Not gone for good!

I just took a blogging vacation I guess. I've been busy with starting a new job and haven't posted in awhile. I don't have much to say right now. The job is good and I think it's going to work out well. It's been VERY hot here the last few days. I'm wondering again why I moved here knowing how hot it gets!  Anyway I thought I'd share my little um, adventure yesterday.

I'm sure I've mentioned I have cats right? While I dearly love both of them, Pippin is my baby. He's also a horrible throw-up cat. Since he was a kitten he has routinely vomited sometimes 1-2/week, sometimes only 1-2 a month. I know, kind of a gross subject but it's necessary to the story. Saturday he threw up and I wasn't worried since it's normal. But usually he'll eat again and be fine. Well this time he didn't. He refused to eat anything the rest of the night. At 6:00 am Sunday I was up cooking turkey for him and he wouldn't eat that. By then I was more than a little worried. Then he drank a little water and threw up. Being something of a hypochondriac, I tend to worry a lot so I called an emergency vet clinic. To be safe they recommended bringing him in. So I shoved him into a cat carrier and listened to him cry the entire 10-minute ride to the clinic. A recommendation for anyone looking for a vet in Sacramento - I went to the Mueller Pet Medical Center and they were wonderful. The assistant and vet that we saw were both great with Pippin, explained things well, seemed completely competent and were (extremely important) very reassuring to a worried cat mother!

The vet said it was probably a stomach upset and Pippin & I came home and I sat and stared at him the rest of the day. Actually I cooked more turkey, some meat and then handfed him cat food all of which he kept down. He seems fully recovered now and is happily sitting in the window breathing in the hot air. He does keep looking at me expectantly. I think he wants more turkey instead of cat food. Did I mention he's a little spoiled? Not really a day I want to repeat but at least he's fine now!

Musical Monday

Silent Sunday

This is my favorite picture of my Dad and me. It was taken in late 1958 or early 1959 in New York.

Happy Father's Day!

I'm Thankful

My blogging friend Andrea had an A-Z list of things to be thankful for on her site and I thought it was a neat idea so I borrowed it! Before I start my list I'll share the thing that I'm most thankful for today: I have a job!!! I'm very excited! I had my second interview last week and they called today to offer me the job and I start on Monday. I'm going to be the Office Manager for a non-profit organization that promotes solar cooking. It's a pretty cool organization and I love what they do and am excited about being part of their work. It's also very cool that it's located 3 blocks from where I live! I've never worked so close to where I live - I'll get to walk to work every day which is wonderful! So onto the other things I'm thankful for!

Anne of the Thousand Days (my favorite movie)
Bead Journal Project
Cindy & Coleen (my sisters)
Dad
Embroidery
Flowers
Glasses (cause I don't see well without them)
History
Iphone
Jill (my daughter)
Kiko (my sister-in-law & friend)
Libraries
Mellifera (my cat)
Needles
Orange Juice
Pippin (my cat)
Quiet
Reading
Stephen (my brother)
Time
Unicorns
Velvet
Walking
Xerox (cause it's fun to make copies & x words are hard)
You - everyone who reads my blog!
Zig-zag (it's easier than straight lines)

Musical Monday

 

Silent Sunday

A Poem for Today

The Seven Of Pentacles

Under a sky the color of pea soup
she is looking at her work growing away there
actively, thickly like grapevines or pole beans
as things grow in the real world, slowly enough.
If you tend them properly, if you mulch, if you water,
if you provide birds that eat insects a home and winter food,
if the sun shines and you pick off caterpillars,
if the praying mantis comes and the ladybugs and the bees,
then the plants flourish, but at their own internal clock.

Connections are made slowly, sometimes they grow underground.
You cannot tell always by looking what is happening.
More than half the tree is spread out in the soil under your feet.
Penetrate quietly as the earthworm that blows no trumpet.
Fight persistently as the creeper that brings down the tree.
Spread like the squash plant that overruns the garden.
Gnaw in the dark and use the sun to make sugar.

Weave real connections, create real nodes, build real houses.
Live a life you can endure: Make love that is loving.
Keep tangling and interweaving and taking more in,
a thicket and bramble wilderness to the outside but to us
interconnected with rabbit runs and burrows and lairs.

Live as if you liked yourself, and it may happen:
reach out, keep reaching out, keep bringing in.
This is how we are going to live for a long time: not always,
for every gardener knows that after the digging, after
the planting,
after the long season of tending and growth, the harvest comes.

Marge Piercy

Not much to say

I haven't posted in a couple of days so thought I'd share this picture. It's windy here this morning and on my walk I attempted to take a picture of some flowers but you can see that the wind wasn't cooperating!

I had a second interview yesterday for a job I'd really like to get. I should know by next Tuesday. I'm trying not to get too excited but I'd really like this and felt the interview went well. Other than that I'm sending out resumes and working on a couple of birthday gifts for my daughter. She and her boyfriend & a friend are supposed to come visit this weekend so that will be nice.

Not much else to say - overall my life feels kind of slow right now - I haven't even been to the library in a week or so!

