Life does not imitate art ...

Rather, it proves art. . .

Some years ago I wrote this little poem:

The Sage Speaks

There was a time not long ago,
when skies were clear and rivers clean,
when sun and air were friends, not foes,
the seas were blue, the lands were green,

I am convinced the world is doomed,
a final gasp and it will die,
plundered, depleted, abandoned to gloom,
a toxic wasteland, barren and dry.

Look back from space as you depart,
look back upon a sphere once proud.
It’s now devoid of blood and heart
forever veiled in poison clouds.

Not art, not even a good amateur work, a poem I abandoned and only remembered today because physicist Stephen Hawking has proved me right. (I smile when I say that. )

Stephen Hawking's Warning: Abandon Earth—Or Face Extinction

I don't see a mass exodus from earth happening within my lifetime. But if it did, I wouldn't get on the ship. I'd go down with it, in a manner of speaking. Not because I don't want to go to the stars -- what a thrill -- but because I love this old earth and someone has to lock the doors when everyone's gone.

Beautiful tribute to Carl Sagan and Stephen Hawking:





--Cat

Magic Minute

So . . . I was sitting here and happened to glance at the clock.

And I had a wow, that's interesting moment.

It was 8:08 on 8/8

Four 8s. When will that happen again?

I'll try to make note of an even rarer combo when it's 10:10 on 10/10/10

Just thought I'd share.

--Cat

Internet Down

Desk before

A week ago Thursday morning I woke to a message on my answering machine from a robot at my Internet server. The Internet had been down for a few hours overnight as they upgraded their cable. The message ended with these portentous words: if you have a problem logging on, give us a call.

Naturally, I had a problem. I spoke to a very nice human -- even got through immediately without waiting the usual hour or two -- who tried hard to help me. She concluded I needed a service call from a technician. Earliest available time, Saturday around noon.

Ack. Two whole days without the Internet. What was I going to do?

I got caught up on my reading and did some writing. But I felt disconnected, not because I spend all my time or even a lot of time surfing the net, but because those cables are conduits to humanity, life beyond my own. Somehow reassuring to know theoretically I'm not alone, even when physically I am.

Saturday arrived, a technician came, the problem was obvious to her. My DSL modem had become obsolete and did not work with the new upgraded cable. She brought me a sleek new modem with a built-in router. Everything works much better than my old setup did. [The previous router had issues.]

Well, it's only been two weeks, but I feel confident. And my golden link to the world has been restored.

Picture of less cluttered desk not yet available.


--Cat

Eclectic post #2

André Rieu plays the beautiful Intermezzo from Cavalleria rusticana, an opera in one act by Pietro Mascagni




Bob Dylan wrote Things Have Changed for the quirky 2000 movie Wonder Boys.
In the music video Dylan is spliced into scenes played by Michael Douglas in the movie.




Great movie soundtrack!

--Cat

Summer Lazy

With the advent of hot sunny weather, I'm more inclined to listen to music than compose prose.

So, there will be more YouTube vids of some of my favorites.

-Cat

If I am nothing else, I am eclectic . . .

Dvorak - Symphony No. 9 "From The New World" - II (part 1)

Many years ago as a kid, I learned to play a small portion (Largo) of this piece on the accordion. Taken in isolation, it was easy for a beginner to learn.
I must say this magnificent performance leaves my simple rendition groping in the dust left by a thousand stampeding elephants . . .

Loved it then, love it more now.






And now for something completely different - the incomparable Leon Russell, from 1971.











--Cat

Hummingbird Season

Hummingbirds have returned.

All is right with the world.

Well, this corner of the world.

I could watch them all day!

This is about the making of a fantastic film by PBS about these beautiful little birds.


--Cat

Musical Interlude

Simply because it's so wonderful . . .




--Cat

BAD words and bad words

I don't watch reality shows because I don't believe in their reality.
That said, while recently channel surfing I happened upon one, then another reality show that was disappointing in its, well, reality dialogue.

An abundance of beeps highlighted the dialogue of both shows. Often the beeps outnumbered the words, so the viewer must decipher/read lips/guess the conversation.

I know a beep could have masked the A-word, the B-word, the C-word, the D-word the E-word... (well, maybe not E). However, I get the sense that the F-word won the count.

I don't completely disapprove of the F-bomb, as it's often called when used in an "oops" moment by politicians and celebrities. It's an effective word that gets to the nitty-gritty of the matter. Psychologists at a British university did a study which found the use of expletives strengthens one's endurance to pain.

