Chinese Takeout

It's nice when little things can make you smile. Today I went to this little ragged chinese takeout place to get some steamed dumplings to go. The wife, she was yelling at her husband, and he proceeded to get a ladder, while she was pointing at the ceiling, all in chinese.
I watched from my chair, all the while thinking how happy it made me to hear this woman scream in chinese. Just the banter back and forth, the difference between their language and mine. I accidentally caught the angry womans eye while she was yelling, and she blushed- as though she though for a moment I could understand her. How fun to be able to yell obscenities at work with no one to understand you. I don't know what it means, but Broom-broom was one of the words she was yelling. What does 'broom broom' mean?
It made me think of the time my mother dated the chinese pharmacist, and how we'd visit him at the drugstore. Then, I thought about the story she told every time she'd had too much wine.
Once, after going out with the chinese pharmacist, she was at his home and went to use the restroom. When she came out, there he was, sprawled naked, waiting for her. In her drunken French accent, she describes the event, scrunching her thumb and index finger close to try to give a visual of his endowment.
I wonder if it were his poorly endowed manhood that turned my mother off, or the fact that he would be so bold as to do something like that. They would have had beautiful children, I think; and the French and chinese accents in one home would have been strange but good to hear.
Like asian red walls and white lace curtains. I hope my mother doesn't read this.
I won a few used sweaters for Naomi this week on Ebay. As strange as this sounds, sometimes I'll bid $6.16 on an item, because then, after I bid, it asks the next person to bid $6.66. This of course, means nothing to me, but since many pentecostals don't want to have to pay $6.66 for something, I get the item for $6.16. Funny.
I have to go~ much love, kat

Hmmm.

Hmmm. (Hmmm?)
There's the part of me that says,"There's no one in the world that hears me. I say what I wish!"
Then there's the part that says, "What if someone hears me?"
Although I believe I'm less worried about offending someone than boring them. I try not to be offensive, but boring is my human nature, especially when it comes time to blog.
What have I noticed this week? Steven was working late, so I got a chicken pot pie out of the freezer. I don't normally eat chicken pot pies, and so I read the instructions on the back.
MUST BE COOKED THOROUGHLY! It said. It showed a little picture with a meat thermometer sticking out of the center. Cook for "x" time, then check for internal temperature of "x". LOL.
I can't help but think its funny that a seventy cent pot pie would necessitate a meat thermometer, and show the little wee tiny pie with one in the photo. (I know! I wrote the same word in three different forms. You can get away with it in blogging :) ...)
What to do? I did not follow instructions. I took my chances with the pie. So far, so good.
What else is new? Naomi wants a Tether-ball. this is a ball on a string, on a concrete post. They makes little ones for cats, big ones for grown people. Who plays tether ball, you say? I guess soon we will be. The goal is to wind it all the way in your direction, so two people on opposite sides hit it the opposite direction. I don't mind playing unless Steven jumps in. Man becomes boy, and he plays tether ball to win. (ha!) It makes me laugh writing that...
But the ball comes around so fast that you have to step back or get your brains knocked out.
Soon it will be New Year's Day, which is my favorite holiday. I like to make resolutions, and we usually go on some sort of day trip with the kids. Most of the time, an IMAX movie, then a walk.
How can I be better in 2009? I write my goals, wants, needs.
Knowing the difference between a want and a need is always good.
I'm going to watch Wayne Dyer's Power of Intention again.
Being Thankful for the things that can get taken for granted.
This May will be my 13th anniversary! I'm grateful that I married someone so cool :).
My kids are amazing, my best little friends. They are becoming themselves.
My house is a work in progress! (It's a wreck! At the same time, we get to customize it for us...It doesn't need to be perfect. Sometimes the things you love most are the little character things, like a quarter in a concrete porch, or bird shaped knobs at the grandmothers house. You lose your grandmother, then the family comes. They don't want to know about financial gain. They want to unscrew the little knobs off the cabinets and each take home one. They want to have the little knob from the grandmothers kitchen, then, sometimes, they'll take off the brushed nickel matching knob off of one of their own cabinets, and stick the little bird there. Maybe on the cabinet they keep the vitamins, that the kids never use. People relate the vitamin cabinet to old folks, don't they? Even if you have one, it makes you think of older people who had one before you.)
That's what I'm working toward with the house. Not perfect, but full of heart.
Yikes! So really I came out here to blog with nothing so important to say.
Oh! I finished reading Ishmael! But I don't really want to give it back. I'm a BAD book borrower. Part of what I love so much about the book itself is that Steve Bell wrote all his little notes and highlighted it all, and Dr. Bell is (after my own Steven- Lee) the man we admire most in the world. Yup.
We adore & respect him. He's the father my husband strives to be like one day. He's the father not many have. Smart, introspective, funny. He's an old birkenstock wearing Jew-Bu-UU, and his latke's look like black burned sausage patties...but we just love him & his wife Linda too.
So having this book full of little up and down scrawls pleases me. I wonder if he'll notice my keeping it? Where is my integrity... Maybe I shall buy him a new one? Hmmm. I will definitely be thinking on it in my mind and get back with the results! Since he does not read my blog, I'm safe for now :)
Now I'm reading Song of Soloman by Toni Morrison.
Take care. if you've stumbled here by accident,

