Caturday Snapshot ~ forlorn kitty

Babe is an indoor-outdoor cat who lives where I've been house-and-cat-sitting.  She has beautiful green eyes.  In this snapshot, she was watching for Jane to come home — or maybe watching the squirrels and chipmunks and birds.

She doesn't like being stuck inside alone, as shown in this photo.  Doesn't she look forlorn, watching me leave to go somewhere, maybe to last week's birthday party?  Oh, you don't see her?  Look closely at the bottom middle of the window, where she's pushed aside the hanging blinds (click to enlarge photo).  She had made a rush for the door, but I got it closed before she got out.  I'm sure Babe is pleased Jane is now back home from Ireland.

Saturday Snapshot is a meme hosted by Alyce from At Home With Books. To participate, post an old or new photo taken by you (or a friend or family member).  Check out the snapshots others are sharing this week.

Sunday Salon ~ Mother's Day

MOTHER'S DAY

Mildred Reynolds Setliffe

(1917-2004)

I miss you, Mom.

RAEGAN'S PARTY

My great-granddaughter turned three yesterday.  This picture is from her birthday party in the park's pavilion.  She's a pink princess with braids, sitting beside her mother, with her Nana (my daughter) reaching for the last gift bag to be opened.  Raegan is opening a small pink box with a cupcake inside.

A CAT'S LIFE

Babe

When I snapped this, I understood without a meow what Babe was saying:  "It's one thing to snuggle up together, but if you're going to show Jane what I did, well then...!"  And she stomped off in a huff on silent cat feet and never come back.  Yeah, that's a difficult maneuver — to stomp silently — but she managed.

CARDED

Click to enlarge

Here's the only postcard I mailed during National Postcard Week.  It shows one of the Incline Railway cars decending from the top of Lookout Mountain to the valley.  I put the card in Jane's mailbox one day, and it was picked up the next.  Dear recipient, it would show "Hixson, TN" whether sent from Jane's house or mine.

On Saturday, I received a postcard from my "dear recipient," a blogger I've enjoyed getting to know.  I remember now what's wrong with postcards — the P.O. stamped a bar code all over the bottom, which told me what was in this picture.  I can read "Republic of Korea," which is South Korea.

WHAT I'M READING

Just finished

1.  We the Children (Benjamin Pratt and the Keepers of the School series #1) ~ by Andrew Clements, 2010, children's, 10/10

Currently

2.  The Gifts of the Jews: How a Tribe of Desert Nomads Changed  the Way Everyone Thinks and Feels ~ by Thomas Cahill, 1998, history

Concurrently (with my study group)

3.  Living Buddha, Living Christ ~ by Thích Nhất Hạnh, introduction by Elaine Pagels, 1995, religion

Next

4.  Fear Itself (Benjamin Pratt and the Keepers of the School series #2) ~ by Andrew Clements, 2011, children's

IN THE MAIL

I found two books at my front door when I came home from Jane's on Friday, but I'm not sure how long they had been there, since I normally come in through the patio door.  I won these from Meg @ A Bookish Affair, and they look very interesting.

In Other Worlds: SF and the Human Imagination ~ by Margaret Atwood, 2011, essays and SF (short fiction, speculative fiction)

Margaret Atwood explores her relationship with the literary form we have come to know as "science fiction,” a relationship that has been lifelong, stretching from her days as a child reader in the 1940s, through her time as a graduate student at Harvard, where she worked on the Victorian ancestor of the form, and continuing as a writer and reviewer.  This book brings together her three heretofore unpublished Ellmann Lectures from 2010: "Flying Rabbits," which begins with Atwood's early rabbit superhero creations, and goes on to speculate about masks, capes, weakling alter egos, and Things with Wings; "Burning Bushes," which follows her into Victorian otherlands and beyond; and "Dire Cartographies," which investigates Utopias and Dystopias.  The book also includes some of Atwood's key reviews and thoughts about the form. Among those writers discussed are Marge Piercy, Rider Haggard, Ursula Le Guin, Ishiguro, Bryher, Huxley, and Jonathan Swift. She elucidates the differences (as she sees them) between "science fiction" proper, and "speculative fiction," as well as between "sword and sorcery/fantasy" and "slipstream fiction."