Yes indeed. Stub a toe and find out how true that is.

However, I find that overuse dilutes the effectiveness of any cuss word. To me less is more. I'd rather see a show with a few bombs used in strategic--shall we say explosive--moments instead of tossed away like fluff in every other sentence.

Ditto in books. If I read a book in which a character goes overboard with the reality dialogue, it becomes a big yawn. But a judiciously placed pained/frightened/horrified/grievous/excited detonation bursts off the page and gives an effective single-word stress moment to a most dire (or alternately, most loving) event.

Disclaimer: Some fictional characters are defined by the language they use, so it's necessary to salt their dialogue in an appropriate manner. Some real people, too, have a limited vocabulary and can best express themselves by fixing on the single descriptive word they know.

That's reality for you.

~

Bad words

My five year old grandson on a recent visit learned a new bad word.

It was unintentional.

I don't know what tv show he was watching, but he said, in true five-year-old righteous fashion, "That's dickless!'

Uncle, knowing the boy's mother would never abide her child using such language, kindly took him aside and told him dickless was a bad word that should never be repeated.

Grandson looked perplexed. Could it be that other members of his family used this vulgar term?

He agreed never to say it again.

Later, Uncle told the boy's mother about the event.

She laughed and laughed. Uncle was now puzzled.

It was the boy's way of saying ridiculous.

Uncle, no doubt slapping the side of his head and calling himself a dickless wonder, had to admit to the boy he'd been mistaken about the word, it wasn't bad at all, etc.

No doubt Grandson was even more puzzled by this revelation.

He probably doesn't know any true bad words.

Give him a few years.

Learning the language is like a rite of puberty. And reality tv.

--Cat

Congrats to all Olympians

Go Vancouver!

Go Canada!

Go World!

--Cat


Afterthoughts March 2

WE WON!

The big game.

The most gold medals.

The most total medals we've ever won in the Winter Games.

A place on the world stage. A good place.

Goodwill and respect for our city, our province, our country.

Unity among the diverse peoples of this land.

~

I confess to being among the skeptics before the Games began. Too expensive by far, too difficult for the organizers, the weather would probably not cooperate, protesters would give our visitors a bad image, in other words a big dud!

My feelings changed during the torch run. People turned out in droves in big cities, in little towns throughout the country--east to west, north to south--and cheered in good weather and bad, enthusiastic, proud, pleased to be included. It was...inspiring.

Then bad stuff happened. A young luger from Georgia died during his practice run. Cypress Mountain, site of several events was green and wet. Snow had to be trucked in. A malfunction during the opening ceremonies. Gretzky looking worried in the pouring rain carrying the torch to the cauldron.

A dud.

But soon I found myself glued to the television watching events unfold. I hoped for the rain to stop so the visitors could see how beautiful Vancouver is. There were some delays, some problems, some grumbling, some asinine protests. The sun appeared. People by the hundreds, by the thousands, took part in the street festivities, watched events on giant screens, cheered together, groaned together. It was...inspiring.

As was watching young people from all over the world come together and compete in fast, beautiful, grueling sports for their country, for themselves.

The closing ceremonies remedied the opening "glitch" in a humorous way. The proceedings were so...Canadian.

I'm happy I was here to witness this once-in-a-lifetime event.

And proud to be Canadian.

As someone once said, A perfect ending leads to a good beginning.

--Cat

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2010

Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right.
-- Oprah Winfrey

Welcome 2010!
--Cat

Organized...

. . . I'm not.

My office resembles chaos, bookshelves overflowing, not only with books but with a menagerie of small stuffed creatures that seem to multiply of their own accord. This is almost as bad as my Beanie Babies (remember those?) collection, who now occupy a box under the bed.

I look wistfully at the bookshelves. The books are roughly organized: novels, biographies, history, geography, dictionaries, Writers Market 1998! (time to recycle that one) At one time I planned to alphabetize everything.

Somehow that plan never bore fruit. I have ruined the overall effect by slotting paperback novels into any available space, whether it's among poetry, world history, Shakespeare... Time to give some of these intruders away to a good home.

It's tough for me to part with books. We once had a garage sale and sold a number of books I believed I'd never read again. I often regret having sold them--not that I'd probably read them again--but they were like precious caskets filled with drama, love, hate, laughter, tears that writers graciously shared.