Welcome to the Kat Lee Reader.

Poetry by Kat Lee
Worst Fear

My worst fear
Would be to lose you.
Spoken of a lover,
The words evoke cheesy desperation.

For man is an island, And he boasts of that.
Cry under the floorboard, lowly broken hearted,
The populous deems a lover less necessary than pride.
Work and tolerance take you up the ladder
Clock out before you get home.
Man is an island.

Spoken of a child,
Frantic, the heart races at the idea of it…

You ate my late night milkshakes
Kicked me in my sleep.
My child…I didn’t carry you,
I grew you like a branch on a tree.
As though I’d detached then given birth to my own arm,
When you aren’t near me,
I wonder where my arm is.

Spoken of the Earth,
Scratch your nose and blink through the telltale lie.
My worst fear is not to lose you.

Man interprets what God says true,
The Earth is not your true home.
Enjoy riches as the coastline blackens,
Then He shall call you back.
Losing you is like saying goodbye
To the last of a breed of marmot you’ve never seen.
Fast fading.
Already gone?

Too bad a Day spent strolling on Earth
Isn’t more like Giving Birth to your own arm…

Round Circle Bubble Cloud

I was looking out the window, there was a cloud, it hung low and funny, like a cartoon version of itself. It hung higher than the pear tree, but lower than the pines behind it. It hung near like the blobs you see that they put the words into in drawings; but it wasn't saying anything. Maybe it was just too far to make it out.
Or maybe it was one of those blobs they put words into, so close to the pear tree. Maybe I just cannot read 'tree'. After a month long drought, maybe the tree says,
"hallelujah."

It's funny, so much of what we think, we don't say. Maybe we say ten percent, maybe its one. And then maybe 95% of what we do say is filler to avoid saying anything important. Maybe most of the stuff spoken is not connected to much thought at all, but mindless chatter to avoid letting people into what we think. That's probably a good thing.
When the old astro van pulled in front of me, my kids didn't hear me say,
"Raggedy Ass Van" or "Nasty fuckers". They might have heard, "Yikes..."
But I thought both of the two previous things, perhaps a wee bit more. (There's really a small margin between the sinister and the compassionate.)
You don't end up in too much trouble of you talk about the weather, or food, or gas mileage. Gardening.
Anything too far beyond that, I choose to just write it down. It's sort of a thought cleansing process that everyone should try. What's on your mind, how did you arrive at that, where does it take you. Because you can start out with one thing and end up somewhere you weren't planning to go.
Today I was running on the treadmill, playing Ray Charles, and I ended up crying and running, and running 20 minutes longer than I'd planned, just because the thought I'd started with took me somewhere else. And the thought was

I only say a tiny bit of what I think. What am I saying when I talk so much?

and that turned into

People make me nervous because I feel I have to earn their approval;
& that makes me exhausted trying to work so hard at it.

