I have had one of the busiest weeks I've had in a long time, and no one at school bothered to tell our (online) class that we have been ON VACATION this whole darn week until this morning!!!!

I was up reading 4 chapters in the textbook last night, absolutely exhausted, eye strain beyond belief... I logged on this morning to participate in two more discussions before the Friday deadline, and discovered a note from our absent-all-week teacher informing us that there was "a misunderstanding" among us and that we are on vacation this week because of Memorial Day....

Okay, well, good to know. It's not like I blew a whole freakin' holiday weekend by doing homework, still, I have been indescribably insane so far this week, trying to stay on top of things and do homework.

(Sound of screeching brakes as I suddenly stop everything and RELAX.)

Aside from that, though, even though I've been really busy, it's been a really great week. Just wonderful. One of those weeks where God just showers stuff on me. I won't say what the stuff is specifically, just that it isn't water, and a lot of it's green, and some of it is a veritable potpourri of men being attracted to me. (Sad as it probably seems, that doesn't happen that much anymore! Used to be I had to fight them off with a stick. And the gals, too!! But nowadays, in my heady 50s, not so much.)

You know, I have remained publicly silent about the whole 50 Shades of Grey phenomenon. What bothered me most about it was that it was fan-fiction and, in my eyes, that is only a teeny-weeny step up from plagiarism -- unless, of course, the original author is getting paid-off big time to stay at home and be peep-less (which I suspect must have been the case, since there was that deafening silence coming from the Stephenie Meyer corner of the world while 50 Shades of Grey rampaged over everything-- including my boss, or one of them anyway, making a bid to direct the movie version). But consider the floodgates now OPEN, gang, because Amazon has just launched a special section of Kindle for self-publishing your fan fiction, and the original authors will get part of your royalty.

Only fair. Nice arrangement in this brave new world of ours. This whole globalizaion now of even the ideas that come from our sacred writing minds... Too strange, but on we go.

Okay, I'm going to scoot because, even while I am apparently not in school this week, I still have tons of stuff to do today.  I am going to leave you with this picture of Bunny at the screen door that my housemate snapped with his iPhone last evening. I know, I know. She looks fat here, but she's not. Honestly! I do try to keep my many, many cats as healthy as possible, although sometimes keeping them from eating everything in sight is quite the challenge around here. (For instance, having 13 cats requires that there be many food bowls scattered hither and yon. It becomes impossible to keep cats & kittens from sauntering up to the wrong food bowl... but, oh god, I am going to miss these little critters when it is time for them to go.)

Okay. Happy Thursday, gang!! And as the inimitable Alice Cooper once said, "School's out!" (at least for the week.). See ya. Thanks for visiting.

Fluffy had to go get groomed at the vet yesterday because her winter coat was a huge gnarly mess. They gave her what is called the "lion shave."

She is just too freakin' cute, gang!! (And nowhere near as fluffy...)

Huckleberry and one of her kittens, looking out the family room window yesterday afternoon! I took this photo with my cell phone, so the quality kinda sucks. Sorry!

Here's an inside tip for you, straight from me: the news is always going to be bad. It doesn't matter what year, what era, or what the names of the players are, the news is just bad. So just hang out here instead.

I don't usually watch the news or read a newspaper; I get my news online. I basically read the headlines and go, "Oh my god, you can't be serious!" And then before I get too many of the horrific or indescribably hard to process "facts," I close the window and move on to the business of praising God anyway, in spite of all the disappointments and horrors.

Granted, it's a whole lot easier to praise God when you have a house full of adorable kittens scampering around. I spend most of my days now just thanking God that I have eyes to see with, and I try to slow down the days. I have about 4 more weeks with these adorable little critters, and then they will move on to great big adventures of their own.

One of them is already spoken for -- the liveliest and friendliest of the whole crop. He's one of Huckleberries babies, one of the cute blondies. He's a total "people" cat. He runs up to see me whenever I enter the family room. He stops whatever he's playing with and runs straight to me. He loves to be cuddled and he loves to play with me. Whereas, all the other kittens stop dead in their tracks whenever I enter the room and they are clearly thinking: Oh no, not her again! She's going to try to catch us and touch us and cuddle us. Blech!! And they high-tail it for their favorite hiding spot: under the Lazyboy recliner.

