Thursday, July 22, 2010
Three Women and a Bus, and Other Literary Matters
Morning all! Well, both the VIrginia Highlands Festival and the Barter's Appalachian Festival of Plays and Playwrights will be starting in a short time - unbelievably, the Highlands Festival begins this weekend! - and so, as busy as Barter is at all times, it only gets busier now! Meanwhile, the orphan kitty (named Angel) we adopted and have brought back to life, is thriving, happy and, even at his advanced age, he is quite vocal and spry....our two pups have accommodated themselves very nicely to this new brother, and it's stunning to watch dogs and cats lie down together n the same loving lap!
Paul is currently visiting - while Stephen stays in Nashville with his ailing Dad - and it's ,as ever, great to have Paul with us. I miss him so when he is not.
I've begun participating in the summer playwrighting class we offered, taught by Tommy Bryant , and the name of the play I have started is THREE WOMEN AND A BUS, telling the story of a school teacher, a housemaid and a girl in 1960's Atlanta. I am by no means a playwright, and have been in too many good plays to think it is easy to write one, but i am surprised how easily this idea came to me, and so, I've completed two scenes already, and have no idea how to proceed, but shall do so anyway!
Also, in preparation for shipping my 40 years' worth of personal journals to San Francisco (i've been keeping journals for over 40 years of my life!!!) it's been necessary to arrange them first chronologically and then pack them in boxes by decades. In so doing, of course, I've had to stop and read them...or at least portions of them...whatever catches my interest...and i am surprised at how much I wrote and even more stunned at all the moments of my life I have captured already on paper. It's a large body of work, and my dreams of digesting it into book form once I get the time and space in SF, seems so do-able now. THe more i perused the pages of my younger years, the more ideas came flooding into my brain for how to do the books i want to write. And, once again, much as I have been my entire life, I begin to ache to write.
But first, plays to rehearse, personal goods and furniture and stuff to sell and give away...a major move to make...a week long trip to San Francisco for exploration and learning in August...LOTS TO DO !
What great adventures lie ahead of us, and when I calm down and meditate and remember it's all supposed to be FUN, I get very happy and excited about it all...even the seemingly hard parts!
So, if anyone wishes to buy a dining room table and chairs (we have two !!)...or lamps, or a futon, or any number of other things, simply let me know! And we can arrange private showings! Already, we have begun to cleanse our life of objects, and I want to continue! I want San Francisco to be a fresh start!
Paul is currently visiting - while Stephen stays in Nashville with his ailing Dad - and it's ,as ever, great to have Paul with us. I miss him so when he is not.
I've begun participating in the summer playwrighting class we offered, taught by Tommy Bryant , and the name of the play I have started is THREE WOMEN AND A BUS, telling the story of a school teacher, a housemaid and a girl in 1960's Atlanta. I am by no means a playwright, and have been in too many good plays to think it is easy to write one, but i am surprised how easily this idea came to me, and so, I've completed two scenes already, and have no idea how to proceed, but shall do so anyway!
Also, in preparation for shipping my 40 years' worth of personal journals to San Francisco (i've been keeping journals for over 40 years of my life!!!) it's been necessary to arrange them first chronologically and then pack them in boxes by decades. In so doing, of course, I've had to stop and read them...or at least portions of them...whatever catches my interest...and i am surprised at how much I wrote and even more stunned at all the moments of my life I have captured already on paper. It's a large body of work, and my dreams of digesting it into book form once I get the time and space in SF, seems so do-able now. THe more i perused the pages of my younger years, the more ideas came flooding into my brain for how to do the books i want to write. And, once again, much as I have been my entire life, I begin to ache to write.
But first, plays to rehearse, personal goods and furniture and stuff to sell and give away...a major move to make...a week long trip to San Francisco for exploration and learning in August...LOTS TO DO !
What great adventures lie ahead of us, and when I calm down and meditate and remember it's all supposed to be FUN, I get very happy and excited about it all...even the seemingly hard parts!
So, if anyone wishes to buy a dining room table and chairs (we have two !!)...or lamps, or a futon, or any number of other things, simply let me know! And we can arrange private showings! Already, we have begun to cleanse our life of objects, and I want to continue! I want San Francisco to be a fresh start!
Labels: Abingdon to SF
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Hangin' In There
Angel is hangin' in there, and we wait to see if he can make a bowel movement in his litter box! That alone can tell the vets so many things about what truly ails him. SO, c'mon Angel: take a shit! (so far, only urine in the litter box at the vet hospital),
Peter came home from helping our friends load up their moving truck yesterday, and we immediately went over to see Angel , as it seems we both had this deep need to cuddle and care for him I am amazed how this little animal has galvanized these deep deep feelings in both of us: we want to give this sick little creature love, and a sort of physical love, a petting, a caring, that will somehow magically heal him. Of course, we know better, but there was such a communion between Angel and Peter's dear caring hands yesterday, I swear, that cat was feeling that love. It is true - and was obvious to us both - that Angel was feeling much much better than he was feeling the night we took him to the vets: for one thing, they had spent one and a half hours shearing the wilderness of matted hair off him, and though they had not gotten to shearing his skinny little legs yet, he looked so so so much more comfortable yesterday...free of the painful, pulling, rooted matted clumps,,,cleaned of the caked-on feces and other yuckiness - he seemed so much more lively...but oh my god: skinny! SKINNY , skeletally skinny! So skinny , that you can practically see his entire skeleton underneath that freshly shaved hide of his....skin like tissue paper, breathing free of hideous matted hair, tender like a kit's...and he was so glad to see us! (or so it seemed...can one ever truly know what a cat is feeling? but this one seemed very happy and glad to have our loving hands on him).
