My life now runs on cat time

There was a time when school schedules directed my life. And Husband's and children's. That was as it should be. Children grew and moved out. I grew and left Husband.

As head of household, one child lived with me while attending college. Soon, a baby joined us-- my grandchild and her nephew.

Soon, Girl Child married and left. Just this past August, Grandson moved out --and into a nearby university. My, how time flies.

Now, it's just Elizabeth Calico, twelve years old. She calls the shots now, and if I'm out of pocket or don't "mind" her silent movement toward the back door, there could be all sorts of stuff to clean up. If ignoring her is not insult enough, there are two "fixed and vaccinated" males from the feral cat family who adopted us two years ago.

Queen Elizabeth, meet Mr. Greye and Mr. Ivory. (Hey! They had to have names.) She at least tolerates their presence inside, and a snarl is enough to get the space she wants. Yep, cats call the shots at this house.

Someone asked for more poems: I aim to please

WINTER POEMS:

SENRYU: roaring down the street/ the river takes toys, trees and clothes/ there goes my gas grill!

HAIKU: during the morning/ the birdbath water/ turns to ice

FOUND SENRYU: storm salvaged:/ the small silver box/ and her knitting yarn (C. Hayworth, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette)

SENRYU: warming my feet/ before a fireplace that/ never needs cleaning

HAIKU: all night long/ the wind chime's atonal/ lullaby

HAIKU: a glance outside/ wind chimes are still/ but the empty swing moves

CINQUAIN: On a/ below-freezing/ February morning,/ I pluck two daffodils and two/ quince blooms.

There go my favorite PBS shows during the weekends

Dash it all! My cable is enabled--has been for several years since I have a teenaged grandson in the house. They promised and promised: February 19 (or was it the 17th?) AETN's silent screen showed "off the air until 2/19" until 2/17 when even the numbers and letters disappeared.

That took away my habitual viewing of the last 30 minutes of News Hour with Jim Lehrer, Arkansas Week, and The McLaughlin Group, where I could catch the "best" thinking about the week that had been. I liked Tony What-its-name, the spiffy way he dressed, and he was very polite, even when others would butt in or cut him off. I care less--much less, though she is way prettier than Tony--for his replacement. But I digress.

Then on Saturday nights beginning at 8 CST, I usually watched the BritComs, being especially careful to stop whatever I was doing at 9 to catch the Dame Judi Dench one (why I can't ever immediately recall the name is beyond me. It's a phrase from a song and I'm a long-ago music major).

Now, KATV has piously (or something) decided not to cede and vacate its analog space to AETN until the NEW date of June-something. Drat it! and double drat it. I hate it when people change their minds. (Most of the time.) That's why I never liked to schedule extra rehearsals: Get your music learned week by week, people, and we won't need an extra rehearsal. Get ready for the changeover like the publicity said, and too bad if you see snow.(Ooh, Pat how we rant!)

However, let's slow down and settle in (I can hear Denman saying.) Take a deep breath. Put your eyes back to their normal size. What if Mom and Dad still lived here. They didn't have cable, but they would have gotten it if it meant snow on all the channels they DID watch. Both retired, they could afford the $50 a month. If not, one of their children/ grandchildren would have seen that they got it.

It's not like we didn't have enough information and time, for heaven's sake.It got about as bad as campaign ads before the election.

I must protest somehow, not that it'll do any good. Oh, maybe if enough of us scream and holler, it might. Reckon the Ledge can pass a law to force somebody to put AETN back on the air??? Har-de-har-har. On second thought, that might be right down their alley. Let me find my representatives email addresses.

No TV commercials if I can help it

I try not to watch TV commercials, especially during the five, six and 10 o'clock new hours. If I'm viewing a movie over on Channel 48 or 49, I'll mute the ad and either catch up on my reading -- usually Rural Arkansas, The Writer or Harpers. Sometimes, I continue reconciling my bank statements. (Would you believe I'm four months behind?)

Sometimes at social gatherings, i. e. lunches after bell rehearsals, I hear someone say, "Did you see that commercial..." and everyone but me will nod or laugh or react in some way. I've even heard a person say he watches nothing BUT commercials. Eek!

But back to the news. When a commercial comes on, I flip to a neighboring channel. One night last week... Well, here are my notes:

"At 5:16, all channels from two through 10 were on break except for the PBS station which has been off the air 'until February 19.' The switch from analog to digital, you know. That cut out most of my Friday and Saturday nights programs: Arkansas Week, the McLaughlin Group, and the BritComs.

"I can usually depend on CNN (Ch. 2 on my set) to be there, with their ubiquitous and exaggerated gravitas, but tonight, no Wolf. No David.

"Channel 4 - Lifeline and Reba, my favorite sit-com rerun, is also "gone." Channels 5 and 8, local NBC, ABC affiliates respectively -- all out to break. ESPN, channel 6, like CNN, is alway there. But not this time. Even the Weather Channel ( channel 7) is in advertising mode. Channel 9, which can be depended on for a cartoon or game show, or Sex in the City -- out to "lunch."

"The CBS affiliate, Channel 10, (KATV)'s news is on, but I've made a vow not to watch D. S., whom the station had hired back from the West Coast, giving the boot to an excellent male anchor. Oh, she had paid her dues, all right. I remember her as a fresh young reporter in blue jeans and pony tail trailing the survivors of a tornado in this area."

I don't suppose the local powers-that-be could get together and space their breaks more conveniently for us? Naw. That might be too easy.

Valentine Gift from a 6-year-old

Today, Kid Billy -- grandson-whom-I-raised -- is nearly 19. When he was six... well, here's what happened. ..
_____
Today, Valentine's Day, 1996, I wear a ring which dropped from the toy machine when KB deposited a quarter. He proffered it right there in the market, and I put it on my empty ring finger. He beamed in child-like innocence.

