Born to (S)mother

I remember, in Woody Allen’s  Love and Death, the character Boris Dimitrovich Grushenko waxing mordant about his lot in life as a wheat farmer. I distinctly recall him exasperatingly finishing his rant with something along the lines of, ‘if I had a tattoo it would say Born to Raise Wheat.’

Of course I can’t find it anywhere, no matter how much of a Google-sweat I break, but I swear it’s in there!

My tat? Should be Born to (S)mother.
The morning started like this:

Coco wakes me up at 4, as usual and, as always, wants me to carry her downstairs and into the kitchen where her food bowls dwell.  She sniffs her food and, same as every morning, I encourage her to take a bite,  

‘it’s the Wild Salmon Primavera -- your favorite. Eat, eat.’

Afterward, I bring breakfast out to our feral porch visitor cat Rocco, who’s waiting patiently and warmly in his cat cave. Carefully and slowly, so that he’s not scared out of his toasty cube, I set his plate down and say,

‘here’s your breakfast, good boy. Eat, eat.’

Gaston, another of the porch cat league, shows up a little later and sits, not so patiently directly in front of the door. For him,

‘relax fuzzy boy. Eat slower and taste your food. It’s the chicken Fancy Feast that you like.’

Then The Amazing Bob comes down the stairs, hits the kitchen and starts pouring his cereal. TAB’s not a morning person like yours truly. You’d think after 27+ years together I’d have learned to waltz a wee bit less manically around him at 6:30 AM. Nope.

‘How’d you sleep?’
‘How do your bones feel this morning?’
‘Can I get you some tea? a cookie? some eggs? toast?’

Then I start in on all the amazing things I’ve read that morning (at ThinkProgress, Crooks and Liars, Balloon Juice and Tbogg of course), a list of the errands and tasks for the day and questions about the meaning of life.

As you can well imagine this goes over about as well as Gigli, the Pontiac Aztec and deep fried Twinkies.

Bob redirects me by pointing out that Rocco and Gaston are involved in a nasty hissing match.

So, of course, I have to go outside with some catnip, crunchy salmon treats and mild chiding.

‘Calm down you two. Chill. There’s plenty of food. Eat, eat! You need more Tuna Feast? You need more water -- I’ll go get.’

 I am become my mother, the destroyer of hunger.