Black Cat Family

From left: A wine bottle, a wooden bookend, a soap dispenser, and a toilet-brush holder.

Books and plants and cats

I remember back in 1991, after a bad breakup with my first girlfriend, I had, after years of living in apartment complexes, just moved into a rickety duplex on Rainey Street in Austin (now a concrete high-rise and bar hub, but then a series of 1930s wooden homes in a neighborhood) and wrote in my diary (no blogs then, just paper): "I want to be surrounded by books and plants and cats." As it turned out, my very first cat, Frances, disappeared within months after I moved in. And two other cats (Frances' kitten Toonces and a later "Christmas gift," Katie) were run over by cars speeding through the neighborhood. Katie, I found dead in my front yard when I came home from work; Toonces was killed in front of my eyes as I called her to me one morning. (Both Katie and Toonces I buried behind my house; their graves long since torn up for bars.)

I left the Rainey Street duplex to go to grad school at San Francisco State in 1993. Months before I left, a stray cat that I named "Big Sandy" had adopted me. When I left for grad school, I took Big Sandy to my brother's house, across town, asking that he look after him and offering to pay for cat food. A few months later, I got a letter in San Francisco, saying that Big Sandy had died of feline leukemia. (I believed it at the time. Today, though: I don't think my brother and his then-girlfriend/now-wife wanted Sandy around. I think they had him euthanized.)

All of this... I still want to be surrounded by books and plants and cats. Books, though, never change anything. And plants certainly don't. I don't think you are truly blessed unless you have a cat in your home. Thank you, Henny. (Below are pictures of some sort of beauty and meaning that I was struggling for in the meantime: "Look at me! I have a sense of lit'rature and/or knick-knacks...")

I like my office.

Going in to the office today was part of a good day: Woke up at 6:30am on a Saturday, got grocery shopping done, did cleaning chores, did 4 hours of office work, came home and did more chores (like necessarily vacuuming for the first time in months). I felt very productive. (p.s. The big pot o' dirt in the second picture is from a dead plant that had been sitting around the office for years. Because the planter happened to match my guest chair and the pattern of my rug, I finally threw out the dead plant and dragged the planter into my office. One day soon, I will bring in a fresh plant and plant light and grow something both lovely and hardy.)

Coming up: Game 7: Spurs vs. Nuggets

Woke up today really looking forward to the shortly upcoming Game 7 (Round 1 of playoffs) between the San Antonio Spurs and Denver Nuggets. (Nuggets wouldn't scare me at all, except for that amazing Jokic!) I still like football (Cowboys) best, but the Spurs are my second-favorite professional team, and the only that I've ever seen in person in an actual Finals series game: Spurs vs. Knicks in 1999 (Spurs won series).

Kitten Diary

Kittens are 3 weeks old today!

Timeline: Born in the middle of a rainstorm Saturday, April 6, in my next-door apartment neighbor's backyard. Around dinnertime that late afternoon--in a break from the rain--Henny (after not showing up for dinner on Friday) finally answers my calls, and I'm able to see where she's huddling (and shivering) with her babies (which at the time just look like two rather than the three they turned out to be). Right then, the neighbor, not seeing the kittens or me, lets his dog out into the yard. Luckily, "Yahtzee" (I later found out) was kindly... AND scared of the miserable cat hissing and yowling at her so fiercely! I run over to my neighbor's front door (where, I'm ashamed to say, I'd usually only gone to complain about his loud stereo) and quickly explain that a stray cat I'd been feeding had just had her babies in his backyard, and could he please hold back his dog... He (Nick) was SO nice and solicitous. In the next day, he puts a tarp over the corner where she's had her babies, plus leaves food out for her.

Sunday, April 7: More rain. And Henny irrationally (well, weather-wise irrationally, but probably, in her mind, to avoid the activity in the neighbor's yard with the set-up of tarp and all) moves her babies to the fenced-in air-conditioning-unit area between my neighbor's yard and mine. Where she's no longer protected from the rain. She and babies continue to get drenched. When I lure her to my yard with her usual food, she comes by herself, and is shaking while she eats. But when I attempt to climb over the low fence and scoop her babies up into a box I was carrying, she rushes over the fence (right past my face) with a yowl/growl. I back off.

Monday, April 8: Home from work, where I'd been pondering all day how to bring those kittens into my apartment without getting my face mauled! (Especially since I knew the next day, Tuesday, was leaf-blower day at my complex. Those guys would either spray debris randomly into the kittens' faces without seeing them, or else see them and do something stupid with them. In either case, the noise would be scary as hell for them.) Since Henny had often sassily liked to come into my kitchen whenever I left the sliding-glass door open as I prepared her dinner, this time, I fixed her food and set the dish about 20 feet inside---AFTER already setting my "kitten box" outside on the air-conditioner. Her reflexes had been super-quick the day before, so I didn't know if this would work. But... The second she started eating, I quickly stepped outside and closed the sliding-glass door behind me! Heh-heh-heh. She was now trapped inside with her food. In a few seconds, I snatched up all three babies, put them in the box, and carried all back inside, again quickly shutting the glass door. Henny immediately fussed at me, of course. And the second I set the box with babies down, she immediately grabbed one by the scruff of its neck and hauled him to the door. "Nope," I said. And, amazingly, she brought him right back to the box and jumped in after him! Here are Henny and her three 2-day-old babies that evening:

