Power of Place

If you have read this blog or spoken to me in the past six and a half years, you may have heard me complain about where we live. Shockingly, it took us until last fall to realize that, as much as Somerville was not our number one choice of cities to live in, a huge part of it wasn’t really Somerville’s fault. It was that we were not urban people. Sure, we loved the diversity – Spanish and Hatian Creole spoken at the grocery store. It was nice to have a choice of three Thai restaurants within eight minutes of our apartment. We will miss not being closer to our friends. But this was mostly outweighed by what we perceived as a generally loud, dirty, crowded, tacky, stressful, loud, expensive place. I am glad there are cities. And glad there are people who like to live there. But it was good to realize that the quality of my life – and that of my partner – was not enriched by living in the city. We are not do-ers. The theater and culture of a city is not our thing. We are homebodies. We drink our tea, read, hang out with our cats, and enjoy nesting.

Since Tuesday, we have lived at the above cottage and it is such a relief that both of us can barely believe it. We just didn’t realize how much better it would be for us. The trees. The grass. You can see the stars and the moon against the dark night sky in the silence. They must have been there in the city, but somehow, it was not the same at all. No wide open sky. No silence.

I am amazed at the joy I get in parking right next to my door rather than driving around the block three times and spending ten minutes shoveling out a spot, only to slip and slide over ice-covered sidewalks, up the steps past the neighbors smoking pot and playing loud thumping music, to my triple locked door.

My soul is so much more at ease here. The air is better. Our neighbors brought us cookies, rather than stealing our mail and screaming at us for leaving the hall light on. No one drives by with their music up at 2am. No lights come through our window at night, except the moon.

And, it allows me to appreciate the non-country even more. We went into “town” today (is this a Kentucky thing – “we’re going into town” – or I wonder if everyone who lives in the country says this…?) and I was in love with the character of it all. Barnacle Bill’s House of Crab, The Rosewood Inn, Ella Jane’s Hair and Nail Salon… These things are are all lovely, when I visit them and don’t live next door to them. There was even a TRAILER PARK, which somehow made me feel very at home since these are perfectly normal in the parts of Kentucky and Ohio I am from. It was a town surrounded by country life, rather than the city next to another city next to another one.

Then we came home from “town” and drove right up to our door. No sounds of cars outside. Just our trees rustling and the melting snow dripping the roof.

There are apparently wild turkeys that live in our woods although we haven’t seen them yet.

I am psyched. And happy. And incredibly blessed.

My Cup Runneth Over

To the extent that there were Bibles in my life growing up, it was the King James Version all the way. I was a competitive child and wanted to win every contest, including the Bible verse memorization contest at Mt. Zion (the church where my Baptist family goes and my dad grew up). I memorized this verse in this context (along with, amusingly, lots of verses that are not significant at all but were easy to memorize and, thus, win the contest). This passage still speaks to me even though I rewrite it a bit in my head these days.

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.

I love this for so many reasons. A God that restores my soul. That invites me to lie down in green pastures, and walks with me along still waters and is with me when I am walking through the valley of the shadow of death. I don’t even know really much what a rod and staff are, but reading it in this passage, it just sounds comforting. I always sort of skip over the part about the enemies, and get to the part where God anoints my head with oil. Have you ever had your head anointed with oil? I have, and it makes you feel so special. (As a side note, I tried to figure out a way to incorporate this into a healing service at a UU church a few years ago, but it was just a little too much, I think, for the congregation at the time. I have not given up though.) Surely, I will dwell in God’s house forever. And ever. Sweet. I just love the idea that no matter what I do, or where I go, God has built this house of love around me – full of still waters and pastures and, yes, even valleys of the shadow of death – but in all of this God is with us. It is coming back to these sort of verses – with such a long tradition (I can see myself right now saying this along with my Mammaw and my Dad and my Aunt and all the elders of the church who loved me so much) that I miss Christianity and think maybe I could become Episcopalian. I know I can’t. And won’t. And don’t want to. But sometimes the thought sneaks in.