Dead Asleep ~ by Jennifer B. White, 2011, fiction (Massachusetts)

If it were possible, I’d never sleep again.

Everyone was talking about my dreams — even though I hadn’t told a single soul about them. Wherever I went, strangers were discussing my nocturnal visions. I wanted to chalk all of this up to coincidence, but then, only minutes after a chance encounter with a young woman I didn’t know, after she told me in perfect detail of the dream I’d had the night before, she was killed. And I knew I’d have to figure out what was happening to me.

My only hope was a woman who had a knack for falling dead asleep. With help from Claire, a narcoleptic, I would have to take a sleep-journey into the past and future affecting everyone’s life, including my own.

Some things to know about me — my name is Kevin Macy and I’m a partner in an ad agency in Boston, Massachusetts. I’m divorced, I smoke, and I’m an accomplished alcoholic. Not that it has anything to do with my story, but it’s part of who I am. And in the course of reading about these supernatural and bizarre events, those things will factor in.

Another important note — and this you will have a hard time swallowing, I’m sure — while on this strange journey of discovery, I died. And I mean that in the realest of ways — dead as a door nail — bought the farm — kicked the bucket. You get the picture. Of course being dead didn’t “stick,” otherwise I wouldn’t be able to tell you my curious tale.

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Sunday Salon ~ Kiki misses me

LIFE

Babe

I'm house-sitting again, which also means cat-sitting with Babe, who likes to come inside through one door and rush to another door meowing to be let out.  The first day here (this time), she meowed to go outside and I went to the kitchen to let her out through the garage, where she has a cat door to the outside.  No, she sat at the other end of the kitchen, refusing to go that way.  When I closed that door, she marched through the den to go out by way of the deck.  That takes her right back past her cat door to the garage, but it's what she preferred, thank you very much.  It's her favorite game, in one door, out another, refuse to do what's expected.  Kiki has spoiled me, good cat that she is.

Kiki

Speaking of Kiki, the first night I was here at Jane's, my roommate Donna got up in the middle of the night and found Kiki waiting for me by the door, in the dark.  Since Kiki usually sleeps curled up next to me, for at least part of the night, she misses me.  I'm only a couple of miles away, but she doesn't know that.

BOOKS

I should call this "the Luke Tull" edition.  Do you know Luke?  I've been reading Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, Anne Tyler's 1982 novel about the Tull family.  Each chapter is narrated by a different family member:

1.  Pearl Tull, the mother
2.  Cody Tull, her oldest son
3.  Jenny Tull, her daughter
4.  Ezra Tull, her youngest son, who is Pearl's favorite
5.  Cody Tull, again
6.  Pearl Tull, again
7.  Jenny Tull, again, now Dr. Tull, a pediatrician
8.  Luke Tull, son of Cody

There are two more chapters, but I don't know who narrates them.  Not yet, anyway.  Ezra has a restaurant he named the Homesick Restaurant.  Cody moved as far from family as possible, taking along his wife Ruth and son Luke.  That's how far I got before the library informed me they had my book on hold for me:  The Beginner's Goodbye, Anne Tyler's 2012 novel.  It's a new book, so I'm limited to seven days.  I put aside one book and started the other.  I was reading along and got to page 57, where I read this:

Not half an hour later, the phone rang again.  This time it was TULL L.  I answered, but I was warier now.  All I said was, "Hello?"

"Hi, Aaron, it's Luke."

Wait!  "Tull L." on the caller ID is Luke.  That would be Luke Tull.  That's when I made the connection that these two novels are by the same author.  That's when I realized both novels are set in Baltimore, Maryland.  That's when I remembered I don't usually read two novels at the same time.  But I did, and now the same character is in both books.  But there's a 30-year gap between books, and I haven't finished the first one.  I haven't even finished Luke's chapter!  In Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, chapter 8 starts with Luke in his early teens:

The summer before Luke Tull turned fourteen, his father had a serious accident at the factory he was inspecting.

