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
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.
…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.
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.
A MOTHERS DAY GREETING
by Susan Pilcher
The cat blinked once,
The cat blinked twice,
'I love you, Mom.
That should suffice.'
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.
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.
You know you’re in the sauna and That Guy insists on pouring ladle after ladle of water on the hot rocks? Your ‘dry sauna’ experience is turned into a nostril-searing cross between a Turkish steam bath and the original intent of the high-temp Finnish experience? Yeah, that’s our past week or two here in Raleigh, NC. The photo above captures Tuesday the 16th when we were somewhere around 100 degrees and the relative humidity made you feel like a water-soaked towel had been removed from a vat of boiling water and then wrapped around your body. I’ve been in worse–I’m looking at you Kansas!–but this turns most days into hot temperature versions of Snow Days, especially when a thunderstorm might occur.
Why two fur-encased creatures would want to spend hours melting into the planks of the deck in this weather boggles my mind. In No Banners, No Bugles by Edward Ellsberg, the Rear Admiral opens his book of World War II ship salvage with a description of him and his crew attempting to raise ships in the Red Sea where the temperature is in the 120’s (Fahrenheit). He goes back to his apartment and the poor A/C box unit has only been capable of cooling to 92 degrees. Nevertheless, it raises goosebumps on him due to the 30-degree temperature differential. I felt the same when I walked into a house being cooled to about 78, 79. (Ellsberg’s book is surprisingly readable and would make a good movie. I am not much of a history buff, but this book really held my interest when I read it.)
Benny got smart a day or so later, and spent his days in the basement where the temperature never gets higher than 70-72. Charlie finally succumbed today. He spent the afternoon in my office right up until I said I was posting this. Apparently he’s shy? Embarrassed? Ambivalent?
About a month ago I posted about how 1966 proved seminal in my life for appreciating music, a year when I ‘woke up’ musically. Virtually every song in the Top Ten made me smile and say, “yeah…” and almost every one of them wound up on a 1966 playlist. Today I thought, “let’s see what 1972 held for me as I approached graduation from high school.” Holy. Crap. No wonder I felt adrift for much of the year–and I had thought it could be chalked up to teenaged ennui. In the Top Ten for the first week of January I encountered artists I still don’t like more than 50 years later: the really young Michael Jackson; David Cassidy; Donny Osmond. One song I had never heard before today: “Scorpio” by Dennis Coffey and the Detroit Guitar Band. I did get to add the top four songs to my new list: “Brand New Key” by Melanie; “American Pie (Parts 1 and 2) by Don McLean; “Family Affair” by Sly and the Family Stone; and “An Old Fashioned Love Song” by Three Dog Night.
By the second week of January the Top 40 contained two versions of “I’d Like To Teach The World To Sing (In Perfect Harmony)” now known forevermore as The Coke Song. A last gasp Sonny and Cher song, “All I Ever Need Is You” didn’t make the cut. Likewise anything by The Stylistics, Al Green, and who the heck is Betty Wright? Thankfully other artists were riding high or coming into their own: Van Morrison, Rod Stewart, Rare Earth, Three Dog Night, Bread, Grand Funk, The Who, T. Rex, and Elton John. Oh, yeah, and this group called Led Zeppelin put out its fourth album. “Black Dog” hit the January 8th chart.
It will be interesting to continue through the year. I distinctly remember Alice Cooper put out “I’m Eighteen” when I turned 18 myself. Just after graduation I picked up a free copy of The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars wondering who the heck this David Bowie guy was. At least there’s that to look forward too. Oh, and Neil Young…and Humble Pie…hmmm…maybe this won’t be so sad after all.
all the voices in my head 