ONE CANNOT GO FORWARD SOMETIMES

 3 of  #100

9:59 a.m. 

Start with Boz Scaggs singing Skylark. A good place to start or end at any time.

Nina is still trying to get through the barely-cracked-open window. Once they have been fed, I have brewed my espresso, and sat down at the desk, they are all trying to get in a pretty small space. Having thrown Fox down a bit ago, he is behind me on the floor making the occasional mournful miao, As usual, McCoy is late to the party and has just arrived to see if he can't succeed where Nina failed.

When I got these kitties, I was very stressed about the Floyd murder and everything else going on. I listened to a lot of Nina Simone, particularly Young, Gifted, and Black, and Mississippi Goddamn. Nina is named for Nina Simone. She certainly shares that "don't mess with me" vibe. McCoy is named for McCoy Tyner, pianist with the John Coltrane Quintet as well as his solo work. I likes me some mid-60s jazz piano. Could have named him for Wynton Kelly, but as Tyner had recently died I went that way. Also, given my ridiculous and somewhat regrettable penchant for pottery, it had the secondary meaning of McCoy pottery.

Fox was named so because of his fluffy coloring as well as being the first male to be inducted into the household, thus Fox in the Henhouse.

It's an overcast and lightly windy day (is there a word for between breezy and windy?). Here's what I look at. Another mess. That bougainvillea is planning to take over the world. You can't really see the many artichokes as they are blocked by the tangelo tree that is competing with the bougainvillea and the damned passion fruit. I think of that conglomerated tangle as the green monster. Getting a good trim on that is high on the priority list, however, I am still paying off the work I had done on the library (electrical and the beautiful bookcases).

THE PASS

Even in climes

without snow

one cannot go

forward sometimes

Things test you.

You are part of

the Donners or

part of the rescue:

a muleteer in

earflaps; a

formerly hearty

Midwestern farmer

Perhaps. Both

parties trapped

within sight

of the pass.

— Kay Ryan, The Best of It: New and Selected Poems, New York, Grove Press, 2010

8:44 p.m.

I have to take a bunch of books I haven't finished back to the library, but I had to dip in here to note that McCoy has the bladder of a human. I don't think of him as a large kitty, but maybe I am still seeing him through Baby Mama eyes. Rather impressive if you don't have to clean up after him.

11:42 p.m.

Books returned. There were many I had not even cracked. I did start Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory, Kent State: Four Dead in Ohio,  A Square Meal: A Culinary History of the Great Depression, and Higher Ground: Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Curtis Mayfield, and the Rise and Fall of American Soul, but did not get too much reading traction in any of them. Race and Reunion is fascinating but a hard read. A Square Meal is quite interesting. I will likely go back to a few of them.

Not much of a day for meditating and contemplating. I woke up on the late side. Janet's friends came over to play dominoes. Three of them are eager to have me teach them yoga, so, as they were here early, we had an impromtu meeting about it. I agreed to start next Tuesday, which gives me ample time to prepare a 30-minute class and have my first cortisone shot in the crappy knee. 

I finally got around to having an eye examination and ordering new glasses as I broke the last good pair. I find it unjust that those of us who have terrible version and require complicated prescriptions have to pay so much. Even with a discount afforded by my health insurance, my new pair cost me $320. I still need a pair of reading glasses to the tune of $380 and my cool sunglasses need new lenses that will be another $350. Just wrong.

I think sleep is in order. I often say that. Maybe the elusive Idrisse will sleep with me again.