Turning leaves, and fluffy cats.

I am not a fall person.  I know so many people including those near and dear to me who love fall. While I appreciate the beauty of the leaves turning colours and pristine blue skies like today, when the moon is still visible at 11:00 AM ( she must have been at a fiesta ), fall for me just means winter is on the way.

I do not like to hibernate, I get cabin fever.  And I HATE being cold it makes me very grumpy and not much fun to be around.  One of my brothers lives in Lake Placid, holy winter!  Everybody there embraces their environment, they ski, skate, snowshoe, pretty much anything to be out of doors and active.  More power to them.

Before children I used to ski every winter, my family even went on ski vacations, I was pretty good at it.  Now, well it is crazy expensive and at this point having been off the slopes for so long I am afraid I would leave a knee cap on the hill and that, well it just wouldn't be fun.

I am a heat seeking monster!  Heat and hair frizzing humidity?  Bring it!

Enough Susan, enough, it is fall. So as part of my on going effort to be thankful for every thing in my life and deal with exactly what is in front of me.  I decided to make this a creative day.  While I compose this post I am making this!  and later I will make these!  My kitchen smells heavenly and yes there is a theme, I love figs.  While I try to buy local and hate seeing strawberries in store in January !?!?  There is something seductive about a fruit grown in hot, wind swept, sun baked climes.  So I will savour my fig jam and close my eyes and imagine myself in some impossibly white village, surrounded by an endless cerulean horizon; hot, hot oh so hot. 

 Check back with me in January to see if it is still working............ha.

Today's last word~ Johnny Mercer "  The falling leaves drift by the window, the autumn leaves of red and gold. I see your lips, the summer kisses, the sun burned hands I used to hold. "

Kittens, Kittens, Everywhere

We have 2 cats, Minerva and Tut.  Tut is a foster failure.  Blame my husband, he couldn't stand to part with the big lug, and he is big, about 20 lbs worth of cat.  Since Tut we have fostered 11 cats and kittens so I guess keeping one along the way isn't too bad.

When we first got Tut he was very nocturnal.  He used to prowl around at 4:00 in the morning, yodeling at ghosts and the gremlins who steal your breath.  We chalked it up to the 4 years he spent as a stray on the mean streets of Hamilton.  The way we throw animals away like so much garbage, wrecks me.  Anyway, eventually Tut got his internal clock organized and fell into the rhythm of the house, which meant sleeping at night, until the arrival of...............da, da, daaaaa............ INTRUDERS!

Yes there are 2 cats who regularly show up in our yard in the wee hours of the morning threatening to break into our home through the screen windows and kill us all in our sleep.  What is a guard cat to do?  Well I'll tell you what he does.  He patrols the halls, stopping at all windows and howling his fury, ALL NIGHT LONG!

 Which means the poor guy isn't getting much sleep, which would be fine, he could catch up during the day except, we have 2 new foster kittens.  2 very active foster kittens, who are what kittens are supposed to be, little shit disturbers.  They want to play tag and no matter how much Tut and Minerva growl and smack them away, they keep coming back for more.  They run around and over and through and up curtains............sigh,in great burst of sustained energy until they finally collapse into a pile of black and white purring exhaustion, and then they get up and do it all over again.  A friend of mine aptly described them as magpies.  They are all about the next shiny thing, unfortunately that is far too often Tut's tail.

So poor Tut has got it coming at him from all directions.  He was always the cat I could count on to be great with the others we brought in here, Minerva is a bit of a princess, but Tut, although he looks all kinds of thugging, was always welcoming and sweet.  And I think he still would be if it wasn't for the afore mentioned cats invading his territory. Please people, keep your cats indoors.

Anyway Tut will survive.  He gets extra treats ( at 20 lbs not exactly what he needs) and strokes and chin scratches, and I have caught him on more that one occasion, with a kitten, albeit in a strangle hold, grooming and washing the little thing. Yes and sometimes biting their ears, while growling at them.  But a cat has to maintain his position hasn't he?

