it takes all kinds

Debra was leaving town and had too many peaches; they were all ripe and did I want some? Yes!

After reminding my brother for the second time that we had some local peaches, and feeling guilty that I was eating them all, he said, "I suppose I could eat one as a penance." !! 

How strange - I tend to think of peaches as something which must be on Heaven's menu.

No more guilt.

a little warning

I went to make ice cream the other day and poured a cup of milk into the blender, whereupon I saw a moth floating. Fortunately, I had more milk. Don't let this happen to you!

our apprenticeship

"When we hold a newspaper upside down, we see the strange forms of the printed characters. When we turn it upright again, we do not see the characters. We see the words. A passenger in a boat seized by the tempest only knows the complex combination of wind, current, and swell with the position of the boat, its form, its sails, and its rudder.

In the same way that we learn to read or learn a trade, we must learn to sense in everything, above all and almost only, the obedience of the universe to God. This is truly an apprenticeship. Like an apprenticeship, it demands time and effort. For those who have completed their term, there is no more difference between things, between events, than the difference felt by someone who knows how to read the same phrases reproduced several times, written in red ink, in blue ink. or printed with this, that or other characters. Those who don't know how to read only see the differences. For those who know how to read, it is all equivalent since the phrase is the same. For the one who achieves apprenticeship, things and events, everywhere and always, are the vibrations of the same, infinitely fresh (sweet) divine word."

                                                            -  Simone Weil,  from Magnificat, July 2018

Mr. Kibble: the current situation

One morning a year ago, we were getting ready for work, when I saw a cat on a lower back step, stretched out and resting. It was Mr. Kibble - we had not seen him for eight or nine months, which was nothing unusual. He meowed, which was.

My brother had been feeding the cats anyway (it's his job in the mornings), so he got some food ready and stepped outside with it. That's when we noticed Mr. K's condition. His coat looked dusty and dull and he had a desperate air about him; and, more alarming, his movements were very awkward.

This photo was taken that day - his paws are far apart because his balance was so off, and he looked up at us with a weird angle to his neck.

Every time we went out to refresh his food he would hastily and awkwardly back down the stairs and it was plain he had some sort of neurological issue. He'd always seemed to have a peaceful dignity to me, and now it was gone. I was afraid he had a degenerative disease or a parasite.

My brother left the house before I did, so I watched Mr. Kibble to see where he would go. He ambled through the back yard toward the bridge and underneath it, but fell over on his left side two or three times along the way. He had no trouble getting up again, however.

The next day I spoke to Diane, who was as alarmed as we were over his condition. It turns out she was more familiar with him than we - she said he'd been coming around for ten years or so, and didn't make trouble with her cats, but she had never been able to get near him. We determined to keep our eyes on him.

We watched for his appearance every day at mid-morning and in the evenings in case he showed up.  My brother moved the cat shelter near the house and cut another entrance to it near the railing, so he could easily get inside from the step; we had all sorts of plans to try and get him used to going inside, so when winter came, he'd be safe and nearby. But after three weeks he stopped coming, and we had no idea what happened. The logical thing would have been to call Diane, but since we're not actually chummy, I never did.

Meanwhile, Cyndi came over with her new Ragdoll kitten. She lives a mile away, and it seems she has a neighbor who feeds and shelters stray cats. It turns out that Mr. Kibble had been that way just a couple of months before! I had no idea cats roamed so far. So the time went by, with us often looking out the windows for him, but afraid something terrible had happened.

Then one day in late October I was making dinner - it was a beautiful day and in between cooking I stepped to the back; I noticed a black and white cat laying right underneath the screen door and when he looked up at me - it was Mr. Kibble! He was much improved - his coat was shiny and his movements were at least eighty percent better, I'd say. I saw him again a week later, and that was it, until we found out that Diane and her husband had managed to trap him and get him into her house before the cold weather came.

We figured he must have had a stroke, because cats can often recover from that, whereas if he had a disease it isn't likely he would have gotten better. I missed seeing him around, but he was safe in a house, and Diane told me she wasn't going to let out him at all, unless she could be sure he wouldn't go back to his old wandering ways.

To be continued.

Mr. Kibble this spring

faith

"The servant of God, then, must believe without the slightest doubt that the invisible God is near him, yes, within him. He should stand before his eyes like a chaste spouse, with holy fear, with reverence and humility, saying with Elijah the prophet: The Lord lives, in whose sight I stand. Often also should he repeat such words as these within himself: The Lord is here; the Lord sees me. When he has been much distracted, he may easily bring himself back to the remembrance of God's presence by these or suchlike words."

