When I was a teenager, my friends and I went through a “boffer” phase of building our own foam-padded swords and fighting with them. We’d hit up the local Home Depot for pipe insulation foam and lightweight pvc pipes (we started with bamboo stalks cut out of one friend’s backyard, but quickly had to switch to pvc because the bamboo couldn’t withstand our intensive nerdfights), and cover the whole thing in duck tape (sliver for the blades, natch, and decorative colors for the hilts).
Then came the sword fighting, of course.
None of us actually knew what we were doing, and that was reflected in the hesitancy of approach that most of us used. One person (the one whose idea it was, if my memory is correct) had actually attended a fencing lesson or two in the past, and so he’d try to use “proper fencing” techniques and stuff.
And then there was me. I grew up as one of four, with two brothers. I grew up having to be fast to get a share of pizza, popcorn, anything. I grew up half-feral, running barefoot around a bayou. I grew up dedicated to the pursuit of fun.
I dove right into nerdfighting, letting enthusiasm substitute for skill, technique, grace, and coordination.
“You look so stupid fighting like that!” the others would say about my wild swings and chaotic jabs. The aspiring fencer in particular, trying to keep to the elegant, straight lines of the sport was frustrated by my bizarre strafing and dodging out at weird angles.
“Yeah,” I’d agree, without slowing. “But I’m winning.” (Again, owing to all of those siblings, I was, perhaps, not the most gracious of winners.)
And it *was* true. In my chaotic, berserker frenzy, I was harder to read, harder to block, and scored the lion’s share (and then some) of hits.
What’s funny is that they’d tell me how stupid I looked, even as *they* openly ranked me the most difficult opponent to fight.
Fast forward many years, and I adopt a tiny, delicate little cat. Trixie’s so petite that we sometimes call her a permanent kitten. From the beginning, she took a shine to her name, decided it must be a mission statement.
She climbs EVERYTHING. Curtains, screen doors, legs, you name it. She’s bold enough to attempt any and every jump. There was a poem we used to recite about her during these jumps and climb attempts:
She is beauty
She is grace
She is landing
On her face
Her falls were so spectacular, so hilarious, indeed. (As was the “I meant to do that” face she’d do once her eyes stopped being crazy looking from the surprise of gravity, once again, still applying to her.)
She targeted the bathroom in particular, jumping from toilet seat to toilet tank, from which she’d take flying leaps at the window curtains to try to scramble up to the curtain rod. This all worked out for her about as well as you’d expect.
Then one day, while taking a shower, I heard the signature crashy noises meaning she was hopping about. I smiled to myself and thought the poem.
Another noise, this one *much* closer.
I look at up at the corner of the shower.
Trixie had succeeded in her goal of getting to the window curtain rod, had walked across it and jumped from it, sticking the landing on the shower curtain rod. (Lucky for me, too—can you imagine a cat missing a jump like that and landing, panicked, on you during a shower?)
Nowadays, Trixie landing jumps onto curtain rods, towel racks, the round finial ball on top of our stairs’ post—humdrum, average, daily exercise for her. She casually lands leaps on and saunters across the tops of flat screen tvs like it’s nothing.
She still will occasionally botch a landing or slip up and fall. And when she does, we gleefully sing out the Trixie poem. We, who could never be as acrobatic or athletic as Trix in a million years, love laughing at her missteps.
Not maliciously, of course—Trixie is our darling baby princess and the boss of the house. And if ever anyone did ridicule TrixieCat in earnest… I’d come out of retirement, grab a foam boffer sword, and defend her honor.
