2024 has been a year of such hard work and family upheaval, plus political stupidity and all-around stress, that I can’t say I have enjoyed myself all that much, Scotland-trip notwithstanding. And even that one was for work. I’m grateful for the new things happening in my career! There’s a lot going on which I am not writing about, for various reasons. My personal life is 96% invisible to the internet. What I think and feel about things, however, is well covered in everything I write, here and in the reviews and essays.
But I did want to write a little bit about Frankie, my new cat. We are still getting used to each other, I think, but it’s so good to have him here. I have missed having a little furry companion. Even if a cat is just sleeping in the sun, he changes the entire atmosphere of a little home. You know he’s there.
It’s been four years since Hope died. She died in September 2020, a wretched time for the world and for my family. She and I were so close, and we went through the months of lockdown totally together, in sync. It was a lonely scary time for me, and her presence – always comforting – was even more so. My family was dealing with an impending death of a beloved family member and things were very upsetting, especially since the pandemic didn’t allow us to cluster together as a family. I “got” Hope in 2008, so she was with me for a long time. Not long enough but I was grateful for her every day. It was so difficult to let her go, to make that decision. But I got to be with her when she passed, they let me come in, even though it was Covid. She was only 12 years old so I hoped for a longer time with her but I am grateful we had the time we had. I still miss her.
Since early 2021, I have moved three times. Think about that. The first move, I put a bunch of stuff in storage, drove three hours in a raging blizzard, and moved in with a friend. It was a respite, a way-station. After nearly a year, I found my own place, which was so not ideal I knew it would be temporary. Knowing your abode is temporary changes your entire life. It was hard for me to even commit to setting up the place. Finally in 2022, I found the place I’m living in now, which is so much of a miracle of a place I don’t even want to really talk about it too much. I am afraid to jinx it. The rental market here is non-existent. It’s atrocious. Once upon a time, people could actually find a place to live. My anger at people with money and what they have made of our world is increasing on the daily. But I lucked out with this one. (I made my own luck. There was literally just a rumor that this guy was looking for a tenant. It hadn’t been listed on Zillow yet. I reached out before anyone else knew about it, and signed the lease literally on the same day I saw the place.) And here I sit. I have no plans on moving ever again (lol). I love it here in this little house by the beach, which shakes when the wind blows, and floods when we get a day of rain. My apartment is in the eaves of this little house. It’s cozy and surprisingly big. I have an office, for the first time in my life, I have a room devoted to my work. Plus there’s a BOAT in the side yard. Which looked like an eerie ice-ship in our recent snowfall.
Point being: I feel settled for the first time since 2020. And so I felt a little bit more comfortable considering bringing a cat into my life. I couldn’t when I was living with someone, and I couldn’t, in general, when my own living situation was so clearly temporary, etc. It’s a big commitment. I missed the comfort of knowing Hope was there, lying on the couch, looking at me, following me around.
Then, on November 3rd, I saw a post on Sarah Bunting’s Instagram about one of her fosters. Sarah Bunting is the genius behind Tomato Nation, a site I have been reading for 20 years. It’s not exactly active anymore, at least not like it used to be, although I still check it occasionally. She occasionally fosters animals and puts out posts on Instagram about them. Her latest just happened to cross my feed. (Because the tech overlords have decided to abolish chronology – because they SUCK – I miss stuff all the time. But this one was right at the top of my feed.)
She profiled a little cat named Rake. He looks a little bit like Hope, with dramatic tiger stripes. He is two years old. He was probably an indoor cat at one point – since he understands things like the litter box – and was found wandering the streets of Brooklyn. He’d probably had to scrounge through garbage to get his food. Poor little guy. He was thin. And had “food anxiety”. But was a sweet little guy, apparently. I decided to take the leap. I reached out that very minute and said I was interested.