                                                      - Dom Blosius the Venerable, from Magnificat, July 2018

kitchen garden

My brother is so organized in his gardening, and it's such a pleasant thing to look at. When we come out of the back door, we see the beans trained up the railing and then climbing some string tied to the awning.

From the driveway:

The other plants look wildly messy, don't they? But it's just the angle - it's really quite neat.

just housework

I made new curtains for my brother's room today - his old ones were torn.

I used a sheet from the thrift store.

I guess I was preoccupied last week - we had a cookout for all the cousins on my mother's side of the family. There were sixteen adults and two little ones. It was very hot and humid, but we sat under trees and nobody minded. They did all enjoy it, but we hadn't entertained so many before, and there's a lot to think about, isn't there? I'm not sure what I could have done better; I'll have to think about it.
Dolly escaped out the back door twice, so we harnessed her up and she was a hit with little two year old Ollie, so patient with his pettings. She impressed everyone.

She peed on the new rug. (Sorry to mention such a thing, but I like to share.)

I brought it outside to spot wash. It's cotton, and not heavy, but it's inside now and still smells. The area is on an edge, thank God, so perhaps I can drag it to the tub sometime and soak that section. She ran outside this morning when I opened the front door for a delivery; ran to the neighbor's and actually started to climb his tree! I wanted to say, Dolly, do you know how old you are? She didn't go up, though, and I was able to grab her. Her fur was all fluffed up with the excitement. Mr. Kibble is outside at this moment, and I've never seen him abroad after dark before - we do worry about him, but how much can you do with a cat who won't let you touch him? Except give him food and water. I'll have to get back to that story.

like dew and heat

"Thus says the Lord to me:

 I will quietly look on from where I dwell,

 like the glowing heat of sunshine,

 like a cloud of dew at harvest time."

- from Isaiah, chapter 18

"the shaping of everyday life"

"She loved beauty and she was creative, but her creativeness found its joy in the shaping of everyday life to a form of comeliness, so that it became not just something that one put up with, but something that was enjoyable and lovely in itself."

                                                   - from The Heart of the Family

the present toil

"For what is the welcome of the host if behind it there is not the labour of the women? Through the years the three women had lit the fires and spread the sheets, scrubbed the floors and washed the dishes, polished the furniture and baked the bread, tended the children and nursed the sick, comforted the sorrowful and prayed for them. Caroline could never understand how women could dislike looking after a house, especially an old house like this one. Did they never pause sometimes and sit quietly as she was sitting now, and remember the other women and feel their present toil a part of that past toil? A sort of freshness came when one did that, as though the work were a clean wind or a running river that lived forever to cleanse impurities away."

                                                                  -  Elizabeth Goudge, The Heart of the Family

Dolly likes the new rug

Well, why wouldn't she?

It shows her off so well.

for Independence Day

Father of all nations and ages,

we recall the day when our country

claimed its place among the family of nations;

for what has been achieved we give you thanks,

for the work that still remains we ask your help,

and as you have called us from many peoples to be one nation,

grant that, under your providence,

our country may share your blessings

with all the peoples of the earth.

- collect from today's Mass for Independence Day

"a little farther through the dark"

"This sense of futility... it's nothing - merely the reverse side of aspiration - and inevitable, just as failure is inevitable. Disregard them both. What can we expect when we aspire as we do, yet remain what we are? Struggle is divine in itself, but to ask to see it crowned with success is to ask for that sign which is forbidden to those who must travel by faith alone. Each fresh leap of the flame from the charred wood lights your footsteps a little farther through the dark."

                                                        - again, from The Herb of Grace

The lover of life holds life in his hand,

Like a ring for the bride,

The lover of life is free of dread;

The lover of life holds life in his hand,

As the hills hold the day.

But lust after life waves life like a brand,

For an ensign of pride.

The lust after life is life half-dead:

Yea, lust after life holds life like a brand,

Dreading air and the ray.

For the sake of life,

For that life is dear,

The lust after life

Clings to it fast.

For the sake of life,

For that life is fair,

The lover of life

Flings its broadcast.

The lover of life knows his labour divine,

And therein is at peace.

The lust after life craves a touch and a sign

That the life shall increase.

The lust after life in the chills of its lust

Claims a passport of death.

The lover of life sees the flame in our dust 

And a gift in our breath.

- George Meredith

like vintage port

"To get nicer and nicer you must love the sun and give good juice when you're bruised."

