Uma, Queen of Cats, who had been working on her twelve hours of shut-eye on the night table next to me, did a sitting high jump onto my lap so as to miss nothing that I might do. Her arrival caused me to sit upright in the bed, mindful of a profound serenity.
"Poopsie," I said, "I'm mindful of a profound serenity." The words were wasted because she was already in the salle de bains.
I remember thinking how odd it was that everything seemed so oojah-cum-spiff. Just this past weekend, we visited my favorite spot on the NC coast, where the wind-bent maritime forest comes right down to the sea, and the wild ponies run free, with absolutely nothing between you, as you stand in the breakers, and the Gold Coast of Africa.
As I was saying, despite being in that perfect locale, I was deep in the soup and it was about to close over my head. It was that damned tiger/goat thing, and if you didn't happen to read that one, don't worry about it, these postings are not cumulative.
The short of it is that I visited my favorite place at the coast in order to build my confidence for the showdown with the aunts. Useless of course. It's pointless to argue with someone who was at your side all through your childhood because they know what a priceless ass you were then and will have no intention of listening to anything you may say.
Consequently, it was with heart bowed down with weight of woe that I drove back to Durham from Beaufort, that's bow-furt in North Carolina. Bew-furt lies in our southern sister state.
I remember Ms Wonder saying to me once something about the heavy and the weary weight of this unintelligible world. It was some drivel written by a bird named Wordsworth, if that's his real name. Anyway, the quote seemed to me a good description of the depression I felt coming on.
When all else fails, I fall back on my luck star, or guardian angel if you prefer, or even totem spirit. I've lost count of the number of times I've been walking toward the tumbrel, like all those aristocrats in the French désagrément, when a governor's reprieve arrived, releasing me without a stain.
"Wonder!" I said, when she shimmered back into the room, "I'm mindful of a profound serenity."
"Joy reigns supreme?" she said.
"Very well put," I said, "but I don't understand how it could be. A few days ago, hell's foundations were doing the adagio and this morning--all bluebirds and rainbows."
"Fate's happenstance may oft win more than toil," she said.
"Oh, that's good," I said, "Shakespeare?"
"No," she said with a smile not unlike the one nature wore, "Bertie Wooster."
"Nunnh-uhh," I said, but it was uttered too late for she reentered the bath and left me alone with my tea and Uma the Queen of Cats. Given the circumstances, I decided my best course of action was to accept her word for it and get on with my day.