I thought of this verse now because every once in a while I am just knocked over by how much my cup runneth over. I sit in my nice warm apartment, two cats at my feet and one sleeping on my rocking chair pillow behind my head, eating frosted flakes, drinking tea, with my supportive, kind, lovely partner in the other room. We are both working on our computers – him for his job (we feel so lucky he has one these days) and me for my school in my doctoral program that I am so lucky to be a part of. And I just think, geesh. What a life I live. Full of love. From my friends and my family. A faith community we love. Gosh, it even makes me feel thankful for our neighbors downstairs who are playing very very loud base right now. Ah, the lessons they have taught us about loving your neighbor! It is hard when it is literal and your neighbors are not very lovable. But I suppose the idea was to do it especially to those who are not lovable.

So I am thankful this evening. And, as a side note, procrastinating on a paper that is due. But it doesn’t take away from how thankful I am. And how ashamed I am, sometimes, that I am not able to better be thankful for all that is good in my life instead of focusing on all that is not that good. Gotta work on that. Or even, as they say, pray about it. Give it up. Hand it over. And know that I will fail again and again, but must just keep opening myself up to change and transformation and keep in mind what I wrote about for the New Year. Trying harder isn’t always the way to go. So, maybe I will not try harder to be thankful, but see if I wait, and walk in green pastures and beside still waters, listen, rest, praise, and worship… maybe my thankfulness and gratitude have been there, and I just need to be able to see it and let it wash over me.

Or something like that.

Much peace, E

New Year New Year: a bit of rambling/visioning/thinking and an annoucement of sorts

Hello 2009. We are 9 days into you. I wonder how this will go?

I tend not to be a big new year resolution person because I am not really good at keeping big promises and because I am always trying to improve things (um, maybe too much) and I guess adding to that isn’t really so helpful. Really, I don’t know. I just don’t do them much. (As I write this, I realize I did it two years ago right here on this blog where I vowed not to buy new clothes for a year and I stuck with it very well for five months. But usually I don’t do resolutions, and maybe my failure five months into my 2007 resolution helped to solidify this.)

Anyway, so I guess I want to reflect a bit on the upcoming year and how I would hope that it might go for me and my family.

Um, so I guess I am sort of private and this blog isn’t really a personal journal, but it I suppose I will want to write about this more at some point so:

drum roll

is about a month and a half until we welcome a little baby into our family. So that makes for a very different year. I have been reading about pregnancy since I was 15, and excited about having a baby since I was old enough to hold my baby cousins. I’ve always wanted a family and it has always been a big part of how I envision my life.

I would read about or talk to women who would say that they didn’t like being pregnant, and I would think, “They must not love it enough. They must not have read enough about all the natural remedies that can make it better. They must not have a midwife and a doula and a support system.”

Until I got pregnant and have been very very very sick ever since. I do not believe in a God that teaches us lessons, but if I did, I am sure this would be one of God’s humbling lessons to Elizabeth about how you can’t control everything in your life and you shouldn’t judge other people so harshly, especially until you have walked a mile or seven and half months in their shoes.

I should probably clarify that there are women who have been more miserable than me in pregnancy and, as far as we know, nothing is really really wrong. I have not been hospitalized. Baby seems healthy. I seem healthy (enough). But every day is a day to get through. Which does not facilitate the pregnancy pre-baby, round belly, pregnancy joy that I had been envisioning.

Soooo, my point here is that in the New Year, I am going to try to let go a bit more and realize that I cannot read and plan my way out of the struggles and road bumps in life, and that sitting counting the hours and the days until something is over or better does not make for mindful, joyful living. In high school, it was “Oh, how I can’t wait until college.” In college, “Oh how I can’t wait to settle down with a partner and be done with college.” In my Masters studies, “Oh, how lovely that will be if I can get into a Ph.D. program.” Each semester: “Oh, how nice it will be to be done with papers.” And, as much as I have tried to not think it, it has often been, “Oh, how wonderful it will be for the baby to be born and not be pregnant anymore.”

And so goes our life.

My life has, far too often, been about achievement. I wanted to be the line leader in Kindergarten. The best reader. The best community service do-er. Get more scholarships. Seem more special. Write better papers. Be the best future minister.

In one way, of course, this is good. It is good to work hard, right? To do good. But, of course, we can do it too much.

And, at the end of the day month year, our wall is covered with diplomas and our drawers are stuffed with A+ papers and the congregation loves the sermon and we have missed What We Are Here For. Which, for me, is to love others. To be loved. To drink hot chocolate and hear others’ stories and be present to people and be present to myself. To cuddle the cats. To love the colors of the trees. To ease the suffering of others.