Then followed a very heavy week and a half of activity: I cleared it with my landlord. I filled out the application. I interviewed with the woman who runs the foster agency. Then I “met” with Sarah over Zoom (amazingly, even though we share no less than 20 people in common, had never met in person before), and got to see Rake in action. Actually, by that point, his name had changed to Frankie. He just seemed like a Frankie. He had no interest in “meeting” me. He was too busy sitting by his food bowl (even though he just ate). Food anxiety is real. He was so cute! And so then I was approved. I drove down to New York the weekend before Thanksgiving, and we did the passing-off of Frankie. It took the two of us to get him into his crate. Poor guy. He must have been so terrified during the four-hour ride home. Here he is before we started off.
But I was so happy! I loved him so much already!
And now he is here. The first couple of days were difficult. He was very scared and completely obsessed with food to the point where he could never relax. He would wander around yowling with agony even though I had literally just fed him. I gave him probiotics, and stocked up on supplies, good protein-heavy food, and got him on a feeding schedule. I was on POINT with the schedule, because I wanted him to understand food was coming on the regular and he could CHILL. At first, he chose to sleep in my dad’s chair (which was appropriate, since I decided he was named after Francis Stuart, the Irish writer Dad collected. I mean, he collected books by a lot of Irish writers, but his Stuart collection was the biggest. Dad’s collection is now housed at Boston College. So Frankie is short for Francis.) Frankie wasn’t sure about me – at ALL – so he slept by himself in the chair. It was still a big moment, seeing him choose a place for himself to sleep. He was being so brave.
Eventually though he chose to come up on the couch next to me, and he lies next to me, sometimes resting his chin on my thigh. It’s so adorable and it means I can’t move.
It’s been a month and a half now. There was a big moment where I got up from the couch, and he didn’t immediately race to the kitchen for food. Instead, he remained lying on the couch, relaxed and chill. It was major! He still gets restless about food, and has his moments. He tears the kitchen apart, batting his bowl around, etc. He jumps up onto the stove or the counter, knocking things over. He literally ate 10 minutes before. I feel for him. He’s scared every meal will be his last. But the moments of relaxation last longer now. He loves his cat bed. When I sit on the couch, he has his spot beside me now. He sleeps curled up, he does huge stretches, and he lets me rub his belly, stretching out to let me know he wants more.
Oh, FRANKIE.
He’s hesitant about my bedroom. He won’t come in. He doesn’t sleep with me. He likes the couch. He doesn’t understand why I go into the bedroom and leave him. He stands in the doorway meowing at me. It’s so funny. I’m determined that one day he will come in there and sleep with me. Hope used to basically smother me in my sleep. I miss being smothered by a purring furball.
But it’s his choice. He’s feeling comfortable now. I think he trusts me. He wants to be close to me.
He is also so playful! I’m not used to it. Hope wasn’t really into playing. She sometimes had the Zoomies, but when I’d toss a bizzy ball, she’d just watch it go by, not interested at all. Her whole life was about being in my lap as much as possible. But Frankie needs play time. I bought him some toys. The wand toy is his favorite. He goes BERSERK. He is mischievous and has done some damage. He tries to climb things he shouldn’t climb. He hides and leaps out ferociously. He is a total delight.
Then he curls up next to me and sleeps so hard he doesn’t even move when I touch him. I think back to his nervous pacing and yowling the first four or five days he was here and I look at him now and I am so happy for him. A cat needs to be fierce but a cat deserves to feel safe too. And sleep for hours. He’s not on the streets anymore. He’s home now.
Thank you so much for stopping by. If you like what I do, and if you feel inclined to support my work, here’s a link to my Venmo account. And I’ve launched a Substack, Sheila Variations 2.0, if you’d like to subscribe.
. She wrote essays, op-ed columns, reportage (she covered the Nuremberg Trials, as well as the treason trials wracking England from end to end in the 50s and 60s, including the Profumo affair). She kept up a voluminous and very entertaining correspondence.
Ebert writers wrote of their favorite performances this year. There were so many entries it was broken up into two parts: 