~

A need to compartmentalize does, however, rear its head every now and then. I focus this urge on my computer where I create folders within folders within folders for my favorites or bookmarks, depending on which browser I'm on. If I don't sort these into aptly named folders the list grows huge and I can't find anything.

While I'm there, I also weed out those that I never visit, that have closed, or that I wonder why on earth did I save this?

Organizing bookmarks is small potatoes next to my writing files folders within folders etc. Does a cache of thousands sound too plentiful?

And yes, I have a real life filing cabinet with, you guessed it, green and blue folders holding manila folders filled with actual papers.

Actual papers have not yet declined, despite the computer age. Seems every day we take a stack to the recycle bin or the shredder.

These are not all bills, either.

--Cat

This and That

When researching the life of poet André Chenier I did some reading about the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror, a horrific time, in which massacre followed massacre; nobility, clergy, dissidents alike formed a steady stream toward the guillotine.

Reading how Chenier himself was affected gave me a narrow view of the events. I searched the internet and found an overview of the Revolution, the causes, issues, duration, effects, in Revolution and After .

Dickens aptly wrote of the age in A Tale of Two Cities :

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

The revolutionaries began with noble goals: an end to the tyranny and the outrageous privileges that aristocracy and clergy saw as their due, and liberty, equality, fraternity for all. Perhaps the idealists envisioned a peaceful transfer of power from the monarchy to the people.

It was not to be. The rest, as they say, is history.

As often happens, I continued reading about Napoleon, his rise, his glory, his fall. A couple of pages do not do him justice; I see further reading in my future. My father's library, which I inherited, has several fat books about Napoleon and his wars.

I'll add them to the TBR (To Be Read ) pile.

~

My mother, age 88, is devoted to following the news. From morning news radio, to newspapers which she reads from first page to last (even the sports), to local, national, and international news on tv, to the Letterman Show (hey, he presents news, doesn't he?) she is well-informed about it all. Opinionated, too, frequently venting at newscasters, politicians, and situations that parade past on the tube.

She is the master of the rhetorical "why": why would a man kill his small children; why would those thugs beat up a gay man; why spend billions to send rockets into the air when the economy is so bad; why is the government doing/not doing this, that, or the other...

I used to try to answer her questions. Then I realized she knows there are no answers, and this is her way of trying to make sense of a world that has changed so drastically over her lifetime, yet has also not changed at all.

Besides, I don't have any real answers. They're all blowing in the wind. (more on this coming)

~

--Cat

Musical Interlude

Talented violin virtuoso David Garrett plays Czardas, a traditional Hungarian folk dance.








And simply because it's so very beautiful, Garrett playing Debussy's Clair de Lune.





--Cat

Hottest Day

July 29, 2009

Air conditioner alert!



We aren't used to temperatures this high.
We don't like temperatures this high.


There's something oh so quiet about a hot-hot day. You can almost see the flowers wilt. Birds make liberal use of the birdbath -- wish I had a picture for they truly frolic in the water like exuberant children.

Birds being birds, they always return to the feeders.





Cute birds aside, too many more days like this and I'm going to Antarctica. I hear Antarctica is melting. (sigh)

Okay. But it's still cold on Mars.



Mind you, once it's colonized by humans and they carry on as is their habit, Mars is bound to heat up.
Martial Warming?

--Cat

Adding PS: the heat wave is over for now (for the summer, we hope.)
Mars will have to wait.

The moment I saw him ....

I had to have him!

Yes, a Teddy Bear. But not just any bear - this one had the exact face shape of the Teddy I had when I was very young.



My first Teddy had stiff brown "fur" and when turned upside down and righted again he grunted what I presumed was a bear-like sound.

Unlike the old one, this new Teddy is cuddly and soft and machine washable. But it was the face, that dear, fondly remembered face that tugged at my heart.

I don't recall what happened to my first Teddy bear; lost in transit, perhaps. Or the girl believed she had outgrown him and packed him away, along with her other childhood toys.

The trouble with packing things away is that they are seldom if ever seen again. And often forgotten, until fate bestows a reunion of sorts.



Now and then everyone, no matter what their age, needs a Teddy bear to hug.

--Cat

The Weather Channel

Truly one of the more interesting channels...

Not merely for the weather reports, but for weather news and related tidbits.

Recently it was reported that because of global warming the snow packs enjoyed by skiers will gradually decline.