I have seen this so much in the last months as I tried to not collapse finishing my classes, waddling around like a sick hippopotamus on speed trying to read enough, write enough, do enough, and watch myself be perky and cheerful to others, as if I was watching some other person who could not turn off her fake cheer and show how tired she was.

I do not want to show this sort of life to our baby. I do not want to miss first coos, and the magic of a baby growing up while I scramble to Do It All. And I do not want him or her to learn that to live is to Do Good and Do Right and Achieve. I have not spent enough time playing. Or laughing. Or drinking hot chocolate. And I want my little one to do this more.

I know this is cliched and I almost don’t want to post it because it seems to me like it could be some sort of email spam story about treasuring our friends and our life and our children. All that is missing is a note at the end that if you don’t pass this on to 10 people you will be cursed.

It reminds me of a thousand sermons about being in the moment. A thousand books about Women Who Do Too Much and our rushed 21st Century World and how we need to Slow Down.

Perhaps there is a reason that there are so many damn books and sermons on this – because it is hard.

So, as we prepare to welcome a new little person into our lives, I have given myself a little new year nudge, realizing that it will never be a goal I will Achieve, but that it is an important path to be on and remind myself of.

Be present. Be gentle. Love. Let myself be loved. Slow down. Remember what will be important as I look back on my life.

Mess up.

Try again.

Be thankful.

Amen.

Hating Conflict Too Much

When I was a little girl and teenager, I fancied myself tough, willing to tell you what you need to know. Somehow in my mind, this was what it meant to be smart or good or the best. Or something.

My dad, on the other hand, would rather eat live mice than confront someone. I remember a particularly dramatic incident when McDonald’s forgot the ketchup for my french fries and my dad thought we should just make do and I thought we needed to DEMAND our ketchup.

But around about age 17, I started to understand where he was coming from. It was often easier and more practical just to agree with someone, or follow the stupid rule than to argue and point out the rule’s stupidity. In a sense, it was a humbling of my own heart. Maybe I don’t have all the answers. Also, I am sure it was part of me being chronically ill for many years – learning how to conserve my energy for the most important things. All sorts of things.

But, it has gotten out of hand. I realize this now. I have known it. It is why I sit in my apartment in Somerville right now at 2:21 a.m. with a heater that doesn’t work correctly, costing us HUNDREDS of dollars each month, yet is not fixed because after several very difficult encounters with the landlords, it has just seemed easier to pay an OUTRAGEOUS heating bill rather than go to court or knock on their door and harass them or to hire a lawyer or whatever it would take to get it fixed. And, the reason I am up at this hour is because our neighbors below us are listening to music on their new stereo drunkenly singing along, and interspersing the sing-alongs with stories that use the word fuck way more than Good Will Hunting and Gone Baby Gone put together. The music is loud enough and has gone on long enough and it is late enough and this sort of thing is frequent enough that it would really be very reasonable to go down and politely ask them to turn the music down. Or the more cowardly version of writing a letter kindly requesting that they don’t play music loudly after midnight.

Of course, they have habitually stolen our mail until we got a P.O. Box (no we did not confront them on this either) and seem capable of at least minor violence and property damage, so maybe not confronting them is the wiser thing.

Still. It is one thing to be kind, gentle, flexible, and easy going.

It is another to put up with very unreasonable behavior over a long period of time.

But the threat of confrontation with really nasty people just seems not worth it. Finding the right balance for all of this is hard.

And I just thought I would write this because I am up anyway and contemplating what I should do about this.

At least they aren’t singing along with the songs as loudly now. Maybe soon they will sleep.

Or not (she writes as the bass is turned up and the transition is made from Sheryl Crow and Kid Rock’s duet to Eminem).

I can’t wait to move to the country. Where there are crickets. And no neighbors below you.

Amen and goodnight.

How Sarah Palin Made Me Cry

My partner is a political scientist, so talking about politics is one of his hobbies. So I talk with him about politics, including the election every day. I also am a consultant for an organization that deals a lot with democracy. There is no escaping it.

Yet, I always keep it at a distance. It is not my ministry. It is not my passion. It is not what I study and love. I change the subject when it comes up at dinner, I try not to upset anyone, gently suggesting where I stand, but not going much further. How are those Red Sox doing anyway?

