Christmas Tea at BSAC

Today we had tea and an open mike at BSAC (Burbank Senior Artists Colony). I sang, read a poem, read a story and there were four or five others who participated. And an audience of about 15.

Now I am beginning my full time grandmotherly role. I'm spending the night tonight (just went home to put my two to bed) because Alwyn and Dan are leaving at 5am tomorrow. I'll get Ruby to school (I hope!) and then home to walk the dog and have my day until I pick her up after school. We'll bounce back and forth like this for a week, and then Alwyn and Dan will be home and Alwyn and I will fly to the Caribbean for a ten-day cruise. Do you think I have a cruise wardrobe? Hah.

Whew.

It's been a hard few weeks, but I woke up this morning and felt it lifted. That life lasted all day, and now I'm ready to write again. I'm learning how to go with the flow, as they say, and not reject the hard spots or try to blunder through them. Acceptance is the key. It really is. And it starts with accepting what is. Knowing what is is another challenge. I think I have been given the tools for that, but often I forget where I put the toolbox.

Whew, I say.

And for tonight, I'll leave it at that. Now I'll go walk Jenny Lind in the LA rain - it's a taste one acquires  from just living here.

'tis the season - really!

Alwyn, Daniel, Ruby, and I went to get the Christmas tree today - in 90 degree weather! Then this evening, while Alwyn and Dan were at a wedding, Ruby and I decorated it. And Billy undecorated it.

Reading: I finished (I think since I last wrote about reading and books) an Elm Creek quilting book called 
The Giving Quilt, by Jennifer Chiaverini. Cozy, nice talk about quilts and reminds me always of my two sessions of quilt camp while I was living in Murphys and a member of the Independent Hall Quilters. Then I read 
Me Again, by Keith Cronin, a find from bookbub.com.  It's a novel about a man waking up from a six-year coma. Oddly, it's quite near to the only sort-of novel I've attempted, through NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writers Month), where the heroine becomes suddenly blilnd. Cronin's book is witty and poignant and completely enjoyable. Mine, as I recall, had very little humor, much less wittiness, and might put the reader into a coma. I've not had courage to read it again! The Cronin book finished, I chose another recent bookbub acquisition, only to find it a memoir of a woman who has a brain aneurysm. 
Rebooting My Brain, by Maria Ross. I hope there's no presentiment in these two books coming to me in quick succession. Ross's book is also witty and poignant. 

Thanksgiving in Paradise

As I was waiting for the walk light to cross the corner of San Fernando and Verdugo with Jenny Lind after our walk, a man beside me started up a conversation.

"My father, in Armenia, was a very religious man, but he thought differently from others. He said, 'I hear people talk about paradise and hell, but I've never talked to anyone who has come back to tell me what it's like. Here's what I think. They say hell is down there,'" and my new friend pointed to the ground, "'full of heat and unhappiness. So going up from hell, where to you arrive? Right here!'" And he spread his arms to embrace the world around us.

"Look at those plants, look at all the colors, look at the sky - it's paradise," my friend exclaimed. "And yet there are people who don't smile, and who complain. We are an hour and a half from the ocean, and people sit on the beach and complain. And they are already in paradise!"

I thanked him for his Thanksgiving message and we parted ways, he to his 92-year-old mother, me to take a bath and get ready to go to friends for dinner.

Happy Thanksgiving to you all!

"tis the season

Christmas is coming to Burbank! We found this very tall reindeer sitting by on a bench on the sidewalk as we walked home from a trip to the mall - a half mile walk! I've never ever ever lived this close to a mall.

Great news!! I have a bed! Dan and Alwyn helped me get it from Ikea this morning and then they put it together for me tonight. I like being a city girl and I like being near my wonderful and supportive daughter and son-in-law.

No real linen for the bed yet, and there seems to be a demon-eyed dog in the room, but here it is!