Today's last word is from Rudyard Kipling~"Cat said, 'I am not a friend, and I am not a Servant. I am the Cat who walks by himself, and I wish to come into your Cave."

F U B A R

Some days, life is just a cluster fuck.  It just is, and there ain't nothing you can do about it.  And who says everyday has to be perfect?  Come to think of it that would be pretty boring wouldn't it?

As much as I wish days that are complete epic failures didn't happen, they do, and they happen to all of us.  I would hazard to say if they don't happen to you every once in a while, you are doing something wrong.

  The only way to avoid disaster days, is to live in an hermetically sealed bubble.  Which might be pretty and sure is safe but it sure isn't living.  Living is being open to all possibilities; good and really sucky.  Living is being vulnerable and allowing those whom you love, to be vulnerable.  Living is making great big glorious mistakes.  Living is forgiving each other.  Living is sometimes messy.

Today was a shit of a day and I am humbly, extraordinarily grateful for it.

" You must take life the way it comes at you and make the best of it. " Yann Martel, Life of Pi

Put Off, Postpone, Delay.

So I am sitting here waiting for the weather to decide what it is doing.  It looks as if it might rain but then on the other hand it could just stay grey and moody all day.  Great for migraines! 

If it isn't going to rain I want to go for a walk. If it is going to rain, then not so much.  So in the meantime I am PROCRASTINATING.  Oh I am fooling myself into thinking that by writing this entry I am doing something creative, but really I am PROCRASTINATING.

The Merriam Webster dictionary defines procrastinate thusly : to put off intentionally the doing of something that should be done.  Hmmmmm so what if I put off the doing of something that should be done with something else that should be done?  Are you following me?

I could clean the kitchen!  Psht, like that's going to happen.
I could wash the floors!  See above.
I could work in the garden! See opening statement re weather.
I could go play with the foster kittens!  Now that I can get behind.  And they do need attention as I don't think their interaction with humans has been particularly positive.

I can procrastinate about things I really want and like doing.  What's up with that?  I should be working on the two new songs I am writing.  I should be reading plays in search of a new monologue. I should be writing one of the 3 scripts I am creating.

The thing is once I get started I will devote myself completely to the chosen task...........until the next shiny thing pops into my Gemini brain.

What the heck?  Am I lazy, undisciplined, too easily distracted? 

Hahaha I just found the most awesome sentence on the Merriam Webster site while I was searching synonyms for distracted:  < she's been distracted about her son ever since he left on the polar expedition>
You see?  I could easily spend an hour noodling around on a thesaurus site!  And don't let me near youtube.

Nope!  No more screwing around.  I will go for a walk.................maybe.  But I need to eat first.  Ooooo, I wonder what is this week's recipe on my favourite vegan cooking blogs?

Last word goes to David Morrissey ~ "Nothing is my guiltiest pleasure. I love it.  I love doing it. I love planning to do it, I love loafing and pottering and chilling and daydreaming."

Starting All Over Again

When I was sixteen and a very lucky child, I spent a summer in the sleepy village of Champery in Switzerland. I learned French, climbed a glacier and  fell in love and had my heart broken in the space of a month.  Ah youth!  I was also introduced to some amazing music, most notably, Laura Nyro  who literally changed my life.  I know I am given to the dramatic but really, singer/songwriters like James Taylor, Dylan, Joni and Ms Nyro made me feel that I wasn't alone.  That somebody else saw the world the way I did.  In those songs, the world made sense.

During that time in Switzerland I was handed a guitar and taught three chords.  And I wrote a song.  I didn't even think about it, I sat on the balcony watching the sun set on the Dents Du Midi and I wrote about how it made me feel.  I knew nothing about song writing.  I knew nothing about verse, chorus, bridge, hook.   I knew nothing and yet, when I performed the song for an open mic in the hotel where we were staying, somebody in the front row said; " wow she's really good."