Seventy years from now the ski season will be half what it is now, and this will of course impact the future of the winter Olympics. No snow, no Olympics.

This got me thinking. Seventy years from now no one will remember how it was in 2009 or before. The winters of yesteryear will become a novelty. Quaint pictures, old movies and tv shows will be of passing interest to young people, much like when our studies took us to previous ice ages.

Seventy years from now my grandchildren will be in their seventies, eighties, and nineties. Perhaps they will reminisce about skiing, snowboarding, tobogganing in the olden days.

I might be a memory, the grandmother who sat at her computer and wrote things.

And after that I'll become a name on a genealogy list.

I need to stop projecting.

This really isn't about me.

I truly hope snow is abundant for Olympics into the year 5000.

--Cat

In search of the sweet stuff

And didn't "they" say Hummingbirds return in April?

My husband was coming out of the garage when he, literally, came face to face with a hummer.

Where's the juice, the little bird seemed to demand.

John hustled in and mixed the syrup, hung the feeders, and a short time later the customer arrived.

It's uncanny how they remember from year to year






--Cat

Musical Interlude

You know how some tunes stick in your mind and refuse to leave?

I had a flashback to a song by Roger Miller. (Jan 2, 1936 - Oct 25, 1992)

Namely: You Don't Want My Love - (In The Summertime When All The Trees And Leaves Are Green)

From 1960 (gulp) Was I even born then? Well, maybe, but I was very, very young.

I found it on You Tube but couldn't embed it, so here's the link


Here is a hilarious version by The Muppets (Oh, how I loved them!)






--Cat

Snow, Snow, Go Away

Yes, yes, it was a lovely sight. One should have the privilege of seeing this at least once every five years. Seven or eight years would be better.



It's been heralded as the biggest dump of snow in the area since sometime in the sixties.
I believe it, though I've lived here only since 1980.

The solid flaky sort of rain first hit the ground December 17th. After one or two clear but icy cold days it began to fall in earnest on the 22nd. And it fell, and fell, and caused incredible hardship for people counting on all forms of transportation.

Truly, people here don't like/fear/can't/refuse to drive when it snows. Warnings not to drive blared across the airwaves.

Because of bad road conditions on Christmas Eve, we delayed the stuffed bird meal until the 28th. (It was just as good.)

It's warmed up (but only slightly) and rained (a lot). But dang it, the snow has not disappeared.
And today -- horrors -- it snowed a bit at noon, dancing, swirling fluffs that seemed to smugly leer, "You ain't done with us, yet!"
.
I say enough! We've had our fun, and our White Christmas.

This makes me wonder why people dream of a white Christmas. What's the big attraction? I think we've been brainwashed since that song came out to believe snow at Christmas = perfection.

No, snow just causes messy trouble and means that it's cold.

Front of my house

My nostalgic inner child remembers sledding, building snowmen, having snowball fights, dressing in twenty layers of clothing (ugh). My inner artist sees the beauty in dark pines and cedars webbed with white, branches bending low beneath the weight...

What am I saying--during such delightful events the power could go out at any time!

--Cat

Merry Christmas

My favorite Christmas song - O Holy Night, performed by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra


(no longer available)




My thoughts exactly:




-- Cat

Music

Il Divo --

Operatic pop quartet. Interesting Wikipedia info here

I love the way they blend their voices and the wonderful songs they sing.








This is my favorite, done up in a pretty collage:






--Cat

Oct 3 - In Memoriam - Kevan F Hartwell

Remembering my father:

Kevan F Hartwell Dec 21, 1920 - Oct 3, 2001

He who has gone, so we but cherish his memory, abides with us,
more potent, nay, more present than the living man.
-- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Always remembered, always loved-- --the Family

--Cat

The Birds and the Bees

The bird ---



Who needed a place to build a nest. She found a lovely, flowery spot --



And proceeded to build her nest inside --


In due time two speckled eggs appeared --


~Updates to come


The bee --


The flowers and the trees --




And the moon up above --


Hmm, sounds like a song doesn't it?

I'll stop here. The rest is up to you.


--Cat

The River God

It snowed today. Snowed!

On unseasonably cold days like today I'm reminded wistfully of the time two summers ago when I saw the River God in the (total) flesh.

