Keep Trouble in Your Heart

An animal is simply not as important as a human being. But a pet is a significant second in importance to someone imbued with the animal loving gene. I am such a person. I am enamored of all animals, even the ones I am a bit afraid of, like horses, and I think I always have been. No doubt there is some psychological substitution or projection or sublimation involved. So be it.  It is, as they say, what it is. I admit that I judge new people in my life by two things, the strength of their handshakes (the two fingered wet and weak shake is utter doom) and whether they like animals. It is not essential necessarily that they like the same animals that I do, but not to like ANY animal leave me suspicious. It's a positive bonus if they love not only dogs, but my special favorite, the feline. I have always thought my mother was a familiar, having some magical connection with them. I may have inherited that ability. I almost don't have to seek them out. They come to me, or to my vicinity. Maybe it's just the food and its future promise. Maybe it's something more cosmic. It doesn't matter to my enjoyment.

My mother's cat guarded me in the crib when I was a child. The relatives exhorted, "it'll smother the baby!". Depending on the relative, I was probably better off with the cat. I am joking! I think.

I have owned, and/or been owned, by about 7, inside and out of my apartment since I moved to California. Oops, make that 9, I got a couple of new boys about three years ago, two bruisers.  (The outside cats were not mine originally. They were either strays that came to my small but secure backyard, or, as in the case of Ellwood, they were an orange cat that ran away from  living home alone (my next door neighbor was often away) and ended up with the crowd. He was definitely low man on the cat totem pole, but happier for the company.  My first California cat--I had him before I had furniture-died at 18, while being treated for some never diagnosed condition beyond old age. One outside cat was 18 when he died naturally. I took in his near twin, Bud, because there was a neighbor cat (aptly named Diablo) who was trying to hasten his demise and Bud was no longer able to maintain his place as the king of the roost. Bud lasted three more years until I had to take him to the vet in a final emergency, and with the clinic cat Kibble, in empathic attendance, Bud was put asleep. My thinking of all of them comes rushing in because of Trouble. Trouble, my fluffy girl tabby, used to be able to jump to the top of my French windows and stand at the top edge triumphantly looking down at me. "Nothing YOU can do!" her glance confirmed. She was quintessentially curious. It was probably her curiosity that got her lost from wherever she used to live and put her at my front door. She must have been about six months old. Kittenish, but not a baby. I once couldn't find her and figured she was hiding, and when I opened the refrigerator, there she was on the lower shelf, butt facing outward. Another time, she singed her whiskers checking out a pot on the stove. Time passed, and she is nearly 19 years old.  Tonight she is in a clinic, possibly with kidney failure, and worse, if it is diagnosed with hyperthyroidism, her prognosis is a too soon final one. And yet, I don't think she's ready to go. I can feel it. Even as those close to me say, "why spend the money?" either with words or their eyes, she has given that little animal, with her purrs and her softness, with an essence that is distinctly hers, to me. She has been part of my survival, as were the others. And she deserves my very best as her caretaker. The money is the least I can do to give her a chance at a couple more comfortable naps on the top left corner of my bed, giving herself a full body stretch, and then looking to me for food by knocking a water bottle from my headboard right next to my sleepy head with a well placed paw.  

 

 

Thoughts Whilst Creeping In Traffic

It has to be the season that brings more cars to the streets. Sunday drivers shopping on the weekdays. That, and in the downtown area, development bringing the stores to draw them, and the restaurants to rest in afterward.

A couple of nights last week, the crawl to Beverly Boulevard or Sunset via Olive

 

and First was slower than a baby's. The sea of red tail lights before me meant I had to find patience that is not natural to me. It gave me time to observe, and to think. The first barrier, Olympic. There is a bit of the salmon in the driver who must enter the intersection even though it is obvious he will not clear it and will block it at the change of light. He can't go, and the traffic in the opposite direction can't go. Used to be only New Yorkers' were known for leaning on the horn. Los Angeleans have developed the posture, with an equal relish, although it doesn't change a thing. Past that obstacle now, I come to seventh, and a similar buildup. I notice the new loft building on my left. Finally, the chain link fence that has long blocked the entrance is gone. There has been a light on in one of the lofts, of which I can only see concrete ceiling and vents, for days, but this time I see an actual floor lamp. Someone is living in what looks to me like a prison. And downstairs an upscale (is it possible?) Seven Eleven is being prepared for its opening. Not the store I'd put there to revitalize a neighborhood, but I am not a city planner.