My mentor from high school who remains a friend wrote to ask me what I thought of Sarah Palin. I ignored his email the first time. I knew he probably disagreed with me.

He emailed again, so I told him. I didn’t want to tell it to him, or to myself. It feels something like Bush winning in 2004, only somehow worse. A mixture of disbelief and hopelessness. That there is simply nothing that can be done to save our country. Even if she and McCain do not win, I am so disheartened by the level of support that they have that it doesn’t even matter anymore if they win or lose. My dear mentor, who reads newspapers and is educated and cares about poor people and is not a radical Christian conservative, thinks Palin is great. Too many millionaires running our country in the past, he says. She can be a mom and a leader. He loves that she is anti-abortion, says being a governer provides plenty of experience. And the reason this made me cry sitting right here in Diesel Cafe is because I know he is a good person. If kind, giving, well-meaning people like him who keep up with the news can be convinced by Palin, then what is there to possibly be done?

Sarah Palin makes me cry because I hurt for our country. I try so often to not be overly dramatic or engaged with politics because it feels like such a futile use of my energy. I vote. I am involved in my community. Why get in a tizzy about things that I cannot do much about? Yet, for some reason, Sarah Palin did it for me.

I do not feel like some sort of partisian nut. I do not think the Dems are somehow amazing. But rather, I am just aghast at how bad the Republicans are. It is just that I care about poor people. I care about hard working people. I care about a country that tortures people. A country that is a world leader and runs around invading other countries based on manufactured intelegence. I care about women who have been raped who can’t have a rape kit unless they pay for it themselves. I care about our military people who cannot get decent healthcare after fighting for our country. Or ordinary people who cannot get health care. I am just sad for all the suffering that has been caused by the previous government, and a country that is not able to recognize that. I know many caring people support the Republicans, and have been won over by Sarah Palin. Which is what makes me so upset, I guess. That it is possible for large numbers of people who really do care about others to think that McCain and Palin really care as well. I am just so sad and frustrated that someone like Sarah Palin and John McCain can successfully portray themselves as people who are going to take care of our country… to take care of people.

I always felt like people who considered moving to another country were selling out, were being overly dramatic, were abandoning people in this country who need fairness and justice more than ever. We won’t leave. But I increasingly understand that impetus.

I will get over it. I will re-detach. Do what I can. But it hurts.

Murray – April 2007-September 2008 -

He was very loved little cuddle bunny who very much enjoyed watching the foster kittens play, being groomed by his best friend Gustav the cat, and eating Papa Johns pizza and as many treats as he could get his paws on. He left us gently this evening at Angell Memorial Hospital in Boston after looking at us and saying (with his eyes), “I’m ready to go, okay?” Wolfgang and I were with him as he felt gently to sleep.

The heart has its reasons which reason does not know.

And such is the case with the passing of our Murray. He still breathes shallowly, his little eyes opening just a slit every once in a while. But his time is here. I have written about him several times on here. He has been sick on and off for many months. We thought he might be better. But on Thursday he got much worse, very fast. Our vet tried some alternative treatments. But they merely perked him up for a few hours, until he descended back into that space between this world and the next. We hope he will pass gently on his own, comfortable in his little fuzzy bed, tucked in his favorite closet where he is happiest. But if he hangs on until tomorrow, we will gently take him to the vet and give him the help he needs to let go. I thought that I would be okay with it – sad, but not too sad, knowing that he has always been a bit weak and sickly, and that he would be far more comfortable in some world beyond this one. But instead I am just overwhelmed with sadness and wishing he could be better and it, well, it just hurts. Logic about how this is best for him and was partially expected doesn’t make it much better that my kitty is dying, and he is uncomfortable and, as a mostly feral cat, even less consolable than a regular sick cat.

My partner, Mr. Philospher, told me so ministerially and lovingly that the heart has reasons which reason does not know. It is so true. Our hearts so often just do their own thing, no matter what we tell them.

Such is this life of suffering and joy and struggle and hope.

May your passing be smooth and comfortable, sweet Murray. We love you.

.

Here is Murray just last week cuddling his favorite foster kitten, Juliet.

The Big Deal About Being Kind to People

I have written probably countless times about my struggles with the unfriendliness of Greater Boston. Sorry if you are sick of it. Skip if you like. But, today a very unfriendly sassy woman taught me a good lesson: even if people seem to be doing really dumb things, generally, it is probably even still a good idea not to be nasty to them.