Thankfully, the mail truck honked the horn, delivering the roses I'd ordered for fall. I'm glad it's raining, hole digging will be easier. But after purging my mental state in my little blogs and emails, I feel better. The cloud out there- real; hovering 20 feet off the ground. Maybe the fog that was on my head when I was running. Who knows?
Here's to random chatter. May you never tire of mine :)
The girlies have a week off! I should go look up what fun things we could do.

Later! Kat

September

"I tried to call you all day!" he says.
"You have?"
"Yes! Where's your phone?"
"You know, I don't know. Where is my phone?" I'm looking around, thinking it's probably in my bag.
"It must be in my bag."
"You need to find it. Where's your bag?"
"Maybe its in the car." I go outside, and I find my phone, in my bag. Outside. On the couch.
Now, there are a number of things wrong with this. Yep, I left my purse and phone outside all night. That seems like the biggest offense. (It's not. If you're a southerner, you probably already know where I'm headed.) Where I live, chances of rain are slim, and I really don't worry too much about someone stealing my purse.
But when I said the words aloud,
"My phone was in my bag, outside on the couch" I discovered I was one of them. One of those hillbilly people that sticks their old couch outside on the porch. That's right, I have one. In my locale, it's really commonplace to see upholstered furniture hanging around outside. I'm not saying its fashionable, but its commonplace. Especially if their brown and tan plaid with a little wood trim. (Those babies must've been quite the hit!)
Mines tan microfiber, or 'Microsuede', if you're sellin' them. I can also tell you that Microfiber is the next generation of the wagonwheel velour sofa. It's the brown plaid of this decade, and I fell for it. I know I may offend a few people with that comment. If you're sitting on your microfiber sofa right now, don't take any offense. I'm nobody to talk about people hanging on to passe' trends. I'm wearing aqua crocs as we speak! And in the winter, I'll probably still be wearing them, just with socks underneath. Cosy, cosy.
So enjoy the microfiber. But it is on its way out. Apparently, mine already is. On my porch.

I'm so sorry I haven't been keeping up. I'm outside alot, and sometimes I have to drag my ass up here even when I don't feel like it. The new place means new garden beds, and when I get on here, I'm usually on the Rose Ratings site, or something like it.
(That's this - My HMF - Helpmefind.com . It's a plant site where you can review types of plants and see others success or lack of success with a plant, you can also view plant photos. I know it sounds really dull, but say you have room for only two plants. You can type in the name of a rose, and click the photo tab. You will literally see pictures of hundreds of that same species in different yards and zones. Some people read reviews on appliances or cars. I read reviews on plants. The site also tells you where you can buy the ones you want.)
If anyone has a rose called Donau, I'm desperately searching for it. This is my Holy Grail of rose bushes at the moment. Can't find it! That just drives me nuts. So I have slight plant obsession. (I think if you're starting out, Cramoisi Superieur is good. I avoid hybrid teas- antique varieties have a better form.) Let me just move on from the plant talk. I get lost there and end up lingering.

I'm not a drinker. Maybe a margarita on cinqo de mayo, maybe one on New Years, but I have no tolerance for it. But I have to tell ya, If the Democrats win in November, I plan to get drunk and do the victory dance up and down my road. A little disco here (I personally believe that Obama should've made the Bee Gee's Staying Alive his campaign song); maybe the cabbage patch, I think I'll even try a little irish stepping. I believe I'll even be dancing on my lovely porch couch. I'll be dancing where my Baptist neighbors with their Palin sign can see. I'll be dancing in front of my smug self-righteous in-laws on the holidays. I will be giddy whilst their shifty eyes be crying! And I'll be dancing with my kids, banging pots and pans come New Years Eve. (Please vote, everyone, and make my Christmas wish come true.)

If McCain wins, don't call me. I'll be sleeping in til noon the next day. Ugh.
(If you're wondering, my in-laws will not be getting this email.)

I just adore you guys so much! I have to get now, my to-do list is waiting. I hope you all have a sweet, sweet day & know that you can conquer the world with all of your big hearts! I'm pulling for you always, Kat Lee

Jammin

I'm dallying.

