why my kitten knows more than you do (and maybe my crazy parents do too)

         Well, there it is, a mewling shadow with oddly bright and dark eyes, clinging and scrambling up the split live oak in the backyard. Two years have gone by since the Craigslist Kitten Catastrophe (see "Drivers, Kittens, and Thieves: Our Modern Life"), and my parents finally decided to get another kitten. Or, as they tell it, they accidentally happened upon one. I think their mutual developing craziness helps them to forget bad things ever happened. It makes their aging quite endearing, if a bit frightening sometimes.

         Example: the parents have never been big on finishing projects. They're "project-starters," they would tell you, not "project finishers." Sometimes things come up and money or time or family keep us from finishing, says the dad. We have a lot of maintenance, from the mom. And it's true -- two acres in NorCal is no national park, but it's no walk in the park either. Still, I'm pretty sure maintenance means starting fewer projects as much as it means finishing fewer projects. And with at least 100 people showing up to my dad's birthday party in less than two weeks, I've made a mental list of things they intend to finish "sometime" or "soon":

         At least one room in the house is recently remodeled and unfurnished; one shed in the pasture still needs doors and windows (these have been missing so long the plywood covering the holes has warped fully inward, providing a splendid view of the garden through the north-facing wall); another shed in the backyard is still only half-completed and could run up to three tokens at lower-class county fairs, a maze of broken and uninstalled cabinets, bookcases, table-saws, and sawed up tables stacked up inside; a third shed on the other side of the creek is almost fully concealed by blackberry brambles that might serve equally well as bullwhips of spiky death.

         There is a retaining wall of concrete blocks next to the house, upon which sits a broken tractor and all its broken parts, decorated Deliverance-chic with cracked five-gallon buckets, sheet metal, picnic tables, and enough Rubbermaid trash cans to service Fenway Park. (A carport is supposed to grace the foundations of the wall at some point. The tractor was purchased some 4 years ago since which time it has never moved). The first layer of another wall takes up most of the parking space in front of the house -- which makes the parking of six cars an effort in creativity. Six cars, you know, for the two drivers that live here year round -- not including the two they just recently got rid of (sadly, in one case I was the buyer . . .).

         All of this strikes my parents as normal. They are wonderful people for it, really. And the fact that they accidentally have more cars than Usher (or, for the older folks, Liberace), more unfinished business than Edmond Dantes (or, for the younger folks, Bruce Wayne), and (for the second time in three years) a kitten -- this is probably as much a sign of their kindness as their craziness.

         But I digress, and as I'm thinking all this, little black kitten has clambered over 7 feet into the oak tree, choosing to stare down at me from a particularly claw-attracting patch of moss. He has fallen partway down the trunk on several occasions now, head- and tail-first, and once I was sure I would have to explain to my mother that her new kitten was no longer . . . again. I'm sure I could find someone into kitten taxidermy on Craigslist. Fortunately for my mother's psyche, the kitten's developing claws are sharp and his balance good -- and it appears he is determined to show this particular tree exactly how intimidating it is to him.

         Strangely, I know the kitten is going to come down before he looks around and checks the area, before he stops licking his back and stands back up, even before he reaches the green kitten-velcro mossy patch at all. I know he could make his way up the whole tree without trouble, though it is easily 40 feet tall. I know he is physically capable of scrambling down as well, despite his size and youth: I know how the subtle twisting branches and gnarled bark of the oak are so suitable for climbing. I know he probably wants to sit atop the very highest branch and survey his land; he is, after all, going to be king. I know the attraction of the height as a place to see and a place to be seen. He could be the kitten that did it, and all the people of the world would climb their ladders in order to wonder at his unparalleled cuteness, point out his bravery, and offer to help him down. I know and he knows, though surely in different ways.

         But I also know he won't do it, and he doesn't. He skids clumsily groundward from one velcro patch to another, bounding past me in my reverie to chase the brown and crunchy leaf which scuffled past him in the afternoon breeze. The green ones can wait, I suppose, until he's bigger or brighter or less suspicious of the fallen ones. The tall ones will fall eventually too, though he can't possibly know that and he probably does. There are new leaves to chase and new trees to begin climbing. The world is filled with things a kitten knows and doesn't know. Why would he miss out on all that for the sake of a single tree?

         So I guess, in a weird way, the hundreds of incomplete projects around my parents' house may not be inspired by laziness as much as eagerness -- as much as wonder. Maybe their foolishness is actually wisdom, something they've always known even though they don't. Maybe I don't know it either.

         I think I've got too many things to do to figure that out.

         Oh, and this is Tuba. Or, if you're my dad, Tarmac. He's pretty smart, and undeniably cute. He does not like being photographed. He also has fleas.