Many quiet days

Here's what I think has happened. I started using this blog as a writing forum, and loved it. Then I moved to Burbank, and used the blog as a record of that change. During the past two months, I have tasted every activity offered here with the exception of exercise and art (although I did use the treadmill once, and last week to an expressive art class - even the teacher thought that was a redundant choice of words). The poetry class (since there's a facilitator) and the writing group (no teacher, just us) have captured me, and I've been pouring my words out there instead of here. Tonight I'll combine the two and give you a story. The way we do it is pick by number from a list of story prompts, and then write for 20 minutes, and include the prompt sentence in our story. Then we read to each other - no criticism, just encouragement. The prompt for today was the sentence: "Every move hinted at a brutal power restrained." Here's the story:

The cat had been left in the apartment, alone, for the holidays. The dog had gone to the kennel, but that cat only knew he was gone. The person had gone on vacation, but the cat only knew she was gone. Another person came in twice a day to replenish food, check the cat box, open or close the balcony door, and give a few cursory pats, but when no purr responded, the pats became fewer and farther between. The first few days, the cat slept.  Nothing was very interesting, so he slept. He didn’t find the food person particularly interesting, so he slept.The food was briefly interesting, but with just a few bites the cat found it dull, so he ate the barest necessary, and slept some more.

Three days of sleeping left him oddly restless, and he prowled the apartment, looking for life. The food person came and the cat prowled. When the balcony door was open, he prowled outside and looked disgustedly at the birds. He prowled the bed at night. He slept fitfully now, slightly aware of missing the warmth of the person.

Three days of prowling tuned his muscles and nerves to a fine pitch. His tail began to switch behind him, and he hunted for unknown prey. His sleeping was filled with dreams of battle and of kill. Dream cats cowered before him, and dream mice, lizards, birds were unable to escape his claws, which were growing longer and sharper.

On the seventh day, wound as tight as a wire on a spool, he was prowling the balcony and spotted a small moving object. He chased it into a corner where he held it down with one paw, and sniffed. He had no word for this thing, but his dreams of hunt and kill became awake to him. On all the seventh day he toyed with the creature, and in his mind it became ferocious and dangerous, and the cat became ferocious and dangerous in return. Every move hinted at a brutal power restrained.

The food person came in the evening of the seventh day, but could not entice the cat inside. Attempts to pick him up were met with rage and tearing claws. The person left food, left the balcony door open and left the apartment with shivers of a cold and unnamed unease.

On the seventh night, the cat paced his prey. It became slower, and slower, and finally the cat pounced and killed and ate. And finally slept.

On the eighth day, he awoke from his sleeping, and found a tremendous power in his heart and body. He looked at the food person with a sneer and a growl, and the person dropped his jaw when he saw a creature nothing like the one he’d left the night before. The cat was large, skinny and rangy. His pacing exuded brutal power, and his feet pounded like storm troopers on the floor. His open mouth issued sounds no cat had made before and the person was struck with terror. With barely a glance at the dry food and water, and without pausing, the person fled through the door.

What I'm Reading

I hope I haven't missed any books that I inhaled and forgot! I read Odd Thomas, Odd Apocalypse, Dean Koontz and report that it was less Odd as a character than it was a sci fi adventure. Seems to me that what I've read of Koontz, the chills are generated by seemingly normal, but not really normal settings and happenings. It's all in the characters, but this one missed that. Except for cameos by Tesla and Hitchcock. 

I started Me Again by Keith Cronin, about a man waking up six years after a stroke. I thought when I bought it (sort of bought it - it was free on bookbub.com) that it was a memoir, but it is a novel. Wonderful so far, but I remembered that I'd taken a book out of the library that I need to read first! My first book from the Burbank Library. It's The Fires Beneath the Sea, by Lydia Millet, and was recommended as a young adult fantasy book - the first in a trilogy - that focuses on the environment. Or maybe even on climate change; I can't quite remember where or what. I thought Ruby might like it, but I want to read it first. I'm going to take her to the library on Thursday to get her library card. Don't leave home without one, even if you have a Kindle and bookbub.com.