In The Beginner's Goodbye, Luke owns a restaurant.  Wait!  How'd that happen?  Luke's uncle Ezra owned a restaurant in the earlier book.  Is this the same one?  A different restaurant?  Now I wonder if I should finish the earlier novel before continuing this new one.

And then I made another connection.  The wife of Aaron, the main character in The Beginner's Goodbye, is/was a pediatrician.  (The book starts with her death, so "was" a pediatrician is correct.)  Jenny Tull, in Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, is a pediatrician.  Is that how they know each other?  Is that how they became friends, through Luke's aunt Jenny and Aaron's wife?

I don't know if Luke Tull is merely a minor "friend" of this protagonist (Aaron) or if he's important to the story.  Does it matter?  Maybe not, but it's a curious problem to encounter.

Here's my solution.  With about 80 pages to go, I think I'll finish the earlier novel.  Then I'll finish the 2012 novel.  What do you think?

[CORRECTION, afternoon:  I stand corrected by today's New York Times review of the new book.  Aaron's wife Dorothy was an oncologist, a cancer doctor, not a pediatrician.  The two novels have already blurred in my mind.  I've been reading the earlier one today and will finish it soon.]

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Sunday Salon ~ cats and a cartouche

Seeker of Knowledge: The Man Who Deciphered Egyptian Hieroglyphs ~ by James Rumford, 2000, children's biography, 7/10

While house-sitting this past week, I discovered this book on Jane's shelf and fell in love with the illustrations.  That cartouche — the three encircled symbols — is the name of the pharaoh Thothmes:  first, a picture of the god of writing, Thoth, shown as an ibis bird, followed by the letters m and s.  It's a good book, rated 7/10.

CATS in my life

While at Jane's, I got a couple of photos to share with you.  One day, Babe slept curled up on her spot at the foot of the bed, and the next day she slept half on my pillow.  I think she likes me.

But I did miss Kiki, who was so happy to see me when I dropped by the house during the day and when I came home for good.  Her chin-licking kisses were delightful.

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A letter a day

Once again, I'm housesitting and feeding Babe, the cat.  To get ready for this February Month of Letters, I stopped last night — on my way back here from a birthday dinner for a friend — and stocked up on colorful Hallmark stationery, a package of designer paper, and a package of note cards.  I also got a note pad to list names and addresses of recipients and a green pen, which should be perfect for St. Patrick's Day as well.  My mailing list so far includes:

Jan ~ in Texas
Madge ~ in California
Helen ~ in California
Maggie ~ in Ohio
Paula ~ in Tennessee
Jenn ~ in Arizona
Martha ~ in Virginia
Ginny ~ in Florida

Why isn't your name on the list?  If you want a letter from me, send your postal address to emerging(DOT)paradigm(AT)yahoo(DOT)com and I'll add you to the list.  Hey, I'll even send it internationally.

I'll leave you with the two squirrels on the deck where I'm housesitting — click to enlarge the photos and look carefully — there's one at each end of the feeder on the railing. The birds were using that round (squirrel-proof?) feeder hanging down from the eaves.

Babe, watching for Jane ~ on Caturday

Less than 60 seconds after I took this photo of Babe watching for Jane to come home, the car turned into the driveway.  Jane's home, and so am I, along with Jane's book that I almost finished (14 pages left).  Going to bed now, to read.  Hopefully, all 14 pages.

Caturday ~ house sitting with Babe

Babe is watching a squirrel, and I'm house sitting, which includes feeding her.  When I arrived this afternoon, she immediately meowed to me and wanted to be petted.  I think we'll have a grand time together.  By the way, her tail was twitching when I took this photo.

When I opened the curtain in "my" bedroom, the timing was perfect for me to see and take notice of a very ordinary event.  A cupped, brown leaf fluttered down, floating and spinning like a helicopter coming in for a landing.  It descended to the stair rail — and slid all the way to the bottom, just like a kid.  Zipping off the end, the leaf became a ballerina, spiraling as she joined the layers of identical brown leaves who'd taken the plunge before she did.