I can't believe it's nearly August already.... we have already breezed through over half the summer and this past month has gone by way too fast. It's been a busy one with the animals at the Pet Shoppe and here at home; We've had some new litters with three of the guinea pigs and one of the rabbits had babies a couple of weeks ago. Everyone that comes through the back room nowadays heads straight to the bunnies..."Oh they're the cutest things in the world!" We had been worried that since it was her first litter, she wouldn't nurse, but she's doing much better than exoected, they're all thriving tremendously. One of them is a runt, the little guy was born with only one ear... and right away everybody's putting dibs on him to take him home once he's old enough, lol. Robert's been to see them once, before they'd opened their eyes, and I've been trying to get him back to the store to see how much they've grown - they're growing up fast, that's for sure!
And the conure, the one that's been driving everybody crazy with his eating habits, or more precisely, the lack thereof. Up till recently he's not been cooperating with our efforts to wean him off the formula mix... seemed satisfied to just let us keep handfeeding him (spoiled little brat) and totally ignoring the seed and dried fruit we set down for him... Last Monday he really gave me a scare. When I came in, he was huddled facing the corner of his cage, barely able to make a sound, couldn't stand, unable to hold his head up he was so weak... so I panicked and called the first person I could think of, one of the managers... by the time the owner came in, the little guy still couldn't take food... so he gave him some Enervite, which is a concentrated sugar solution for an energy boost, and that got him at least to where he was strong enough to eat something. And by the end of the day he was looking much better. So, I guess in the next few days he figured since he almost died from not eating, he finally started taking some of the seed on his own. Well... its about damn time! He really scared the hell out of me that day.. looked like he was gonna die on me any second.
As for the animals at home, it's been a busy month (and expensive) all starting with taking Sock in to the vet to get him fixed... they also noticed some irregularities from his bloodwork - so inbetween follow-ups and getting his shots current, Taz came down with a fever and just felt lousy there for a while... not eating, kinda glassy-eyed, and just basically hiding out from everbody... So its been Sock and Taz to the vet's all month it seems like. I'm just glad the little guy, Pablo hasn't gotten sick. Although, he's been having these sneezing-coughing attacks occasionally, but it doesn't seem to be slowing him down any... he's still terrorizing the other two the way he always has, lol.
With all this, I haven't written much and I've been kind of away from the groups.. its just been a hectic month.. Hope that now things have calmed down some, I'll feel more like writing... Just last night I had all these ideas in my head. Unfortunately it was right when I was trying to fall asleep and too tired and lazy to get back up and write 'em down. Let's just see if I can remember any of them, shall we? Wish me luck, I'm gonna need it, lol.

The Future In A Crystal Ball

The Future In A Crystal Ball

Late evening and the moon
rose low above the roses
hanging bright in my line of vision
made that trek across so much closer
to our horizon, toward the next grove
of trees, to be hidden -
and then sunk into sleep until
tomorrow's dark sky to return
and be seen in full crystalline glory.

Having Made A Choice

Isn't there still some voice of reason
weathering the time past, oppressive with anger

impressed upon this grudge-holding obsession,
and stalking the same spot some remain for life?

How much is the waste worth those forgetting
time here is short enough as it is, isn't it

enough to be left behind counting minutes, days...
Those hours spend having proved nothing

when you have nothing left to show for it all,
save the hate you play like some game

of putrid hackysack, preening vain
in malevolent discourse intent to display

some legendary show of strength
because when words fail, there's always threats

and when threat fails, there's always force
even when force fails you can always collapse
the floor where you stand...

What separates from the rants of spoiled
middle-aged children or the stereotype
of territorial pissing is the choice
to move on.

"No Green Day without Iggy"
I've been a fan for several years (seems like a lifetime) and last night I was lucky enough to catch performance footage from Belgium on VH1's Concert Classics... the songs went waaay back, some of the earliest Stooges stuff I ever remember hearing. Again, it seems like a lifetime ago, lol... Anyway, thought I'd share with you all one of my favorite albums of his. Not necessarily "commercial" but excellent work just the same. Check it out, I highly recommend it.
On a side note, the new kitten's full name is: Pablo Iggy Nukkinfutts... seemed very appropriate somehow.

