my cat peed in my wealth bagua

I wrote this 5 and a half years ago. At the time, I thought I was going to be a writer. Maybe I will. Maybe I won't. My career doesn't seem to be moving in that direction at the moment; however...I've learned not to second guess the Unfolding.

“My cat peed in my wealth bagua.”

“Your what?”

“I said, ‘My cat peed in my wealth bagua.’”

“Ooo…that sounds bad.”

“I hope it’s not karma.”

My sweetheart and I are commingling households. It happens all the time, right? People decide to move in and live together everyday. “We’ll use my pans and your dishes. We’ll buy new towels. We’ll use my bed and your sheets. We’ll keep my cat and get rid of yours.” You know the drill. The stuff we are tired of or can’t use, we’ll give to our favorite charity, because it’s just not “us,” yet the stuff still has life in it.

Moving in together takes time, energy, and negotiation skills. Some weeks we make no progress. There are ups and downs, but we are getting it done. In the big picture, we are creating a home that we all love.

Hold it…rewind. What was that about the cats? Not to worry—two human ailurophiles do not disown the members of their family. However, two felines from one household do not readily welcome a feline from another household. It’s just not their way. Never mind that the one is an extreme geriatric who has held alpha status in his world up until now. When it comes to feline territory negotiations, he who has the largest bladder wins.

It happened in my office in the new house. When I say “new,” I don’t just mean “new to us,” but “brand-spanking-never-been-lived-in-the-carpets-are-still-white new.” You could walk barefoot on the new carpet and not be worried about unseen jungle animals deep in the fibers that would attach themselves to fresh flesh on safari. Clean at last—clean at last! Thank God Almighty—clean at last!

The Feng Shui of my home office is propitious. To determine the Feng Shui, a space is divided into ninths, as if you are drawing a tic-tac-toe grid on the floor. Each of the nine sections is called a bagua, and each bagua pertains to a particular aspect of life. You enter my office through French doors in the “Knowledge and Information” bagua. “Career,” “Friends and Helpful People,” and “Children and Creativity” all have enhancements built in. That’s good. I intend to place my computer workstation in the “Wealth” bagua—fitting, since my plan is to write as a career.

While my sweetie and I were moving in, we spent most of our time in my office. The TV was there; the one semi-comfortable piece of furniture that would hold more than one person was there; and my geriatric cat was there. It was his territory with all the amenities and accoutrements from his previous residence—me, his dishes, his litter box. Ahh!

What we didn’t count on was the jealousy of the other two. As my sweetie spent evenings with me and geriatric alpha cat in my office space, the two were apparently saving up and building bladder capacity to match that of my homeboy. All they needed was opportunity.

Then it started…the pissing war…with the largest action in the wealth bagua. Cats pee quickly. I see the crouch; I grab the animal, and in one continuous motion swing him from the carpet to the litter box—a move that would make the Flying Wallendas proud. He steps out of the box, starts his bath, and between licks, gives me a look thick with attitude: “Who me? What did I do?”

In that split second, between the crouch and the initiation of the trapeze move, he released a deluge of skunk and ammonia into my new—did I mention clean? —carpet, now a magnet for retaliation: layer upon feline layer of marking and civet cat scent.

Oh, the cat pee—eau de cat pee: eye-searing, tear-inducing, nose-hair-melting cat pee!

“Your what?”

“My cat peed in my wealth bagua—and so did yours. Both of them!”

Good-bye clean carpet. It’s gotta go. There is no cure for the acrid territorial scent of marking. It all has to go.

Maybe it is karma. Hey—maybe that’s good news. Karma is cyclic, right? So my cat and my adopted cat family have anointed my new career. The territorial war induced nadir in my wealth bagua may represent payment in full of karmic debt. After having been anointed by cat pee, where is there to go but up?