Omar.

{Omar likes to doze on the ironing board when it is placed in the sunny part of the laundry.}

This morning as I prepare to take my Omar to the vet—he has an appointment to have an infected front tooth removed and those remaining scaled and cleaned—I am reminded of a description in The Elegance of the Hedgehog of our relationship to our pets. The character Madame Michel describes her cat Leo (after Tolstoy) and domestic pets thusly:

I smile to myself, thinking about the big fat windbag who has been my partner through these years of widowhood and solitude, and I smile sadly, tenderly, because, seen from death, our close relations with our domestic animals no longer seem to be something minor to be taken for granted, given their everyday nature; ten years of a lifetime have crystallised in Leo, and I take the measure of how the ridiculous, superfluous cats who wander through our lives with all the placidity and indifference of an imbecile are in fact the guardians of life’s good and joyful moments, and of its happy web, even beneath the canopy of misfortune.

I am hoping Omar, quite senior in his years, makes it through his dental operation seamlessly. I know he will, but niggling thoughts persist at such an early hour.

{I am not a natural fisherman. Postcard collage, 2008.}


{Donald’s tools and graphite. Postcard collage, 2008.}

+ The Elegance of the Hedgehog, Muriel Barbery.