tea with zelda bijou

I highly recommend Sarah and Desmond's Organic Cafe in Ellicott City, Maryland if you're in the
area. Good food, nice atmosphere; and, at least while I was there - WiFi (probably from a neighboring
network...)




Zelda Bijou my African Queen

"Hello Ruby Hobby Newbie. How are you booby cat?" I chirp as I walk through the front door.
"hey girl, killed some stuff today." I hear Zelda’s voice as a thirty-something African-American woman, my earthbound angel and voice of reason. She’s brown and beautiful and striped like the grass cats of the African veldt, and she knows about me. She knows about my last nerve, the one that needs to be calmed down after a day of bosses and clients and misunderstanding. The nerve that needs healing, the one we all have. I can see it in her liquid eyes, she's licked the frying pan from breakfast, eaten some bugs and thrown up $15 worth of organic cat food under the piano bench. It’s all good.

She wakes me up twice a week for a physical. She makes her silent entry into the bedroom, and pads lightly on my back with one paw. Wake up, sleeping-huge-hairless-food-giver. I turn over and greet her with a scratch on the head. If I don’t, I get a backrub under the shoulder blades. “Goooood Kitty.” Today, I turn. She starts at my hips, gesturing at my organs, finding the energy, and works her way up to my breasts. She lingered this day, making biscuits, her delicate pads were concerned, and she grumbled and purred, sitting at my waist. You are not well. Where do you hurt? She nudged, and insisted. Tears came, she was right. My heart ached, and I cried for her tenderness to say my name and reassure. I wanted so badly to know why I hurt, to find a salve, to pet my Zelda on the head and change my life. Cats know this.