Or dilly/dallying, as some would say. And I'm unsure if there should be a slash or a dash there. When in doubt, I go slash for a little added flair...although it's obvious it's not the slash. I'm going with it.

When I was young, my grandmother used to send me home with a case of jelly every year. Not just any jelly, but Elderberry jelly. She was the only person in the world who could create this concoction of tangy bitter jelly, and I was impressed. She made all kinds of things, sweating over boiling pots...I remember her making 'Apple Butter' hanging the boiled apples in a table cloth over a washtub, tied to a leaning chair. She churned her own butter and grew her own corn. I used to wonder how she'd got to cussing the way she did; she seemed hard and tired. A couple years ago, she moved on to the next world and was forever gone to me, along with all her Godly food offerings.

Here I found myself missing her jellies & jams, and decided I was going to try to make them myself. Part of it was the buying of a place with a massive fig tree, spilling over...looming 16-20 feet tall. Learning about figs was my mission, and I soon learned they don't keep. I've learned how to make fig jam! I alternate between pickled fig jam & the old standard jam, and I've made over 50 jars in the last few days.

Could I try Elderberry? Elderberries grow wild, and are free if you don't mind ticks and chiggars. I do mind those things, but Steven and Naomi were up to spending a Sunday out picking berries. The first batch they picked was definitely a learning experience.Granny, if you're out there ~ not so easy!

Elderberries are like teeny tiny grapes, but bitter. First, you have to pick them off the stems with a fork, washing them. Then you boil the berries down. Then you stick a big bowl out there, and put a strainer over it. On top of the strainer, a piece of cloth. You then spoon the boiling stuff onto the cloth. Some say squeeze, some don't. (I have been.)So you jar this purple stuff as your juice. You have to sterilize your jars & keep them hot. You have to boil a giant pot of water. You make you jelly, take out the steaming jars, fill them, stick them in the big boiler, then time them & take them out. The tricky part is you can do all this & it may still not set. (In that case, you reboil it all...)

There's that part of me that says, "Well, I really like the Dickensons Blackberry jelly, and it's $4 at the gro." Then there's this other part. The part where you are working for your food. The part where you know what went into it, and if the Earth is putting it out there, it should be used. I know, I'm boring as hell today!

So Steven & Naomi go berry picking last night. They come back with 4 trashbags full of berries...30 gallons...which have to be processed today. Yikes. Steven said they went a little overboard!

I'm sitting with you instead. I'm dallying. I'm playing here, looking up Littlest Pet Shop toys for the girlies (they lost their tupperware container with the little pets they had in the move! They had over 100!!!) They tell me they need the deer & the giraffe. The zebra. So I am trying to find these things. But it's not what I should be doing.

But where do I begin?

Then the little voice in my head says,

You begin at the beginning.

Sorry I haven't kept up better~Much love & have a cool cool day!!!Kat Lee

The finger pointing to the moon is not the moon.

buddhist saying

Slapping at the Glass

Slapping at the glass. I'm slapping at the glass,
And it's all morning everyday.
The buzzing, it's in my ear,
On my nose.
You'd think I could get it,
On my nose.

Some things you see but you just can't get.
Could be crawling cross my eyelashes,
Buzzing its busy buzzy song to my eye,
a lovesong from its legs to the closest thing on me
Resembling it.

I'm watching and listening to the hum.
Lips tight cause its on my mouth.
I think bout that thing I read
How we eat spiders when we sleep.
You'd think I could get it,
On my mouth.

The jar, a giant jar,
I wear it on my head
It contains several flies...
And my head.
I slap at the glass,
Don't do no good.

4 or 5 I take the jar off.
Sometimes 6 or 7.
I take the jars off and the flies,
They go free,
probably to their little fly houses
in the dirty dishes in the sink.

I find that when they've gone,
I'm still slapping.
Not the glass, but the table.
The wall. Anything that seems like its buzzing.
Just after the nearest thing that seems like
the thing that was on my nose.

Isn't that just how folks are?