Not too far from Cicada now. A dark, expensive restaurant, that never seems to have any people going into it, but yet it is apparently a success. Ice Skating again in Pershing Square. All concrete in modern times, back in the good old summertime of the late 1800s and early 1900's it was a real green strolling park. Across from it is the still swanky Biltmore. I remember that the oldest resident, there have been a few, just died a while back. I think the very first Academy Awards in 1927 was there. I remember a surprise birthday there, thrown by a still colleague, maybe no longer friend, at S'Mereldas. We were able to hold our friendship for a long time, though being on opposite sides of legal advocacy. But I guess it got too hard, and what should have been separated from the personal, became personal. I am guessing we each believe the other responsible. Then Sai Sai. I remember an office gathering there. One of my friends will eat nothing but safe American food, you know Italian, Burgers, spaghetti. There was nothing for her on the menu there. Except of course gathering with the rest of us. We never went there again for an office meet up. The homeless guy is in the street. Do I give him anything and cause him to wander further into danger? And I shouldn't be resenting him for doing it, but I am because I am feeling distrust. Is he really in need? What difference does it make to me if he is? Just a little further up, it should clear. But it doesn't! All the way up the hill past fifth, the still closed Angel's Flight (someone died there a few years ago when the "train" up and down the hill had an accident), and past the Omni. There's a cocktail party going on on the second floor. A baby grand being played. I wish I were there having an apple martini. Meanwhile, streets are closed off and I will trickle toward first and the Courthouse. I take this opportunity to set channels on FM2 and FM3 of my radio---keeping watch all the time on what is before me. As best I can while I can be cited for driving distracted. FIRST! YES!  It has taken 45 minutes to go maybe a mile and a half. Left, left, by Disney Hall, just a little more traffic before I get to the nearly built school on an environmentally unsafe landfill, Belmont.

And I am free! Any deep thoughts in all of this. Yeah, fragments, about life, and death, and work and friendship---but they were disjointed and not profound. And all I can think about now is being able to go more the 5 miles per hour.

In Yesterday's Moment

I go to Long Beach to have my hair cut and styled. I live some 35 miles away. Long story. And not today's subject. It rained on Friday, and my appointment was, as usual, Saturday. A Saturday drive after a good rain, the first good rain of the season. The world was that colorful that comes on a sunny day after the rain.

It was cool, giving the sense of the time of year we born East Coasters still need, no matter how much we love the California warm--a feeling of holiday. Bright. Crisp. On some streets that have annuals instead of palm trees, the leaves were actually turning.

There wasn't any smog. Hills that are normally invisible, and forgotten, were on the horizon. Today I liked hearing 103.5's endless (and not always great) Christmas songs.

On the drive to Long Beach I found myself in conversational prayer. I felt something I too rarely feel and less rarely express, gratefulness. Rosanda snipped, dyed, cut and dried. I caught up on my important reading, OK Magazine, People. Freshly coiffed, I made some Christmas purchases at a favorite store on 2nd Street, Romance Etc. And then I stopped again, along Ocean Boulevard, at the Long Beach Museum of Art's Cafe, Claire's at the Beach. There was a strong chilly wind, not quite as strong or chilly as on Cape Cod after a rain, but strong enough not to be able to sit outside if I wanted to enjoy that Denver Omelette comfortably. But my table faced the outside and the glistening wind blown water. Heaven.

On the way home, the sky was at its best. I wish I could describe the way the clouds formed. Wholly different from usual here----puffy, but huge lines of big and puffy clouds, almost neatly lined, and one in front of me a large malformed donut with wispy tentrils. Maybe it was more like cotton candy. It almost felt as if I could reach through the windshield and take a piece.  Kinda like this, only better than this.

It occurred to me that I felt as happy with these natural moments as one might hope to feel in Paradise. No past, no future. The now of the Divine.