Okay so I put the cat out last week and haven't let her back in. Our cat Maggie has been part of our family for over 15 years. One day she walked up to our house when she was only a year old and decided to make it her home. We had just had to put to sleep our Lhasa apsa (sp?) dog who was 16 years old and Maggie (named after Cat on a Hot Tin roof) filled an emptiness for us. Having had previous cats who lived outside and contracted all sorts of awful diseases we decided that Maggie would be an indoor cat. She remained that for probably 8 years. Until we sold our old house and move to our new home. Unfortunately April didn't want the cat to come with us. I tried to find a new home for the cat but when I couldn't Maggie came along with us. April decided that the cat would no longer have free roam over our home and she was to reside in my study. This lasted for a short time until I grew weary of my study always smelling like a cat and cat hair on all of my papers and books. Maggie's favorite spot to sleep was on the papers on my desk. It was at that point that I put her out during the day times and let her back in at night. A year ago we adopted a yellow lab from a shelter. With Goldie's addition things became a little more tense. But I thought all the animals had settled down.
Last week I came home 3 nights in a row to find that the cat had ignored her litter box consistently and was using various corners in my study. At this point it was time for her to become a total outdoor cat. I put her food and water outside in a location easy to access and began the difficult ordeal of not allowing the cat back in. For the past week Maggie has been appearing on the ledge of every window and door at ground level. Reminding me of what an awfully mean person I am to put her out. Of course April who didn't want the cat is suddenly concerned about the cat and wanting to know what I'm going to do about it. I'm reminded of a monologue in Smoke on the Mountain where the wife tells the husband he's going to kill himself and he's a dammed fool for trying to walk to town during an ice storm and then in the next breath tells him to "hurry up and get going!"
On Saturday night I let the dog out about 10:30 in the back yard and discovered that a large owl was making a nest in the big tree right behind our patio. This was discovered when the owl, about 20 feet from me, screeched at me nearly causing heart failure while I was standing in the dark of the back yard thinking about the cat. I suddenly had visions of the cat being snatched by the owl for lunch and my wife and daughter blaming me for Maggie's demise!
Our dog of course has added to my animal stress by barking from her crate starting between 5 -6 am each morning. Although I get up at 6 am I really do like that last hour of sleep before 6 am.
I'm beginning to think the animals are plotting behind my back. First the cat plotting how to get back in, then the owl plotting to swoop down on me, and now the dog denying me my sleep! One of our friends has started raising chickens in his backyard in the city. I was informed that he has been reading back yard poultry magazine for sometime before he bought a dozen baby chicks that he plans on raising. (Who knew there was such a thing as Back Yard Poultry!) Jade has been begging for weeks to get a duck! I don't think right now I could take another animal on. I still remember the Chaos theory as expressed in Jurassic Park- "Nature always finds a way to overcome any plans made by humans." I just know there is a wild bunny out there plotting my demise at this very moment!
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Sunday, August 23, 2009
writing
I've been trying to write for a couple of weeks now. I write most mornings in my journal about the things in life that seem to pop up and command my attention. The effort to sit down and start to write something like a play or a piece of poetry or fiction seems to escape me for the moment. This afternoon I sat down and read through about a dozen legends and stories from the Paducah area to try to fashion them into a Ghost Tour as a fundraiser for the theatre. As I read the many accounts I couldn't help think about all of the people who have lived and died in the very buildings that I work in and walk by everyday. People who spent their whole lives getting up in the morning and going to work or raising a family and being part of the community. Some were famous around the world because they cured diseases and others wrote books or performed on Broadway or in film. However most of the people who are the subject of ghost stories are everyday people. They ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time. Some locked themselves away from the rest of the community and became recluses. The kind of people that kids would run up and knock on the door and then run away because they were dared by someone else.
I walk the bookstores (Hi, my name is Michael and I'm a bookaholic.) Thousands and thousands of books line the walls that people have spent years writing and most will be put on the discount table within a year. I walked through a video store the other day and saw row upon row of movies that were all discounted. I'm reminded of the story of Jim Henson and the production team that made the movie the Dark Crystal. After spending almost four years of their life on the film they went to the premiere and afterwards they all sighed and then someone said "Well what shall we do for dinner?" Producing a play is kind of like that. You spend weeks and weeks working on something and then it opens and life is at its peak and then it closes and the next show goes into rehearsal.
I talked with my mother today and she told me that my father is talking less and less. His illness is slowly turning him inward. The question that came to mind, was about who a person is. If you don't remember your family and your friends, you don't know the people around you and you live in a world that seems strange and frightening who are you? My wife told me about a book she just read that a woman who was losing her memory had a list of questions that she had to answer each day, who her children were? Who she was married to? Etc... The day she didn't know the answer to the questions she was instructed to open an envelope and to follow the instructions written on the paper. The instructions told her take all of the pills in a certain bottle. She had made her own suicide plan. However she couldn't remember to follow the instructions after she put the paper down. This person was still capable of feeling and being loved by others but was incapable of knowing who she was. With people with memory lose, who will remember their stories years from now?
