It’s hot. At 8:oo last night it was 86 degrees. I’m not complaining — if you know one thing about me, it’s that I am ridiculously proud of the way I can stand the heat. We don’t use air conditioning here at Casa des Chats, even though every now and then it’s too hot to [...]]]>

It’s hot. At 8:oo last night it was 86 degrees. I’m not complaining — if you know one thing about me, it’s that I am ridiculously proud of the way I can stand the heat. We don’t use air conditioning here at Casa des Chats, even though every now and then it’s too hot to sleep (that’s when we get up and go to an all night diner, or head to Jones Beach and wait for  sun rise. Or we just bitch and moan and curse our hi falutin Save The Earth ways.)

But the impatiens don’t like the heat. We had to cut down a big tree in the back yard last Fall and when I planted the impatiens in their usual spot in May I didn’t take into account the fact that without the tree’s shade, we have a lot more sun in the backyard than we used to. So they tend to droop when it gets so very hot (and it’s been very hot this Summer). But the good thing is that every morning they pop back, in bloom, waving they little petals at the world like a chorus of nah-nah-nah-nah-nah-nah. (I really did take these photos of the same impatiens plant at 4 o’clock in the afternoon above, and 7 o’clock in the next morning, below:)

(You are free to make your own human-flower resilience and beautiful spite philosophical musing here.)

While I was out there listening to the impatiens razzing a world that tries its best to wear them out every day, I wandered out into the backyard. It was cool,and quiet, and if you know two things about me it’s that I love this time of August the best. So in this early morning respite from the maddening heat and busy-ness of the day I said my usual Druid request of the Great Spirit: Please let me see what you are trying to show me today.

(Although, I must admit, secretly I am always hoping that what the universe is  trying to show me is how darn smart and lovable I am.)

Oh lordy, I know the world is a tragic place and that you can’t miss seeing the hate, violence, and injustice that takes place every single day. This world can break your heart six times before breakfast. Everything that we love will eventually wither and fall away, people will not get what they deserve, children will go hungry or worse, there will always be war and grieving mothers, we will ourselves one day die. Really, it’s a wonder that the weight of all the misery on this planet doesn’t do us in. Sometimes, I wonder why we go on every day, writing books and painting pictures and talking to cats when it’s all going to end in either a mushroom cloud or a super nova. Us Druids, we shouldn’t watch the news before we’ve had our first cup of tea.

All I hope for, when I talk to the Great Spirit, is to be able to see past the obvious. In this world, in all its pointlessness, all I want to see is a little sign of life. A little sign that joy is still possible, that happiness matters, that beauty dignifies the cost of having a heart and a soul. Is that too much to ask?

And then I saw it.

Do you see it?  Across from the paws of my helper/hindrance Lickety the Fierce Feral Cat Who You Better Not Mistake For A House Tabby Because He’s Too Fierce For That (who was hoping we’d see something Friskie’s Ocean Fish flavored.)

Do you see it?

If only I could capture the way the light hit it for that instant, made it sparkle at me… I’ve found a lot of blue jay feathers in my time (if you know three things about me you know that I collect blue jay feathers like they were sapphires or lapis lazuli because, mineral or vegetable, blue is the rarest color found in nature and us Druids think that every shade of blue is holy) but I’ve never had one sparkle at me before.

But, now that I think about it some more, it didn’t so much sparkle as glow.

I didn’t even know they made blue jay feathers this small. It’s the very tiniest blue jay feather I’ve ever seen! Are there hummingbird-sized blue jays that I don’t know about?

Well, I picked this itty-bitty feather up out of the grass and I felt such a rush of appreciation for this teeny tiny answer to my Request of the Great Spirit that for a moment I forgot that I was in a bad, entropy-filled mood. For a moment I forgot to be afraid of where this nasty, brutal, libertarian-jihad-filled world was headed. OK, it’s not a cure for cancer or a Middle East Peace Treaty; but for one little moment in one little life, it was OK.

This just goes to show you: Nothing is too small to be holy. In fact, in a world such as this, maybe the only things that redeem it day by day are the small shining (or glowing) little bits and pieces of a bigger miracle.