Just checking to see if anybody is out there :)

http://www.trauma.org/images/image_library/classic013b.jpg

eye candy for you?

Hmmm, Maybe not! I'm not too sure anyone is actually reading this,
so if you are stumbling across this by accident, the link above may not be for you!
Ouch! But Welcome to my blog :)

"If you light a lamp for somebody, it will also brighten your path."

~ Buddhist saying ~

The Things Dr Oz makes us do

I've been thinking about this for awhile, a long while, but not really discussed it. Here "it" is.
Last year, Dr Oz said,

"If you can read through your pee, you are drinking enough water."

What does this mean exactly? Call me simple minded (it's really okay-I know it already :(. Wasn't it me that went to the Israel Palestine class and ask why the holocaust survivors didn't just get a Hawaiian island? Yikes. So, yep, I know. But I'm learning new things everyday. Bare with me...)

So does this mean that Dr Oz is suggesting we put some sort of reading material in the toilet and pee a top it? And due to the toilet bowl full of water, people are going to be able to read through their urine regardless, won't they? I mean, well, even if you're pee is yellow, it's still going to be clear yellow; like looking through a stained glass window so to speak. :)

Perhaps it was a sly way of getting folks to pee on newspaper as a joke, saying we are all getting enough water anyway? Dr Oz, you dirty boy, I know laughter & visualization are good for your health, but to gets yours this way? Surely not.

Though he didn't mention a toilet or the fact that the clear toilet bowl water would be diluting the pee, so he may have indeed intended for this do be done outside, camp style.

If this is the case, I don't think I'm gonna do it.

But ever since Oprah's doc has repeatedly mention reading through your urine, I've wondered about trying it. When I go to flush, there's a part of my mind that now says,"Could I read through that?"

I'd love to hear about any of your experiences with this. Anybody out there tried it?

Speaking of pee, we went to the IMAX in Chattanooga with the girls Sunday. Sat middle center for Grand Canyon 3D. Shanna & I had to make everyone get up to go potty but it was too late.

The shows before and after were both sold out, so I feel for whoever had to sit in ShannaBelle's seat. Her words were,

"It was just too much water!"

If your spouse is an avid white water kayaker (like Steven) , this'll be right up their alley. It's a paddling video!

Speaking of my man, he's injured again! He was riding a downhill trail and a couple miles in, he tried to jump his tires on these little bumpy places in the trail, and his bike got off trail and flew into a tree. He was wearing a helmet, so he's mentally sound. All his teeth are still in place. This time its bruises & road rash, along with an nasty impalement into his right knee. He's crazy glued it back together and resting it with ice whenever possible.

The limp isn't too bad. I made a joke about the luck of it being the right leg, as he shattered his left ankle during a fall while rock climbing, so it offsets it a bit. He doesn't appreciate my rare form of humour. Also, he wouldn't like me saying "injured again." But if anyone needs info on how long dislocated shoulders or cracked ribs take to heal, you can feel free to email us :)

I wish the extreme sport thing would run its course. Maybe he could take up crossword puzzles. If you know him, then we both know better.

I hope everyone is doing great! Much love to you all & have a cool day ~ Kat

One Folks Turd Be Ten Flies Palace - Kat Lee

My father once told me I never had anything interesting to say. Probably not the worst of what he said during that phone call, but at the time, it made me cry.

I never had anything interesting to say. What if it were true?
What constitutes interesting? How do you get there? Education? Travel? Was this a finger pointing out all the things I lacked in myself, is that why it hit such a nerve? And all the dreams that fall away, afterwards, when you're sitting there with your handful of rocks, what are you saying if you have said nothing interesting? Did Johnny Cougar really sum it up when he said,
"Life goes on, long after the thrill of living goes on?"

Was this 'nothing interesting' based on things like me talking about breakfast cereal, or the candle I bought on sale? The thing I found under the couch?
Maybe the idea that I have nothing interesting to say is not a flaw in me, but a gift. I'm lucky that I can enjoy my cap'n crunch, my $2 candle. Let me be thankful for tiny things in day to day life. One folks turd be ten flies palace.
We aren't here to be interesting. Interesting is a seldom shared point of view.
Interesting is not and never will be a requirement.
Interested is.

