Ants in My Rice

I'm done with the first 48 hours of caring for a convalescent Siamese, and I have a crick in my neck that refuses to leave. So far I have plunked down 695 pesos for veterinary kibble that he refuses to eat, and a few hundred more on three brands of tinned cat food of which he will eat one teaspoonful and then leave the rest to go bad in the bowl. He puts up a fight when I give him the antibiotics and hematinics he needs to stay alive, and I'm up to my elbows in congealed kitty litter twice a day. I was so exhausted last night that I fixed a sandwich instead of having a proper dinner, and forgot about the leftover rice in the cooker. I found it being attacked by teeny-tiny ants when I was about to sit down for lunch today, but I ate the stuff anyway (without the sprinkling of ants) because I didn't have the energy to make up a new batch. If I am ready to pull out all my hair after only two days of being mother to a cat, then it's likely that taking charge of a human child will have me eating the paint off my walls before he learns to say "Mama". One reason not to be too sorry that I never married or had any kids. Not all people are cut out to be parents; it's pretty obvious to me now that I'm one of them.

In between cat nurse duty, I ran out to do an errand at the bank. Sat in monstrous Katipunan traffic (can't those dimwits at the MMDA see that it's their blasted U-turn slots and unmanned intersections (case in point: Capitol Drive and Balara) that cause the jams??) for half an hour to drive two kilometers, then spent a total of 15 minutes to update a bank certificate. After that I went to the supermarket to purchase cat food that may or may not pass muster with the patient, as well as find out how much a 50-pound box of cat litter costs (749 buckers, egad). Just so I wouldn't feel like I was neglecting myself, I threw in a package of corn muffins and a small packet of Kisses (if you can't have the real thing, buy the chocolate - all the sensory pleasure without the exchange of saliva). There was a middle-aged woman ahead of me in the checkout line, and I couldn't help but notice what she bought - a big box of Mrs. Fields' premium Macadamia and White Chocolate Cookies, and three cans of Slimfast ("controls hunger"). Lady, what a combination you've got there. Don't know if you're aware of it, but those two are going to cancel each other out, and then you'll still have the vital statistics of a giant pear.
On my way out of the supermarket, I passed an elderly woman who gave me a look that had me checking if my shirt had run up and exposed my navel to the public. Turns out she only pencilled her eyebrows the wrong way today - unnaturally long and arched so far beyond the brow bone that her face appeared frozen in a state of shock. May I never make the same mistake when it's my turn to say goodbye to my eyebrows.

That was the end of the entertainment for the day, and then it was back to my cave for another round of cat-related chores, running through a bank statement with 266 bleeping checks (not my account), and the business of making dinner (this time with fresh ant-free rice). The cat sat in my lap while I worked and fell asleep purring. Maybe that's how he thanks me for my trouble. I scratched his head with my free hand. Let out the sigh I had been keeping back all day. Maybe there's hope for both of us.