The Great Spirit is very nice about reminding you of this. All you have to do is ask.

And don’t forget to say “Thank You” when She answers.

This is a photo of my first gray hair, taken in 1990. (It’s in my bangs, front and center.)  I was 34. I was untroubled by a gray hair. I never thought ahead to the day when I’d want to take a photo of my last un-gray hair.

This is also photographic proof of why you should never wear [...]]]>

This is a photo of my first gray hair, taken in 1990. (It’s in my bangs, front and center.)  I was 34. I was untroubled by a gray hair. I never thought ahead to the day when I’d want to take a photo of my last un-gray hair.

This is also photographic proof of why you should never wear your glasses in a “portrait” photo: the glasses will go out of style the very next day and then you’re stuck with them (luckily, if I ever need this picture for my permanent record, they do amazing things with PhotoShop these days).

I started to dye my hair in 1996, or 7. After an unfortunate experiment with Honey Blonde, I went with an auburn color that was close to my natural hue to cover the gray.

In 2005 I stopped with the hair dye. This is a photo of me with Winston, who has just had extensive dental surgery, so he was a little pouty for a few days. My gray roots are just starting to peep.

This is a photo taken of me in my backyard earlier this month, with Lickety, one of my feral cats. He’s been one of my Backyard Cats since he was a baby (he showed up with his mother and brothers in the Summer of 2008) and as you can see, he is completely fierce and wild. Savage. Like a miniature tiger. We are all very afraid of him and his ferociousness.

I took a look at this photo and I got a mild case of Capgras syndrome. That’s what happens when people become convinced that someone close to them has been replaced with an identical-looking imposter. I saw a Vivian-looking person in the photo but what was with all that gray hair?

As it happens (and does anything just happen? Isn’t it all part of a plan?) I happened to be reading the New York Times Book Review (which I only read about three times a year) and I saw a photo of the author Mona Simpson:

I have no idea what her new book is about (although I do know that I can’t wait to not read it, being as I am allergic to fiction) but I loved her hair. Not short, but not country-singer long, either; kind of sophisticated but casual. And probably expensive; her brother is Steve Jobs after all and she probably got some Friends and Family stock options on the iPhone and can afford the best hair cut money can buy. You could do a lot worse (and have you seen what most authors look like?? Margaret Atwood, Joyce Carol Oates, don’t act like I’m not talking about you) than taking hair-cutting tips from Mona Simpson.

I took this picture with me to my local hair salon, the one that I go to twice a year to get my long hair trimmed. I only let them take two inches off each time — I know from bad hair cuts. I’m still not over the hatchet job I got in 1975 when some hair cutter got crazy and layered my whole head when I asked for some feathered bangs. We called it a shag back then, but in truth, it was a mullet.

I discussed this cut carefully with the stylist. “I want it this long,” I said. “I want to ba able to pull it back in a pony tail when I’m not posing for author photos,” I said.

This is what I got:

Now, does this look anything like Mona Simpson?? No wonder Ihate getting my hair cut and I walk around as if I’m trying out for the lead in a Rapunzel skit . The only reason I’m smiling is because I’m wearing my new favorite shirt, which I found in a thrift shop last weekend for one dollar. And because Top Cat is taking my picture and making hootchy-koo sounds while holding the camera with his pinkie fingers raised.

I’m thinking that this is the shirt I will wear for the author photo of my Damn France Book– all I need is a beret and an accordion. Let’s see…the book is going to press in April of 2011 for its Spring 2012 release…

April 2011…that’s seven months from now. Yep. That should be about the right amount of time to get this butcher cut grown out. And don’t think I’m not counting the days.

It’s that time of year again.

It’s time for us to all wonder, where did August go?

How did Summer go so fast?

Why can’t there be just a little more time?

I’m never ready to say good-bye. Ever. And not just to the Summer; the older I get, the more of a hanger-on-er I am. I want things [...]]]>

It’s that time of year again.

It’s time for us to all wonder, where did August go?

How did Summer go so fast?

Why can’t there be just a little more time?