There you have it, my quote for the day. For all the uninteresting people who stumble across me today, it's okay. Maybe you feel like a rock today. I know that you're really a geode, sparkly and shiny on the inside.
Spill your guts! (I couldn't resist that one...)

Have a sweet day...kat

ps. can you tell I've spent the afternoon hauling
big ass rocks from one side of my yard to the other?
hence todays rock theme...

Cap'N Crunch

We're running late, I've fixed hair, found socks for everybody, and laced shoes, I'm signing things and looking for homework...Don't forget you have to pay for the yearbook today, she tells me, so I dig for money. On the way out the door, I stop at the coffee maker. Coffee, Toffee nut creamer, a dash of Reddiwhip. The little munchkin opens and like clockwork, the end of the reddiwhip goes into her mouth. I aim it in there, then point to Naomi. She passes.
"We're running late! Are you addicted to coffee?" Hmmm. I do believe that some people are addicted to coffee. My husband is one, knocking out a heaping 6 cups a day- and those are double strength at that. And I know the stories about people having to have the caffeine, yadda, yadda. I'm not addicted to coffee.
I'm addicted to making my bed in the mornings, the same everytime. I'm addicted to buying used furniture on Craigslist, and if it's in some town I've never heard of, even better. (I love old furniture. Love. Not necesarily antique furniture...just quirky used stuff.) I hate matching colors, "berry blue colored walls, orange tile = good. yellow walls orange tile = bad!" but love symmetry. I'm addicted to Larry David's Curb Your Enthusiasm- I adore him...if you haven't seen this show, buy the box set and watch from the beginning. He's magically delicious.

I can get lost watching the turtles in the pond, mainly because you barely see a turtle. You literally have to stand there completely silent unmoving for 5 minutes before one will pop his head up, then it goes back down. Because of the overflow of turtles, this new turtle watching thing could also become addictive.
But no, I'm not addicted to coffee. Nope. It's that Coffee is a laxative and I'm addicted to an easy shit.
(Yikes! I'm getting a little free with my typing. I should probably censor myself better! The other day Steven was reading my blog- you know, the one where I spoke of his, um, package- and he says, "I can't believe you wrote this!" & I tell him it's my private blog, no one reads it.
"It's on the internet, anyone can read it!" but they don't. I feel I'm pretty okay to purge my thoughts. They really aren't that interesting. And if people start from the beginning, my really suckie poetry would have made them click me gone anyhow)
Isn't a blog just a diary? I should be painting instead.
The amish guy is supposed to be here today to finish the tile. How much of a people pleaser am I? So much so, when I hear the amish guy pull up in the drive, I turn the tv off. Makes me look more...amish? How ridiculous is that? ha.
I'm almost out of Cap'N Crunch Berries. This morning I was eating my CrunchBerries, and I knew I wanted to write about it. There's something very cool about abbreviating Captain to Cap'n. I'm rambling. I'd better go do something constructive with my day.
Much love, yours truly :)

A little romance for ya...

So Steven came home for lunch. Well really, he had to adjust prices in his new catalogue, but it was lunch time. It was unusually cold today, and I was hugging him from behind with my hands warming under his shirts. To warm them further, I stick them in his pants, and I'm standing there with his package in my hands. He's letting me get away with it while he's standing there reading over his work stuff, until I say,
"Wouldn't it be wild if you didn't have any arms and everytime you had to go to the restroom, I had to go with you? And then we'd stand in the stalls like this, next to folks, with my hands helping out? And then, when you were done, I'd get to give it a little shake? Hee, hee!" Shaking it, to help him see my vision, you know.
Then he ended my handwarming, unapreciative of my romantic humour.
"Wait! You're ruining the romance!" I say. He tells me he has to get to work, but I want to chase him in circles and smell him because he smells fantastic.
"You're not very romantic," I say.
"How bout I cut both my arms off, because that would be romantic." No sense of humour.

