Watermark

Kitten Update

This update on the kittens in my last post is from either Cousin Sue, or Aunt Bonnie, I'm not sure which:

Hi Sharon

Just logged onto your website; Hadn't taken the time for a long time - it's so slow here on dial-up.  The kittens are now barn cats.  I put them out there several days ago and they're doing fine.  Have lots of room to run around and not on the hot cement anymore.  They seemed to prefer the cement to the cooler ground in the columbine. 

I quit giving them milk a couple of days ago; but Bozo (the black & white) seems to think he should have it  Itsy goes right to the food.  She's still so tiny, but doing well.  Decided to name the one "Bozo" as that's what he acts like. 

He tackles Itsy all the time and sends her flying, but she comes right back for more.  Of course, he's twice as big as she is.  I doubt she will ever catch up.  She just likes to be picked up and loved.  They both have big purr boxes.

They can run outside whenever they like and have the barn to explore whenever.  S.A. wants to take them to her place later on as barn cats, so decided that's where they should be.  They aren't litter-box trained since they've been outside most of the time.

I think this is from Bonnie -- otherwise known as 'Sis', as is my mother (Bonnie's twin). Makes for fun confusion at family reunions.

Friday Kitten Blogging

[UPDATE here]

Courtesy of cousin Sue:

Ah, another barn rescue. I think these may be related to the adorable PeeWee, AKA Bibs -- they come from the same barn -- and there are more below the cut:

Emergence?

Well, here I am, up in the middle of the night, wanting to be a blogger again. It's been a tough time lately. I find myself worrying that I may not be able to continue taking care of myself; energy so scarce and erratic. I have so much -- this comforting house, this lovely garden -- my companion critters, who are fed and watered and petted, but no walks in weeks. Months, even.

It's one of those periods where I can do only one thing every few days. Even just taking a shower is exhausting. How am I to keep house, take good care of these animal friends, and write or take photos or do anything else as well?

I've lost my way.

I miss the satisfaction I used to get from this activity, from the creativity and thinking and virtual companionship it brings me. But it takes energy, too, doing this. Can I find anything useful -- hopeful -- to say?

And the long absence makes it feel overwhelming again. So many changes. TypePad has added lots of new features; there are new 'places' all over the web -- too many tools, too many 'social networks'. Things don't come naturally anymore; I've forgotten. It seems I need to begin all over, redesign, rethink. Re-Be.

I'm considering sending for Lorelle's new book, just to goose me. Reminders, inspirations. Maybe something to get me going again?

And a serious prune of the blogs I read, and the sites I've joined. There's so much, it's hard to choose. Especially when friends are scattered throughout all these places and tools and toys.

Emerging, again?

Or just overwhelmed??

Snap

dna swirling in a test tube
a whisper of light
a ghost
a miniature galaxy

i am reminded
that i am a collection
a conglomeration of parts
an emergence

of creatures, moving
mysteriously in tandem
swirling into a body
a whisper

   

Friday Cat Blogging

colors

   

driving into a purple sky
    a red house      
    a yellow house

could i paint this?
    children running
    on a green field

then, the town square
    a domed building
    a military statue

who made these rules?

flags and banners
    boulevard trees
    bend in the wind

the aspen, singing
    could i paint this?
    all the blue light

 

Snapshot 18 July

   

Even in dreams I am
insubstantial. Flimsy. Ghosting

through a history of rooms.
Tulips droop in glass pitchers.

Cats slip past the plastered walls.
Even in dreams my hips complain.

Stiff. Sullen. Uncooperative. Petals
fall onto hardwood floors. Linoleum

peels, curling up at the base
of the sink. An earthquake shakes

plates from the cupboard. Floating,
I drift to the basement. It's cool here,

tiled, mirrored. Echoing silence.

 

NEW POST!

Cathy wants a NEW POST!, and she's not alone.

So I sit here, looking at the blank New Post screen, wondering why it's been blank for so long. At the same time, I'm watching the news, and it occurs to me that the difficulty is that reality has become too amorphous for me to write about. The world has become, if not unreal, surreal.

How does a poet tell the truth, when truth becomes so elusive; so apparently insignificant?

I know this is not new. I've seen a lot of politics in my life. I remember watching, with my Grandad, the McCarthy hearings, and the Democratic convention that nominated John F. Kennedy.  A tiny television; a technological marvel bringing us the (North American) world in black & white.

My Grandma, near the end of her life, told me that one of her greatest regrets in life was the vote she cast for Richard Nixon. A life-long Democrat, she was frightened; she was afraid; she believed the lies.

So it's not that the obfuscation of politics is new to me. I've even noted the current version here, and here.

Perhaps my tolerance has diminished.

But this era of sanctimonious prevarication seems so much worse. Our tolerance of it, as citizens, seems so much higher. Our Fourth Estate, now seemingly recovered from its post-Katrina outrage, has once again retreated into referee mode.

Well, not entirely.  But I still see "reporters" "interviewing"  this side, then that side, as if totally conflicting -- and clearly verifiable, or not -- facts have equal weight.  Fact-checking, alas, continues to be rare.

This is the scary part. The unnamed White House aide (could it have been Scooter Libby?) told  Ron Suskind of The New York Times:

"...when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''

And he (I'm assuming a he) was right. They have created their own reality. They can do what they like, and they do.

I can study what they do. I can try to discern the actual reality beneath the created one.

But I cannot write.