The Hanger and the Flea

Jasmine, one of our cats, is at the vet and the other, Lily, is in Bill’s hanger with me. It’s his 12×16 foot private sanctuary. I usually don’t mess with it.

I’m sitting at a one person, plastic folding table with my wireless keyboard and mouse, as well as my precious thumb drive. We have wireless in the house, but our son-in-law who helps with our

computers has it protected. I’m going to my in-box now to see whether I can steal wireless from the house and use it in the hanger.

We’ll go back inside the house as soon as the new flea treatment dries. As it turns out Jasmine’s itchy skin is the result of her being allergic to the saliva of even one flea. Lily prowls, meowing, wanting to go HOME. Every time I look at her, I see spider-web fluff clinging to her whiskers.

Oh goody, I can access email. People have written to me! I’m not alone out here. Actually, the hanger is pleasant even though it’s full of model airplanes, parts, radios, even pictures of airplanes. It would make a great studio for painting or writing, maybe both. There’s no clear spot at any of the long worktables that surround the room—that’s why my folding table from the house is here. Bill has a sign that says, “A clean desk is the sign of a sick mind,” he believes it. There are four small windows—two in the back and two in the front with tiny blinds. I pick Lily up to let her see out the window. Naturally, she steps out of my hands and onto the sill. It’s only as wide as my little finger is long, but still, she fits her four paws onto it and crouches to sniff the fresh air coming through the screen. She can’t turn around or get up or down on her own, though. We’re going to be using the hanger once a month when the bug man cometh, so perhaps I’ll get cat window-shelves for out here.

I refused to believe we had fleas. We use the electronic insect repellers, and they work great, except for the occasional bug. The last few vets who looked for fleas on Jasmine didn’t find any, but her skingot so bad I tried a new vet, and when that vet combed, she found a flea. That’s when the pest control question came up. I hate chemicals, unless they’re saving someone’s life, but I love my cat, so pest control it is. When the bug man, as we call them in Florida, came out he walked through all the rooms intermittently shining a flashlight on his shoes and pant legs. I asked why he was doing that. He said in most houses fleas jump up. The last house, he said, had them springing up as if it were a Mexican fiesta. But he didn’t find any in our house. He searched the yard too — no fleas anywhere. But we signed up anyway, for one flea.

When I went back to get Jasmine in the afternoon, I learned that she has a bacterial infection and many allergies. In this week she’s been to the vet twice, boarded for enough hours to have to pay rent on her cage, has had a cortisone, an antibiotic, and comfortis, a once a month flea pill. This is an alternative/natural vet. I’m alternative/natural, but I suppose that sometimes you must compromise. I find that many times you have to compromise.

Except for dusting the windowsill, which was a dried ant cemetery, I didn’t change anything in the hanger, Could those have been termites, though, instead of ants? Bill’s going to have to have that shed fumigated. He’ll have to move everything off the floor—he’ll have to clean it. It was so good of him to let us use it, and now, we can use it more and more. I don’t think he’ll mind, do you?