I worked on a will this weekend with one of these computer programs that you buy. It talks about leaving assets and estate planning. I have a trunk full of my journals that I have written over my life time. There are lots of things in those journals that I would like my daughter to know- The first time I fell in love. The first time I held my daughter in my arms. The things that scared me most as I went out into the world. The things that I dreamed about doing with my life. Yes, even the mistakes I made along the way that I would like for her to avoid. There are several things that she probably shouldn't know about her father. Who I am has been collected in the pages of those journals. I can't help but wish that my father had written his life down. Not to publish as a book for the world to read, but as a book for me to read. To know who he is when he can't tell me himself. For some of these stories that I've been reading today, the only reason that I know anything about these people is because someone remembered it by writing it down.
A friend of mine once joked that all good stories start out with -There once was a man who had two sons... My father had two sons. I was the oldest and left home as soon as I turned 18. Yesterday was my younger brothers birthday. He still lives in my hometown and works for the same company that my father retired from after 40 years of service. My parents were going over to his house to celebrate with his family. As usual I am hundreds of miles away. My father probably won't remember the occasion, and even though I wasn't there to celebrate with my brothers family and my parents, writing it down has helped me to remember it for him.
In sense maybe I am writing a book with my journals, a book that is important to me. If someday I happen to suffer from the same disease as my father, well maybe I'll have an interesting story to read about a father who had two sons, one of which moved away and had a daughter...
I walk the bookstores (Hi, my name is Michael and I'm a bookaholic.) Thousands and thousands of books line the walls that people have spent years writing and most will be put on the discount table within a year. I walked through a video store the other day and saw row upon row of movies that were all discounted. I'm reminded of the story of Jim Henson and the production team that made the movie the Dark Crystal. After spending almost four years of their life on the film they went to the premiere and afterwards they all sighed and then someone said "Well what shall we do for dinner?" Producing a play is kind of like that. You spend weeks and weeks working on something and then it opens and life is at its peak and then it closes and the next show goes into rehearsal.
I talked with my mother today and she told me that my father is talking less and less. His illness is slowly turning him inward. The question that came to mind, was about who a person is. If you don't remember your family and your friends, you don't know the people around you and you live in a world that seems strange and frightening who are you? My wife told me about a book she just read that a woman who was losing her memory had a list of questions that she had to answer each day, who her children were? Who she was married to? Etc... The day she didn't know the answer to the questions she was instructed to open an envelope and to follow the instructions written on the paper. The instructions told her take all of the pills in a certain bottle. She had made her own suicide plan. However she couldn't remember to follow the instructions after she put the paper down. This person was still capable of feeling and being loved by others but was incapable of knowing who she was. With people with memory lose, who will remember their stories years from now?
I worked on a will this weekend with one of these computer programs that you buy. It talks about leaving assets and estate planning. I have a trunk full of my journals that I have written over my life time. There are lots of things in those journals that I would like my daughter to know- The first time I fell in love. The first time I held my daughter in my arms. The things that scared me most as I went out into the world. The things that I dreamed about doing with my life. Yes, even the mistakes I made along the way that I would like for her to avoid. There are several things that she probably shouldn't know about her father. Who I am has been collected in the pages of those journals. I can't help but wish that my father had written his life down. Not to publish as a book for the world to read, but as a book for me to read. To know who he is when he can't tell me himself. For some of these stories that I've been reading today, the only reason that I know anything about these people is because someone remembered it by writing it down.
A friend of mine once joked that all good stories start out with -There once was a man who had two sons... My father had two sons. I was the oldest and left home as soon as I turned 18. Yesterday was my younger brothers birthday. He still lives in my hometown and works for the same company that my father retired from after 40 years of service. My parents were going over to his house to celebrate with his family. As usual I am hundreds of miles away. My father probably won't remember the occasion, and even though I wasn't there to celebrate with my brothers family and my parents, writing it down has helped me to remember it for him.
In sense maybe I am writing a book with my journals, a book that is important to me. If someday I happen to suffer from the same disease as my father, well maybe I'll have an interesting story to read about a father who had two sons, one of which moved away and had a daughter...