Nikomekl River

There's a shortcut we take driving home over a one way bridge on the Nikomekl River, a placid little stream that flows to the sea. As this is in a tidal area, the bridge is part dam, opening and closing for flood control and to allow fish to travel up and downstream.

Until that particular day we had seen only the odd seal swimming in the lower part. One warm evening when the sun was low in the western sky, we were halfway across the bridge when "he" unexpectedly appeared.

First there were hands on the concrete wall that served as a railing. Then arms, a head, dark hair streaming rivulets of water. His muscles strained as he pulled himself up to the top of the rail. And there he stood in all his brazen glory, a handsome Adonis maybe in his mid-twenties, shaking water droplets from his hair and body, laughing, as gods might, at the stupefied expressions on the mortals' faces.

We did not stop--there were cars before and behind ours--but I can still hear the laughter floating in the golden air, both his and a split-second later that of all who'd been startled by this apparition.

Yeah, yeah, it was probably like my husband said, buff young guys playing a prank, or carrying out a dare.

I prefer to believe I saw the River God.

--Cat

Kitaro

Kitaro - Japanese born "New Age" composer/musician

Love this music. I was listening to an internet radio station and was reminded of how marvelously grand Kitaro sounds.












--Cat

Sign of the Times

Overheard at a supermarket check-out:

Cashier, handing customer his purchases in a plastic bag: "This is the last month you'll get one of these in plastic. Next month we're going back to paper bags."

Customer, distressed: "What am I going to use for the garbage?"

Cashier, with a sigh: "It's a problem, isn't it?"

Cat, to herself: It's really true--what goes around, comes around. I remember the switch from paper to plastic. At first we had a choice. We chose paper, for the very reason the bags fit nicely into the kitchen garbage container--the plastic ones just flopped there. Soon, though, there was no longer a choice. So we adapted. Isn't that the great strength of mankind--our ability to adapt?

Yes, this too shall pass. "This" being the temporary inconvenience of learning to love paper garbage bags.

The secret is don't throw anything wet into them.


--Cat

Sucker for a French Accent

I called the bank the other night because I couldn't reach their online site. I patiently went through five minutes of "press one for English...etc." tripe, and sat for nearly twenty minutes with phone to ear, for if I were to hang up I'd lose my place in the queue and need to start over. Who wants to do that?

Finally a voice came on the line. Imagine my surprise to hear a lovely male accent that was not from some third world country, but Canadian, likely Quebecois.

I could have spent a lot more time listening to that fine voice, but alas, the problem was quickly fixed, the call was at an end.

After I gave my thanks, I blurted, somewhat foolishly in hindsight, "I like your accent."

To which he replied, in true Gallic fashion, "I like yours, too."

He was only being polite, I know.

Because I do not have an accent.


--Cat

Neighborhood wild things

My husband came in last night and said he heard the neighborhood owl hooting. The owl is big and beautiful, white or gray, and has been around for some months, probably because to him this neighborhood is like a smorgasbord--all his favorite dishes can be found.

The owl's spooky who-who-who certainly invokes shivers. And we talked about the times we camped in the wilderness and at night heard owls and coyotes. Such lovely times.

Hah, my husband said, we hear owls and coyotes here all the time.

Of course, that's true. Wilderness, it seems, has come to the city.

And it's justified, right? We encroached on their lands, so they return the favor. Only they have no chance here.

Not long ago we saw two coyotes just outside our back yard, warming themselves in a sunny spot in the greenbelt. I wanted to write a poem about them, about how wrong it was for wild animals to pad along concrete streets, they should be free, yadda, yadda, yadda. I planned to write it in the style of a sonnet.

Well, there are sonneteers.
And then there's me.

But I will prevail.

Here are the first few lines I wrote:

City Coyotes

Beyond the fence, beyond the grass-banked stream,
I saw coyotes bask in morning sun.
They slept until the warming light was done,
Then wakened from their atavistic dream.
Their slitted eyes stared at encircling homes,
At fences slicing land that once was free.
Yet I believe their hearts can only be
On ranges where their untamed cousin roams.


A picture of the backyard coyotes:



-- Cat

in Memoriam

Kevan F. Hartwell

Dec. 21, 1920 - Oct. 3, 2001

Remembering always,

"If the people we love are stolen from us, the way to have them live on is to never stop loving them. Buildings burn, people die, but real love is forever.”The Crow (1994)

--Cat

That day AGAIN!

October 2 -- an auspicious day.

