Sleeping with my girl

Getting ready to read then bed. Very quiet. Love staying up late and sleeping through the morning. The only problem is I don't actually have a morning and there isn't enough time in the day. Sometimes. Other times it's okay. There is some rush involved. Sleeping with autumn's fur against my cheek is good. It makes me sleepy and content. Cats don't worry about tomorrow. I'm learning. Maybe.

Cats Don't Tell Time Or Worry

It's almost February; by the time you read this, it will be. Time speeds up as we age. By the time it's winter, it's almost spring again. We're busy making the rounds of doctors, reading newspapers, shopping, and cooking. No sooner do I wake, then I'm feeding the cats, and making dinner. Jaynee's day is different because she's a night owl. I get my errands done before she wakes and then I spend as much of the day with her as possible. It seems we are buying cat food all the time; our cats should be the size of leopards the way they eat. Our four eat what the vet recommended and lay around in the windows and occasionally wrestling. We feed Tiger, a cat abandoned by his owners years ago, and apparently, at least one other cat who hits Tiger's food on our deck. Cats don't consider time; to them, it doesn't exist.

Phone calls to them are an annoyance; to me, phone calls are torture. I used to spend my mornings making whatever calls were necessary. Now, my hearing almost gone entirely, I struggle to read the computer's translation of what is being said by the person I'm calling. People talk too fast and don't have patience. I'm so frustrated just trying. Jaynee is taking over my calls. I worry about times she won't be here, for instance when she goes out west to visit her brother. I dread that time. It's expensive and there's so much work to be done here, i.e. kitty litter and phone calls. Jaynee lost her very beloved cousin six years ago so now she insists on spending time with her brother who happens to live out west. His house is in Port Orford, on the coast of Oregon. Jaynee loves it there and I loathe it. There is virtually no television, nothing to see, almost nowhere to go, and no computer connections. Jaynee's brother is a virtual encyclopedia. His cat hasn't mellowed him out yet. And neither have mine. It would be great to relax the way our three boy kitties do and forget not hearing and stop worrying. Impossible, but I can still wish.

Tuesday on Tuesday

Tuesday's visiting. She's not too happy with Kiki, who would like a good sniff at Tuesday's pig's ear and bones. Kiki is fearless, but Tuesday is big and barks loud. Without a good job gathering sheep or hogs, Tuesday has to find her own employment, so she watches the cats ready to bark at them if they misbehave. Her standards are high, governed mostly by a cat nearing something of hers or my yelling at one of the cats for something. Tuesday has found something to do outside. It might just be making sure no squirrels come into the garden. I don't know. It's too cold and my knee hurts too much to stay out there with her.
Tuesday is the subject of my new painting, not that she'll pose. She doesn't like to enter the sunroom. She's really not allowed because the kitty litter is there and the cats need a place to get away from her if they want. Today she came in but I wasn't painting so she had to go back out. Dogs get into kitty litter and eat the cat poop.

Letting Evil People Go By

Are some people so misguided in their actions they can be called totally evil? And what happens to them when they die? There are people who live outside the law --and some inside--who appear to have given up on humanity, but what of people who mostly treat others badly, ruining lives partially or completely? Some prosecutors are gleeful to do that, right or wrong. Bosses too or anyone with power. I believe power corrupts either obviously, or hidden from sight, it still corrupts. Without freely-given feedback invited, there are no barriers to revenge, paranoia, or simply allowing anger to take over.
I always had rotten bosses until I arrived at my job in Center City Philly. Often the nastiest people were not actually supervisors, but they had tremendous power anyway. If you don't agree with their ideas, you may as well leave immediately.
After about 50 years of fighting with nasty people, I finally began to stay away from them. I'd see one coming up the aisle at work and turn around and walk the other way. One enraged woman called me on staying away from her. I don't remember what I said but I continued to give her wide berth. Sometimes--most times--I get a kick out of arguing. It had never occurred to me before older middle age that I didn't owe the world a fight with the nastiest person in the room. I had no lesson for a bad actor, nothing to teach that the person didn't already know and reject. The rest of earth's inhabitants could also stand up to her or him, not just me. Inevitably, the complainers clammed up when it was their time to voice their own grievances. People who don't speak up never seem to. Ever. They go along to get along. So evil just breezes by till it hits someone like me....but I no longer deal with them. I wish other people would realize that just because someone says a lie nicely, that doesn't make it true. Hurtful statements and out and out lies can be presented as fact. It's up to the listener to research the truth. I'm not doing it anymore and sadly, neither is the press. The alarm has rung. I wish everyone would wake up.