Love Is All Around

I wake to the sound of something weird happening.  Again, I don't think, wow, maybe it's an earthquake, because I never wake up thinking that maybe it's an earthquake. And I say again, because this very thing happened, here, in Chicago, just a couple years ago - and the whole thing was lost on me that time, too.  And, really, when did we start regularly having earthquakes in Chicago--because it's becoming a thing.


No. I think that my neighbors are very rude with all of their noise at the crack of dawn.  And that my cats, who are certainly party to this noise (as they are milling around inconsolably mewing - as though something were amiss) are spoiled rotten, and, when you get right down to it, do not give a damn about me or my sleep.  


That it's all about the cat chow and the petting of them and the cooing at them. The never ending gifts of toys and me sneaking them pieces of cheese and liverwurst. And never the other way around.


I think a lot of things that puts blame on my cats and other people "out there".  And, seriously, I'm so tired of all of the people "out there". That is, people I both don't know very well but also live quite near-by. Then, a few hours later I am informed that there was an earthquake. Again. 


Will I ever learn to enjoy these earthquakes we now have in Chicago as they are happening? In real-time? And, probably more importantly, will I ever see that people around me are not that bad? I feel so righteous in my hatred in such times, too. I am right. They are wrong. It feels good at least to have identified all parties involved as being right or wrong. With me being right.  


Lesson learned. You'd think. But not seven and one quarter hours later I hear my (admittedly) overflowing bin of recycling making a lot of racket in the wind. This, the recycling that hasn't quite made it to the recycling receptacle. No problem. Except that the thing has gotten full to the point where - on this sort of unusually warm, windy, earthquake-y late December day - a few (beer) cans are now rolling around the concrete landing of what is my back stoop, where the bin of recycling is situated.


Not the prettiest sound in the world, I agree. And certainly not acceptable in these parts. No, the hollow, sad beer can rolling around sound, NOT okay, especially right in the middle of the holidays. And, honestly, it took me nearly an hour to realize that I was the culprit. Suffice it to day that I'm certainly not invited to be part of their book clubs, now.


Then, I hear a someone putting these very cans (my cans) from my back stoop into a bag - to dispose of them "properly" once and for all, because someone had to do it. I could imagine all the calls back and forth. The snide, bitchy jokes. I even felt okay with it - at least they have someone to laugh at - why not me? And, really, what do I care?  They have nothing else.  


Then I see it.  Really see it.  Squarely, for the first time. Oh, how they have had to "deal" with me. It must have been the biggest pain, dealing with me. And then, of course, I become incredulous. Crazy bitches. You can't just come over here and "help" me, like that. My god. 
So, I go through the gamut of snark. Then, suddenly tough as nails, I go outside to confront this helpful person. And her army, Oh, yeah? You're going to help me? Okay: Help me to my face, then, lady, lets go.


This is that part where it would be so funny and explained so many things if it had just been my mother, who lives thirty feet away, who was doing this. But it was actually a cat scrounging around this bin, the putting everything into a plastic bag sound - an actual plastic bag in the bin that this cat was dealing with in her search for food. So, I gave her some food. That's when I realized that this cat was actually a wolf or a raccoon or something. That's when I went back inside.