This circle of tin hearts reminded me of another ring -- a Christmas present from Jack-of-the-ill-fated second marriage. That he'd given me the heave-ho four months earlier made the gift doubly special.

Jack's ring, a better quality metal, was yellow gold filigree with two dainty hearts entwined. Oh, the melody I attached to that beautiful circle: Jack still loved me but was too proud to admit it. I showed the ring to everyone. Again and again, I sang the same tune. My friends, aware of my recent heartbreak, smiled kindly and nodded.

"N-a-w," Jack said when confronted with my song of symbolism. The retired sailor tossed his gray-red head. His eyes twinkled. A chuckle gurgled, encircled the wry grin lighting his ruddy face. "It don't mean anything; it's just a purty ring."

"O-o-oe-h-eh-e-e-k-k." My song of hope veered severely off key and died away.

Until today, I hadn't thought about Jack's friendship ring for many years. Was that a sign of healing? He had remarried yet a third time and I'd gone on with my life. I hadn't seen the ring, either, but I found it with some other pieces I had gathered for a cluster ring, a nugget or brooch.

Valentine's Day is the anniversary of our short-lived marriage. Today, most of the investments into the union seem trivial: the $300 wedding ring I bought him, maxing out my Penney's credit; the holly tree--a wedding gift from friends--that he refused to dig up; two gardenia bushes I'd rooted and planted; my 27-year name identity.

The developing friendship with his family coasted to a stop and my disenchantment with destiny heightened. Was Dame Fate just another tooth fairy? Another Santa Claus?

From a 13-year perspective, the advantages of that breakup far outweighed the negatives. Being single allowed me to become guardian of KB as well as the freedom to further develop my own interests. I even relocated and took a new job.

A boy and his tin ring remind me each Valentine's Day that life tempers painful losses with unimagined gains, given enough time.

I hope you all had a happy Valentine's Day in 2009.

On Lincoln's Birthday: A Cinquain Sequence

FYI--if anyone is curious-- the type of cinquains I write are syllabic: five lines: line 1= 2 syllables; line 2= 4 syllables; line 3,=6 syllables; line 4= 8 syllables, line 5= 2 syllables.

After

days of meetings,

I sit on the heating

pad and gaze out the window at

winter.

Winter -

bare trees, solid,

black, leafless, silent, seem

- like me - resting through one more month

before

the sap

rises, the temps

warm. One day, I'll look up

from my reading or writing to see,

even

at this

distance, and see

that a touch of green hides

the ebony limbs of the oaks.

Smoke will

rise no

longer from the

chimney across the road

as ghostly, wispy wraiths among

the limbs.

Likewise,

I'll rise, backache

gone, the spring of Spring kick-

-ing winter's grayness from my dull

psyche.

By now,

my coffee's cold.

The morning sun brightens

this windless day. Warmth has turned me

sleepy.

Fifteen

minutes are all

I need to kickstart my

latent energy. Well, that and

breakfast.

c - February 12, 2009

by Pat Laster

Various reactions to a 1972-year-old with a new blog

Thanks to all who welcomed me (in your comments & emails) to the blogosphere. Others have not been so sure.
One dear man (also a Texan, Dennis) asked why should anyone "be interested in reading another person's personal diary?" That when he was young and naive, he kept his diary under lock and key. "So what am I missing in 2009 when people want to reveal all their thoughts and impressions?" He wonders if it's the generation gap.
Another dear man, my elder son from Gulf Breeze FL, when told that his picture appears with me on the new blog, said it was OK. That his wife had just joined Facebook and was amazed at how many friends & former co-workers have"come out of the woodwork to be her friend."
Another dear man, my younger son from Hot Springs, AR, answered my email about his mother now being a blogger. "Neat, but it says you are 1972 years old? HA HA.
Still another dear man, the editor of a weekly regional newspaper, THE (Amity, AR) STANDARD for which I write, when asked if I could post parts of my columns after they were published, wrote: "Sure...It's your writing before and after you submit it to me." Then he joked, "Those who can do. Those who can't....blog (hehe)."
And then there's my pastor, of course a dear man who also is a commenter, who (in jest) urged me not to say anything I'd regret later.
Two telephone calls about the new blog came before the day was over. One, from a local newspaper poetry-column editor, wanted to know what I was doing with a blog. "You know you'll run out of stuff to write pretty soon, don't you?" I begged his pardon, and this morning while reading my devo materials (a subject for later), made 4 entries in my journal as blog ideas.
The final phone (cell) call came at 10 pm. Kid Billy, the university freshman whom I raised; he with a Facebook account, called in disbelief. "Tell me you didn't really get a blog!" I don't know what he thought would happen if his friends (music majors) found out.
If Methuselah lived 900 years, I guess I'll outlive him at 1972 years. Maybe by then, I'll have my first novel finished.

Thanks to Dennis Price, a way-down-south Texan...

... for directing me to blogspot. In lieu of Face Book, My Space, etc., I'll try my hand at blogging. Roland Mann has also been instructive as I begin this new venture. First, we'll see how this first post turns out. Then, we'll see. Thanks, Dennis and Roland. Ooh, ooh! Two bluebirds are cleaning themselves in the birdbath outside the south window. Already today, I've seen a pair of robins, house finches, nuthatches, sparrows and a woodpecker. How many haiku can I write about the event? Then when I think I have seen enough, I notice a cardinal in the pinking japonica farther out in the yard. Not to forget the early, common daffodils in the north yard under the hackberry. Oh, the beauties of spring!! pl