Monday Cat

Monday Cat
Mist and Smoke Window

Monday Cat

It has been a while since I’ve posted a cat picture. So, here are Mist and Smoke enjoying some southern California winter sunshine.


 

The Cat And The Moon

By William Butler Yeats
1865 – 1939

William Butler Yeats
William Butler Yeats

The cat went here and there
And the moon spun round like a top,
And the nearest kin of the moon
The creeping cat looked up.
Black Minnaloushe stared at the moon,
For wander and wail as he would
The pure cold light in the sky
Troubled his animal blood.
Minnaloushe runs in the grass,
Lifting his delicate feet.
Do you dance, Minnaloushe, do you dance?
When two close kindred meet
What better than call a dance?
Maybe the moon may learn,
Tired of that courtly fashion,
A new dance turn.
Minnaloushe creeps through the grass
From moonlit place to place,
The sacred moon overhead
Has taken a new phase.
Does Minnaloushe know that his pupils
Will pass from change to change,
And that from round to crescent,
From crescent to round they range?
Minnaloushe creeps through the grass
Alone, important and wise,
And lifts to the changing moon
His changing eyes.

Drink

Opened a new bottle of Crown Royal Black this evening after dinner . . . mmmmmmmmm.


 

A Drinking Song

by Eugene Field
1950 – 1895

Eugene Field - A Drinking Song (drink)
Eugene Field

Come, brothers, share the fellowship
We celebrate to-night;
There’s grace of song on every lip
And every heart is light!
But first, before our mentor chimes
The hour of jubilee,
Let’s drink a health to good old times,
And good times yet to be!
Clink, clink, clink!
Merrily let us drink!
There’s store of wealth
And more of health
In every glass, we think.
Clink, clink, clink!
To fellowship we drink!
And from the bowl
No genial soul
In such an hour can shrink.

And you, oh, friends from west and east
And other foreign parts,
Come share the rapture of our feast,
The love of loyal hearts;
And in the wassail that suspends
All matters burthensome,
We’ll drink a health to good old friends
And good friends yet to come.
Clink, clink, clink!
To fellowship we drink!
And from the bowl
No genial soul
In such an hour will shrink.
Clink, clink, clink!
Merrily let us drink!
There’s fellowship
In every sip
Of friendship’s brew, we think.

Sailing

Sailing

Today Southern California enjoyed what we sometimes call “Chamber of Commerce” weather. It was a beautiful day with temperatures in the 70s and a gentle breeze.

Sailing off SoCal.
Sailing off SoCal.

A buddy of mine, Larry, owns a fourteen foot ‘Zodiac’ style boat and invited two of us to go with him. It was a ride through Newport Beach’s waterways and a short ocean jaunt to Laguna Beach. Calm seas, birds, seals and dolphins.

Sailing off SoCal.
Sailing off SoCal 2

We stopped on the way back to eat and tied up near the Sabatino’s restaurant. Yummy.

Sailing off SoCal.
Sailing off SoCal 3

Mike bought a hat to replace the one he lost on the way to Laguna.

Sailing off SoCal.
Sailing off SoCal 4

Then it was back to the boat ramp and then home.

Sailing off SoCal.
Sailing off SoCal 5

9 am to 2.30 pm – marvelous day. Hope your day went as well.

Sailing off SoCal.
Sailing off SoCal 6

Sail On, Sail On

by Thomas Moore
1779 – 1852

Sail on, sail on, thou fearless bark–
Wherever blows the welcome wind,
It cannot lead to scenes more dark,
More sad than those we leave behind.
Each wave that passes seems to say,
“Tho’ death beneath our smile may be,
Less cold we are, less false than they,
Whose smiling wrecked thy hopes and thee.”
Sail on, sail on,–thro’ endless space–
Thro’ calm–thro’ tempest–stop no more:
The stormiest sea’s a resting place
To him who leaves such hearts on shore.
Or–if some desert land we meet,
Where never yet false-hearted men
Profaned a world, that else were sweet,–
Then rest thee, bark, but not till then.

