Tonight I must go to bed early so Crankenstein, who is stressed and sad about various things, can use me as a human pillow. I’m not sure why she continues to find this relaxing, knowing as she does that my limbs (and sometimes entire body) will flail and jerk at unexpected noises, or if I start falling asleep myself, but it’s one of my chief purposes in our relationship: I change the sheets every Monday, do the dishes, tell her where to find whatever it is she’s looking for in the pantry or closet, and am the designated person she and everyone else falls asleep on.
Crankenstein, Muriel, our late cats — all want, or wanted, a piece of me. Before ‘Niles’ rampaged through our lives, Crankenstein complained that the pets preferred me, as if it went any deeper than three simple things: I fed them more often than she did; was home more during her residency and fellowship; and could sit still for longer than three minutes at a time, something her wandering attention span only permits her to do if she’s lost in work — in which case she’s typing and needs her arms and lap to herself.
For a few months in 2019, she rededicated herself to trying to bond more with Muriel, who basked in her attention. Then the theme to Jaws started playing near the end of that year as ‘Niles’ circled opportunistically, eventually feasting on her anxiety amid a family health crisis and early reports of a new virus in Wuhan. Since then we’ve dealt with many Muriel-adjacent phobias but Crankenstein remains one of the apples of her eye (along with cheese puffs, shredded cheese, and meat of any description).
Meanwhile, if our cats were still around I would’ve lost a few pints of blood by now from slashings provoked by the aforementioned jerking and flailing. Such injuries were already piling up in the final years of Bob’s life, none more vicious than his overnight attacks on my fluttering, spasming eyelids. I’d prefer a cat-free existence from here on out because of it — and because ‘Niles’ would perseverate about toxoplasmosis, infected bites or scratches, and other unlikely feline-generated horrors.
Strangely, the eyelid issues — a type of dystonia — ceased once I was on levodopa. (It doesn’t always work like that; sometimes it makes things worse.) Now the neurologist, who previously thought I blinked so excessively that I might’ve benefited from Botox injections near my eyes, notes that I blink too little, which is common with Parkinson’s.
In that way, as in myriad others, I can’t seem to get anything ‘just right,’ which might necessitate a retelling of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. I’d call it Goldilox, and instead of porridge she’d be after the perfect schmear, and the bears would be gay, not ursine, and played by Harvey Fierstein, Mandy Patinkin, and a younger actor the producers requested; maybe Josh Gad.
I’d intended to write about something else tonight — a wardrobe malfunction at physical therapy and other strange happenings — but started thinking about pets after reading a man’s touching tribute to his late dog. There’s a more serious post within all of this silliness about the challenges and rewards of caring for pets while dealing with Parkinson’s or similar conditions, but it requires more brainpower than I can muster this evening.
* Bob was classed a “large baby male” by his shelter, which remained an affectionate nickname for the rest of his life. He was long and tall and not actually portly, despite what the photo suggests. His figure was deformed as a result of the same early accident that claimed his tail; pelvic injuries and intestinal complications caused his midsection to bulge before tapering to a tiny waist and — like Hank Hill before him — diminished glutes. I’m compelled to add, in my own defense, that the pajama shirt I wore there was stolen from Crankenstein, who received it as a gift. We weren’t Big Bang Theory fans but the show’s nerds reminded my mother-in-law of Crankenstein and her college friends.