Took a cue from Marcel, and spent the day reading and revising in our patch of sunshine.
Keep your face always toward the sunshine – and shadows will fall behind you.
~ Walt Whitman
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cats
Chair sharks
This morning I settled into a chair to work. A while later, I got up for a coffee refill and returned to find an interloper:
Loki bares his teeth to keep me from reclaiming the chair. (Actually, his black fur makes him ridiculously difficult to photograph which results in lots of these blurred “action” shots.)
In my family, we call that getting sharked. As in, “Loki just sharked my chair.”
Anyway, I was feeling generous so I moved to another chair, one that actually suited me better because it’s next to a window and big patch of warm sunshine, and worked there for some time. I then left to take care of something in another room and when I returned, found this:
Marcel claiming my seat in the sun.
Sharked again!
Maybe I should bring the rocking chair up from the basement. I’ve heard that cats get real nervous around those . . .
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Wearing the clown face
I was up all night and so am extremely tired today. Just woke from my nap in a patch of sunshine to find Marcel napping like this:
The nose is a little large for Marcel’s face, but I’m glad to see he’s embraced Frank’s advice.
Dare to wear the foolish clown face.
~ Frank Sinatra
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Pinky Whitehead for the win
I loved HARRIET THE SPY from the very first time I read it, which was approximately one thousand years ago. Harriet inspired me to carry around a notebook so I could jot down whatever thoughts came to mind. (I remember that my furtive watching and scribbling creeped out one of my good friends, probably because I hadn’t fully absorbed the importance of how Harriet’s friends were hurt and angry after getting hold of her notebook and reading about themselves.)
I know I’m not unique; plenty of writers were inspired by Harriet. But to this day, HARRIET THE SPY resonates with me. I love filling notebooks. I love watching people and making up scenarios for what I observe. And I love my cat who conjures up one of the all-time best character names:
Pinky Whitehead!
My cat’s name is Marcel, but those pink ears and nose always transport me back to HARRIET THE SPY. Maybe someday I’ll know a cat that brings to mind Ole Golly . . .
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Woman watches cat watch rabbit
Slow news day on the homestead.
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All our exploring
Just finished a Skype session with Zebu who is in Sweden. He’s been there about ten days now and feeling more settled, especially after getting this issue resolved. I carried the laptop around the house so he could see the dogs and cats in their various poses of slumber and he told us of his many adventures.
The son who demanded I hold him for the first year of his life now eats breakfast paste from a tube and purposely gets lost in an unfamiliar city.
Who knew?
Marcel curled up next to my weight bench that’s covered with the T-shirt Zebu designed for his 6th birthday.
We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring
will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.
~ T. S. Eliot
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One of those days
Oddly enough, this seems like a fair representation of today:
I was very tired and so didn’t accomplish much. I felt a bit, you know, pointless. So it’s weird that this is the photo that jumped out at me from Morguefile.com when I went cruising for photos. But somehow these pointy-headed mannequins capture my mood.
Two positive notes regarding today:
- Loki and Marcel took turns curled up on me as I read and napped on the couch.
- No one used my head to play Ring Toss.
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The ins and outs of editorial voices
Every writer knows about the internal editor,
that yammering
whispering
haranguing
insidious
voice
that says
Your story sucks
Your writing sucks
You suck so why don’t you give it up already?
I utilize different strategies for getting past my internal editor,
but without a doubt
the most effective approach is to keep writing.
Head down, pen moving.
Guaranteed, that voice will eventually shut up.
At least for a while.
In my experience, the external editors are sometimes harder to ignore.
Marcel and Loki insert themselves into the process.
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Napping for a better world
Think what a better world it would be if we all,
the whole world,
had cookies and milk about three o’clock every afternoon
and then lay down on our blankets for a nap.
~ Barbara Jordan
Cats and Cameras
Cats never strike a pose that isn’t photogenic.
~Lillian Jackson Braun
Okay, not all cats are photogenic all the time.
Friday Five: The Marcel Edition
- This is Marcel.
He looks like the typical cat who sleeps 18 hours per day, right? - I will admit he sleeps a fair amount. In fact, he’s napping downstairs as I write this. But I’ve never lived with a cat who was better at entertaining himself. Marcel especially loves elastics, twist ties, and pipe cleaners (also my sweaty socks, but that’s a whole other blog post).
- The other morning as I did yoga, Marcel showed up with a purple pipe cleaner. I tried to maintain my yogic** concentration as he batted it around then snuck up on it to pounce. A few minutes later, Marcel showed up with a white pipe cleaner. After that, it was a black pipe cleaner.
The white pipe cleaner is MIA, but these two remain on the floor as toys.
If you look closely you can see Marcel’s white hairs on the pipe cleaners, (and if you have really good vision, the kind that sees across the miles and through walls, you’d see white hairs on my shirts, shoes, futons, hardwood floors, bathroom vanity, . . .)
- That third pipe cleaner prompted me to investigate and, sure enough, I found the source. Marcel had gone down to the drawers that Wildebeest and Zebu used way back when for storing their craft items. Marcel had opened the drawer holding the pipe cleaners.
- Marcel is a nappy cat, a food-obsessed cat, and also a pretty damned smart cat.