I’m never ready to say good-bye. Ever. And not just to the Summer; the older I get, the more of a hanger-on-er I am. I want things to stay the same, everyday, without complications or challenges or thickening plots.  I want to go back to those happier times before Twitter, e-books, sexting, and Sarah Palin. And as long as I’m at it, I’d like to stay 26 and I want my old cat Winston back.

Sigh. Musn’t grumble (or else I’ll start to sound like an Arizona Republican).

Coming up is the last weekend of my favorite month of the year. Top Cat and I are going to the shore of the Long Island Sound tomorrow with a picnic dinner and a bottle of champagne and we’re going to watch the sun set and toast our good luck that we’ve made it this far, to Old Fartism, where we complain about everything that’s new, “improved”, loud, or anything that the kids like these days.

And that’s how we’ll say good-bye August.

Can’t wait to see you again next year.

A matching set of vintage paint-by-number landscapes! They are beautifully done — each and every cell is painted with love, I can tell. Each is signed “Palme” in the lower right hand corner and they are so perfectly (professionally) framed that I haven’t had the heart to pull [...]]]> Big score at the thrift shop this week:

A matching set of vintage paint-by-number landscapes! They are beautifully done — each and every cell is painted with love, I can tell. Each is signed “Palme” in the lower right hand corner and they are so perfectly (professionally) framed that I haven’t had the heart to pull them out to check to see if there’s a full name and/or date on the back of the picture.

When I saw them, stacked on the floor behind a bunch of dusty plastic-framed prints (of the usual thrift shop variety: still lifes, posters from art museums, sail boats) I gasped. I couldn’t breathe for a moment or two. (The usual loss of breath when one finds a real treasure at the thrift shop.)

I’ve been looking for a good paint-by-number painting for years but all the ones I’ve seen so far (and they are hard to find, being highly collectible these days) were painted by the same bored-stiff paint-by-number painter that I was, when I got my paint-by-number kit 45 years ago. Meaning that the painter tended to free-lance when it came to painting all those piddling little cells just so, “simplifying”  the painting into a few big blobs of color fields.

These paintings are meticulously done, with nice wooden frames to show how (justifiably) proud the painter was with his/her finished work, and they are big: each one is 16″ x 20″. And the scene is gorgeous — Fall in New England. In a word, or several, this is the gold standard, the jackpot, the n’est plus ultra of paint-by-number paintings.

They didn’t have a price on them so I had to take show them to the manager to get her expert opinion. She frowned, tapped one with her fingernail, determined that it was cardboard (not canvas), and told me “$9.99. each.”

Bargain. Which, again, is hard to find in a thrift shop these days. The Antiques Road Show and eBay have seriously lessened the quality and raised the prices of thrift shop goods these days, and a real bargain is hard to find. I would have paid twice the price for these paintings and thrown in the title to my SUV to sweeten the deal, so when the manager said $9.99 I couldnt get to the cash register fast enough. We’ve been thinking about getting rid of the SUV any way.

So here they are:

These two Fall paintings have filled in a sad and painful gap in my collection of thrift shop paintings of the four seasons. I had Winter already:

(44″‘ x 32″, canvas, signed “Kate Q.” on the back; it’s hanging over the fireplace in my livingroom.)

And I already had Spring:

(16″ x 20″, canvas, signed “JK ’67” in lower right corner; I’ve almost cleaned all the decades-worth of filthy cigarette-smoke-tar off it.)

Now all I need is Summer. If you see a good Summer thrift shop painting, let me know.

(P.S. This post was inspired by G2′s suggestion (see: Comments, August 6) that tea should have  four different, seasonal blends — so right. Tea appreciation is a changing, seasonal thing, like all good things: wine, food, art, TV, and shopping. Right?)

This is how we do it:

DONE.

CROPPED.

Thank you!

You’ve been such a great audience!

Ooops. I think I woke up Coco and Belle — the cats who live in my workroom (because they are too ornery to let out with the other house cats).

I painted this picture on [...]]]>

This is how we do it:

DONE.

CROPPED.

Thank you!

You’ve been such a great audience!

Ooops. I think I woke up Coco and Belle — the cats who live in my workroom (because they are too ornery to let out with the other house cats).