He'd better watch it, I may have to piss & flush 3 times next time he showers...
Oh!
But this Sunday is our wedding anniversary-
Happy 12 years to us! And happy spring to you. Have a sweet sweet day :)

Morning!

Laughter is the sun that drives winter from the human face.-- Victor Hugo

Stuff I'm thinking about

I'm thinking about painting a new painting. Something where two officers are looking at an accident with a car in flames, and one says to the other,
"My God! What happened here?"
and the other one says, "I hear she was trying to unwrap a twizzlers when it happened." and then hang a little skeletal arm out the window with a red licorice.
I'm thinking about the French film I watched this morning, L'Auberge Espanole?
I'm thinking about that boy on American Idol, the little one that darts his tongue out like a little lizard and makes me laugh. But I like him, but also I giggle a little and wait for it, then more giggling.
I'm thinking about stupid stuff today. Like Steven throwing the coffee maker out, the one that was a gift from my sister. The water leaked down the counter from it every time it brewed, and it created a coffee full of floaters. Blech, they were reminiscent of when you get flour out and try to make something, then look down and realize the flour had those little flour insects in it and you weren't paying attention.
I'm thinking of how our bathroom still doesn't have a door on it, and how we're ready for the tile downstairs now, we just don't have the funds for it.
I'm thinking about the dog barking and how it's making me crazy. I'm thinking about how I already thawed chicken for supper, but now I don't really want to cook? Perhaps I should throw it to the dog and I could solve two problems at once, hee hee.
I'm thinking how awesome a day it is. Much love, Kat

cat & rats & animals, but no unicorns.

"Is that the right time? It couldn't be," she said, staring at the jeep time.
"No, you have to subtract six hours,"
"And add twenty minutes," my nine year old chimed in...
"Technically, you add 23 minutes, but we just round the number to the closest ten." I said.

My mother looked at me, one of those 'Where did you come from?' looks. She came by this past weekend.
"I brought you a book on sewing!" I thumbed through the book, hundreds of pages of diagrams and black & white photos, women in aprons they made, classic 50's or 60's. Smocking photos.
"Look! It even shows you how to do the smocking," she says. I study the pages. Algebra. Geometry. Some foreign language for sure.
"I can't read it," I tell her. I marvel that anyone can. That sort of brain is to be envied for sure, when in comparison I fumble. Are you one of those people?
Lap it up like a kitten at a milk puddle, lap it up then sweat it out your pores? Lap it up and sweat it out; like a song that resonates, but for some folks complex processes as well.

I may make no sense this morning. I know, I just wrote a couple days ago. What's up??? I ran three miles yesterday, maybe I took a sudden surge of oxygen to the brain. Maybe I just have all my hens in a row. Or is it chicks in a row. Ducks in a row? A row of something, for sure.
I am all of hen and chicks, kittens and milk this morning. Too sweet. I should've just summarized my wee blog into a poem. I think it might have had kittens and chickens, or lapping milk and smocking silk, or, um, it would just been really really bad. So let's move on.
I saw that someone smashed D's mailbox while driving this morning. Internally I laughed. (Nobody can be kind all the time.) D is my husband's friend, although he hasn't come round to see him lately; Steven didn't pee in a condom for the drug test he was taking. And that's what real friends do, of course. Ha, ha, D, I know about you & your buddy, picking up "crack whores" (his term, not mine) videotaping strung out women, desperate ones doing deperate things, laughing. I know and you don't know I know. I guess you'll have to fix that box or get your porn at mommy's house again. Whoo! I'm terrible. So much for the kittens. Let's move on again.
"We have a hawk," It flies, circling over our yard daily.
"What? Where?" Steven looks around.
"There!" I point up and Steven studies the bird.
"Turkey Vulture," he tells me.
A week later, I point to the hawk again.
"Look!"
"Turkey vulture." Turkey vulture doesn't sound quite as exciting as hawk, though.