This morning, around 6:30, I wanted to have my tea out on my back deck-type thingie -- I have my picnic table up there now, because all my patio furniture died a slow and agonizing death and will not be replaced until I move to the new house. So I sat on my deck thingie, at the picnic table, and realized I had the perfect view of both the sun room-- where Tommy and her kittens were playing-- and the family room -- where Huckleberry and her kittens were playing. The best view possible. It was too perfect. They all play like crazy at that early hour, when they don't know I'm watching them.

And it was nice to be out there among my amazing trees. I am trying to absorb every moment of them in this final summer. One nice thing: a client called me late last night and asked if she could have any of my (smaller) trees for her own yard. I was very excited by this idea. Yes, I said, yes, you can, yes! Basically, come over and dig up whatever you want, gang (I mean, wait until I am actually moving), that way all these living things don't have to die and can maybe have a new home.

Well, all right. I am going to leave you with some odds & sods, as they used to say. A photo of Tommy taken just now. Followed by several of Huckleberry's kittens, asleep on the chair -- except the one I told you about above; he woke up the minute I went down there with the camera.

Then followed by another reason to praise God: 4 old-timers who are dear to me heart and still hanging in there! Yay!! Thanks for visiting, gang! Have a great one. See ya!!

Because then it increases the odds that I might become its new owner.

Sadly, some people throw kittens away and then I become their new "owner" for life. But other times, people I have been friends with since, say, 1966 decide to start downloading all their CDs to their hard drives in order to reduce the clutter in their already incredibly non-cluttered lives, and then I get to go to my mailbox and happily discover that I have become the proud new owner of THIS:



OMG -- YAY!!!! This specific friend and I were big Bowie fans all through our girlhood. We even saw him live, twice, in Cleveland in the 1970s. The Diamond Dogs tour and the Thin White Duke tour (Station to Station). AWESOME tours. What can I say. And then I also saw Bowie in a very small club once with Iggy Pop.

Oops, don't get excited. I wasn't the lucky one "with" Iggy Pop. Iggy Pop and Bowie were performing together. I think it was Iggy's Lust for Life tour. I was underage and got in on a fake ID that said I was from Florida... most underage people get fake IDs so that they can go somewhere and drink. But I had a fake ID solely to see Bowie & Iggy Pop perform in a tiny club on campus. I never used the ID before or after that. (Which doesn't mean I wasn't indescribably fond of underage drinking.... It only means that in the 1970s, it wasn't that hard to cop a lousy bottle of booze.)

Well.

Then I also saw Bowie again at Madison Square Garden during his Serious Moonlight tour, which was also seriously phenomenal. I feel indescribably sorry for you if you didn't see it.

And now. To finally have all of Bowie's greatest hits collected in one place.... Wow. The soundtrack to my entire girlhood on one CD. What can I say besides "awesome" again?? What a great gift to receive totally unawares. Yay. I hope all you guys go out to your respective mailboxes and find something equally delightful some day soon.

And on your way to and from the mailbox, you can hum this wonderful ditty that I had forgotten about (if you can imagine that!):




See ya, gang!! Thanks for visiting.

My favorite hymn, that is. For me, it captures that absolute feeling of bliss.Well, at least when it is sung in exactly the right way. For instance, as the opening & closing theme song for the 1985 film version of the Trip to Bountiful. (Which is currently back on Broadway, but with an all-Black cast.)

This morning, I discovered a version of it sung by that hillbilly angel, Dolly Parton. Back when she had a voice like a silver bell. Okay, like a hillbilly silver bell. I loved Dolly Parton when I was growing up and saw her perform a couple times at the Ohio State Fair. But I had never heard her singing my favorite hymn until this morning. I was already having a terrific morning, but now it has become positively stellar.

I share the joy with you here! Watch & listen if you dare... Have a great Saturday, gang!! Thanks for visiting!

Sorry to leave you all hanging regarding such an important topic!

The bad news is that the damage that was done to my door frame when the wind blew off my other (really heavy) screen door (that's how strong the wind was -- I couldn't even lift the screen door out of my flower bed. I had to leave it where it landed until someone could help me; it was like a hurricane-force wind that tore the screen door off its hinges). Anyway -- there was a lot of damage done to my door frame, and the only way the really adorable new screen door would have fit was going to involve destroying the cute door!

So... I wound up with basically the ugliest screen door ever. But it only has to last one summer.

