NaPoWriMo 2024 Day 29

The penultimate day of NaPoWriMo 2024. Couple days ago felt like the month had gone on about a week too long but it passed. And I signed up to be part of an Exquisite Corpse collaborative poem creation (May-June) and performance (July 28) – that will be a stretch and an exciting one!

Today’s prompt took us to a Merriam-Webster ten word list taken from Taylor Swift’s new release, Tortured Poets: clandestine, Machiavellian, incandescent, altruism, sell-effacing, albatross, antithetical, mercurial, elegy, cardigan. Quite the range, that. I pondered it on my ride to see Mom this afternoon, when I suddenly saw a sign that had a five syllable message. I don’t know why I didn’t take a photo. I was driving, all right?

long enough pause here
to compose an elegy
waiting for a sign

five cars stacked behind
watching ten cars passing
one lane road ahead

NaPoWriMo 2024 Day 29

NaPoWriMo 2024 Day 17

Sunny and rain. Another April day at the edge of New England. Lately I keep thinking – I enjoy writing haiku, writing in such a small format, trying to snag a moment or an image, but I can’t pretend to be Japanese. Perhaps this is where the idea of American Sentences comes from. I cannot write to satisfy the ancient cultural ideas of a culture that’s not my own. So, bear with me in my haiku/senryu practice.

no cherry blossoms
i am not japanese
daffodil haiku

another day
another two pink lines
more isolation

easy to stay home
a gift of the pandemic
welcome lesson

coffee and take out
chili, spicy and so hot
fragrant car ride home

In other news, I let the two young cats rummage through a laundry bag of laundered toys and balls. This amused them for quite a while and then I heard them move through the house with new jingly noises. I was surprised to find that one of their choices was this big plushy racoon. Only the head is stuffed. This was not just pulled out of the bag, but carried all the way upstairs to the bedroom!

NaPoWriMo 2024 Day 17

Warez MB Been? But Exciting News!

I was doing a 30 day paint thing with a friend and posting more privately so apologies for the gap.

The last few days though I’ve had a little interruption – as two new kittens have arrived. Shout out to Kitten Angels and their fostering network and to Emily of Tiny But Mighty who fostered four black kittens and their black mama! We are taking it slow and steady and today spent some quality time downstairs. The little girl-cat discovered a nice cat bed with a view of a bird feeder and let her brother wander around downstairs giving pitiful wails without so much as a little prrrrt in response. The bed could easily hold four kittens but no – she didn’t feel like sharing or reassuring. I showed him where she was and he wasn’t interested.

So I used the time to update the cat cam. Stay tuned for future adventures with these two! I don’t know if we’ll be able to tell them apart once the collars come off but we shall see. (Names to be determined – in foster they were Maude and Frances.) And I better brush up my photo skills to accommodate two all-black cats.

PS Ginny and Harry are wonderfully ensconced with my Mom – but alas no cat cam there.

Warez MB Been? But Exciting News!

Miss Molly

Molly died last night, peacefully and at home. She’d gotten sick with something mysterious shortly after I did in early March. She didn’t get over the sneezes when I got better, but there were no answers for us other than supportive care. So we’ve been home together at the right time and yesterday was the day.

Molly you’ll recall is the wee kit who almost didn’t make it home with me after visiting with my Dad in 2010. Mom suggested that maybe they’re together now.

The other two slept close by me last night and we managed to stay warm and now we go on.

…and molly was chased by a horrible thing
which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and

may came home with a smooth round stone
as small as a world and as large as alone.

For whatever we lose(like a you or a me)
it’s always ourselves we find in the sea
—E. E. Cummings, maggie and milly and molly and may

Miss Molly

Busy Monday – kittens and watercolor

Today was the day the two kittens (now six months old) went to the vets to be neutered. Got there messy and stinky, even though I tried as best I could to clean up the carrier using some paper towels I had and the doggie clean up bags outside the office… Anyway, lots of paperwork and then I was off.

Drove the same road I went down the other day and took a few more reference photos of the hills and barns that I like there. The brush and grass was covered with a light coat of ice so things were quite sparkly.

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Then I got a bagel and coffee and headed to Hand Hollow. What the heck – it was 42F so I sat at a picnic table and painted awhile. Gotta say that ice covered pond still eludes me. It’s openings are dark – no – filled with color, yes but dark, grey areas – no white. And of course like water the colors change with the light. Ack.

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Oh well, painting that didn’t quite work is better than no painting at all, right? Learning through failing. Got it. Mainly I get that I need to re-find my darks – which I had, but they seem to have vanished. Also wishing i had a palette with bigger mixing areas. Hard to mix up enough on the tiny watercolor box. Hmmmm.

The kittens came home around 3 pm and were wobbly and funny and no way were they going to “be quiet”. Now we’re all ready for some sleep.

Sunday Off

I had breakfast and then drove home the long way through Chatham, enjoying the sun even if it was in the teens. Felt warmer. Stopped for gas at the Stewarts in Chatham and cleaned my windshields and put the end of the wiper fluid in the car hoping it might warm up the front nozzles (and it did). I did a little (emphasis on little) vacuuming with my cute little yellow vacuum cleaner. The cats didn’t think too much of that, even though it’s much quieter than my old vacuum.

When the cats returned to their perches (purr-ches?) I admired Harry’s ability to spring back from vacuum-induced-panic.

I did a little painting:

And now I’m writing. All in all a good day off!

Tuesday, the 14th of NaNoWriMo

Yesterday, I had things to do – wash to do, trash to get ready, you know – stuff. And last night was a big show on The Voice. I think it was in a short span between doing laundry and getting ready to go write words that I felt a need to sit down and throw paint at paper. (The paper wasn’t too cooperative and I realized later it was because it was the second to last sheet of paper in the block. So it wasn’t really attached to anything. OK, but I still like taping my watercolor paper down more.) This is what came of it.

I was off today. I was off Monday. I am off tomorrow. I am grateful to whatever caused that to happen. This morning I was up bright and early to get three cats to a meeting with destiny, I mean, the vet. That took some pre-planning yesterday and some trickery this morning but we all got there and back and as far as I know, no one got hurt or bitten.

The kittens are now vaccinated and won’t have to go back until probably January when it will be time to deactivate their reproductive systems. They’re in fine shape and didn’t even seem thrown by the two shots today.

Anyway the mission was to get them there and back and then to find some way to get some words written. And that happened too. I got a few hours where I wrote a big scene. Not exactly sure that is how it went down but there’s something and I’m moving on. Yesterday was harder writing because there were five different groups of people who delivered blessings for the newlyweds and those are in poem form. Today I was writing a coronation speech but the Queen is a pretty good inspirational speaker so not as hard. Ended up with more words than this and there might be a few left in me.

Two weeks and growing and adventuring

Well they’re actually two and a half months old but they have sure grown since they moved in. They are sweet and adorable and cute as all get out which is good because they’re into EVERYThing. They leap tall buildings in a single bound. They’ve learned how to drink out of a faucet. They are kissing up to Molly who seems to regard them with interest and occasionally sniffs them. They find things, they collapse in little kitten piles of sleep and then they do it all again.

They’ll be having a little adventure with Molly starting tomorrow. Watch this space to find out more. Also check out the links at the top of the column to the right of here.

Houston, we have kittehs!

Yes, yes, yes, you’re saying. We know you have kittens. They’re 100%, 24/7 adorable. Got it.

Well, I think these kittens finally have names! Ginny (top) and Harry (bottom)

Today’s Blur of Kittens

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