So I'm one year farther from my birth and closer to my mortality.

-- Cat

End of an Era

Luciano Pavarotti (October 12, 1935 – September 6, 2007)

I was reading some of the tributes given to this man by the people, ordinary people from all over the world who loved him, loved his voice, and was moved enough to cry.

Though I've listened to classical music since young, I came late to the lavishly-set opera table. It used to be something I endured as I waited for the next Beethoven, Strauss, or Rachmaninoff on the classical radio channel.

I knew of, but paid scant attention to, the Three Tenors. Knew their names, knew Pavarotti was the big guy. I rather liked the more "pop" sounds of Josh Groban and Il Divo. I could listen to Sarah Brightman sing anything.

Then I heard the music to a song identified only as from the Puccini opera Turandot. It was the type of music that stays in your mind (playing over and over) and I needed to learn more about it. Thank goodness for Amazon and other internet music sellers that let you hear samples from each work. I identified the song as Nessun Dorma and then trotted my fingers over to YouTube. I listened to Andrea Bocelli's version. Lovely. I listened to Pavarotti and was ... electrified. I listened to his other arias. Really listened. What a splendid voice.

Inspired, I purchased a mix of various opera songs, and I've found many that I truly enjoy hearing. Some, I still only endure (too lazy to skip to the next), but I feel my life has been, maybe only in a small way, enriched by the super voices of opera singers.

Especially Pavarotti.

May he rest peacefully, and as someone said, the man with the voice of an angel now sings with them.

Here is my favorite aria Nessun Dora by my favorite tenor:







--Cat

Dream du Jour

Here's one for the dream projector --

I dreamed I was at a gathering of sorts -- all women and children.

I held one woman's little one, a chubby-cheeked cherub, smiling, jabbering away.

"That's his happy talk," the mother said.

And as if this were a Broadway musical and that was my cue, I began singing Happy Talk, from South Pacific. In the dream I had a pure and lovely voice; in real life let's just say I might know the lyrics, but can't carry a tune, not even faintly. (Ah, that's the nature of dreams.)

A chorus of beautiful voices joined in -- all the others at the gathering, I reckon.

What makes it more peculiar is that in the dream the chorus got one line wrong. I began the song again with the correct words.

Happy Talk is a charming song from my favorite musical. My father had a reel-to-reel tape player and when I was a kid, I played South Pacific over and over again. The words to the song are no doubt burned into my subconscious.

Here are the words. In my dream we sang the first four lines:


Happy Talk

from South Pacific.

Music by Richard Rodgers, Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II

Happy talk, keep talking happy talk
Talk about things you like to do
You got to have a dream, if you don't have a dream
How you gonna have a dream come true?
Talk about the moon floating in the sky
Looking like a lily on the lake
Talk about a bird learning how to fly
Making all the music he can make!
Happy talk, keep talking happy talk
Talk about things you like to do
You got to have a dream, if you don't have a dream
How you gonna have a dream come true?
Talk about the sparrow looking like a toy
Peeking through the branches of a tree
Talk about the girl, talk about the boy
Counting all the ripples on the sea
Happy talk, keep talking happy talk
Talk about things you like to do
You got to have a dream, if you don't have a dream
How you gonna have a dream come true?
Talk about the boy saying to the girl
Golly, baby, I'm a lucky cuss
Talk about the girl saying to the boy
You an' me is lucky to be us
Happy talk, keep talking happy talk
Talk about things you like to do
You got to have a dream, if you don't have a dream
How you gonna have a dream come true?
If you don't talk happy, and you never have dream
Then you'll never have a dream come true!

A dream about a song about a dream. Is this a message of some kind?

--Cat

Uses for dreams

We were talking about dreams, my husband and I, the kind you have when you sleep.

I said it would be neat if there was a way to project the dreams onto the ceiling.

So you could watch them, he said.

No, I said. So you could watch them. (I have some very interesting dreams.)

Taking it a step further, we could tape the good ones for later viewing.

One could have a whole library of dreams. Like books, like DVDs.

Laugh all you like.

Scientists may be working on this right now.

We'd all become micro-movie makers. Surreal movies, for most dreams are just that.

And the Academy Award for dreams goes to ....

--Cat

An anniversary of sorts

Sometimes I think about smoking a cigarette.

I even dream about it -- not the act itself -- but I'm rummaging through my purse and find a pack there, or I'm off to the store to buy them.

