The dailies

 

Free from the grocery store because they have my data.

Big update to the dirty thread store today. The light was right, and I made the time to get it done. 

I also finally got all the equipment cleaned and put away for the season. All that color in the sink gave me such a pang.

Something's afoot across the street at my friend's house. It's been empty since she passed back in January. Family came and took what they wanted, but no one has come since to care for the place. The beautiful pool behind the house is probably a loss. Her beloved Caddy rots in the garage.

I hope they are here to set things right.

The Elders tuck me in at night. On guard. The kids have to make do.

The dark

 

Not moon...

 

...at least not while I was still awake. It should have risen from the fork in that tree, but the clouds were creeping.  

I used to take my Tarot cards outside on the full moon. Outside, naked on the upper deck because Jim was watching from our bed. It's no fun with no one watching, and the cats don't count. Now I spread the cards out on the carpet by the glass door and say, "Good enough". 

Next night, another try looking out the kitchen window this time. SOMEBODY better cut that frigging weed down!

Also, I just finished watching the last episode of After Life with Rick Gervais on Netflix. If you've been left behind or lost someone, this will both put you through the wringer and restore you, scene by scene.

 I've also started calling the myriad assholes in my life "cunts". 

(Redacted dialogue)

"What's his name?" 

"Um....Jackson."

"I knew it. All guys name their cocks."

"Cock, you say?"

"Want me to say weiner or dingus?"

"Jeez, no, now that we're on a first-name basis and all. What do you call yours? Pussy?"

She made a face. "I hate pussy."

"Fine by me, but you know what I mean."

"In my tribe, we call it your Woman. "You got to work your Woman. Make her strong. Make them men faint when she grabs ahold dem."

"Amen!"

"Personally, I like the word 'cunt'."

"Ouch."

"Why? Four letters and straight to the point, just like cock. Serviceable, pardon the pun."

"Yeah, but the Brits and the Aussies ruined it, you know."

"Yep. Wore my cunt right out."

"What am I going to do with you?"

"Stop talking?"

Conditionally

 

I wish I had the full set of these. I bought them in a head shop in Provincetown, MA, back in the day. I can still smell the incense. 

The gorgeous art by David Palladini still speaks deeply to me - the colors and composition ring like a bell in my heart. They were published as 6x8.5 postcards by Morgan Press in 1969 with text on the back by Linda Goodman.

The five missing signs - Scorpio, Aquarius, Capricorn, and Sagittarius? I gave or mailed them to special recipients. 

Dee created a chart for me a long time ago. I never dug into the nuts and bolts of astrology - it looked like more math than fun - but I suspect that there are a lot of other planetary alignments skewing me away from the traditional Libra model.  Peacemakers (who will cut a bitch) are a bit outside the pale. 

I miss how the threads look all wound up this way. My hands and wrists do not miss doing it. Now, it's a small pleasure only for my own stash. Sorry, you'll have to wind your own.

                              ~○~

Here are the leaders we need. 

 Addendum.  Thanks, Dee.

Windows wide

For the fresh air of October. There was a visit with family in the country that included a little tlc for Nibbler, who was under the weather.

(I closed the blog while I was away due to a gush of AI visits. 

They get bored and go away.  Feckless twats,

Some worry about what they post on the web.  The one thing I know is that the internet, as it is now, is forever, and evil men die daily.

I can still find things that I posted in 1995, and my expertise is strictly amateur, so having my say here now is my nod to the 1st Amendment.

Los Dados Encantados

At home, I've started gathering the pieces I want to bring to the show in January so there's no mad scramble over the holidays.  

Remember wood slats for hanging? Seems like another lifetime ago.

Karma IV

Welcome back, Grace!


 

This is why.

 They spend a third of the time chasing each other around the house, even in the middle of the night...sigh. But I'm savoring the hijinks because I know kitten foolishness fades quicker than the terrible twos. 

This morning, there was a snag in the feline social fabric. 

Bailey had a spat under my bed with Bong. Then he strolled into the studio, lifted his tail, and pissed on an open box of comic books stored under the table, marking "his" territory. In his tenure with us, I've never seen this distinctly male behavior, but then, this is the first time we've welcomed another male cat into the family, even though they are both neutered.

