Ritual

A simple poem for a simple day…

Wake. Decide to rise.
Contort around cats,
exit bed. Pee. Assemble
morning wardrobe:
T-shirt, jams, special
slippers, topped by
cardigan or flannel
(basement's cold).
Grab phone, glasses,
water. Walk quietly
to kitchen—wife still
sleeps. Begin making
coffee: short cup from
machine or one-cup
drip depending on time.
Feed cats, open side blinds.
Coffee in hand, head
downstairs. Confirm
number of beers, head
into study. Benny eagerly
dancing around my
ankles, awaiting moment
I sit in rose-colored
Queen Anne chair. He
starts his own ritual,
circling in back of the chair,
slinking 'round chair-leg, 
wall, bookcase until once 
again in front, promptly jumps
to footstool, then lap.
Protect myself with two
layers from kneading claws.
Benny settles. Sip coffee.
Reach for daily devotional 
guide: "Give us this day,..."

Hearing my wife rise 
directly above us, Benny
heads upstairs. I finish
contemplating, praying,
follow him up. Greet her,
re-greet Benny, head for
shower to start my day.

Ritual begins unraveling
at that point, threads from
worn fabric of every day
separating into this day's
possibilities. Peculiar how
day's end holds its own
ritual as if transiting into,
away from consciousness
demands ceremony.

73/100
100 poems in 100 days

Genius

My cat knows exactly how everyone
should behave. He fails to understand
his clear vision isn't clear to us.
Eleven years yet endlessly he
chastises us for our transgressions, 
failing to enact his instructions,
breaking his long-established norms, rules.
          *          *          *          *          *
It's ironic we watched that show on
failure of genius, then I followed
by failing to understand you. It
seems so clear to me, terms precisely
stated, precisely used. Why do I
fail constantly? Each time sound bites play
repetitiously leaving me to
analyze what went wrong, who failed whom,
oblivious to the simpler fact:
not everyone understands my rules.
Chastising them works no better for
me than it works for my cat. Now who
thinks he's a genius? My cat's quite sure.

69/100
100 poems in 100 days

man with cat

A haiku today, the second of slight illness (on top of all the parts of me which don’t seem to want to work right). It’s OK. I think it just started raining, and I know I’ll mostly be just chillin’ tomorrow when my wife has one of those procedures all of us old people get….


man with cat on lap
pet each other—happiness.
nubbins on his pants

58/100

The New Year (in the rearview mirror)

One of my favorite plants: an oak leaf hydrangea. We had several of these planted in our backyard to replace the one killed by the squirrels. It sat under our bird feeder, and the squirrels used it to attempt an ascent to said feeder. Though a hydrangea, the leaves resemble the shape of oak leaves and turn such glorious colors in the fall. January 2026.

My spiritual development received a boost, oddly enough, when my friend Dennis died in December and his passing was memorialized in mid-January. Every Sunday morning our choir rehearses in a small chapel off of our narthex, and in that chapel are lovely stained glass windows. We attempt to do more than sing; we attempt to listen to the words and the intent of the music so as to impart an inspiring message to the congregants. January 2026.

January (and February!) brought some pretty cold temps to North Carolina, and we warmed many a time to fires. An ‘illuminating’ moment with a friend informed me that I could be using the TWIGS IN MY YARD to start fires! I had laboriously been shaving slivers of tinder off of oak quarters, and the oak was running out. What a great life lesson! January 2026.

A spontaneous purchase from Rancho Gordo (please check it out if you like the taste of good legumes) led me to Christmas Lima beans. I cooked them on January 20th despite being in a fever from some weird viral thing that was neither Covid nor flu. When you soak the beans, you have to cook them. They found their way into a cabbage and bean soup, and more uses are planned. January 2026.

When the going gets cold, the cold get caffeinated: the morning ritual captured. Once in a while I use a more automated version (a Nespresso machine) but this is the normal routine. After being gifted this mug, I now have an accurate scale to tell me when I should stop letting the water drip through the coffee grounds. January 2026.