Wednesday, April 10: When I wake up for work that morning, the first thing I do is check the box --- babies are gone! I immediately ask Henny (because she's a weird little cat): "Where are your babies? Did you eat them?" No answer. But her belly didn't look suspiciously fat. Based on the last time I had a mama-cat who had kittens in my house (1990 or so), I checked under my bed: There they were! After that, I pretty much left them alone. Although I did get worried when Henny nearly completely disappeared Thursday the 11th; I think I saw her maybe twice all day, when she came out to eat. By the 12th, though, she had recuperated enough to come out not just for food but also to come over to me and say "hi." We see each other probably 6-8 times a day when I'm not at work.

For the next couple of weeks, I didn't bug them. One reason: I'm too old and creaky to get down on my belly on a hardwood floor in order to check under my bed! Plus, I didn't have a flashlight and couldn't see anything anyway. But an animal-lover at work convinced me that I needed to see what was going on and gave me a flashlight. First check was still just three little squirmers all nestled together with eyes only half-opened. But when I checked again on April 23, the three babies were walking around in completely separate areas under the bed, with eyes fully open and looking startled at the light shining on them!

Just yesterday, April 26, I tucked up the dust-ruffle of the bed. Previously, the ruffle had extended only about 2 inches above the floor, leaving the babies in semi-darkness most of the time. With the ruffle tucked up, there's nearly a foot of light all the way around, and the babies get a much better idea of what's going on in the outside world (i.e., what that tall creature is doing out there---I feel guilty every time I blow-dry my hair in the en-suite bathroom every morning!).

I'm no kitten expert, but I kind of thought that they'd have ventured out beyond the bed by this point. Today, April 27, I took a few more pictures on the kittens' 3rd-week anniversary. One is of Mama Henny at my feet, and the next is of a suspicious Mama Henny as I stuck the camera under the bed to see what the kittens were doing!

Can't wait for them to come out to play with me! Though the next step of this journey will be sad: Obviously, I can't keep four cats. I plan on keeping Henny and one of the kittens. The choosing, and then taking the other two to a no-kill shelter, will be depressing.

Tammy Wynette - Crying Steel Guitar (1974)

George Jones - Bring On The Clowns (1975)

Come all you merry makers

You wine drinkers and heart breakers
Pass me the bottle one more round
Come all of you love takers
All you cheaters and lie makers
Fill me with happiness and bring on the clowns.

There's a place around the corner and I can't wait to go
I can't stay away from there when I'm feeling low
Running from my problems, cheating on my wife
Acting like a hobo, running out on life.
Laughin' loud, telling jokes, drinking too much wine
Gathered 'round the table we're all one of a kind.

So come all you merry makers
You wine drinkers and heart breakers
Pass me the bottle one more round
Come all of you love takers
All you cheaters and lie makers
Fill me with happiness and bring on the clowns.

I thought that I was happy till I saw you walkin' in
And through the loud and noisy crowd you reach out your hand
I know I shouldn't be here, I really don't belong
I'm proud that you still love me and you wanna take me home.

Goodbye you merry makers
You wine drinkers and heart breakers
I'll be gone when the bottle passes 'round
Goodbye you love takers
All you cheaters and lie makers
You'll never miss me when you bring on the clowns.

'Cause I'll be with my baby when you bring on the clowns

Writer(s): G. JONES, B. SHERRILL, T. WYNETTE

George Jones - When The Wife Runs Off With Another Man (1969)

"I've lost so much weight from living on hate..."

George Jones & Tammy Wynette - THE GREAT DIVIDE (1972)

Addicted

Today around 2pm, after doing AM cleaning and getting in some overtime at the office, I drove miles out of my way to get a KFC box and picked up a six-pack, then came home expecting to be able to relax in front of the TV with my KFC and beer as I watched a marathon of NBA playoffs... Only to find that my TV wasn't working.

Sometimes I get home and my apartment complex has had an electric surge that caused the cable box to go out and so I have to re-set it and the TV via the remote. (Or else the cable just messes up by itself, and I have to manually re-set the box that controls both the cable TV and the Internet service.)

This time, though, the TV just wasn't working. Its red light was on and blinking when I clicked on the remote, indicating that it was receiving electricity and signals from the remote. But the screen remained completely black.

I didn't "panic," just felt utterly defeated. I had REALLY been looking forward to eating my KFC box while watching basketball playoffs! I checked all the connections, then re-set the cable box and waited the 11 minutes or so for it to re-boot... I was trying to save the KFC, but gave up and gulped it down sans pleasure while I watched the numbers on the cable box count down as it re-booted...