 Colin was quick to salvage what he could, wiping down everything else with disinfectant. I will have to watch Bailey like a hawk and shut the door when I'm not in here to observe. This too shall pass.

I posted more thread sets to the store this morning, but I also felt the need to treat myself to a few more, even though I can hardly get the stash closed. 

There has been a lot of turmoil close to home this past week, and I'm not feeling well. Vertigo is the worst. It makes it hard to be fierce in body and mind. 

A few days of routine as fall sneaks in, and I'll be fine. 

Not crazy

 Yet, at a feline count of four, we are full up.

This is Bong. Six months old and already nine pounds. Sweet-natured and all-day handsome. His foster mom wrote a great marketplace post about everyone needing "Mini house panthers, shadow goblins..." The writing pulled me in, and the picture of him and his three sisters kept pulling me back.

And Sophie was driving me nuts with her beagle impression. What cat wants to play fetch all day long? And when she wasn't in my face, she wanted the Elders to play. They have come to tolerate her, but play? The kitten needed a kitten. So, yeah. Welcome Bong! He answers to the name so it stays.

In the middle of this, I needed to make some changes to my bedroom that involved emptying and getting rid of a massive old desk and moving an overloaded bookcase. 

So many books and, to my shame, bookmarks in a third of them, only one or two chapters in. I was so happy to see them, I plucked them all and wished the books good luck. Maybe I'll pick you up again one day. 

The desk drawers were full of pictures, important papers, and notebooks. The bottom drawer was full of expired technology. Flip phones, PDAs, a Blackberry, some digital cameras, and a nest of cords that might belong to some of them. 

 I have never seen this picture before. Jimmy, Colin, who is about three, and my Dad. Everyone dressed to kill. Why and where? No clue. My handsome devils.

Sharing

 These days, I am sharing the stitching chair with Sophie. I'm afraid she is going to grow faster than my hips will shrink. We may have to work out a schedule.

Saving the best for last

 

A fine spaghetti dinner, a few rounds of poker, and two weeks' worth of catching up.  He's loving the trumpet and taking band, and getting A's in math. 

We will try to institute the ancient technology of letting writing. I left him with stamps and envelopes. The ball is in his court.

And a warm welcome when I got home. 

I never even watched Jimmy Kimmel, and I cancelled Disney+, Hulu, and HBO as soon as the servers let me in.  This fucking country can eat itself alive for all I care right now. People seem to be waking up to the Shitweasel's game and hitting back. I have plans for 10/18, but for the moment, I want to wrap myself in a cloak of invisibility and take a break from screaming.

The ignorant Jesus jumpers think this is their moment. Jesus spat in Charlie Kirk's eye, and god threw him down the elevator shaft. That smell? His burning bullshit. 

A person to person week

Good friends. Good food. Good times. It shouldn't feel so unique, but that's on me.

The week began with lunch at a local eatery with an old friend. Em is the person who gave me the idea that writing was a worthy pursuit. She was the first editor to terrorize me with her blue pen and is a published author herself. 

The next day, a spur-of-the-moment gathering for a Braves game on the radio, poolside, started out with a freak thunderstorm. A downpour out of the blue so heavy that we sat outside the gate in our respective cars, hoping a storm this belligerent would blow itself out quickly.  It did.

We ate our picnic lunch in the gazebo to the drizzle and just in time for "Play ball!' I was in the water for pretty much the whole nine innings, drifting and gabbing with another of my oldest friends from here.

Despite the nighttime chills here, this water gets full sun all day. Have you ever swum in a saltwater pool?  The water has a magic that feels like a living thing.  My only regret is that I didn't take a flying leap face-first. The old bones said, "Use the steps, dummy."

Jan told me that despite this splendor, very few people use the pool. What could they be doing?

 That wonderful blue light. 

 Today, another long-overdue lunch with my oldest friend here in the south. Like me, she and her family were shanghaied here by AT&T lo these many years ago and made our lives here, like it or not. We chose another local, not a chain place, and had the best shrimp po'boys ever and hashed over the wretchedness of the state of things. 

It was wonderful to see everyone.