As always, cats know best. Hunker down and wait for spring. Benny might have thought he had the chair to himself (that’s him in the rear) but Charlie had other ideas. January 2026.

My yogi

Benny prepares; Charlie leans in

Benny began in July to prepare for August. Perhaps, given our weather in July, he just thought the calendar had turned already? Regardless, the “dog days of August” do not interest this cat. Instead he will withdraw until the temps cool down.

Charlie defies the heat, regards it as Finns do the sauna. He spends hours ‘on the boards’ relaxing with the moist heat penetrating his bones. His version of a cold plunge? Walking indoors for a food break and a quick nap in the A/C-cooled house before resuming the therapeutic 100+ heat indices.

Charlie soaking up the moist heat. Yes, that’s a worry-patch on his right foreleg. July 2025.

Surrendering…

…to the laziness of posting yet more cat photos because I haven’t been able to complete the pieces I’ve written this past week. Sigh. The late spring/early summer weather has Charlie and Benny enjoying the deck or any other place the sleep bug drops them…

Lately, Charlie sleeps with me, and Benny sleeps with my wife. This is because Charlie and I snore. I often sleep with a pillow between my ankles due to bunion and ankle pain. Looks like Charlie has taken a page from my book.

Like many “elderly” folk, my hips and back have bothered me a lot in the past few years. A lousy choice in recliners exacerbates the problem. Charlie thinks orthopedic cushions offer just the support he needs.

Charlie, using a lumbar support for (ahem) “gastric support”. May 2025.

On Easter Monday Benny went under the knife for removal of a neck cyst. It endured benignly until we had it drained earlier this year. He subsequently scratched it, tore it open, and surgery sounded like the best path. He surprisingly took the soft cone in stride, complaining little. Biggest issue? Drinking out of the cat fountain. He napped, waiting the ten days until its removal.

Sun-toasted decking makes a good nap spot. April 2025.

Guest poetry

Charlie, seen here two weeks into his stay with us, and letting us know that warm laundry out of the dryer is for sleeping and nothing else. January 2016.

A MOTHERS DAY GREETING
by Susan Pilcher

The cat blinked once,
The cat blinked twice,
'I love you, Mom.
That should suffice.'

Benny adds, “…and luggage…luggage is for sleeping also.” May 2021.

Cats, humans, and existentialism

Petunia, in the winter woods. Circa 1984.

Petunia became known as the Acid Cat, christened as such by my friend Jeff after he watched this little tiny ball of fluff race up and down our hallway bouncing off of the walls, Ricochet Rabbit-style. I am not exaggerating. She would jump up and bounce off of the wall about a foot above the floor, like a parkour athlete.

This post represents bait-and-switch, however. Petunia only stands in for Henri. My wife and I have just finished watching a couple of YouTube clips of Henri the Existential Cat, a series we dearly loved a decade ago. If you have never heard of this, ~~I direct you to this link in which Henri more or less gets introduced~~, and this link which shows Henri encountering a new resident of the house. But I would encourage you to watch them all. It will take an hour or two out of your day. You will likely thank me, particularly in these times of trial when existing might be the most we can hope for. Henri rather perfectly sums up my existential dilemma during this time of Advent with mindless Christmas celebrations of mercantilism all around me.

[Unfortunately, some of the episodes have been taken down. It has been 11 years after all. Try this one instead. It’s newer, but gives you a very good introduction to his attitude and his feelings about his roommates.]

Merry Advent, y’all. I’ve just about finished my Christmas newsletter, supercharged by my new approach to it. More later.

Blogus interruptus

I’ve reached the Thanksgiving through who-knows-when-it-all-will-get-done time of the year. My current project, the annual Christmas newsletter, occupies virtually all of my writing bandwidth because it’s a true news letter. This old journalist packages it as a four-page newspaper complete with individual stories, headlines, a masthead, photos, captions, all of it written in the third person. It takes 40 to 80 hours depending how much I agonize over it. (I’m lying: it takes at least 80 hours.)

Meanwhile, one of our cats decided to get his paws on some Vonnegut, but apparently became disgusted it wasn’t Cat’s Cradle.