Harbor

Annie

She stole my Hippo Pillow Pet.

I love hippos.  The pillow was a favorite.  She doesn't look sorry.  And she can't sleep now if it's not on the floor waiting for her.

She greets me at the door by bumping her nose into my leg then chasing her tail.

She lays in her bed forlorn when she knows I'm getting ready to leave.

She follows me into the basement to watch me do laundry.

She races me back up the basement stairs and sometimes lets me win.

Even though it happens every single time she walks past the oldest cat, she is still genuinely shocked and hurt that the cat smacks her on the top of her head and hisses at her relentlessly.

She could eat the cat.  She still chooses not to.

When I am in a bad mood, she gets anxious and chews on her bones - which makes me realize it upsets her so I try to relax.

When I cry, she nuzzles me until I stop.

She loves ice cubes.

She also loves cat food and the occasional litter box snack.

She will chase a rabbit halfway across the neighbor's yard...then come running back to apologize for her lack of control over herself.

And she'll do it again next time.

When she wants to go for a walk, she noses the leash on the stairs and looks at me in anticipation.

When she wants to go outside, she noses the bell on the backdoor.

She tolerates her brother who has no control, no manners, and (although I love him) low intelligence.

The other day I caught her giving the other cat a bath.  And the cat was massaging her neck in turn.  It made me melt.

She makes me laugh with her soulful eyes every day.

Her tail curls to the left, and when she walks, she sometimes leans that way too.

I am convinced she knows what I am saying when I talk to her about my day.

I recently watched her solve a problem when she realized I was going into the freezer to get ice cubes, but she already had a bone in her mouth...after walking back to her bed and back to me twice with the bone in her mouth she tilted her head, walked to her bed, dropped the bone...and came running back for the ice cube triumphantly.  It was amazing.

She follows me everywhere and is always within 2 feet when I am home.

Last week, I found a lump on her stomach.

And with that, my own stomach turned.

Yesterday the vet said it was benign.

She can have my Hippo Pillow Pet.

She already has my heart.

The dying art of reading?

Everyone is talking about the heat.  I'm bucking the system.

I want to talk about Borders.  It was a sad, sad day when they closed the Borders bookstore a mile from my house in Madison.  I could wander that store for 4 hours on a weekday evening.  It was heaven on earth.  I'm a big fan of touching books, which sounds far dirtier than it really is.  I still haven't adapted to my Kindle, using it only as a secondary means to an end when I am traveling and have no idea what kind of mood I will be in - what kind of reading I want to do.

Otherwise, I still buy books.

Clearly, I'm in the minority.

Borders announced today it is closing all stores, calling off the auction of what is remaining, and disappearing from the American landscape forever.

THIS, is a sad, sad day.

Borders feels like home partly because it is from home...Michigan.  Born out of a used bookstore in Ann Arbor in 1971, it is an institution in that city. While not my favorite of all Borders stores, it was a worthy jaunt downtown to return to the mothership.

In an era of price shopping, going online for the best deal but using local merchants to browse and decide...I paid full price at Borders.  I do the same thing for my running shoes/gear with the Fleet Feet in Madison.  I am willing to pay more when I believe in the good of the place I am shopping.  When the people know my name.  When they make me feel like I'm home.

I realize the purchase of my Kindle probably contributed to this mess in some small way...this changing face of book buying and reading.  However, I question whether this is even deeper than that.  Are people reading anymore?  I rarely see it.  Book clubs are few and far between.  The only time I actually see people with books is on a plane.

Is it just my perspective?  What would we do if reading really did become as extinct as brick-and-mortar bookstores may become?

The art of writing

It's been awhile.  Damn I hate that.  I am always writing in my head.  It's just that sometimes life becomes so...ALIVE...and the writing slips.  It's not that I don't write during these times - it's more that sometimes I just don't share that writing here.  I can't not write...

In the past few weeks...

I wrote a letter to the boy who broke my heart.  Then I tore it up.

I wrote another one.  And it felt really, really good.  I am finally in a place to tell him, without tears, without passion - what I feel about what he did to me. On paper at least.

I didn't tear it up, but I didn't do anything with it.  The other, perhaps healthier part of this healing process is that I also realize...it doesn't matter.  It absolutely does not matter.

I also wrote a note. To me.   I do that sometimes when I need to remind myself of what I am grateful for.  A reminder of how much I have to be thankful for.  Every single time I write this note, whether it takes 5 minutes or an hour, it is so eye-opening.

Then I made a list of what I want to accomplish in the next 5 years.  I love lists.

So that's what I've been writing when I haven't been writing here.

I was walking and talking and laughing with a friend at the Madison Art Fair Sunday, and we talked about creativity.  For him, it is music.  Playing instruments, making music.  I thought about creativity in my life.  I don't make things.  I can't paint or sculpt.  I take pictures but I am not talented.  I can't draw.  Or carve wood.  I don't make anything...pretty or deep or insightful or otherwise.

But then I remembered - I write.  It may not always be coherent, or good, or read-worthy, but it's what I do.  It's my creative outlet.  The way it fills my soul when I discover words and pull them together...writing is my art.  And I am lucky to have friends on this blog who actually find the string of words worthy of reading. You are on my "I am grateful for" list.

I wonder, does everyone have a creative outlet?  A way in which they create something, anything that wasn't there before them?