I was driving to dinner in Cambridge. There are all these squiggly narrow back streets where they start off as two-way and turn into one way. I went a way I haven’t gone before and ended up going the wrong way down a street. I know. Not ideal. But it was a super-tiny street, and I was going about 12 miles an hour, so it wasn’t like there was going to be a head-on collision or something. Anyway, this woman looks at me with the meanest look and says some snappy comment about it being one way. Okay. Point taken. I start to turn around and she continues to stare at me with a “Could you be any more stupid?” look like I have just purposely tried to kill her cat or something. My windows were down and she was super-close and I said, “Sorry, these streets get confusing sometimes.” Which, as any Boston/Cambridge driver knows, is the case. Instead of an understanding nod, or maybe at least just ignoring me, she continues to give me the Look of Death and says, “Well, there are signs,” in a super-sassy, snarky, bitchy way. I’m already embarrassed about the mistake, okay? I wasn’t talking on my cell phone or doing something that distracted me. Clearly the signs are not that obvious. I said, “Well, thanks for being so nice and understanding about it.”

Little did this woman know I was having an already hard day. I am super-emotional. Things are a bit raw, even. And, even though I did feel a bad from such random unkindness and lack of understanding, it was a good little lesson to me to be really nice to people even when I don’t feel like it. Because you don’t know if their mom died that day, or if they are getting divorced, or if they just lost their job. (These things are not happening to me, but you get the point. Maybe they already feel really bad.)  Maybe they just need someone to show a little extra understanding. For whatever reason, it seems always better to be nice to people. It doesn’t take that much but can be the difference between tears, or a more stressful day, or a brighter day, a little more hope about the goodness of humanity.

So, mean woman on Sacramento Street, I will be being extra nice to people just to make sure I don’t make anyone feel like you made me feel today.*

*Lest you think I am over-reacting to her nasty little comments, well, I know I am. But the point was, I was already feeling bad. And she just made it worse for no good reason at all. I know I know. I shouldn’t take it personally. But when you are already feeling a little bad, it is hard not to take it personally. Which is the whole point. We never know what people are going through. Why risk making an already-difficult world more difficult for others if you can help it?

House or Buddha?

I’ve spent a lot of the last three or five years of my life trying to be more compassionate, more understanding, more mindful, calmer, kinder, more loving, and really pressuring encouraging my partner to do all of this too. I was sort of an obnoxious know-it-all teenager (yes, more so than your average teen) and this started declining after, one morning at church in college, I had an epiphany that I didn’t have to be this intense, that it actually was not good for me, and that the world did not need my intense drama, debate, provoking and proclamations in order to keep moving along and that I might be happier and make more progress toward my goals in life (liberal political stuff, justice, and all that) if I was nice to people instead of lecturing them. (Not that it is terribly relevant here, but my 180 turn toward gentleness and avoidance of conflict probably also had something to do with rejecting a conflict-ridden household growing up, but that is another post). So, I got all into unconditional love, forgiveness, and this ended up morphing into more Buddhist-ish formulations once I finally decided (I think) that I really can’t be a Christian even if I really really want to.

And now enter Gregory House M.D., mean doctor who is cynical, jaded, rude, super-smart, and probably pretty sad, and lonely. I LOVE THIS SHOW. Unreasonably. At first, I thought I loved it like I liked E.R. Interesting relationships, medical drama. And there are things to solve (sort of like Law & Order only medical and less predicable). Or maybe I just liked it because I don’t have a T.V. and it was a show I had seen a few times and sort of got hooked because I really wasn’t watching much else.

But this is not the case. I am drawn to this show. My spirit is drawn to it. I cannot tell if I want to be more like House (more confident, strong, uncaring about what others think about me, super-insightful, more selfish). Or if I want to rescue House (just like I wanted to rescue Will in Good Will Hunting or Joey in fourth grade, or Levi in ninth grade, etc.). Or both. Maybe it is just fun to live vicariously through someone who is pretty much never wrong, and is cold and calculating, but really soft on the inside.

