Minutae

Apprentice Cats

These cats around here think my newly planted lawn (yes, more lawn) is their own personal catbox. We have a old old cat. Sebastian, 13+ years and still the godfather of the neighborhood, although my man thinks he's becoming suicidal in his old age, says he crosses the street without looking, and that he never used to cross the street at all. His ears are notched, skin riddled with scars beneath a thick coat of wiry black fur. He was rescued, therefore loyal, with the notable exception of a two year hiatus while Click, the maddog, lived here. Shows pretty good judgment in my estimation. So, the plan is to cover the grass... tarp it so they'll have nowhere to dig. Besides, it's July, a stupid time to plant grass. But hell, up here, I can't tell what season it is. It's cool today, but I'm learning that the strong summer sun is hanging out right behind the clouds, ever available to fry shit when you're not looking. There are two kittens who live next door, and innumerable feral cats. The babies follow Sebastian on his rounds, learning as they go. The neighbors call Sebastian "Blackie." Clever. They feed him, have a cat door... took him in during the dog days, and now claim he IS Blackie, has always been Blackie, that they paid for him and he was never ours. I don't care (see?). And the beauty of it is, Sebastian has no idea he is involved in a property dispute. He just eats when and where he likes and sleeps inside if he wants to. The apprentice cats are theirs, and they are welcome to 'em.

Post-op

I lived. I am on drugs. There were complications, and it's all good, now. I'm home and happy to be here. I look like Jabba the Hut. Don't visit me. The thing he took out of my neck, turns out, was my evil twin -- embryonic tissue that never made the cut (until yesterday, of course.) I'm hoping against hope that we've finally removed that mean voice, the one who has the goods on me and uses them at the most inopportune times imaginable. Time, as ever, will tell.

Bikes

Nothing is ever really all that simple. Or, as JoAnne's screensaver says: "For every complex question there is a simple answer that is usually wrong." Something like that.

We have the bikes. Or, one of them, anyway. Atually getting them has been interesting. Mine is horribly flawed, but beautiful. He's ordering a replacement now. K got his, but it isn't working right either, so we're a little disillusioned, and may have paid medium money for a step up from a Huffy. No. I think they're better than that.

Blues Festival and Fireworks

Sitting on the sidehill, listening to band after band. Anything seems to pass for blues. Reagge blues, country blues, blue grass, rock blues, speed-metal blues and the occasional sweet down beat, that grinding, intensely sexual sound, something like the opening riff of "The Thrill is Gone." Chicago blues, Missippi blues, Delta Blues. Its personal, and what is the blues to me, may not be what is the blues for somebody else. So I wait and I wait for my blues. My turn to dance.

And, I would have said, prior to this week, that fireworks are fireworks. Not so. They are similar, but the intensity of Portland's fireworks over the Willamette, was, well, intense. Breathtaking, actually, for me. Ever the small town girl, I stood stupified as blast after blast cracked the sky and made it bleed.


Old Timers

I've found some of them. Some who have abandoned one program for the one where the grown-ups go. That's still what I'm after -- being a grown-up -- one distant day.

One Missing Flamingo

On the fourth of July, one of my prize, cheesy yard art items went missing. Finally. I suspect it met a bitter end, stuffed up the ass with firecrackers, pink plastic projectiles raining down Clinton Street.

A lone flamingo now guards the hydrangea out front, awaiting the next drunk night, awaiting release.

Fleetwood Mac

Went to the concert Monday night. I've always loved Fleetwood Mac. Always. And unlike many old bands, the music was so good. I remember watching the Moody Blues last summer at Britt and they were still wearing leather pants and trying to do synchronized high kicks with their guitars in unison. I was afraid they'd require paramedics. But this night, this music, was so familiar, so well-travelled. My favorite song, the Derelict, never gets played, but that's okay. I was watching history. My history. For the uninitiated, I think Mick Fleetwood has Tourette's and its treatable. If you were there... what the fuck was he saying???? For us, it was the speaking-in-tongues segment. But it was watching the woman that gave me pause. Stevie Nicks. I know when I was young I wanted to be her, was both compelled and terrified by her beauty, the rumors that she danced with the devil to get where she was. But as she sang that line: "...and I'm getting older too." The issue of mortality, mine and hers, a day before my surgery, arose. And she still had it. Not all of it, but enough.

So, that's the update. My slit throat hurts.