My prospects went from this:



To this:


But I have to say, Buster, Bunny, and Fluffy love this new (cheap/ugly) screen door because they get an unhampered view of the entire world!! They just sit there at the door and look, and look, and look. Joggers go by, and kids on their bikes, and of course cars go by all day long, and the occasional fire engine, making that alarming racket... The cats love it. The screen door I had for 7 years, was only a screen from the waist up, so the cats couldn't see anything at all unless they stood on their hind feet (and stuck their front claws into the screen and caused big holes that looked seriously attractive).

So that's the screen door saga. But at least it got put up in time for some really great weather. The last week or so was just perfect. So far, it's been a wonderful spring.

The kittens continue to do indescribably cute things! Oh, okay, I'll try to describe some of them. The other day, I went down to the family room, late morning, and all 4 of Huck's kittens, along with Huckleberry herself, were lined up on the windowsill, looking out at the backyard. It was the first time those particular kittens had ever seen the outside world. They are 7 weeks old today.

Tom's kittens are in the sun room, so they see outside all the time.  They are slightly younger -- they'll be 7 weeks old at the end of the week.

And all seven of the kittens are in various stages of understanding that whole litter box idea. They're getting better. The cutest thing was when one of the kittens took a perfect little pooh on the floor right next to the litter box, then got in the box and kicked the litter around.... Close, but no cigar, as they were wont to say at county fairs a long time ago.



I don't know what it is, gang, but life just gets better and better around here. I wake up in the morning, open my eyes and wonder: Okay, what doom-filled thing is on the verge of happening today? I search the contents of my brain for all the things that are going wrong... and... and... and I suddenly remember that everything is going right for a change and I happily spring out of bed, trying not to trip on any of the 13 cats that currently live here.

Well, I hope life is being just as good to you guys, gang, wherever you happen to be right now and whatever it is you're doing.  I gotta scoot. I have to be at the church in about two seconds to help the pastor's wife with setting up a blog. So I'm outta here! Have a great day, gang. Thanks for visiting. See ya.

Apparently, I haven't posted here for almost 20 days. That is kind of hard to believe. My world is overrun with kittens, schoolwork, writing, editing, working with clients, teaching, collapsing AND I've also been managing to go out and see movies, even have a few dinners out, and even play Scrabble with some friends downtown!!

This is unheard of. It is almost as if I have a social life again. Well, a social life that doesn't keep me out too late because my world still revolves around kittens. Indescribably adorable kittens, I might add. And for me to not be able to describe them really says so much -- I am the same writer who wrote a twenty page sex scene in my novel Freak Parade. (An award-winning novel, to boot.) If I can sustain a sex scene for twenty award-winning pages, surely I can describe how adorable these kittens are, but au contraire, my friends! I will have to let my camera do the describing for me. (See below, if you dare!!)

I also want to add that my garden has astounded me this spring. So many more flowers bloomed than I have seen around here since my first spring in 2007. (Well, that wasn't my first spring, it was more like my 46th spring, but it was my first spring in this particular house.)

I know that it most likely has something to do with the type of winter we had, but I prefer to think of it as all my flowers saying goodbye to me, with a final astounding BLOOM. And because I am so overwhelmed by all this life around me, I have decided, through the help and encouragement of a friend, to dig up all the bulbs, and take cuttings from some of the other plants, and even outright transfer some of the shrubs, to the new house. Wherever that winds up being. The thought that they are going to destroy my trees is heartbreaking enough. I am going to save whatever plants I can and bring them with me. (I'm also going to take my skunk, my possum, my raccoon family, my chipmunks, my squirrels, my groundhog, my rabbit, my field mice, my baby moles, all my many birds; my spiders, my butterflies, my ladybugs, my bees, my wasps, and all those other creepy-crawly things too hideous to name!! ALL are coming with me to the new humble abode.) (Just kidding. Six cats will be more than enough.)

I did, however, just get a brand new adorable (!!) screen door because my old one blew off in a high wind back in February, and the new screen door is so adorable that it is, indeed, coming with me to the new house. Once the screen door has actually been put up (in a couple days), I will take a photo of it and post it, because I'm sure you're wondering what on earth could make a screen door adorable...

Well, okay. Today is my day to Skype for many hours with Kevin, as we work on our latest screenplay. (A screen play having nothing to do with the screen door, FYI.) And that marathon session will begin here momentarily. So I will leave you with some recent shots of some of the cutie pies around here! Hopefully, I will be back to posting on a regular basis now. Thanks for visiting, gang. See ya!