Why post this on my blog, you say? Because it raises actual questions for me about how we might live our lives. I have started but not finished two other posts on this topic that have something to do with how nice is too nice and how mindful and meditative can you be before you are just dull? The Dalai Lama and Thich Naht Hahn are great, but how Buddha-ish do I want to be or should/can I (we) be and how House-ish should we (I) be, just calling people out on things, and not entertaining their mush and drama? Is part of being a good minister (or just human) sometimes not saying, “Oh, and how does that feel to you?” and instead just being like, “Seriously, you need to just get over that.” How much is all my compassion and love and la la la so others will like me and feel cared for by me, and how much of it is really that that is what they truly need?

I will continue to do more research on this by watching as many House episodes as I possibly can. I will report back.

Thoughts and Pictures From Ohio

I’ve been in Ohio for a week visiting my parents on their farm (which they don’t actually farm), going to Arcanum Old Fashion Days where I used to run around every May with my best friend Katie chasing boys and trying to be cool, visiting the young men I mentor and their beautiful families, working at The Kettering Foundation, and thinking about and trying not to stress over my upcoming Regional Subcommittee on Candidacy Interview on June 2.

I loved the the country, the green, how slow life is, how easy it is to drive, how much space there is to prance around in my parents’ yard, how there are barns to explore if I want to, how you can smell the grass, how police and farmers always wave to you when you pass them on the road, how there are no jack hammers outside your window in the morning, and how I know all the streets and back roads and even how I know people at the grocery store even if I don’t really want to talk to them, introvert that I am.

I loved visiting my parents and being and adult and it being okay to extrapolate myself from family dynamics that you can’t extrapolate yourself from when you are 17.

I like how I can have a bon fire in the back yard and make smoores if the mood strikes.

I love how each tree is a tree I climbed, or how the barns are hideouts we made and adventures we had searching for secret passage ways and evidence of a crime we could solve (like Nancy Drew). Each back road all with their names that only seemed strange once college friends visited and told me so (Hogpath or Schnorf-Jones or Otterbein-Ithica or Dull Rd.) is a story, or a memory, or a home I used to visit of a childhood friend, or where so-and-so lived who married so-and-so.

All the memories are not good. But they are mine and taken together they are the first 17 years of my life. Corn stalks, and woods, and barns, and school mates, and religion and all of it. They are rich and dark and funny and sad and happy and complex. Like our lives.

I love the religious signs and radio stations, in a weird sort of way. I forgot how much more religious Ohio is than Massachusetts. I have documented some of them for you (along with other lovely pictures). My dream would be to make a book documenting this sort of thing, except that several of them have already been written/photographed.

*

This is an awesome looking coffee house in Arcanum (population 2,000). You know coffeehouses are main stream when Arcanum gets one.

Except, my friends, this isn’t Starbucks. No cute little signs about the drink special here. Right down to business.

This is a very special cup of homemade lemonade where you not only get the lemonade, but a Bible verse, too.

This is my parents back yard.

And this is their house from the back yard.

And this is the hole in the wall where the raccoons broke in through the attic, down into the walls and into the extra room upstairs. There are some legendary stories involving raccoons in our attic, a hand gun, my dad, an attacking Mama raccoon, and eight year old Elizabeth, but that, I shall save for another post.

This is The Scripture Supply Shop in Sylvania, Ohio, where, apparently, you can get whatever scripture supplies you need. Try getting that in Massachusetts!

But they are not keeping their signs adequately updated. “Accept Christ Now, Tomorrow May be Oo La.”

On the way home from Sylvania, United States Plastics tells us:

Shortly thereafter, we are reminded:

This is Sugar Boy. He graciously allows my parents to live with him and feed him and attend to his every whim.

This is his trusty sidekick Sebastian.

Their sister Priscilla did not want her picture taken until she looses a few pounds. She currently weighs 18 pounds.

This is Pablo, our foster kitten. Just before we left for Ohio, we lost his brother Logan and sister Maria – the first two kittens we have ever lost. Very hard. Especially for Wolfgang who doesn’t really believe in any sort of kitten afterlife. They were just too young to be away from their Mama (who apparently abandoned them, or was unable to attend to them for some reason) and they just couldn’t pull through. We almost lost Pablo, but he is doing quiet well now.

He is considering taking up blogging about his near-death experience and being abandoned by his mom. Either a blog or a memoir. He isn’t quite sure yet. Since he is only six weeks old, he figures he has a little time to decide.

That’s all from Ohio. And Somerville. For now.