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Uncle Ray
I received news on Wednesday morning that my Uncle Ray had died the day before. The funeral would be on Friday morning and it would be in Michigan. I agonized over whether I could attend or not. It would be about 9 hours drive time one way. About 3 pm on Wednesday I told my mother in Wisconsin that I would be unable to go because of too many conflicts and the drive time. My fathers brother passed away last fall and I couldn't go. My mothers oldest sister passed away the week of the ice storm in January and I couldn't go. It kept rolling around in my head over the course of the next couple of hours that I was losing many of the people who helped form my life and that I wasn't able to be there to mark their passing and celebrate their lives. By the time I got home at 9:30 pm after rehearsal I called my folks back and told them I would be attending. As it turned out my sister who lives in Springfield was also going to go and was going to have drive by herself to the funeral. She was in Wisconsin on vacation when the news arrived and decided to drive back to Springfield with her family to drop them off, get funeral clothes and then drive to Michigan the next morning. She had to leave after the funeral to drive back to Springfield to be at work Sat. morning at 8 am. We arranged to carpool. I drove to Springfield IL on Thursday. We got up at 3 am and left about 4 am on Friday morning and arrived in Michigan at 8:30. The last time I saw my Uncle was over 10 years ago at my sisters wedding. Up until 3 weeks ago when I went on vacation, I hadn't even seen my sister in 5 years.
The city in Michigan is one that my mothers family has lived in all of my life. The last time I visited it was in 1977 for my Grandmothers funeral. I was in college at the time. I didn't know at that time it would be 32 years before I returned. I felt odd driving into the town. Some of the town looked almost the same. Lots of new things added here and there but still somewhat familiar. I've dreamed about that little town occasionally over the years and the picture that was in my head was what it looked like in the late 60's early 70's. I met the rest of my family who had driven over from Wisconsin in the church parking lot and we were the first to arrive at the church.
As my mother's family arrived for the funeral along with many of my cousins who I hadn't seen in 32 years it was a bit like trying to pick out faces of people who I knew as teenagers and were now in there late 40's and 50's. The funeral began at 11 am Eastern time followed by a graveside service and then a dinner back at the church. My sister and I left about 2:30 pm and arrived back in Springfield about 7 pm that night. I left Springfield this morning about 8 and got back to Paducah about 12:30.
My uncle was a man who lived life to the fullest. He was a Korean war veteran, used car dealer and a man who taught me that life was fun and yet he had a powerful sense of values that he passed on to others. He taught me to water ski, to ride motorcycles, to not be afraid to try something new and if it didn't go right to pick yourself up. Laugh and try it again. I remember sitting around the table with all of the aunts and uncles playing rook. There was an expression called shooting the moon which mean you would take all of the tricks in a hand. My uncle was known to shoot the moon more than anyone else who ever played. More times than not he ended up succeeding. Maybe there is a little of him in me that always looks at a challenge and says "What the hell, Let's shoot the moon and do it!" (That's how I agreed to do Wizard of Oz this past June.)
Thanks, Uncle Ray, for the many wonderful moments of my childhood that I will always cherish. Although I haven't seen him in almost 10 years before he died. I will miss him. I may not have physically been back to Berrien Springs, Michigan in 32 years, but there is a part of that little town that I will always carry with me whenever I look up at the moon.
The city in Michigan is one that my mothers family has lived in all of my life. The last time I visited it was in 1977 for my Grandmothers funeral. I was in college at the time. I didn't know at that time it would be 32 years before I returned. I felt odd driving into the town. Some of the town looked almost the same. Lots of new things added here and there but still somewhat familiar. I've dreamed about that little town occasionally over the years and the picture that was in my head was what it looked like in the late 60's early 70's. I met the rest of my family who had driven over from Wisconsin in the church parking lot and we were the first to arrive at the church.
As my mother's family arrived for the funeral along with many of my cousins who I hadn't seen in 32 years it was a bit like trying to pick out faces of people who I knew as teenagers and were now in there late 40's and 50's. The funeral began at 11 am Eastern time followed by a graveside service and then a dinner back at the church. My sister and I left about 2:30 pm and arrived back in Springfield about 7 pm that night. I left Springfield this morning about 8 and got back to Paducah about 12:30.
My uncle was a man who lived life to the fullest. He was a Korean war veteran, used car dealer and a man who taught me that life was fun and yet he had a powerful sense of values that he passed on to others. He taught me to water ski, to ride motorcycles, to not be afraid to try something new and if it didn't go right to pick yourself up. Laugh and try it again. I remember sitting around the table with all of the aunts and uncles playing rook. There was an expression called shooting the moon which mean you would take all of the tricks in a hand. My uncle was known to shoot the moon more than anyone else who ever played. More times than not he ended up succeeding. Maybe there is a little of him in me that always looks at a challenge and says "What the hell, Let's shoot the moon and do it!" (That's how I agreed to do Wizard of Oz this past June.)
Thanks, Uncle Ray, for the many wonderful moments of my childhood that I will always cherish. Although I haven't seen him in almost 10 years before he died. I will miss him. I may not have physically been back to Berrien Springs, Michigan in 32 years, but there is a part of that little town that I will always carry with me whenever I look up at the moon.
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