WE stayed a long time, chatting with the vet techs,...even the one who worked on Angel the night before... and other nurses, such nice women, who love animals so much...they made every possible effort to make our visit with Angel comfortable and fun. And Angel seemed so happy to have us there.
Carol Mask - the caring animal doctor who has taken such interest in Angel - waits to see how he processes food before she releases him to us. If he cannot eliminate stool in a healthy way, and vomits and has diarrhea instead, then that may be an indication that he is too ill to bring home...and we will have some decisions to make.
But we have agreed that the entire point here is to make Angel as comfortable and happy as we possibly can make him , no matter what his prognosis.
We wait to hear how we can most effectively do that.
So, come on Angel: give a shit! Because we sure do!
Peter came home from helping our friends load up their moving truck yesterday, and we immediately went over to see Angel , as it seems we both had this deep need to cuddle and care for him I am amazed how this little animal has galvanized these deep deep feelings in both of us: we want to give this sick little creature love, and a sort of physical love, a petting, a caring, that will somehow magically heal him. Of course, we know better, but there was such a communion between Angel and Peter's dear caring hands yesterday, I swear, that cat was feeling that love. It is true - and was obvious to us both - that Angel was feeling much much better than he was feeling the night we took him to the vets: for one thing, they had spent one and a half hours shearing the wilderness of matted hair off him, and though they had not gotten to shearing his skinny little legs yet, he looked so so so much more comfortable yesterday...free of the painful, pulling, rooted matted clumps,,,cleaned of the caked-on feces and other yuckiness - he seemed so much more lively...but oh my god: skinny! SKINNY , skeletally skinny! So skinny , that you can practically see his entire skeleton underneath that freshly shaved hide of his....skin like tissue paper, breathing free of hideous matted hair, tender like a kit's...and he was so glad to see us! (or so it seemed...can one ever truly know what a cat is feeling? but this one seemed very happy and glad to have our loving hands on him).
WE stayed a long time, chatting with the vet techs,...even the one who worked on Angel the night before... and other nurses, such nice women, who love animals so much...they made every possible effort to make our visit with Angel comfortable and fun. And Angel seemed so happy to have us there.
Carol Mask - the caring animal doctor who has taken such interest in Angel - waits to see how he processes food before she releases him to us. If he cannot eliminate stool in a healthy way, and vomits and has diarrhea instead, then that may be an indication that he is too ill to bring home...and we will have some decisions to make.
But we have agreed that the entire point here is to make Angel as comfortable and happy as we possibly can make him , no matter what his prognosis.
We wait to hear how we can most effectively do that.
So, come on Angel: give a shit! Because we sure do!
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Angel the Cat
Why would he have just come to us, only to depart so quickly? What are the lessons here?
A couple of months ago, a stray black cat roamed into our yard and let its presence be known to me...it looked forlorn , yet still not too road-weary or bedraggled, yet I still fed it a can of tuna fish and gave it a bowl of water...it gobbled it all down and i saw neither hide nor hair of it for two months or so.
Then, yesterday morning, i heard some loud mewing, looked around in our front yard and there it was again, but a shadow of its former self, and this time truly matted, filthy, clearly starving & so dehydrated i could feel its little skeleton through the matted fur...pitiful...it alarmed me, and made me feel so sad...i gave it another can of tuna, which it barely touched, but it did drink the water I gave it...and after that , it sat by our front door and mewed so loudly for attention, the dogs barked at it. I went to work, but not until calling the animal clinic and our vets to see what could be done...they told me they had rules that prevented them from taking n strays, and suggested I call the animal shelter, where ,after a week, they put unclaimed and sick animals down.
I wasn't ging to take the cat there. So I worked all day, went to rehearsal, and came home in the pouring rain, where I found it still on our porch, mewing to be let inside. The tuna can, however, was empty.
I got a large old beach towel and swept the cat up into it, and by then I had taken to calling it Angel, not at all knowing whether it was a boy or girl cat. I took its food and water downstairs, with the cat still wrapped in the towels, and set to wiping the cat dry, and taking the goo out of its eyes with Kleenex....it seemed glad I was doing all that, and seemed to particularly love the rubbing and attention the cleaning brought his poor tired body.
My heart was breaking the entire time...because I knew I couldn't keep it inside our house for too long.
