Light the world

Today I took the tree down, packed away the decorations and brought in the wreaths from the front of the house. When we put the tree up it went into a room, we could lock the cats out of during the night. We’ve had cats for years and though Comet was well past tree climbing or bauble batting we have had the three A.M. crash as some feline toppled the tree (Phil!). Zora and Ursula did not touch the tree aside from the initial 'This is new' sniffing and a test bite or two. The entire time it was up one ball was found in the middle of the floor and Zora was sitting under a table nearby; not evidence of a crime and she swore it was there when she entered the room. I rehung it on a low branch and that’s where I took it from this morning. But I am not putting all the lights away. Ursula has spent every evening around the tree looking at the lights. It seemed to comfort her. So, I filled the big owl vase with lights and placed it where she has a few places to lounge; she’s there now in a cat bed under a table where the light falls over her. Small kindness for small beings.
 
Be safe, wear your mask. Be kind to those big and small and especially those who seem to not have enough kindness in their lives; we’re all here for the long haul.

Only these brief moments of exchange

Small Kindnesses by Danusha Laméris starts like this:

I’ve been thinking about the way, when you walk
down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs
to let you by. Or how strangers still say “bless you”
when someone sneezes, a leftover
from the Bubonic plague. “Don’t die,” we are saying.

This seems an appropriate poem to read and reread today. Yesterday while the mob attacked our government 3,915 Americans died of COVID-19. Today, more than 4,000. The day is not done.

Here's a link to the poem. 

Wear your mask. Be safe. Be kind. Don't die.

Two horrors, one reprieve

 MOB

Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times

 

MOB BOSS

DOUG MILLS/BLOOMBERG/GETTY IMAGES

Be safe, be kind, if you have a member of Congress who supported this president and his conspiracies and lies, let them have it. Feel free to use Fascist lapdog if necessary, don't forget.

                                                       

If I could talk to the animals

On cold mornings filled with sun the birds are at home on the high branches; I caught this lone lady cardinal, sunning. It wasn’t warm yet, but yesterday was foggy most of the day, so she welcomed the sun. And I’m glad that she made me look up, the sky was clear, there were songs from all directions.  Over by the lonely pine the moon was still hanging out keeping the tree company. I was worried the other morning when this tree was weighed down with ice, it was almost like those people you see who are burdened and then something extra has been added on, bending them down. I think we’ve all been bent in that way, at times, sometimes for long stretches. It’s why I look up when I go out in the morning, looking for some special sight, maybe a particular tune. The past few weeks I’ve noticed that the squirrels have this plaintive call, that almost sounds like a plea. Whenever I hear it now, I have to find the squirrel and ask are you okay? Today when I asked, I swear the squirrel hissed and spit at me. Clearly, I have no idea about animal chatter. Be safe, be kind, look up and don’t ask squirrels questions, they’re prickly.

Bedtime Stories

 
When my children were small our night time routine was a lot of reading, reexamining the day, plans for the next day. Normal end of day things. Sometimes we skipped the reading and told our own stories, often these started easily enough but then turned into the fantastic and silly. The three-headed monster suddenly has twenty claws on each paw and shoots lasers from its butt (this seemed to happen in a lot of stories). I was thinking about all those eccentric and amazing stories today as I tried to understand the story, I read at bedtime last night.

It was the transcript from the call from the Cheeto and his “team” made to the Secretary of State from the fine state of Georgia (disclaimer here, I’ve been through Georgia a few times, it’s a solidly okay state, but I wouldn’t want to live there). Which is funny because that is actually touched upon in the story/transcript. The Washington Post now has an article up, à la Dear Abby: So I (65, M) got a telephone call from an older acquaintance in a position of power (74, M) that includes this: “Then he started to go on and on about how it was unlikely that anyone could ever move back to Georgia and legitimately vote here again after previously leaving the state? Which, I understand there are things in our electoral process that are pretty wacky, but the concept that somebody might want to move back to a state seems like a very weird one to latch onto as definitely untrue. But he kept going on about it. Literally, he was like: “How many people do that? They moved out, and then they said, ‘Ah, to hell with it, I’ll move back.’ You know, it doesn’t sound like a very normal … you mean, they moved out, and what, they missed it so much that they wanted to move back in? It’s crazy.”
 
But the entire transcript is full of conspiracy, lies and sadness. Sad that other cognizant humans, men and women, would join this madness and that the Secretary of State, Brad Raffensberger, would stay on the line that long for a spam call. I wouldn’t have. I may, or may not have, had fun with spam calls. Once, a young man called to tell me that my computer was in danger based on the IP address. After we covered the computer, don’t have one; the TV, I’ve never seen one; or the radio, what’s that? He called me very silly and we both laughed.

If anything good came from last night’s reading, it was thinking of bedtime in a land far, far away when I lived with a prince and a princess and we ruled over the kingdom of stories.

In lieu of

sunflower
your fur salts the morning
green horns ring the bonfire
of your bloom, shaming the sun
 

we stand as twins, mirrors
turning with day
as though light holds
us to earth
not gravity
or root
 
when afternoon gives way
to the lacquer of night
do not look too closely
 
we may be gone

~~M.E. Hope

Like glass-blown gloves

The second day of 2021 dawned cold, not ice encrusted like the first, just cold with the slightest of misty rain hovering, but no freeze. Yesterday, New Year’s Day, the pines were weighed down with the ice, the cardinals spent a great deal of time posing within the frozen branches. At one point two dozen cardinals were showing out. I sing “cardinal party!” when I see so many around the house. The entire lyric to the cardinal party song consists of cardinal party, cardinal party. So, anyone can learn and serenade the birds. I imagine you can sing it to any bird, just throw their name in. It might be awkward to sing tufted titmouse party, tufted titmouse party, so adjust your tunes as needed.

Deborah A. Miranda posted a poem called, The Bones of Things, to her blog Bad NDNS on New Year’s Eve that has this:

“… twiggy fingers encased in ice 
like glass-blown gloves.”

The poem is lovely and vivid and filled with surprise. That I have a picture to place with it just makes me smile. The poem is a bright spot. Something you should go and read now. Run don’t walk. Find someone to read it to. Be safe, be kind.