Two of Tom's cuties:



All 4 of Huckleberry's Cuties:

Here are Huckleberry's 4 babies! (Tommy's 3 kittens are a lot harder to get photos of because she keeps them hidden inside the cat house and is extremely protective, but I'm working on it!)

The past couple weeks, since I last wrote, has been an extraordinary time, gang. So much beauty, even though some of it has been bittersweet.

After I last posted about the kittens, one of them died. I tried to look on it as simply Mother Nature, the whole process. Huckleberry didn't seem fazed by it at all, so I tried to follow her lead, although it was tough. More than a little heartbreaking. I finally got up the courage to take the dead kitten away from her little nest, take it out back and bury it in the nearly frozen ground. But I soon discovered, through a convoluted series of events that I won't even go into here, that Tom -- the other female in my trio of rescued kittens -- had also had a litter of kittens at the same time. So, yes, I have had seven newborn kittens in the house. In addition to the six other cats who live here.

To say it has been surreal is an understatement. But also what an extraordinary amount of joy, gang. As they have grown and opened their eyes and started to just barely move around a bit, they are the most beautiful little creatures I have ever seen.

Right after the kittens were born -- on the first day of spring, in fact -- a favorite uncle of mine died. It was not tragic, because he was nearly 100 years old. An auspicious day, in my opinion, to go off to the next big adventure. However, it was still bittersweet. When he and my aunt were both still alive, and back when I lived in New York City, they would come visit me and we would have the very best times.  It is kind of hard to believe all of that is over. Every bit of it, in fact, because even New York City has changed so much since those days that it is almost unrecognizable.

Then I got a text message from my sister the other day that if I wanted to say goodbye to my grandmother, I needed to drive down there immediately. (This is my biological family.) My grandmother was also very old, although nowhere near 100. But she'd had a long, full life. I don't know that she would have described it as "fulfilling" but certainly full and long. So I tried like crazy to rearrange my schedule and I got down there to say goodbye. She did indeed die the next night -- this past Thursday. The trip itself was kind of amazing because it was a really gorgeous spring day, and I made the drive down there with a very old friend of mine. (She's not old, we've just known each other for 41 years.) We had the very best time, oddly enough -- considering the circumstances. It was a sort of homecoming for both of us. The first time I met my grandmother -- in the spring of 1986 -- this same friend had been with me. So it was rather fitting and nice that she would be with me when I went to tell my grandmother goodbye.

This grandmother and I did not get along too well for many, many years. She had some issues with/about my biological dad. You know how sometimes people force you "to choose"? Oh well. But it was still nice to be there in her hospice room with both of my uncles, my biological mom, my sister, and of course my grandmother -- it was the first time all of us had been in the same room together, ever. It was a very special, poignant, beautiful feeling. Then I had to turn around and drive back home. But my friend and I shared some wonderful memories about those first years that I knew my grandmother -- a fried catfish dinner that was superb -- my friend was also at the dinner. In fact, she and another close friend of ours was there, along with my grandmother and her husband, Wayne; my Aunt Dot and my Uncle Jim were both still alive, too. It was a really sunny summer evening, and Wayne had caught the catfish fresh that afternoon. We were all sitting around my Aunt Dot's small kitchen table, having the time of our lives as the sun went down in a small Ohio town. A memory so perfect it is preserved in my mind as one of my very happiest memories. I was 27.

Well, throughout all this these last two weeks, I was also still in school full-time, also out looking at houses that I might want to buy since, by this time next year, I'll be in a whole new world; and I've been working like crazy as three more former clients popped up out of nowhere -- I've also been teaching and editing. And still writing that fantastic screenplay with my co-writer, Kevin, in Brooklyn. Going to church. Celebrating Easter with the little girl I mentor. And on top of that, other personal stuff is going on that is very challenging in a couple different areas of my life. I now rely on melatonin to get any sleep whatsoever, my life is so in overdrive...

Yes, in short, an extraordinary time. 

All right, in closing, I leave you with a few photos from the past couple weeks! Thanks for visiting, gang.

A few photos of Huckleberry and her kittens over 2 weeks' time.








The only photo so far of Tommy and one of her kittens. They live in the insulated cat house out in my sun room.