I painted this picture on Saturday (Aug. 14) to show those readers who have emailed me, asking about the August illustrations in When Wanderers Cease to Roam (see page 124 for those who still believe in reading real books).  For those of you who get your info only in the ether, let me show you the paint chips on that page:

These 5 colors are all the colors you’ll need to paint an August morning. But my book doesn’t show you how to use those colors (in layers from the background to the foreground) so that’s why I painted this picture especially for this blog.

If you want the play-by-play, I have a new page (see tab above) that gives you a more detailed look at how I painted this. I’m going all art journalistic on you because I’m stalling. I can’t choose my new tea! I want every tea you suggested — I even like the puns! I love Oolong Island — ha ha. I love all those Wanderers brews! I love them all! I know it was my idea, but I don’t want to have to choose!

But I promise, I’ll have my winner on Friday. And then I’ll never have another contest ever again because it’s too much work to pick a winner and if I wanted to actually work I’d go get that degree in medical billing that those nice people from the spam office have been bombarding me with. I hear there’s big money in that.

My friend Melinda came to visit the Long Island Sound this week, an escapee to our northern climate from the swelter of the Carolinas. We took a short walk on the lawns of an old Gold Coast mansion in the neighborhood. “Is August really your favorite month?” she asked me, and even though I was crab-walking [...]]]>

My friend Melinda came to visit the Long Island Sound this week, an escapee to our northern climate from the swelter of the Carolinas. We took a short walk on the lawns of an old Gold Coast mansion in the neighborhood. “Is August really your favorite month?” she asked me, and even though I was crab-walking in the shade of an enormous locust tree (the better to focus on the ground beneath my feet) I could detect a tone of skepticism in her voice.

“Yeah,” I said. “I really like August.” And then I held up a bright yellow flight feather (see above) that I’d just discovered in the dust and dried leaves, bits of Robin’s egg shell and wind-blown needles from nearby evergreens: My trophy of the day.

Yes, I really, really like August.

When I found that yellow feather I already had my hands full with my other treasures (see above): an owl’s feather and a bird’s nest — all from simply keeping August on my mind, and eyes on the ground.

Yes, it was the strangest thing, finding that bird’s nest upside down on the grass. I guessed it had fallen out of the plane tree above, which gave me the idea to start hunting underneath any one of the hundreds of ancient hard wood trees on this property. I only had to search one other tree to find my feathers — now I ask you: What else do you need to make you love August?

(Besides not living in Texas or North Carolina, or Georgia, or any of those places you tell me about where August bores into your skull like a thousand hot pokers and wears you down like a thousand wrap-around wool blankets infested with chiggers and bad news, that is.)

Not to brag or anything, but today it’s 74 degrees, cloudy, with signs of rain. This, even on the Long Island Sound, is a gift in August: a day when I just might have to put on a sweater. It’s as good a tea day as it gets (in August): and that’s what I’ll be doing today. I’ve picked out two kinds of tea (Brodie’s Edinburgh Blend and Tealuxe Copely Place Vanilla) for my long afternoon of lounging and extended mental waywardness. I will be in the exact right frame of mind to consider each and every delicious kind of tea you all  have invented this past week, and doing my best to pick a winner. It won’t be easy, but I can always resort to numerology, spells, a throw of the  I Ching, or reading tea leaves if I have to.

Also this weekend I’ll be working on a new painting — which I’ll show here on Monday — as my art journal lesson of the month.

jkl;

jkl;

jkl;

This is the morning light on a dewy a spider web in my front yard.

August: I wish we could borrow a few days from July, a few from September, and make August 40 days long. That would give me 40 of the best early mornings of the year.

For 40 August mornings I’d wake  up in the [...]]]>

This is the morning light on a dewy a spider web in my front yard.

August: I wish we could borrow a few days from July, a few from September, and make August 40 days long. That would give me 40 of the best early mornings of the year.

For 40 August mornings I’d wake  up in the dark, and lie in bed listening to the birds try to out-sing the cicadas (a warning that the coming day will be hot, very very hot). I’d remember to do that quantum-field morning meditation where I create my day by telling myself that I’m going to live today in peace, productivity, and perseverance. Then I’d get out of bed, put on a loose fitting Summer dress, step into my sneakers, go downstairs and feed the cats while the water in my tea kettle boils. I’d put a drop of vanilla extract into my cup with a big dollop of honey, and I’d head out doors to breathe the freshest air of the day and to watch the sun rise, light up a flower bed here and there, illuminate the woods, brighten up the night shadows still hanging around the corners of the yard.