It's been 15 years since I went from a pack-a-day habit to none.

I remember the day I smoked my last cigarette, June 20, 1992, my son's birthday. It was my gift to him, something he really wanted, something he nagged me about for months (years?). So on June 21, 1992 I quit, cold turkey.

That wasn't the first time I'd tried to quit a habit I'd had since I was 17. But for the first time I was truly ready. It wasn't easy, but as time passed, as I grit my teeth and sat on my hands waiting for the craving to pass, the pangs became less and less urgent.

One of the hardest things I found in giving up this stinky habit was in the mind -- the association I had with smoking a cigarette at every major or happy event in my life. How many photos do I have of those pre '92 years where I'm holding a cigarette?

Those nostalgic associations between smoking and happiness eventually faded.

And now I would not fill my mouth, let alone my lungs, with cigarette smoke. Distasteful thought.

But you know what? My son started smoking.

Go figure.

--Cat

Today was...

Well, Only in America. Enough said.


A humorous childrens verse I wrote appears here in Bumbershoot, an online literary ezine.


Smile.


--Cat

Curious Bereavement

I have a theory about the people on this earth.

We all know the earth is round. Let's for the moment look beyond the geometry and think that the people who inhabit it form one large jigsaw puzzle. There are roughly 7 billion pieces. Every person alive is a piece of the puzzle. No matter how poor, how rich, how much land they own, they are one piece of the puzzle, equal to each of the others. As the population increases, the edges of the puzzle expand. As people die, their little space disappears and there's a shift, a cosmic shift if you like, as the puzzle is rearranged. At the current rates of growth and attrition, the puzzle is constantly adjusting itself.

One might say it lives. It breathes. It seethes.

Now, getting to the point of my subject title above:

When I first ventured onto the internet, I discovered forums, where like-minded people hung out and messaged each other. My first forum was moderated by a nice lady whose name I've forgotten, but I'll call L. I haven't forgotten L, though. As time progressed, I learned she had grown daughters, roughly where she lived, that she liked cats, baked a lot, simple small details of her life. I knew from the tenor of her messages that she had a wry sense of humor and took her (unpaid) job seriously. I may have exchanged two or three messages with her, and I believe she knew me only as a name, if that.

One day her daughter posted a message. L had died. A heart attack, I think it was. Though we were barely acquaintances, I felt a surprising sense of loss. This person, who had become a tiny part of my life, no longer existed, leaving an empty space in the puzzle.

Other forums, other years, other people I knew-but-didn't-know passed on. And I always felt first surprise, then that odd sense of loss. I don't grieve as I would a family member or close friend, but I miss that presence, the person who had become real because of thoughts shared, personalities made known, messages placed on a medium seen potentially by billions .

I occasionally surf blogs, and when I come across one that interests me I leave a comment. A person I'll call X, a writer, poet, replied to the comment I'd made. That was the sum of our involvement. Once in a while I'd visit X's blog for new posts. There were no updates for months. Perhaps X was ill. It 's more than a year now. The blog hasn't changed.

I do not know X's real name, where X lives, works, anything. I must presume X is dead. This sense of loss is somehow different. We were nothing but two ships passing ... no, not really. Two canoes who for the briefest moment swept the same wave with our paddles.

Was there a cosmic shift? Was the puzzle realigned due to X's disappearance? I'll never know.

I think that blogs exist forever, or as long as people view them. I'll check X's blog now and then. Leave a thought, if nothing else.

Fair tv Fare

Note: Some people use capital letters when abbreviating the word television, but my use of small letters explains my regard, or lack thereof, of the medium.

Some years ago I read that to be a true tv snob you must watch all of the programs, or none of them.

The former being impossible for me, I chose the latter.

For a long time I watched nothing, and whenever someone said, "Did you catch X on tv last night?" I could honestly reply, in true tv snob fashion, "Oh, I don't watch television."

There were occasional inroads. My daughter, working nights at the time, watched afternoon soap operas and I began watching The Young and the Restless with her. I still watch to this day, and make no excuses for doing so.

Then there were shows like ER and NYPD Blue. I loved the tension of those early ER shows. I will always remember one episode where at the climax I burst into tears. A movie, tv show, or book that makes me cry has rare power. That episode was, for me, an "eleven." (on a scale of one to ten....)

I stopped watching ER when it became too depressing for me. NYPD Blue, though I watched, and enjoyed, from beginning to end.

