowing those who rise about forty-five minutes earlier than myself these days to watch the sun rise out of the ocean. (this doesn't happen that often--usually the east is cloudy at dawn) Then, the afternoon clouds and cools down, a breeze blowing, and then with nightfall comes the rains to dampen and refresh everything. Several nights this week I have been able to see hundreds of stars, even the Milky Way one night. So why, for the love of God, do I wish I were back in Orange County, the land where the sky is the color of the namesaked fruit and you really can number the stars, often even if you cannot count without the use of your fingers and your right arm has been amputated at the elbow and your thumb paralyzed in a stroke? (go back and follow where that question mark comes from)

My outlook has ameliorated some since I have good prospects of obtaining a job (or two) that does not involve any likelihood of suntanning, muscle tone improvement, or weight loss, or the desire to lay down on my scaffold and sleep the sleep of the past caring. Especially good will be if I can sell shoes to boost my commission at Macy's --how bout, "Buy a shoe, save a South African AIDS orphan!" as a tagline?

With all this goodness in sight, I still wish I were back at school. Standing with one hand clutching the roof next to my head and the other swabbing paint onto eaves, receiving $10 an hour to paint a house that I (or at least my stuff) will inhabit in Hawaii with a view of both ocean and mountain, I reminisce on times spent in Tijuana, painting someone else's house (an orphanage to be precise) for no money at all, with only a clothesline and a creek/sewage line for viewing, and missing the latter. You see, dirty jokes become many times funnier when one is imbued with a sense of altruism and a(n un)healthy dose of enclosed paint fumes, and I have acquired, in Orange County, some acquaintances who are quite good with dirty jokes.

It's a pain in the ass to go home and still be homesick.