Thank you for so many great tea names! All of them sound exactly like the kind of tea I would be glad to take with me in a Go Cup on every August morning. I love the suggestion of having a Four Season choice of tea — after all, does anyone in her right mind drink a big duskyLapsang Suchong in the Summer? A dainty little Earl Grey in February?

So many good tea ideas to consider! Thank you so much for giving me so much to ponder (I need a cup of tea).

P. S. And yes, Barbara, I did sew that embroidered picture of me and my cats: the original is hanging in my downstairs powder room:

You know, in Winter, this powder room gets the most beautiful afternoon light. A flood of sunshine comes in through the window just out of view (to the side of the sink) like it’s the portal to some kind Bathroom Henge. And, as I live in a drafty, 100-year old house, this specially solar-powered powder room becomes the most snug room in the house around 3 o’clock every Winter afternoon. There are times when I’ve sat in here, with my afternoon cup of tea and a good book, soaking up some rare sun beams on a cold Winter day. 

Good thing I haven’t asked you to come up with names for Drinking in the Downstairs Bathroom Tea. I’d hate to think what you’d come up with.

I don’t mind that Elizabeth Gilbert is a better writer than I am. I don’t mind that’s she’s blonder, cuter, smarter, and has Julia Roberts playing her in the movie that has been made from her mega-bestseller memoir. Really, I don’t.

But when  The Republic of Tea came out with an Eat, Pray, Love tea, that’s when [...]]]>

I don’t mind that Elizabeth Gilbert is a better writer than I am. I don’t mind that’s she’s blonder, cuter, smarter, and has Julia Roberts playing her in the movie that has been made from her mega-bestseller memoir. Really, I don’t.

But when  The Republic of Tea came out with an Eat, Pray, Love tea, that’s when I said to myself, Now wait just a damn minute.

If you’ve read my book, then  you might have noticed that

1. There’s a lot of cats in it.

2. There’s also a lot of tea in it.

3. There’s even cats and tea in it.

4. See: August chapter, page 126:

I love tea. I love its place in my life, the thoughtful, calm, creative, alone, place where I sit with myself and a good book, a fat cat, a comfy chair, and my favorite cup. I love its place in all other tea drinkers’ lives, which is also its place in literature, culture, and friendship. And I want my own brand of tea, damn it.

And I really really really want to design the box that it will come in. Six sides, all illustrated with a scene of tea heaven — that  clean, well-lit place that soothes the soul. I have it all planned out in my head, and it’s gorgeous: it will be the best box of tea the Earth has ever seen.

But, if any writer had to beat me at my own tea dreams, I’m glad it’s Elizabeth Gilbert, so I got on line and ordered two tins of Eat, Pray, Love tea (available only on line for a limited time, at www.republicoftea.com).

I got my tins yesterday and I had a cup: it’s a Blood Orange Cinnamon Black Tea, very aromatic and spicy, full of familiar and foreign flavors that are elusive yet comforting. It’s a perfect tea for an afternoon voyage to a new mental landscape. And I want to offer my lovely readers the chance to win a tin!

But there’s a catch: I need your help. I don’t have a name for my tea. And I know that a lot of you are pretty spiffy tea drinkers yourselves and much more clever than I am, so here’s the deal: send me your dream tea name, in the Comments section below, and the winning name’s author will receive a tin of Eat,Pray,Love tea (50 tea bags) from me, with a specially-hand made card of thanks (and your name on my tea box). Because mark my words, if the universe works the way Oprah says it does, then I will get my own tea one day.

(My souvenir Buckingham Palace 1994 tea mug not included in contest prize)

Keep in mind that my tea will be:

Black. That means Indian and/or African tea. I do not care for green tea, not that I judge people who like green tea or that I’m judging green tea (which I really am) but I prefer the color, body, taste, and ooomph of black tea.

