The third time is not charming

Where have I been?

I've been spending time with the sequestered kitty, the cone-of-shame kitty, the "I ate a watch band and had my third major surgery" kitty, the "I'm lonely" kitty, the kitty who wants to be carried around the house, the kitty who must stay in the basement bathroom shower stall (complete with little basket, litter box, and food bowls) until his stitches come out.

Sorry, no photos. But you get the picture.

Last night, a terrifically fun reading at Bookworm Exchange.

Today, crushing about a ton of Merlot grapes. I hope the rain stops before we start. And I'll try to have pictures.

It's a jolly holiday with Gilbert...

Gilbert the cat has become obsessed with the Santa hats that he found in the basement. He carries them, worries them, and then growls a low and rumbling growl. Our festive little hunter.

More cat love

Today's prompt over at Poetic Asides was to write a poem about an object. Immediately, I thought of a salt shaker. (There is a shaker on the cover of my copy of Pablo Neruda's Ode to Common Things.) But as much as I love salt, the shaker was not an evocative image for me.

Then the cat began to get restless, which means that the cat began to get into trouble. I thought about what might make him happy, and I had my image.


Mouse


It came with 11 others,
a small white mouse alone
on the kitchen floor.
For now, it has two red eyes,
two pink ears, and its own leather tail.
All of these may come off
in a day. It will fray to a wad
of soft and battered fur
and still the cat will spring
like an acrobat, body twisting, chase
this catnip prey
as if it ran by itself,
The rest of the package
stays in the drawer,
and the cat knows where that is
just as he knows I keep
extras in my pockets. He crouches,
tense, as soon as I reach my hand in
(even I just want a tissue
or a note I wrote,
even if the mouse I threw before
sits no more than six inches from him).
He is obsessed with his wealth
of mice just like this one,
and they disappear.
Somewhere in this house
is his abundance.

NaPoWriMo poem #4

Today's prompt from Poetic Asides is to write about an animal.

I immediately had grand thoughts about Great Blue Herons and went nowhere.

But my sister is in a band called Bad Kitty, and that inspired me to write about my own felonious feline. Here's the draft:


Bad Kitty


O, my glorious pet, my pest,
your morning claws climbing
the back of my pink bathrobe.

My mouse chaser skittering
across the kitchen in fierce pursuit,
dropping the catnip bounty

on the floor for me to throw again,
then sprawling with your prey gripped
between your teeth like a fat cigar.

Guardian of the front door,
your long tail switches as you spy
on the sparrows outside.

Tramper of counters and mantles,
all territories forbidden, opener
of cupboards, hunter of rubber bands

and other hazards requiring surgery,
your imperative meow insisting
on treats and all doors ajar.

Then you slip into a paper sack,
or curl up in a basket, soak up
the light in a square of sun.

You of bell and purr, soft fur, curl
next to me when, finally, you fall asleep.

Someone's having fun

Any spot in the sun

Gilbert's new blue style

(Tom said, "I don't think you'd want someone taking pictures of you when you were like that.")

The kitten is looking pretty good after one vet trip Thursday evening, one to the emergency vet at 4:00 on Friday morning, another to the regular vet at about 9:30 Friday morning, a trip to the critical care clinic at about 10:00 Friday morning (by that time, I was so tired that I had to lie down on the little bench in the examining room even though Gilbert was showing the first signs of being a cat in more than 12 hours). Surgery Friday night, home Saturday afternoon (early, because the people at the clinic said that he was "really unhappy here"), and all he has to show for it is this collar, plus some stitches.

We are glad to have our kitty home. We are sorry that he has to stay in the downstairs bathroom. ("Try to keep him quiet," the vet said. Gilbert was not paying attention to that.) I have been spending a most unusual amount of time sitting on the floor of said downstairs bathroom. I get the feeling Gilbert thinks it is not enough.

But we are glad to have him home. The moral of the story? Don't eat the red foam puzzle pieces. Stick with the kibbles!

I see birds

Well, I did.

What can you say?

Gilbert's favorite toy

is Winnie the Pooh's head.

(This head came from one of my daughter's socks. No bears, real or stuffed, were harmed.)

More Gilbert

A tisket, a tasket, a kitten in a basket

Gilbert's new favorite place

(Thanks to a Harry & David gift basket)

Well, it has a season word...

Knees ache with winter.
Cat sleeps on my lap. I watch.
That's all I can do.

Older ... but not wiser

Gilbert the kitten, in a rare moment of calm.

A myth that fits

We're all still blissing out on cat love, along with the often frenetic LIFE WITH KITTEN. And it's Daniel's seventeenth birthday today. And Claire had freshman high school orientation today. So life other than writing is front and center.

That said, I'm still working on that next direction, and I wanted to ground it in a myth or story—a known myth or story. But I don't know which one, and there is a lot of information to sift through.

I started with a high-level look at the Greeks. I could move on to the Romans, but do they have any additional stories (or is it just that the names have changed)?

Where to next? Those wild Etruscans? (Did they have a myth system? Doesn't everyone?) The Norse? (No one leaps to mind there, but it's been a while.)

I'm wishing I had a reverse directory ("I need a goddess who…").

In the meantime, I added a few more poems to the sofa, including a poem that I wrote after the 2006 Sago mining disaster in West Virginia.

Meet Gilbert

Kitty countdown!

This afternoon, a new family member will join our household. In some ways, it's bittersweet. In all the other ways, it's very exciting!