                                                             - from The Herb of Grace

the spirit of a house

"Both houses gave one the feeling of having been built from inside as well as from outside, as though the men and women who had made them...had put them forth bit by bit from their own souls and bodies ... And the strength of their blood and bones still lived on in the wood and stone of each house, plain for all to see, and something of their spirits lived on in the spirit of the house; and the spirit of the house, though so ancient, was not yet full-grown; it waited on those who would come for the perfect flowering."



   " Is that a holy image?  asked Jerry, gazing round-eyed at the deer.
    Yes, said Ben.
    What's a holy image? asked Jose, also round-eyed.
    Something someone makes for the love of God, said Ben steadily.
    Then a house could be a holy image, said Jerry.
    Yes, said Ben."

                                        - both quotes from The Herb of Grace

home

"...it was home-making that mattered. Every home was a brick in the great wall of decent living that men erected over and over again as a bulwark against the perpetual flooding in of evil. But women made the bricks, and the durableness of each civilization depended upon their quality; and it was no good weakening oneself by thinking too much about the flood."

                                                    -  Elizabeth Goudge,  The Herb of Grace

"Why I Wake Early", by Mary Oliver

"Hello, sun in my face.
Hello, you who make the morning
and spread it over the fields
and into the faces of the tulips
and the nodding morning glories,
and into the windows of, even, the
miserable and the crotchety -

best preacher that ever was,
dear star, that just happens
to be where you are in the universe
to keep us from ever-darkness,
to ease us with warm touching,
to hold us in the great hands of light -
good morning, good morning, good morning.

Watch, now, how I start the day
in happiness, in kindness."

bare floor in the living room

It's strange to see a bare floor in the living room - the cats are probably glad to lay on the coolness of it. Settling on a suitable area rug is not as simple as I imagined, but I think I know what I want to buy now.

Here is the best photo I've ever been able to take of the beautiful Yogi -

but I am very, very sorry to report that my brother found poor Yogi two streets over on Monday morning, and he'd been hit. He picked him up and brought him to Diane's; they found a box for her husband to bury him in. He was so alive last week! Here he is hovering over Mr. Kibble, which was getting to be a problem, I admit. Not a good way to end a problem, though, is it?

Good-bye, Yogi. But, please God, no more!

Dolly outside

I've been taking Dolly out on all my days off, when weather permits.

And we plan to continue.

our good Henry

Yesterday morning at five thirty my brother came into my room and said that Henry was laying on the kitchen floor, and he thought he had died. Yes, he had - and he was still warm.  I have tears at the back of my eyes all the time.

my favorite picture of him - and so nice they both looked at the camera

Looking back, lately he has been a little slower to come to meals and sleeping more. He also hadn't been hanging out near the radio as usual. But - we finally got rid of the old living room rug, and I just imagined he didn't like laying on the bare floor, or didn't like the idea of change. But he probably just didn't feel that great; he had been staying on a little rug in my brother's room. Poor Henry! We didn't realize.

He lived with us for seven and a half years, and we didn't know where he came from or his age. So he may have been around Dolly's age - we just didn't expect to lose him yet. He didn't do what I thought cats always did at the end, hide way underneath places, and cry when they're dying. This is what I've experienced. But if Henry had cried out yesterday morning, I think one of us would have heard him, so I really think God was merciful to him and his heart just stopped or something like that. 

He was a pious cat. (We used to joke about this.) But we have a habit of praying a rosary decade on Sunday night, and he would always come by and stay near us. 

"meditating" at Christmas - silly, I suppose, but there it is

when we used to let him out, Henry visiting with our statue of St. Francis

The other cats' mealtimes are all messed up now, because Henry always knew exactly when it was noontime and when it was five o'clock or any time to eat. The others slept later today and then I suddenly remembered to feed them two hours past the right time. He almost always greeted you, even if you just walked by - he would make a little noise, like "huh", or some such. This seemed like good manners to me. He was often underfoot and could be so annoying, but he was always nearby, and I'm missing him so much.

Maybe I will think of more to say in coming days, but for now I'm getting too teary-eyed.

Let us pause in life's pleasures to count its many tears

While we all sup sorrow with the poor;

There's a song that will linger forever in our ears,

Oh! Hard times, come again no more. 

'Tis the song, the cry of the weary,

Hard times, hard times, come again no more;

Many days you have lingered around my cabin door,

Oh! Hard times, come again no more.

While we seek mirth and beauty and music light and gay

There are frail forms fainting at the door;

Though their voices are silent, their pleading looks will say

Oh! Hard times, come again no more.

'Tis the song, the cry of the weary,

Hard times, hard times, come again no more;

Many days you have lingered around my cabin door,

Oh! Hard times, come again no more.

