I’ve started making some cats and birds with the cores of toilet rolls based on similar things I’ve found on Pinterest. They’re small and currently covered in torn book pages. I need to put another layer of torn paper and methylcellulose. I’m out of wheat paste and the better white glue, but have plenty of the methylcellulose powder. A tablespoon of powder, hot water, and then cold water make a bit less than a cup. More than enough for a couple of papier-mache projects.

I’m going to use handmade paper for the final paper layer to give texture to the figures. Then they will be painted with acrylic paints. I’ll use them as examples of what people can do with imperfect handmade paper scraps.

I collect cat-related things – hot pads, towels, earrings, live cats. I’m down to just one cat. She was once feral and doesn’t trust other cats. When she first came here, I had two elderly cats- a tortie and a grey tuxedo. Sadly, they both crossed the Rainbow Bridge to join Greta, Claire, Spooky, Mao, Nermal, Perrin, Shmoo, and a few whose names I’ve forgotten.

I’ve forgotten them not because I didn’t care for them, but because I realize that my elderly brain is forgetting a lot of my past life. Most of my childhood is gone. That’s no great loss, except I don’t remember too many good times. I remember getting my piano because the workers had to remove a window and use a block and tackle to hoist it up to the front room of our New York Apartment.

I remember my youngest uncle coming in drunk and throwing up beans and franks on my baby brother who was sleeping in his crib. I think my uncle was living with us and sharing the baby’s room. I was in either first or second grade at the time.

I remember chasing after this same brother when we lived in Connecticut a few years later. I used to take him with me to the little store that was located at the end of a wide wooded path. He made it there once by himself and the owner called my mom and told her my brother was there.

The time I chased after him, I was supposed to be watching him outside, but he escaped. I thought he went into the house, but he hadn’t. I took off for the store and caught up with him halfway there, chanting, “found penny. Going to Mike’s!” Mike’s was the name of the market. I didn’t want them calling my mother again. I feared the wooden spoon she used on me. That I remember.

I also remember I was in 9th grade when I got my last whipping with my father’s belt. Afterwards, he asked me why I made him do that. Well, Daddy I didn’t mean to jump into you, but I got stung by a bee. Excuses were not allowed.

Some memories are best forgotten, but those are the ones that pop up from time to time. Now that you’re depressed, don’t be. I survived my parents and moved away from them. They’re both dead now and I don’t miss either of them.

My siblings have different, kinder memories for the most part. I don’t know how they did it. My youngest sister is permanently branded from when our mother hit her with a hot steam iron when she was 5. The oldest of my two brothers was abandoned by both my parents at age 15.

The sister 10 years younger than me was made responsible for our 4 youngest siblings at age 11. She finally ran away and was put in a foster home at age 13. She allowed our mother to live with her for several years when our mother was homeless.

I kicked my mother out of my apartment by calling the cops on her when she left my 5 year-old son alone in my apartment when he was home sick. She wound up in a shelter until one of my younger sisters took her back East, where she was kicked out of three nursing homes for scaring the other residents.

Mental illness is strong in our family. It doesn’t just run; it hops, skips, dances, and pirouettes.