The resident feline got the worst of a cat fight, is groggy on antibiotics and pain meds, and despite all the TLC, has somehow gotten out of the houseboat and gone into hiding under the raft, somewhere in the six inches or so between the top of the flotation logs and the bottom of the raft itself.   I’m very much afraid she won’t come out at all.

High anxiety.

I kayaked around the raft in the rain, flashlight in hand, calling for her. No response. Nothing to do but dry off and try to distract myself online, where I found that I’d been emailed an article on TEDGlobal by Steve Marsh in the current issue of Delta Airlines’ Sky_Magazine, with this lovely couple of paras on me:

TED’s sangfroid is ultimately a good thing. Case in point is my favorite talk of the week, given by Lesley Hazleton… A self-described “accidental theologist,” she examines the essential role doubt plays in any faith, making an example of the divine revelation of the Koran to the prophet Muhammad on a mountain outside of Mecca in 610. “ ‘Doubt,’ as Graham Greene once put it, ‘is the heart of the matter,’ ” she says. “Abolish all doubt, and what’s left is not faith, but absolute, heartless conviction.

Between sessions on Thursday, I buy Hazleton’s book, The First Muslim, and tell her that her talk reminded me of the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard’s concept of despair. She uses the index in her book to find the passage that acknowledges the connection and signs my copy, ‘To Stephen—Knowing you’ll love a bio of Muhammad that bows in passing to Kierkegaard!’ Lesley Hazleton is cool.

Irony? Paradox? Life? All I know is that I just wish I could be cool about the missing feline…

——————————————————————————————

Update:

Uncool lasted eight hours.  Wounded cat finally emerged.  Florence Nightingale here back on the job.

—————————————————————————————–

Further update, October 9:

Healing well in progress.  Florence Nightingale retired.

—————————————————————————————-