Of runaway cats

Magellan now has a new sport: standing as close as possible to the one door we happen to be coming in or out of most often so she can get by us in one inadvertent second and run for dear life.

Often she stops at the outdoor seating set that we have in the courtyard in front of our small apartment near the woods, but sometimes she sees squirrels and takes off after then, ending up clear halfway up the walkway toward the other side of the apartment complex.

This is not good news for potential cat sitters, since Magellan often knows who's not paying enough attention and that's how she gets out so quickly and so repeatedly.

For the past few weeks or so there have been days when I've also felt like running away. Unlike Magellan, who does it for her fun and annoyance of us, I wanted to run away screaming, until I could run and scream no more. That's especially after my father went back into the hospital and the semester concluded with so much left to be done and dealt with. At least now my brother is in Puerto Rico (he's my hero!) so that makes it a little easier to be far away. He's such a great help to both my parents, especially my mom who's bearing the brunt of it all.

Yesterday I finished all the grading (finally!) so I did something I haven't done since college: I went with some friends to the 9:45 p.m. showing of "Angels and Demons," which turned out to be a really entertaining, if rather ridiculous and implausible, movie. But it was the perfect antidote to mental and emotional exhaustion, exactly what I craved.

Still, I couldn't help but be saddened by the thought that my father, in better times, would have loved to hear what I had to say about the movie and would've been excited about the prospect of seeing it. This is the man who, in my childhood, took us once to New York City to watch the premiere of a film he really wanted to see, back when movies took a year or longer to get to Puerto Rico. From him I inherited my taste for thrillers (if not for traveling), and I know he would really enjoy this one.

In better news, today I posted my final grades for the last class I had pending so I'm officially truly really absolutely done (well, I hope!) with this past semester and academic year. Now I have a paper to finish for a conference this coming week and then I pack myself up and fly to Puerto Rico for part of the summer. Still, all of these plans depend on how my father continues to fare in the hospital.

While it's really annoying to have to chase Magellan halfway down the walkways of this apartment complex, there's something in her glee at escaping that I can relate to. Sometimes, although not in Magellan's spoiled pampered world, reality isn't what we'd prefer to wake up to.