At one time my desk sat in a large room that also had a tv set. For a time I shunned that tv set, though I only had to look slightly to the side to see it. Then I discovered British mystery series on A & E.

What a wonderful variety! I watched them all: Prime Suspect, A Touch of Frost, Inspector Morse, Miss Marple, Hercule Poirot, Sherlock Holmes, Lovejoy, Dalgliesh, Inspector Alleyn, Brother Cadfael, Ruth Rendel Mysteries, the gritty Cracker--my favorite. (perhaps others I've forgotten...)

Alas, we moved and things changed, my ability to view these shows while I worked at my computer came to a regrettable end.

But then came the autumn of 2000, the autumn of the Olympics in Sydney, the autumn of Who Wants to be a Millionaire, the autumn I spent several weeks in a hospital.

Almost overnight I went from tv snob to tv slob.

I watched EVERYTHING that was on. All the game shows, all the sitcoms, all the dramas: Cops shows, lawyer shows: Ally McBeal, The Practice, Family Law, scenic shows, e.g. Baywatch! on and on ad nauseam. The good, the bad, and the really ugly, it made no difference to me, I was passing time and for once in my life had not the will to read. (As if that were some sacred act not to be performed in the mundane setting of a hospital.)

My tv extravaganza came to an end when I came home. I tried to keep up with some of the better shows, but my interest soon waned. I had no patience left for silly sitcoms, though I always made time for Frasier.

Now I've come to that point where I recall important times of my life by the tv shows I watched. Who can forget the summer of 1980 when Who shot JR? was a question that held an entire continent in thrall? (This, before my tv snob days!) And how about the years I spent watching Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers with the young ones?

I remember books I've read, some the age I was when I read them The same with movies. But television goes farther than that. Because of the nature of the beast, the long running shows mark a passage of time, for some the change of an era. My son was a kid when he began watching The Simpsons in 1989. Almost 18 years later he still watches it when he can. Heavens, I aged 12 years during the course of NYPD Blue.

And now this entry, like a tv show that's been on too long, is losing it's original intent. I digress easily when it comes to this subject. I'm not qualified to criticize tv shows. I know what I like, what I find good. What others like, and watch, is their call.

I will admit there's lots that good. Even fascinating. But more that's bad. Even plain stupid. Would I miss it if it vanished?

I honestly think not.

--Cat

Me and Charlie Brown

The Peanuts comic strip debuted October 2, 1950.

I don't recall when I started reading it, but it was a fixture of my daily life for several decades, right until the final sweet goodbye on January 3, 2000.

Gotta love that Snoopy for his sense of whimsey, his keen imagination, his soaring daydreams. He could be -- and was, in his own mind -- anyone and everyone. Having for a long time lived in daydreams myself, I understand that fascinating Beagle. And we share a certain ambition: to write that great book of all books!


And who can forget Snoopy's devoted master -- the one and only Charlie Brown?



Charlie Brown and I have several things in common.

We share the same October 2 birthday. (different years, though)

He's been called, among other things, wishy-washy.
Now, I don't consider myself wishy-washy. Perhaps I lack instant decisiveness. But you see, I believe in looking at all the sides, weighing all the angles (this odd cliché comes from mathematics!) Thoughtful delayed decisiveness is, to me, a signature Libra trait.

Like Charlie Brown I often felt as a kid that no one understood me, and I was something of a loner. I had a reason for that: you have to be alone to read, and I was a reader. I did have that Snoopy-like imagination to fall back on, as well as a large interesting family and, like Charlie Brown had, an array of diverse friends.

My husband and kids will say that at Christmas I usually selected what was known as a Charlie Brown Tree, some poor misshapen lopsided tree that no one but its mother could love. They wanted a perfect, lush, beautiful tree. I reasoned even the most grotesque set of twigs deserved a home at Christmas and would look beautiful when decorated. And I was right.




Snoopy called Charlie Brown "that round-headed kid." And I guess he was.

I was known as having a round-shaped face--as stated in the passport I had at age four:

Cat - age 4

The final Peanuts comic strips are here.

Charles Schulz died February 12, 2000, a little more than one month after he bid a beautiful sad goodbye.

I have missed that comic strip ever since. My gaze still automatically gravitates to the space it occupied in the daily newspaper.

I thank Charles Schulz for having created the best ensemble cast of lovable cartoon characters. Ever.

--Cat