Marcel woke up when I came down to photograph the scene of the crime.
**Confession: I thought I’d made up a word but then looked it up and discovered I was inadvertently legit.
Happy #Caturday
Loki barely concealing his fangs.
Marcel not bothering to hide his disdain.
On Being There for Those We Love
Yesterday morning I was in my yoga togs, ready for my routine, when the phone rang. It was Wildebeest. Bernice, his beloved elderly cat, was not doing well and Wildebeest was calling for support. Zippy and I divvied up responsibilities: he’d go as planned to help his mother with insurance/tow truck/etc following her Sunday night car accident (!), and I’d go to Wildebeest’s. I quickly changed into jeans, remarking that our Monday morning was now clearly in the Shit-Storm column rather than Sunshine-With-a-Strong-Chance-of-Clouds column.
The day got much harder and much shittier: Bernice died.
Beautiful Bernice (although this picture doesn’t do her justice.)
Wildebeest adopted her soon after moving out and the two of them were best of friends. She got him through some very difficult times and over the years I was thankful for the unconditional love she gave my son. (Plus, she was a soft and beautiful cat with a quirky personality!)
Yesterday was a day of tears. One of those cry-until-your-face-hurts day of tears. But it was also a day filled with real emotions and conversation, and a little bit of laughter. Wildebeest and I were together for six hours, and while it was excruciating to witness his pain and loss, I was (and am) grateful I could be there. I’ve been off-and-on looking for a job, frequently beating myself up for being out of the employment game for so long, but yesterday reminded me of the benefits to being a non-salaried Mom.
RIP Bernice. You will always be in our hearts.
Friday Five: The Let-Sleeping-Dogs-Lie Edition
And cats, too.
With a Little Help From My Cats
I am revising and needed an aerial view of two chapters.
I was making progress with that birds-eye view until . . .
Scattered pages and chewed pens are one thing,
but clawing at my words brings “critique” to a whole new level.
“Animals are such agreeable friends―they ask no questions, they pass no criticisms.” ~ George Eliot
Whatever you say, George.
Procrastination: Exhibits A – D
A: This blog post.
B: This photo.
C: This photo.
D: This 30-second movie clip from ADAPTATION:
“Maybe banana nut. That’s a good muffin.”
Birdwatching With a Cat
Western Scrub Jays are very smart birds. Today they found our newly-filled peanut feeder and quickly spread the word. Many jays have flown in to grab a peanut and then taken off again to hide the peanuts (my neighbors across the street might discover a nutty motherlode in their yard next spring). I ate lunch while watching all the activity outside the living room window.
Marcel watched, too.
For the most part he’s remained calm, tail still. That all changes when one specific jay arrives and then Marcel makes clucking sounds and lashes his tail while climbing the window. I’m guessing there’s some trash-talk going on between the two of them.
Boo!
Tough Love
A couple weeks ago Zippy and I had a bunch of people over. As is true of many things in our house, the front door doesn’t work as well as it should. In this case, it doesn’t close all the way unless you force the issue. Guests aren’t expected to know this and we weren’t paying attention.
Our two cat brothers, Loki and Marcel, are indoor cats. They’ve seemed quite content with that status. Until a couple weeks ago when that front door was left open and Loki escaped to the front yard (that is bordered by a pretty busy street, yikes!)
Following that grand adventure, Loki has taken to fits of crying at the door.
His looks of yearning, frustration, and disgust won’t sway me. The squeaking cries won’t break me. I love him too much to let him go. I only wish he understood.
Thankful Thursday: The Guys Edition
Pink Is the New Black
Ruminating on Interspecies Love
Is it possible,
do you think?
For a squirrel
to fall in love with a cat?
To pose and perform?
To entice rather than tease?
Is it possible,
do you think?
For one cat to writhe in response
while the other watches dispassionately?
Is it possible,
do you think?
To guess who writhed
and who yawned?
Writing Through the Distractions
It’s slow-going on my YA, but I’m making progress despite the usual distractions:
- books I want to read
- food that may or may not be in the refrigerator so let’s take a look, shall we?
- the internets and its many permutations
- bird action at the feeder and/or bath
- that patch of sunlight calling for me to come take a nap
- etc., etc.
All that’s hard enough, but now I have these lovable cats in the house and they demand my attention.
A few minutes ago I was working on my manuscript as Marcel sat in the window behind me, looking at birds and making that funny chuckling sound cats make when they see something they’d like to de-feather, but I was stoic and blocked out his bizarre noises to keep writing. Until, that is, he climbed over my shoulder and down onto my chest where he curled up and aimed his big goofy eyes at me. Really, I’m supposed to have the willpower to ignore such overt emotional manipulation?
And how about his brother Loki who has no respect for my writing boundaries or, for that matter, any boundary?
Maybe I’m supposed to treat him like a Muse?
“All right, Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my close-up.”
Loki
Marcel
(If I were casting Sunset Boulevard, I’d choose Marcel to play Norma Desmond. Something about those eyes . . . )
Monday, Monday: The Marcel Edition
Photo by Zebu
“My advice is to grab your rubber duckies and get ready for the week.”
Tracy Abell 