Teething

My cat's tooth fell out, sometime possibly over the weekend. This wasn't the first. Her front fang went missing more than a year ago.

The last cat I lived with, who was put to sleep the week before my 40^th birthday, didn’t have any teeth at all. I was going to say “and he was fine,” but he was kind of a dick. Probably because he had no teeth.

At least it wasn't my tooth, an incident that feels much more recent than the year ago it was.

Years go fast, as if that needs saying.

I’m pretty Sukey will be 12 this year since she was somewhere near one when I adopted her the spring of 2004. Twelve is twilight years for many cats I've known.

And yet she doesn’t appear elderly. Fat, next to my new fridge, but that's nothing new.

My eyes, teeth and skin have generally been the least troublesome parts of my physical being. Two weekends ago I realized I couldn't read the name on the bottom of an ancient 14-year-old tube of lipstick I was wearing with no ill effects. It was bound to happen at some point. The idea of putting contacts in repulses me (I won't even use eye drops) and yet I don't think of myself as a glasses person. With now unstoppable gray roots and persistent pudginess, do I really need to add a third detraction into the mix?

Or maybe glasses are the personality topper I've been lacking for 42 years and will make me the real me.