a different arsenal

henry is being a little feline shit this morning--attacking shiva, begging for the faucet to be turned on, biting when he's annoyed. so on and so forth.

however i have to give him credit--he is more aware of his landscape and his surroundings than i am. he uses his body better, and is in better shape. how much of this is due to species differences and how much is due to good kitty kibble, i don't know.

about a month ago i stopped at ikea on my way home. i'm a dedicated clearance bin shopper and the ikea as-is section is yet another red-stickered mecca for those in my cents-off bracket. for a while now i've been eyeing this stepstool, wooden and unpainted, of course. being the short person in a house of tall people is generally not an issue; but i don't like being totally dependent on the tall folks being around 24/7 to fetch items for me that seem out of reach.

so finding a host of stepstools in the as-is department, for 7.50 instead of the regular 19.99, was a boon.

i got it home and found it a home in the living room, within easy reach. i stood on it and considered the world from dan's height, and asked if he could always see the top of the refrigerator. he spent a goodly amount of time smiling at me, balancing atop the stool, pondering the vagaries of being so much shorter.

so i added a new tool to my household--a tool that is basically just for me.

friday i was in the kitchen, cleaning or something, and i looked up and noticed that there was a large amount of clutter that had gathered on top of my cupboards--pint glasses, a large stainless steel bowl that fits nowhere else, bits of pottery that i like but have no real useful purpose, some emtpy glass jars with lids for a fit of crafting.

i had just gotten that stepstool; if i wanted to, i could have used the stool to dust and sort and reimagine the upper realm of my kitchen.

but i didn't remember until this morning, when henry was careening around the living room after being shooed away from his squalling and angry feline roommate, and launched himself to the top of the stepstool, that i had the necessary tool to complete the job i'd considered only two days ago.

***

it's of interest to me how quickly thoughts pass in and out of people's brains. the sieve of your mind is not as thin and finely woven as cheesecloth; it's more like two hands trying to catch a bag of rice as it tips and falls off the counter. even the good ideas, each grain scattering on white linoleum--the ones you have as you fall asleep, or blearily search for your car keys before work--the ones that startle you into thinking that einstien is not the only genius in the world--they're often forgotten.

but just as easily forgotten are the simple things, like stepstools.

***

many many moons ago dan wrote a letter to my parents, asking for my hand in marriage. it was very charming and when i heard that he'd done this, i was sure beyond belief that my parents would be happy, that this would appeal to their post-WWII sensibilities.

instead dan got a response that we should wait, etc. perhaps they were right, perhaps they were just being protective, perhaps they were wrong. it's not been long enough, historically speaking, for me to be emotionally objective about their response. perhaps i'll never be able to be emotionally objective about it; i'm too close to the situation, too involved.

last weekend, however, my dad made a comment that has had me flummoxed, something to the effect of when would dan be his next son in law, he enjoyed his other son in law so much he would like another one.

it was something small in the conversation, but it overshadowed the whole weekend, and i kept coming back to it during the week.

i have had the tools, for a long time, to move past the original negative statement that my parents made about my choices. but i've never really used them. they've been as forgotten as my stepstool.

i could have picked up that stepstool years ago, when we first moved here, and cleaned comfortably and safely from the floor, instead of walking around on the counters and trying to keep my stocking feet secure.

for years i have chosen the harder road, the path of most resistance, the path that i felt was defining myself. i didn't use the tools available to me, i didn't see that there were tools i had. in retrospect, i could have made this leap of realization at any time.

why didn't i? i wish i knew. now that the stepstool has been revealed by my rambunctious cat, perhaps i will delve further, excavate the tools i have always had, my arsenal in plain sight.