It wouldn't let me touch the matted fur, as it clearly brought it discomfort to touch its large clumps that had made its skin so tender...i can only imagine how uncomfortable it was.
When Peter got home, I had already put it back outside, but finally, seeing how sad I was, Peter said that we should take it to the vet, damn the cost! This cat had come to us for a reason, and we needed to pay attention to it. and so we did. We drove it, wrapped in its towels, over to the animal hospital where Dr.Carol Mask paid immediate attention to our new little orphan. We went back into the exam room with her and the cat, where she right away determined Angel is a boy, certified its dehydrated and starving state, and drew blood for a small panel of tests. She also told us he was an older cat, probably 10 or 12 years old, so we knew we were dealing with a particular set of possibilities: it could be near its end, no matter how we strove to save its life. So, we left Angel with Carol, so he could be sheared clean of its matting, and fed with the right food and meds, and we determined to pick it up today. She called us late last evening to say all seemed to be on track for that pickup.
THen today she told us she wanted to keep Angel for another night to see if he began to have bowel movements, as she had found some hard lumps in his clean shaven tummy and wanted to determine how they would be affecting him: it could be swollen glands, treatable by meds, or something more serious, in which case, we'd never be bringing him home. So that's where we are now: we may have him here tomorrow, or we may not.
And i feel this strong urge to go over to the hospital and and pet him, hold, him, love him. It's so odd.
Why did this little creature come into our lives right now? To remind us that there were more important things to pay attention to than our own anxieties about moving to San Francisco? That other creatures needed us more than our egos needed us? To remind is we do know how to love?
Is Angel the re-incarnation of someone important from a previous lifetime of ours? Why us? Why now?
What is this?
More on Angel and our possible future together soon.
A couple of months ago, a stray black cat roamed into our yard and let its presence be known to me...it looked forlorn , yet still not too road-weary or bedraggled, yet I still fed it a can of tuna fish and gave it a bowl of water...it gobbled it all down and i saw neither hide nor hair of it for two months or so.
Then, yesterday morning, i heard some loud mewing, looked around in our front yard and there it was again, but a shadow of its former self, and this time truly matted, filthy, clearly starving & so dehydrated i could feel its little skeleton through the matted fur...pitiful...it alarmed me, and made me feel so sad...i gave it another can of tuna, which it barely touched, but it did drink the water I gave it...and after that , it sat by our front door and mewed so loudly for attention, the dogs barked at it. I went to work, but not until calling the animal clinic and our vets to see what could be done...they told me they had rules that prevented them from taking n strays, and suggested I call the animal shelter, where ,after a week, they put unclaimed and sick animals down.
I wasn't ging to take the cat there. So I worked all day, went to rehearsal, and came home in the pouring rain, where I found it still on our porch, mewing to be let inside. The tuna can, however, was empty.
I got a large old beach towel and swept the cat up into it, and by then I had taken to calling it Angel, not at all knowing whether it was a boy or girl cat. I took its food and water downstairs, with the cat still wrapped in the towels, and set to wiping the cat dry, and taking the goo out of its eyes with Kleenex....it seemed glad I was doing all that, and seemed to particularly love the rubbing and attention the cleaning brought his poor tired body.
My heart was breaking the entire time...because I knew I couldn't keep it inside our house for too long.
It wouldn't let me touch the matted fur, as it clearly brought it discomfort to touch its large clumps that had made its skin so tender...i can only imagine how uncomfortable it was.
When Peter got home, I had already put it back outside, but finally, seeing how sad I was, Peter said that we should take it to the vet, damn the cost! This cat had come to us for a reason, and we needed to pay attention to it. and so we did. We drove it, wrapped in its towels, over to the animal hospital where Dr.Carol Mask paid immediate attention to our new little orphan. We went back into the exam room with her and the cat, where she right away determined Angel is a boy, certified its dehydrated and starving state, and drew blood for a small panel of tests. She also told us he was an older cat, probably 10 or 12 years old, so we knew we were dealing with a particular set of possibilities: it could be near its end, no matter how we strove to save its life. So, we left Angel with Carol, so he could be sheared clean of its matting, and fed with the right food and meds, and we determined to pick it up today. She called us late last evening to say all seemed to be on track for that pickup.
THen today she told us she wanted to keep Angel for another night to see if he began to have bowel movements, as she had found some hard lumps in his clean shaven tummy and wanted to determine how they would be affecting him: it could be swollen glands, treatable by meds, or something more serious, in which case, we'd never be bringing him home. So that's where we are now: we may have him here tomorrow, or we may not.
And i feel this strong urge to go over to the hospital and and pet him, hold, him, love him. It's so odd.
Why did this little creature come into our lives right now? To remind us that there were more important things to pay attention to than our own anxieties about moving to San Francisco? That other creatures needed us more than our egos needed us? To remind is we do know how to love?
Is Angel the re-incarnation of someone important from a previous lifetime of ours? Why us? Why now?
What is this?
More on Angel and our possible future together soon.
