he woke in the morning to the smellthe taste of potato leek soup   then he smelled something else in it too  oysters which made sense he had just returned from Willapa Bay Washington with a case of fresh oysters Baby! Dinner was going to be a feast

                    oopening his eyeshe felt their weight their wandering helter skelter across the bed and his blanketed body  his five ferals  nineyear old indie twoyear old october and her three kittens shy leftie and bomber born mid-March

october was only in bed to encourage him to get out of bed and feed her breakfast and it wasnt until she came in that he would finally get up

                     he relished being a slow riserwaking when he woke without alarms -- his alarming awakenings were behind him – but she could be ornery if she wasnt fed on her timeclock her dicktate as a queen would should be

all eyes were on him

he eyeballed them back

smiled

                      then he smacked his lipswhich put a spark in their spines FUD  theyd spent enough time with himdespite not knowing English that his lip-smacking informed them of food

                                                                        yet another pleasure he relished as he relished good meals spirits a cigar a hot shower a wonderful piece of ass he liked to think the timethe years he spent in the gym made him a nice piece of ass too the cats leapt off the bed anticipating their breakfast and rushed up the hall to the kitchen where hed feed october and the kittens he fed indie separately in the bathroom young cats dont respect age  theyd knock indie off his pins if he got between them and his food

he made his bed

slipped sweatpants and shirt over his nakedness

relieved his bladder

then fixing plates of wetfood in the kitchen he herded the four kitkats in a line  as they ate he placed dryfood in shallow bowls with an old tin cup and then stoled into the bathroom where indie was fixed waiting on his breakfast

he closed the door behind him as he left

returning to the kitchen over the munching bodies he prepared two more wetplates refilled the tin cup with kibble and then headed out through the front door through the screen door to feed his outdoor ferals four   bigfoot hed been feeding him seven years since he first showed wee five years since she arrived Robert one year he was no Robert Redford he kept telling october but she beat it out of the house one night as he was coming in and Robert knocked her up bomber definitely informed who his daddy was Robert and bomber bright orange tabbies except that Roberts tail had been cut off threefourinches off his rump his right ear mangled Robert was suspicious of human beings to his core

last but not least two months ago  ashe

he set the wetplates down on the porch railing so he could feed ashe kibble he left a shallow bowl to the left of the two steps down off the porch for her if he didnt feed her first shed go through anybodyanything to get chow she was young and hungry 

with ashe occupied he fed Robert to the right of the steps in another shallow bowl 

then back on the porch he took the wetplates from the railing and fed bigfoot and wee he separated them with an old fruit bushel as they ate the wetfood he placed kibble in bowls of their own beside them 

done

his pets fed first

now he could tend to himself

once inside the house he turned to admire ashe and Robert

                                                               like great public buildings in great cities across the world before the entrances of great libraries he too had lions at either side of his vestibule just like those before The Art Institute of Chicago

they had nothing on him

   and

                  later that day he was making and having potato leek oyster soup

all was as right as could be expected 

                                       one could say that the world was his oyster      

  

0947,  Monday,  25  11. 19

1003,  Twosday,  26  11. 19