Dawn of Destruction

Lenny broke my alarm clock the other day. Knocked it off the bedside table and whack! there went my plastic, ugly little clock with the dayglow hands. It wasn't expensive but I had some sentimental attachment to it. I'm learning to wean myself off sentimental attachments to anything that can't be nailed down or encased in a block of lucite.

Lenny likes to chew paper and plastic, and anything new that arrives indoors. He likes to chew on older things (including me) if he hasn't seen them for more than 5 minutes. Any bookmark sticking out of a book becomes perforated and all ripply (so do books themselves, if I don't catch him in time). He has scratching posts but prefers to scratch my desk chair. I have one plant in the house. Its leaves are now as tattered as the flags in an old used car lot. The paper for my printer must be hidden away. The mail gets mauled. Fresh flowers get gnoshed on as vases break on the floor. He once managed to shove a heavy, 19th century bronze Buddha statue off a shelf, leaving a nice gouge in the hardwood floor.

Lenny coughed up a hairball onto the precise center of my DSL modem, instantly killing the Internet.

Closing Lenny into the bathroom for a "time out" is fruitless: He gets into the shower shelves and knocks bottles of shampoo to the floor, then chews up any and all loofa puffs, sponges and washclothes. He punctured my bath pillow. He opens the cupboard under the sink, then licks emery boards and eats cotton balls.

Lenny is an enthusiastic climber yet often uncoordinated, a sort of heavy-bottomed Weebles toy of a cat. I no longer flinch when I hear something crash in the basement. "I'm sure it was something I don't need, anyway" I tell myself calmly, while crafting a tiny protective helmet for my other cat, the gentle BlueMoo.

There's a new Dawn of Destruction in my household. As Lenny is under two years old and bursting with health, we're truly looking at a Long Day's Journey into Night.