Saturday

Saturday Morning

Di got me up about 5 am to help her outside for a smoke and to read a bit. I lay down on the couch to sleep and she was back in in less than an hour. Put her back in bed and soon got up to feed the cats. At 8 she got up to stay for pills, tea and breakfast. I for my coffee and papers (LA Times and OC Register). Breakfast was leftover Kung Pao chicken (Eggroll King) and rice, heated in the zapper, yum.

Saturday Afternoon

Wrote another thousand words for the book after reading the papers, with the TV (muted) on in the background and began reading The Life and Times of Horatio Hornblower.

Grocery shopping for us (Trader Joe’s) and the cats (Pet Supply) and to the pharmacy. Di was shorted some pills in her one of her prescriptions last time, quickly rectified today (thanks Scott) at Sav-on.

Saturday Evening

Dinner was a pair of Sprouts twice baked potatoes and some peas and corn (with orange-honey butter). During and after which we watched Animal Planet’s Christmas episode of Too Cute (recorded and fast forwarded through the commercials, of course). Di worked on her lesson plans a bit and is now reading Tanya Huff’s The Future Falls (having re-read The Enchantment Emporium and The Wild Ways this last week).

I’ve got my Powerbook on my lap, a Dewar’s to my right and some nameless football game (muted) on in the background. I’ll quickly finish this update, put away the computer, re-fill my glass and re-open my book.

Another beautiful day in paradise.

Happy New Year.


 

Saturday

By Ella Wheeler Wilcox
1850 – 1919

Saturday by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

 

Now with the almost finished task make haste.
So near the night thou hast no time to waste.
Post up accounts, and let thy Soul’s eyes look
For flaws and errors in Life’s ledger-book
When labours cease,
How sweet the sense of peace!

Anniversaries – Wedding Anniversary – #27

Anniversaries

By Aldous Leonard Huxley
1894 – 1963

Anniversaries by Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley

Once more the windless days are here,
Quiet of autumn, when the year
Halts and looks backward and draws breath
Before it plunges into death.
Silver of mist and gossamers,
Through-shine of noonday’s glassy gold,
Pale blue of skies, where nothing stirs
Save one blanched leaf, weary and old,
That over and over slowly falls
From the mute elm-trees, hanging on air
Like tattered flags along the walls
Of chapels deep in sunlit prayer.
Once more … Within its flawless glass
To-day reflects that other day,
When, under the bracken, on the grass,
We who were lovers happily lay
And hardly spoke, or framed a thought
That was not one with the calm hills
And crystal sky. Ourselves were nought,
Our gusty passions, our burning wills
Dissolved in boundlessness, and we
Were almost bodiless, almost free.

The wind has shattered silver and gold.
Night after night of sparkling cold,
Orion lifts his tangled feet
From where the tossing branches beat
In a fine surf against the sky.
So the trance ended, and we grew
Restless, we knew not how or why;
And there were sudden gusts that blew
Our dreaming banners into storm;
We wore the uncertain crumbling form
Of a brown swirl of windy leaves,
A phantom shape that stirs and heaves
Shuddering from earth, to fall again
With a dry whisper of withered rain.

Last, from the dead and shrunken days
We conjured spring, lighting the blaze
Of burnished tulips in the dark;
And from black frost we struck a spark
Of blue delight and fragrance new,
A little world of flowers and dew.
Winter for us was over and done:
The drought of fluttering leaves had grown
Emerald shining in the sun,
As light as glass, as firm as stone.
Real once more: for we had passed
Through passion into thought again;
Shaped our desires and made that fast
Which was before a cloudy pain;
Moulded the dimness, fixed, defined
In a fair statue, strong and free,
Twin bodies flaming into mind,
Poised on the brink of ecstasy.

 

For Charlie (Diana) on our 27th.