Kurt Ullrich

Spring. River. Apple. “In a little bit I’m going to ask you to repeat those words back to me,” a kind, professional voice said to me during a recent annual old-person medical check-up. “May I use pencil and paper?,” I asked. No such luck, however. I passed the test anyway. I was also able to draw the face of a clock, put in the numbers, and draw hands indicating a time of ten after three. And, oddly, I felt a certain pride in successfully being still of this world. It won’t always be so, something I fully understand.
That same check-up led me to renew a tetanus shot, as I often work with rusty metal out here, and tetanus infections are most often fatal to those over the age of 65, easily me. So I received the shot and at the same time I received another COVID booster. Neither seemed to bother me until sometime in the night when I felt a bit woozy. And then my weird, loving little household took over. Crazy cat Luna snuggled up on my right side and recently-becoming-crazy cat Pippa snuggled up on my left side to get me through the night. Not sure how the animals who share our lives sense these things, but there is no question that they do. They are even more sentient than humans, and we’d be wise to acknowledge it.
As I write this the sun is starting to set, Luna is curled up on a couch nearby, Pippa is enjoying a bite in the kitchen, and a jazz station out of Glasgow, Scotland is on the satellite radio (a place from which many of my wife’s ancestors emigrated), and a glass of amber-colored Scotch is close at hand. Except for missing one who should still be here, life is pretty good. How dare she move on?

A few moments ago two deer walked past the house toward the west and, because these sightings still excite me after a quarter of a century here, I went to the window, only to catch two dark shadows moving into the woods. Thankfully, my speed getting to a window was not part of the old-person medical checkup. As part of the checkup, my doctor suggested regular weight-bearing exercise. I scoffed at the notion, letting her know that I continue to use axes and bow saws in the woods, that I still push a regular, non-self-propelled lawn mower in my yard, and that I recently lifted two 1980 JBL studio monitors (approximately 40 pounds each…remember those?) above my head onto shelves in my garage. I can fill the hollow with the sweet, insistent sounds of Earth, Wind, and Fire and if any of my faraway neighbors can hear it, I hope they have good taste because I’m not turning it down.
I suspect that all of this information further shows my increasing detachment from the real world, but I’m long past caring. My relationships with others have never been all that solid, possibly because I don’t move beyond the notion of “me” all that easily, and perhaps because I love the notion of people very much, but the reality of them is not as easily appreciated. Never truly has been. Thus, a love of cats, for which I am unapologetic. I know that in a few hours, I’ll lie down in darkness (with a nod to writer William Styron) with my cat companions, and Luna will put her forepaws on my stomach, turn her head toward me, stare at me with big black eyes, and proclaim it all good. And I’ll know she is correct.
Kurt Ullrich lives in rural Jackson County. The Dubuque Telegraph Herald recently published a 60-page magazine of Kurt’s columns. The magazine can be purchased here.

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