The weird thing is, it was never recognition that drove me.  I was ( still am ) a very good dancer but realized after competing for a coveted spot at The National Ballet School, that my body wasn't aesthetically aligned for ballet.  I didn't care I switched to jazz and kept dancing  for the wild abandonment of it all. In the dance studio, the world made sense.

When I decided to become an actor, it wasn't stardom I was chasing.  I loved telling stories.  I loved the collaborative playfulness of rehearsal. I loved exploring the darkest part of the fireplace.  On stage, the world made sense.

 When I decided to pursue an artistic life, I am pretty sure I wasn't thinking; when I get older I will become a neurotic mess waiting for the phone to ring and measuring myself against others who have nothing to do with me or my life.  But that is where getting caught up in the race to the bottom  has landed me.

Sometimes it does us all good to get back to the WHY of whatever we are doing.  And in my humble opinion if the WHY isn't bringing you joy or helping to make the world make sense, then you need to take a breath and go back to the beginning. At least that's my plan.

" The only thing I fear more than change is no change. The business of being static makes me nuts " ~ Twyla Tharpe

LOOKING FOR A GOOD SUMMER READ?

Temptings dark and struggles deep.

The Empty Room by Lauren B Davis follows a day in the life of Colleen Kerrigan, a woman of a certain age who has made bad decisions and had some bad decisions thrust upon her. She is not at first blush a very sympathetic character, but it is to Davis’ credit that we as readers get swept up, into her story. Using her spare, haunting prose, Davis creates landscapes that we can feel and smell. Some scenes in The Empty Room are so visceral, almost claustrophobic, I felt as if I was eavesdropping on conversations I wasn’t meant to hear. Scenes, that if you stumbled across them in real life you would look away, walk away, embarrassed and a little scared. Moments of bad judgement that are cringe inducing because we recognize our own transgressions. Lauren B Davis doesn’t flinch, duck or hide and that is what makes this story so compelling.

Colleen Kerrigan is being forced to confront her life as an alcoholic. We see a little of her history explaining how she ended up in the corner she has painted herself into. Explaining, not excusing. While Colleen wallows in the idea that everything is happening to her not because of her, Davis holds her hero fully accountable for her choices. Colleen may see herself as a victim, Davis doesn’t. Colleen is presented to us truthfully, full of weakness and possibilities.

It seems strange to say I really enjoyed this book when the subject matter is so dark. But The Empty Room is a page turner; sad, sobering ( no pun intended ) and at times laugh out loud funny and full of beautifully drawn characters, nearly all of them flawed, because truthfully, aren’t we all?

Just so's ya know, Lauren B Davis is my dear, dear friend but that did not colour this review.  Those of you who know me, know I don't blow smoke !

Dragon Breath...................Dang

How do you deal with anger?  I compartmentalize and withdraw.  The problem is there is only so much you can stuff into a compartment before it oozes out and starts to smell.

  For the past couple of weeks I have been blessed to be immersed in creating important work with some of the most generous, talented, brave actors I have ever worked with.  But for the time being that project is done, and so now my anger is following me around like a disgruntled dragon looking for a place to land. 

Thank goodness for my yoga mat, books, music, tango, cats.  But even these lovely diversions are just that, diversions.  The people and things that make me angry are not going to change or slink off into the night.  In quiet moments my dragon is there snuffling in my ear and fanning the fire in my belly.

 I do not think anger has to necessarily be a bad thing.  I think it can be a catalyst for change, and since it seems my dear dragon is going to be around for a while I better name her and  harness her fire into something creative.  I think it is about time I did something that scares me too, maybe that will unblock this negativity.

Watch out world, I'm pissed and I gotta do something with it!

Today's last word is from Yoko Ono. "Experiencing sadness and anger can make you feel more creative, and by being creative, you can get beyond your pain or negativity."