No company yet. I guess I'm going to go eat some cereal, run on the treadmill, do some laundry. Thanks for being so cool! Here's to finding inspiration in the little nonsense things of daily life. yt, Kat

company

I got up from the table today, finally able to put my book down, finally, because I'd finished it. The last two pages had me crying- crying fat tears, and then I realized that I wasn't home alone. the girls are out of school for MLK day, so I wiped away my tears and decided I'd better tend to them before they ransack the fridge, emptying a new jar of pickles, pack of yogurts, or trying to pour juice into cups, leaving a sticky orange trail as they have before when I was previously a hostage of a good book.
The book was Cormac McCarthy's The Road. Two thumbs and all the other finger and toes up. I stumbled through in the beginning, not used to dark of it, but you know how it is when you get so involved, you just want to get to the outcome...
I'm to have company this week. My father called to wish me happy birthday (two weeks early) he's coming down, he said. What day? I don't know, he said. (LOL, can you tell I've been reading CMcC?) There's the part of me that is anxious about it- I haven't seen him in a couple years, and back then I played host to the large male equivalent of Debbie Downer,
Get me some Ice Water! You call this ice water? I stood peeling mangoes, biting my tongue. I could peel a mango twice as fast, he shouts, and there'd be twice as much mango left!
My mind says, "Then why don't you" but my mouth says nothing.
I know I'm coming across ungrateful, maybe ruthless. I'm venting. There was a time my mother sat in the hospital with me, just born, pleading that my father sign my birth certificate.
He told her it didn't matter, I was a girl, I'd get married anyway. I never lived with this man, and my mother, too afraid too ask for child support, raised me off of Denney's tips. And we were happy, life was good, it was enough.
How could you have such bad judgement? I asked her this week. This guy is coming over, claiming he's my father. I have to cater to him, to be kind. Why did you choose him to be my father?
My mother, in her New Age Reincarnation fashion, says what I knew was coming.
"Why did you choose him to be your father? Because you chose him long before I did."
And my response, easy, same as always,
"I didn't choose him to be my father. I chose you. You to be both my mother and father." because it was enough.

Yikes. Am I getting too deep here?

So I'll be catering to my father one day this week, who knows which one. Not Steve Bell, my imaginary father, but the real deal. The love and lightness in the air will turn stagnant and abrasive, abrasive like cracked heels on satin, and I'll lie awake thinking what I can do better, what I can do that won't be picked apart.

I filled the bird feeders with sunflower seeds, it was all I had, then a little titmouse flew up on the balcony, his beak black like the sunflower shell, making him look like he had a tiny duck bill.
He cocked his little head, as to say, What are you doing in there? Flew away again to a nearby tree, scraping the shell on the bark to crack it open. A redheaded woodpecker on the feeder, doing the same.
I read a thing about the writer's strike, but I haven't noticed it yet. Mostly I only watch the Sundance channel, and everything off of the TiVo list. Better, because a one hour show becomes 35 minutes when you fastforward the commercials. The only downside is that you never know what new movies are coming out.
The writers want more money I guess. They are getting canned because the season won't open in time? Is writing what they love? How does that feel, to do something you love and get paid insane amounts of money for it? I've a feeling for that money, anyone could write a pilot. (Come over. Give me a page length & a week. Hee hee.)
The writers are lucky, they are folks like me and you, in the right place, at the right time. They maybe ordered a sandwich next to someone who knew someone else. Sometimes I watch tv and think the well's run dry. (Not you, Larry David, you're well runneth over!)
I'm not in the right place, at the right time- for that. I'm in the right place for me. And I hear my girls laughing, the little one's face covered with lilac lip gloss. Funny. I mailed out another manuscript.
I showered. I spit in the shower. Is that disgusting? And then, after I spit, I thought about my nephew once saying that if you pee in the shower it will cure athlete's foot. His friend told him that.
I did not pee. But I did wonder if you tell someone that, does it mean you've done it? Did his saying that mean he pees in the shower? But it can't, because that would mean that I, too, am a shower pee-er for writing it down, and I'm not. Because I'd tell ya. :)
I'm going to go put the clothes in the dryer, maybe eat a piece of cheese. The dogs are barking. I hope there's no one here. Deep breath.
I've been missing you all. Love, love, love, love love, kat