- Stephen Foster

Good night, Henry!

(edited to add a photo - 6/24)

"the evidence that the thing is there"

"Do you think all beauty is just the evidence of things not seen, David?, she had asked.

If it's anything it's that, he had said. I should say that faith is the belief in something that you don't understand yet, and beauty is the evidence that the thing is there."

                                          -  Elizabeth Goudge,  The Bird in the Tree  (emphasis mine)

pretty, whatever it is

Outside the kitchen window used to be a forsythia, which got overtaken by a wild rose - was that link photo just taken a year ago?

Because that seems to have been totally replaced by this - something. It was windy, so hard to get a clear shot, but so beautiful!

repairing a satin clothes hanger

I have a few of these padded satin hangers of my mother's. On this one the satin pieces had separated in the center and the batting was exposed in the middle. I took the first piece of wide ribbon I could grab and hand stitched it along either side, covering up the space. Then, I just tied a bow with the ends!

giving

"...what is given to you you are always afraid will one day cease to be given but what you give you can give forever. Life had taught her that at long last."

                                                      -  The Bird in the Tree, by Elizabeth Goudge

Mr. Kibble: Our history with him

I think he first appeared four or five years ago, but time goes by so fast and I'm really not sure. But one day, I think early December but no snow on the ground (don't know why I remember that) I opened the front door to do something and a cat was there, on the top step. I hadn't seen him before, but assumed he was one of Diane's and perhaps she wasn't home. But the funny thing was that he was sitting up right in front of the door as if he was waiting for me to open it. Like he'd rung the bell. Anyway, I guess I must have brought him some food out the back door and come around to leave the food, because these neighborhood cats are often shy of strangers.

Three weeks later, to the day, the same thing: I opened the door and there he was, seemingly expecting me to open it. That winter, as far as I can recall he came along every three or four weeks, although not in that exact way anymore; he would just show up and we'd give him some dry food. I began to think of him as Mr. Kibble.

He never spoke but he would look you in the eye; he seemed to have a peaceful quality about him which was appealing. I still imagined he belonged to Diane. He has been coming around on occasion since then, less often but probably a couple of times a year. I always liked seeing him when he showed up but then tended to forget about him when he went.

This photo is from a couple of years ago, when he hung out in the driveway after eating. He looks pretty good, doesn't he? His coat was always shiny and he never looked skinny. And he always would look at you. I realize many cats do this, but he seemed a little different to me. So, I never imagined he was on his own.  To be continued.

"every person's life"

from Magnificat:  "Every person's life is God's work of art, an expression of his creative love, his goodness, his compassion."

and that includes furry persons

greener grass, bluer hills

"The hills on our side of the river were green, and on the other side they were blue. They got bluer farther away.

Uncle Burley said hills always looked blue when you were far away from them. That was a pretty color for hills, the little houses and barns and fields looked so neat and quiet tucked against them. It made you want to be close to them. But he said that when you got close, they were like the hills you'd left, and when you looked back your own hills were blue and you wanted to go back again. He said he reckoned a man could wear himself out going back and forth."

                                                                    -  from Nathan Coulter, by Wendell Berry

a little stitching

I finally finished the blanket;  it's very uncomplicated, but I never devoted more than a few minutes here and there to it, so it took a while.

Just a layer of chenille and a layer of flannel. I also stitched little scallops in yellow on either short end, following the chenille "waves", just for a bit of interest and to secure everything a little better. It's hard to see, isn't it? But I took so many pictures - this was the best one.

And then I washed it, to remove Sweetie's fur and sneezings.

guidance

O God, from whom all good things come,

 grant that we, who call on you in our need, 

may at your prompting discern what is right,

and by your guidance do it.

                    - from the Collect in today's Mass

Mr. Kibble

I've been wanting to do a post about this cat for a year, but I knew it would result in a long story. Which it will. But I can say a little about him for now.

I thought he was a feral cat, but then I looked it up and a feral is one who was born outside to a "homeless" cat, and there is something about him which seems like he isn't entirely unsocialized. See how he looks at me taking the picture; he has a steady way of looking in your eyes - I don't know if ferals do that. But he won't let you near him. So, he's on his own, and between us and Diane up the street, we are trying to keep him safe, fed and in this immediate area. But there is more to tell and I will have to do it later. Meanwhile, please remember Mr. Kibble in your prayers, and all others like him, who depend so much upon the kindness of strangers.

chenille baby blanket

I am working on a simple baby blanket for the girl next door, who had a baby. I had chenille left from my robe project, and some white cotton flannel. Very simple, and I hope useful for this time of year.