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A Goddaughter Speaks: Delia’s Poem

January 5, 2016 in Cat Lady Matters, Snapshot, Spirit Matters

By far, my favorite Christmas present this year came from Delia, my 13-year-old goddaughter. A week before the holiday, she called from Boston (yes, a tween used a phone!) to ask a bunch of questions about my shared childhood with her mother for a school project. Then, on Christmas day, she sent me this poem, which she said was the real motivation for all her questions. I was so impressed with both her delivery system and the poem itself that I felt inspired to share it here. I’d think she was a wonderful writer even if I didn’t love her so much. Continue Reading →

Oy, Christmas Tree

January 2, 2016 in Cat Lady Matters, Essays, Spirit Matters, Weather Matters

I’m still sick and it’s maddening. I’m aware that whining about a holiday malaise betrays my Ninth Rule of Order but I waited a full day before announcing my frustration, and rationalize that this post may grant someone the comfort of solidarity.

I ducked out this morning to do errands and grossed everyone out the minute I heaved my sorry ass onto the sidewalk. I came home to realize even permakitten Grace was put off by her roommate, which, on general principle, annoyed me: I clean her shit, for heaven’s sake. I may be on the mend but am stuck in that deeply irritating stage in which you feel better but sound and look far, far worse. With my rattling cough and mucus-laden speech, I am 2016’s Typhoid Mary, and am super not into it. Send Calgon and comics from where ever you are. Kisses if you can spare them.

In other news, I hated my Christmas tree this year. It had charm, don’t get me wrong. Stubby and lumpy, it was a real Charlie Brownstone, and the price was on point. I almost bought it from the corner deli on the way home from Christmas Eve services but the dudes were still asking 45 clams, so I waited until that 70-degree Christmas morning, when they agreed to deliver it up to my third-floor walk-up for twenty bucks. They even threw in the stand for free. Continue Reading →

Minerva on My Mind

December 26, 2015 in Cat Lady Matters, City Matters

I had a lovely time tooling around in my new car today. I drove over to Red Hook, then Prospect Heights, then Ditmas Park. I fetched friends and dropped them off. I blasted Aretha with the windows rolled down, zipped in and out of traffic lanes, slid into spaces so small I wouldn’t have been able to fit my old couch in them, and shifted from neutral to fourth in the time that automatic cars take to rev into gear at all. I’d forgotten how much fun it was to cruise around on new wheels. Like, wicked OG.

I admit I struggled a bit in the first weeks after purchasing Minverva. I gave her a grand name–she’s the Roman goddess of wisdom, art, trade, and strategy–but found her dauntingly tiny for a larger-than-life female human like myself. Even her honk sounded more like a mew than a bellow. Then I remembered that I felt the same way about permakitten Gracie when she first moved in, so much so that I used to refer to her as the cat of my dearly departed calico Max. (This is my cat Max, I’d say as he trotted into a room. And this is his cat Gracie, as she bounded at his heels, a quarter of his size.) Now, though she’s still a microcat, she occupies as big a part of my heart as anybody or anything ever could. Which makes me realize: Minerva is the Gracie of cars. I think I’m going to call her Minnie for short–and BB-8 Microcar Castevet for long.

"All, everything I understand, I understand only because I love."
― Leo Tolstoy