When I woke up this morning, my nose sniffed a whiff of musk, or was it skunk? Somebody must have poached my Kiehl's Original Musk Blend No 1.
Since my first day of retirement, I've been trying to reverse my age and debunk Mayo geriatric studies by oversleeping. This is still a project in progress. Whenever I wake up from a lengthy slumber, my olfactory nerves will react violently and I'll smell things. A side effect, I suppose. Due to thinner air, morning time is a smells sanctuary. In my case, its the plain, everyday odours that get amplified: morning breath, dirty laundry, school bus, Banglas, neighbour's curry, neighbour's dogs, neighbours, but never musk or skunk. Then it struck me. Yesterday my two girls took in a cat as our pet. It's a ten-month old brownish black American Curl, one of the few known feline varieties that can tolerate Malaysian weather and public. The skunk was him.
We'd never had any pet, except for a short period in the early nineties, when my two boys took in a rabbit or a guinea pig or something in between. The short period was actually all of two and half days, long enough time for him to scarf down something close to our one year's supply of carrot. This guy was born to eat and un-eat, so we had no choice but to un-pet him. It's all peace and pet-free until 2000. That's the year when my youngest (Sarah) was old enough to muster the magic word "cat". She bugged and badgered me senselessly until I finally relented - in 2011. To be fair, my mind was failing and I was deeply disturbed by this revisionist idea that Kelantan was never colonized by Winston Churchill. Sarah caught me off my guard, to say the least. My OK was only partially audible and would amount to no more than a hearsay in any court of law. But it's all sweet and clear enough to her that she broke down and cried, tears and all. Who wouldn't, I mean, after 10 years and lost hopes. Israel would've allowed the Arabs in the West Bank to have their own pets in less than a week.
Although I've a slight condition with snakes, I really have nothing against cats. They're a fun and friendly lot when they're not dispensing anything. My only peeve with pets in my household is the very real prospect of my ending up as a champion janitor despite all the verbal and written promises and pledges made by the girls before we take any pet in. Apart from the little joy of gratifying the girls with this gift, I'm hard-pressed to find an upside to living with a cat and a high cholesterol (my cholestrol, not cat's cholesterol). Maybe, just maybe, this cat, for all it's worth, is an answer to a retiree's natural urge and yearning for adventure and failure.
Although financial cost was never an issue, we got him on the cheap. Actually he's free, given away by Aida's friend, Nadia, who's now left with only 15 cats. His given name was Cooper. I wasn't sure which Cooper: Gary? Henry? Mini? We thought we should change the name to something closer to us. It took us less than 10 years to agree with my proposed name: Dzeko (pronounced Jeko), after Manchester City's Bosnian hotshot Edin Dzeko, who's actually pink, not brown or black. I know Balotelli would be better, but no cat in the world would respond to a name like that.
Wait for updates.
Since my first day of retirement, I've been trying to reverse my age and debunk Mayo geriatric studies by oversleeping. This is still a project in progress. Whenever I wake up from a lengthy slumber, my olfactory nerves will react violently and I'll smell things. A side effect, I suppose. Due to thinner air, morning time is a smells sanctuary. In my case, its the plain, everyday odours that get amplified: morning breath, dirty laundry, school bus, Banglas, neighbour's curry, neighbour's dogs, neighbours, but never musk or skunk. Then it struck me. Yesterday my two girls took in a cat as our pet. It's a ten-month old brownish black American Curl, one of the few known feline varieties that can tolerate Malaysian weather and public. The skunk was him.
We'd never had any pet, except for a short period in the early nineties, when my two boys took in a rabbit or a guinea pig or something in between. The short period was actually all of two and half days, long enough time for him to scarf down something close to our one year's supply of carrot. This guy was born to eat and un-eat, so we had no choice but to un-pet him. It's all peace and pet-free until 2000. That's the year when my youngest (Sarah) was old enough to muster the magic word "cat". She bugged and badgered me senselessly until I finally relented - in 2011. To be fair, my mind was failing and I was deeply disturbed by this revisionist idea that Kelantan was never colonized by Winston Churchill. Sarah caught me off my guard, to say the least. My OK was only partially audible and would amount to no more than a hearsay in any court of law. But it's all sweet and clear enough to her that she broke down and cried, tears and all. Who wouldn't, I mean, after 10 years and lost hopes. Israel would've allowed the Arabs in the West Bank to have their own pets in less than a week.
Although I've a slight condition with snakes, I really have nothing against cats. They're a fun and friendly lot when they're not dispensing anything. My only peeve with pets in my household is the very real prospect of my ending up as a champion janitor despite all the verbal and written promises and pledges made by the girls before we take any pet in. Apart from the little joy of gratifying the girls with this gift, I'm hard-pressed to find an upside to living with a cat and a high cholesterol (my cholestrol, not cat's cholesterol). Maybe, just maybe, this cat, for all it's worth, is an answer to a retiree's natural urge and yearning for adventure and failure.
Although financial cost was never an issue, we got him on the cheap. Actually he's free, given away by Aida's friend, Nadia, who's now left with only 15 cats. His given name was Cooper. I wasn't sure which Cooper: Gary? Henry? Mini? We thought we should change the name to something closer to us. It took us less than 10 years to agree with my proposed name: Dzeko (pronounced Jeko), after Manchester City's Bosnian hotshot Edin Dzeko, who's actually pink, not brown or black. I know Balotelli would be better, but no cat in the world would respond to a name like that.
Wait for updates.