At the end of the KFC and the re-boot, still nothing from the TV, except the red light indicating that it was, indeed, getting electricity. Fuck. I'd just bought the thing in December. But online, from Amazon. Did it have a warranty? How I was going to lug the big-ass thing into whatever store it came from? A couple of years ago at this same apartment complex, a severe electric storm blew out a TV that I'd also only recently purchased. I wrote that one off as a loss, but a SECOND one?? And what was I supposed to watch now? I have a smaller TV in the bedroom, but I spend most of my life in the living room (including going to sleep on the living-room couch while watching TV)...Was I going to have to now figure out how to disconnect the bedroom TV and move it to the living room? (Which I could probably NOT figure out; I'd have to pay someone to do it.)

I finally thought to just unplug the main living-room TV from the electrical outlet and re-plug it. It then "miraculously" sorted itself out and came on. After much angst!

Yeah, yeah: "First-World Problem." But I happen to have been born and raised within the "First World," and so it was an actual problem! Well, actually, my relationship with TV has not always been so powerful. Born in '65, my family had a black-and-white TV with only the three major networks up until about 1972. In '72, some workmen came into our home and carted off that old TV; my parents pretended that we were getting rid of our only TV. I started crying, only to see the same worker-guys bringing in... a new color TV! 1972 through 1983, when I left home to go to college, there was that same color TV and the same network channels, but with a few extras, like PBS and one or two random channels that showed wrestling on Saturday nights. Although at age 12 or so, I was given a small black-and-white TV for my bedroom.

From '83 through '92 or so, I carted my same black-and-white childhood TV with me from dorm to apartment. VCRs were first being offered in the '80s, but I couldn't afford to buy one, so every now and then, when I really wanted to watch some classic movies, I'd rent a VCR from a video store and lug it home and hook it up.

I finally bought my own larger color TV around '93, at a house I was renting that happened to be offering free cable TV. I've always had a color TV and cable since then.

When I had only a tiny black-and-white TV with only 5 or so stations, I'd keep it off most of the time. In my early apartments as a student in Austin, I'd come home from school or work and usually turn on music and write. Around '95 or so, pre-computer, having a TV wasn't enough. I was desperately going out 4 or so nights a week out of pure boredom with myself. After my mother bought me a computer in 2000, the computer became the focus... I'd have TV or music on in the background, just to have it on, but I was more concerned with my Internet interactions.

Today, though---the thrill of Internet interaction a few years gone---the concept of having no television screen to look at while I write at the computer is actually a bit frightening.

Here are things I'm addicted to (in no particular order):  Beer, cigarettes, TV, computer/Internet.

I've gone without beer for days at a time. I've gone without being on the computer for days at a time. I've had only 3 or 4 cigarettes per day for days at a time. But the last time I was without TV for more than a day was when I moved into my current apartment in 2017 and the cable company fucked up and didn't turn on the cable when they were supposed to. For 2 days, I tried to compensate by listening to NPR on the radio---anything to have some semblance of "life," people talking...

George Jones & Tammy Wynette: THIS GROWING OLD TOGETHER LOVE WE SHARE (1973)

"You're my walls when I want to sit and stare..."

George Jones - The Grand Tour 1975

George Jones "Take Me" & "House of Gold"

A sincere heart forced to be a show-pony.

Tammy Wynette and George Jones: Golden Ring

Tammy Wynette and George Jones: "The Ceremony"

George Jones - Take Me

George Jones: There Might Be Two (1958)

Tammy Wynette: One of These Days (1976)

I won't have to chop no wood, I can be bad or I can be good
I can be any way that I feel one of these days
Won't have to answer to anyone, I'll get up with the morning sun
But I'll be gone like the birds that fly one of these days

I might be a woman that's dressed in black, be a hobo by the railroad track
Goin' any place that I want to go one of these days
Do anything that I want if I want to or if I don't
But I'll be gone like the wayward wind one of these days

One of these days it will soon be all over, cut and dried
And I won't have this urge to go, all bottled up inside
One of these days I'll look back and I'll say I left in time
Cause somewhere for me I know there's peace of mind

I might someday walk across this land and carry the Lord's Book in my hand
Goin' cross the country singin' loud as I can one of these days
But I won't have trouble on my back cuttin' like the devil with a choppin' axe
I got to shake it off of my back one of these days

Tammy Wynette: Another Chance (1982)

When you left you said you's doin' me a favor
I cried and I begged you not to go
Now it's just been two short weeks
And you're wantin' to come back
But I think there's somethin' that you oughtta know

I've rearranged the livin' room to suit me
I gave your favorite chair to charity
That closet you insisted on, it's mine now
So don't bring your old hangups back to me

I'm wearin' my jeans a little bit tighter
Changed my hair style and I'm learnin' how to dance
So maybe you best wait a little bit longer
'Fore you come back and give me another chance

I thank you for your call but someone's knockin' at the door
And he's drivin' a big old Cadillac
I prob'ly won't be home when you come to get your clothes
There on the back porch in a paper sack...

"Gone With the Wind"

This scene thrilled me at age 12 when CBS first aired "Gone with the Wind" on television; it thrills me now... (TCM aired GWTW tonight in celebration of the 25th anniversary of the network's debut April 14, 1994.)