It's a Book

I love this video! It's a trailer for a book by Lane Smith called (duh) It's a Book that comes out in August. I do love social media. I love blogging, tweeting, I adore my iPhone and have withdrawal symptoms when I'm away from my computer. More than that though, I love books and reading. I'd give up my computer and phone before I'd stop reading books. I don't think reading is something I do, it's who I am. Asking if I read (which I've been asked) is like asking if I breath. Anyway. . . I thought this was neat & I want to get the book when it's released! The reading level is ages 9-12 but hopefully I can handle it.

Musical Monday

Silent Sunday

An Invitation

I have another blog that is a journal of my eating & exercise. Until today it's been restricted so that only a few people could read. For a number of reasons, I've decided not to keep it private any longer. You're invited to read, comment, threaten, encourage, laugh. Whatever. We all have things that are hard for us to deal with & food is one of mine. I'm trying everyday to eat better and exercise and I'd appreciate all the support I can get!

The blog is called And Again and you can click on the name to view it. The title is from a little book I found a number of years ago in a used bookstore. Called Always We Begin Again, it's about the Benedictine way of living. It reminds me that everyday is another chance to start again no matter what happened yesterday.

One of the reasons I decided to share this is because of something I read. While I won't go into that now partly because I'm still feeling kind of emotional, what it comes down to is it made me realize that everyone does have problems and things that are hard to deal with. Even people whose lives may look perfect have the same kind of struggles. I've had this idea for years that I could hide being overweight. Ok, I never said I was particularly rational! But it's the idea that if I don't say I have a problem, there is no problem. While I'm better than I was a few years ago, I still have a long way to go. One of the things I've (partially) learned is that support is crucial. I've had tremendous support from a small group of people who I can't thank enough. But I really need all the help I can get! So take a look if you have time and please comment if you feel like it. Thanks!

Poetry Day

Charles Bukowski is one of my favorite poets. His poems are generally pretty straight-forward, often raw and sometimes scary. I like a lot of different poetry and can be nauseatingly fond of overly romantic stuff at times. But in a way other poetry doesn't, his speaks to me. It occasionally worries me that many of the poems that hit home hardest for me were written by a slightly mad, alcoholic lecher. Then again, of the people I like best many are slightly mad. A few drink more than they should and one or two are probably lechers, so I guess it isn't surprising!

Nobody But You

nobody can save you but
yourself.
you will be put again and again
into nearly impossible
situations.
they will attempt again and again
through subterfuge, guise and
force
to make you submit, quit and/or die quietly
inside.

nobody can save you but
yourself
and it will be easy enough to fail
so very easily
but don’t, don’t, don’t.
just watch them.
listen to them.
do you want to be like that?
a faceless, mindless, heartless
being?
do you want to experience
death before death?

nobody can save you but
yourself
and you’re worth saving.
it’s a war not easily won
but if anything is worth winning then
this is it.
think about it.
think about saving your self.

Charles Bukowski

Mellifera

A couple of weeks ago I posted about one of my cats, Pippin. I've been meaning to share a couple of pictures about my other cat and am finally getting around to it. Mellifera (her name is from Greek and means honey-bearing) makes me think of that old nursery rhyme about the little girl with the curl, when she was good she was very, very good and when she was bad she was horrid.

She can be the sweetest, lovingest cat in the world. She'll curl up in my arms and give me kisses and reach her paw up and gently pat my cheek. Then she'll sit on the couch next to me and hiss and scratch me if I move or turn the page of my book! I'm a little prejudiced but I think she's a really beautiful cat and deserves her own blog post!

Summer?

Well it isn't quite summer but it has been hot today! I did walk this morning, mostly on streets with lots of shady trees. The sad thing is this isn't really that hot a day. Last summer I was in Sacramento for a few days when it was about 110. Now why did I move here??? Ah well. Nights are nice though. I'm a night person and I love summer nights when you can sit outside and it's cool and still. Hmm, maybe I'll sit on my patio tonight and read for awhile. The cats would like that! The other thing I like doing is going for a drive late at night in the summer with all the windows down and Johnny Cash in the CD player! Well maybe summer won't be so bad. . .

May Wrap-Up

Well I didn't blog everyday so I'm feeling a little disheartened about that. I think I'm going to wait a few months before I attempt the blog everyday challenge again. I'm feeling kind of overwhelmed with life right now and don't want to make that commitment.

I read 15 books and went to the library 6 times in May. Four of those were new library visits so I'm making great progress on visiting all the libraries!

Almost French - Sarah Turnbull
A Thousand Days in Venice - Marlena De Blasi
The Case Has Altered - Martha Grimes
A Thousand Days in Tuscany - Marlena De Blasi
The Old Wine Shades - Martha Grimes
The Winds of Change - Martha Grimes
Dust - Martha Grimes
On My Own - Florence Falk
The Library: An Illustrated History - Stuart A.P. Murray
Deception - Jonathan Kellerman
The Blue Last - Martha Grimes
Lion of Ireland - Morgan Llywelyn
The Lamorna Wink - Martha Grimes
The Grave Maurice - Martha Grimes
Ruined By Reading - Lynne Sharon Schwartz