I want some Madagascar vanilla flavor in my tea. Vanilla is my favorite flavor in the world, and Madagascar is my favorite country name in the world. And I’m very fond of the Madagascar Sun Set Moth.

I am against putting milk in tea.

I like the way tea tastes in a paper cup.

NO PUNS. God, I hate puns.

Deadline for your tea suggestions will be next Friday, August 13, when coincidently, the movie Eat, Pray, Love opens.

Drink. Think. Write to me.

August is my favorite month of the year: lush, steamy, poignant. It’s also my favorite chapter — because it’s the chapter where I let my Cat Lady self  have free range. In Pawsylvania, as it turns out.

(For those of you reading along , turn to page 124 in When Wanderers Cease to Roam; but if you’re [...]]]>

August is my favorite month of the year: lush, steamy, poignant. It’s also my favorite chapter — because it’s the chapter where I let my Cat Lady self  have free range. In Pawsylvania, as it turns out.

(For those of you reading along , turn to page 124 in When Wanderers Cease to Roam; but if you’re like me and can’t be bothered to put down your cup of tea to go dig up some book you forgot about a long time ago, don’t worry. There won’t be a quiz at the end of this post.)

When people say that my book has a lot of cats in it I have to laugh. Believe me, I held back on the cats big time; in my opinion, I show great restraint in the cat department: I went through every chapter and edited out pages of cat stuff. What’s left is the bare bones of my cat-centric pea brain…except for the August chapter. In August, I decided to fess up about the micro-nation that I inhabited, in the alley behind my apartment house, with my cats Woody and Louie.

Louie:

Woody:

Micro-nations  are actual political units, inventions (usually crack pot in nature) of sovereignty defined by the United Nations as:

small, self-declared state-like entities existing in real or imagined space which do not meet any international criteria for statehood.

I fell in love with the idea of micro-nations because I believe that we all, each of us, live in micro-nations of our own creating, whether it’s made from a family, a church group, a cause, a secret longing, an especially intense inner life, a sport, a hobby, a crush, a  joyous desire to carve a personal niche in the vast indifference of time. My particular micro-nation happens to have existed one memorable Summer, and then it was gone.

It was August 1995, and me and my 15-year old cat Woody had been joined the previous Fall and Winter by a stray cat I called Louie. Of course I’d had him neutered and vaccinated I could not turn Louie into a house cat: I had to let him out every night and dayor else he’d tear up my apartment and howl as if I were skinning him alive). That’s how I got into the habit of taking my first cup of tea of the day outside into the back alley — I was out there to check up on Louie. And then Woody started coming along to keep me company.

So we’d by out there, in the alley, every morning at dawn (my favorite time of the August day), in the dim light and shadows and bright freshness, before the village woke up and before the heat of the day. It was tranquil, noiseless, cool, private, and safe. I was reading MFK Fisher for the first  time, so as I’d sit in the alley sipping my tea (sweet, black, with a drop of vanilla extract) I’d also be lost in Ms. Fisher’s world (France, between the wars; tangerines and doomed love). No wonder I can never re-read her books with anything close to the same sensory thrill; I miss the scent of asphalt and dew, the landscape of silence and mystery from being in the alley at sunrise with my cats.

That was my Pawsylvania, that back alley. Or, more exactly, Pawsylvania was a time  (not a place) when there was no one else in my world except me and two doofus cats (each nosing around on their own adventures  — usually in the inexplicable patch of corn that someone grew at the end of the alley that one Summer — but never straying too far from my company) and my own thoughts (some borrowed from MFK Fisher, some made up of my own dread and hopes. Nothing I dreaded was as bad as I thought it would be, and everything I hoped for turned out much better than I’d imagined. The usual story, in other words.).

For fun, and page count, I elaborated (in my book) on my idea of Pawslyvania; made a passport, issued stamps and visas like any other self-respecting micro-nation. But I hope that didn’t obscure my point. That there’s a Pawsylvania in everyone’s back alley, a realm of time to which only you hold the citizenship, passport, and reality.

For comparison, here’s Pawsylvania in Winter (that’s Woody in the lower left corner):

August: it’s its own micro-nation. Catch it while you can.

(This post is dedicated to August. You know who you are.)