Yesterday it was this cute guy on the left, Buckie. He just kept head-butting my legs and all that jazz. he was just BEGGING for some love, laying on my feet, and all that. 

So when I say "Cats can teach you things" what they can teach you is that they never feel sorry for themselves, they ask for the attention they want and if they don't get it they don't give up, they just get LOUDER. 

​That's something we all need to do. ​

Hey friends! I'm just writing to write. Got no topic or nothing. I'm sitting at my lovely loft desk and the cats are investigating all my mess on the floor. I've got oodles to grade and such. I had very strange dreams about two writer friends I hadn't seen in a while and we were at some hotel in like Italy or Hawai'i or someplace and just investigating the world together. It was weird as these are "acquaintance friends" from a teaching gig I did many years. On another note, the birds are singing outside and I've also been thinking I hate texting and lately have been sending people videos instead because hello, texting sucks and is so impersonal. 

Last week was my niece's birthday and we sent her a CD PLAYER and the best fun I've had in a while is watching the video sent to us of her opening the gift and being like "what is it?

HAHAHAHAH. 

I keep reading all of these articles about whatever that generation is called (she just turned 11) and how they are going for "the old stuff" and experiences over technology. That has not been my observable experience as a community college instructor and sometimes high school workshop instructor, but I digress. 

In the meantime, I have been trying to read more books that aren't 'work books' that I'm teaching and I just finished reading Myriam Gurba's MEAN which I loved. It's a tough read, of course, because of the content, but there are many humorous moments and ultra real moments about growing up that I could relate with, for sure. 

The other thing I want to say is that it's possible to "come back to the new you." What I mean by that is, it's been a long haul here in the Sizzle and Bounce house. In my late teens and twenties I was on my own due to my parents' drug addiction and getting evicted from our apartment. I remember renting a room (it was seriously a LAUNDRY ROOM just big enough for a lamp and a very small twin bed) above the hair salon on the corner across from my high school. I was working two restaurant jobs and then learned my parents had stolen my scholarship money and never mailed my college applications but had simply taken the cash fees and instead of writing checks with them and mailing off the applications, they just took the money, so I went to Community College working 3 jobs and living off Student Loans and I didn't know what I was doing but I kept scrabbling. . . and then over the decades its been one thing after another and now I'm in my 50's and for the first time I'm like, hey, maybe I don't need to be the "nice one" who is always looking out for everyone else? Maybe I can look out for me for a change? 

And you know, listening to punk rock really helps. 

Good morning! 
​xoko

I've been obsessed with watching Shadow and Jackie bringing in their 3 eaglets this Spring. My sweetheart and I turn on the Eagle cam and just leave it on the TV and listen to the wind, the peeps of baby eagles getting their bits of fish and bird, the conversations between Jackie and Shadow, and us wondering what they're saying. 
This afternoon the rain came to So Cal and Big Bear, and we watched the nest fill with snow around and on Jackie as she covered her babies. The wind ripped through the top of the tree and we watched it sway and felt our own calm as we're now both down with the flu and recovering together. Tonight a last check showed Jackie with wings spread, her beak parked into the snow, a wide and feathery cocoon over her babies. Wild things. They just keep going, keep moving, doing what they need to do to survive, and never feeling sorry for themselves. Despite still being sick, I had to sit in a 4-hour meeting today but took a 20-minute exit to head to another meeting, and when the zoom popped open there were smiles and happiness from my peers at seeing my face, and I gave my part of the committee report, and it felt nice to be wanted to be seen and celebrated for being present and alive. Then back to the 4-hour meeting, sitting in a sad zoom with people pecking away on their keyboards at home as we waited for mediation news going back and forth. 

So I thought of Jackie and Shadow. Parked myself and set up my cocoon. 

Afterwards, my sweetheart and I had a good late lunch, slept for two hours to the Jackie & Shadow live cam, woke and made hot tea and lemon, had a nice dinner, and now we're cocooned. The bright moon is outside and tomorrow there will be more rain, but we'll be warm, here, in our nest together. 

#SOL25 Day 012

Day six of being sick. I am feeling just a little better but am surprised  at this cold and it’s ability to sit me down. Our bodies tell us what to do and it’s unnerving how little we can control. It rained a little today, but I had bagels, and homemade soup, slept, and was delighted later in the day when a delivery arrived with lovely flowers, a candle, fancy lotion, and delicious turmeric tea, sent by a friend and work colleague, and it made me feel very loved. 

my sweetheart has come down with my cold too, so we made a big pot of tea and put the flowers in water and we lit the candle and both sipped and then fell in a stupor sleep for a couple of hours. We woke hungry and ate our delicious homemade soup and watched reruns of a favorite TV show. I read a book (by this same friend!) and wrote a poem, and my sweetheart is sniffling at his art desk and pushing through the completion of a hand illustrated and watercolored portrait of a female comic book character developed by a woman comic for his March for Women comics challenge. 

isn’t it art and friends that sustain us? 

Today it certainly was. 

it’s late and I’m tired again, huddled on the couch and writing on my phone to finish my own little blogging challenge here by marking the moments that are my life. This beautiful thing.