I had dinner the other night with my friend and colleague Ed, an art-book publisher who travels to Houston often. I tease him that he is the king of books in the great state of Texas because he has a knack for cornering the market in the museum-publishing world that exists in Austin, Dallas, and San Antonio as well as here in Houston. It is no wonder given Ed’s talents. Anyway, we went to Hugo’s, one of my favorite restaurants that serves authentic Mexican cuisine. The waiter approached our table with a friendly grin and introduced himself as Steve. He said, “I’ll be taking care of you tonight.”
I haven’t heard this touchy-feely phrase for some time, maybe because I tend to like self-serve restaurants or brunch buffets. But I laughed when I thought about bounding down the stairs of our house early each morning, and then up the stairs to the garage apartment, to announce to our ten cats—whose mouths are wide open in anticipation of their feeding ritual—“Hello, I’m your Cat Lady. I’ll be taking care of you this morning.” I could repeat this “taking care of you” phrase each evening, and I’m good to go with it for the rest of their lives.
Lucius et al. endorse repetition, unlike picky editors who query, “perhaps vary word choice to avoid repetition?” Serving our ten cats with a smile presents a different set of challenges than when I am at the office, serving the museum’s curators behind the scenes as an advocate for their respective voices. In both cases, though, I feel fulfilled and glad that my jobs depend on the desire to help others.
Query of the Day: Do you provide service with a smile to your cats? (It is OK to frown when you find hairballs.)
The only things that make me smile at meal time are when they're all mewing together when I stand up to feed them (sometimes I'll conduct them as it really sounds as though they're singing--each has their own distinctive mew), and when Pharaoh and Charcoal dutifully trot into our bedroom to await feeding. (It's impossible to have them all in the kitchen at the same time as they all fight each other right over my feet.) Sheba is the WORST whiner. I know she gets it from me, but it's MADDENINGLY annoying! It's incessant until she eats (and naturally, she's the slowest eater of them all.) And all of them scarf down their food ravenously as though they haven't had a meal in a week. No hairballs, though, since they've been eating nothing but raw meat. It's done wonders for their coats as well.
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