A visit to the vet was in order for Sock... a neuter and current shots, etc.. He's been slowly recuperating the past few days and we've been trying to keep the other cats away from him... Maybe now he'll stop the incredible yowling late at night and the roaming through the house. Amazing how nice a full night's sleep is. Well I can only speak for Robert, because while he's getting to sleep, Pablo has been waking me up every morning at 3 a.m. either attacking my necklace or chewing on my earrings. Talk about a rude awakening, haha! The week before, Pablo's curiosity got the better of him while chasing a bee. Well he got stung a good one, and his whole neck swelled up to three times the normal size.. Robert said he was looking like Tigger from Winnie the Pooh... it was like he had three chins. Seemed alright otherwise... just kind of sore from it all, but he didn't have any other major reaction.

Robert's birthday is Monday, wanna do something special for him this weekend... fix a favorite dinner tonight. Still need to go shopping...

Well, with all decent news there must come some bad... my daughter's grandpa who lives in Boston, passed away on the 14th. She's doing ok, for the moment... Both her and her brother are going for the funeral, there's a group of them leaving for the airport this afternoon..

Sometimes a picture says more...
My thoughts are with friends in and around London.

Got a phone call from my daughter last night. Went to the balcony outside with the phone as it was turning dusk to continue the conversation, and as I was talking something like this landed in front of me... I remember all the years spent in Fresno they never had these, never collected them in jars as kids, just seeing them on summer nights was something I missed the entire time I was there. Then after I moved back to the midwest, problems and life in general became so chaotic I barely got the chance to enjoy it... Now that I can relax, let down some defenses, it seems almost a magical thing. I know it sounds cheesy, lame, sensitive, emo, whatever... But its my cheese, lol.
Anyway, my daughter sailed through an important job interview yesterday... things sound very prominsing... Its for a position in the photography studio at a local retail chain. Something in her field, which she has been wanting for so long. I'm really hoping they do call back like they say they will, because it wouldn't be just a job for her, it would be the perfect start to a career. So I'm definitely keeping my fingers crossed for this. She should hear something good by Tuesday.. possibly to start Thursday.. :) My son is still training as a housepainter, I really hope he sticks with it.. the only thing is the heat... he's just gotta learn to deal.. this is the real world after all. Take the criticism, and all the good intentions that go with it - he's always had a problem with that... hope he sticks with it. Its a trade, a steady job.
Me, I'm still happy with my job at the pet shoppe :) I'm really getting attached to some of those animals, getting more in tune with their normal behavior, still learning... what it means when they do this... there could be a problem if they do that... All in all I wouldn't trade this job for any other in the world.
The weather here was rainy all day yesterday, heavy downpours courtesy of what was left of hurricane Cindy... I guess today the Florida Keys are feeling the effects of Dennis by now... hope everyone in the area doesn't get hit with too much damage.
Baby cat's doing great, little mischievious stinker! Always going after my necklace and earrings, trying to pull them out... Pablo, the kitten's name is Pablo... I like it better, and besides it was my first choice anyway. Maybe I'll post some pics of him one day.

Sand

I could write your name
in hieroglyphics within the dusting
of cricket sand on the floor,
let my fingertips become the paintbrush
creating hope in the moment's artistic design.
Let runes become symbols, become ancient
and changing as clouds protecting the evening
sun, let it become visual improv with
maybe a bit of the celtic thrown in
for good measure.
Cricket sand on the floor...
Would I eventually find some refracted
part of myself desparately competing
somehow for the you that isn't there,
the one that is missing inside your shell?
If I could come home to you,
love you the way I need to - not ever be afraid
of this inertia that happens when both of us
are unmotivated by fear.

I've been busy putting together a second book, "Seasonal." Seems I've forgotten just how long it takes just to put a collection together. There must be about 70 poems... I think I'll leave it at at that... no reason to go overboard, lol.
All in all, I feel these most recent few days have been very productive... Maybe now I'm getting out of my rut, so to speak.

Then again, who knows? I've been wrong before...

Only my cat understands me.

Yeah... I changed my blog template. Every customizable feature is temporarily gone... I'll put it back whenever I get the chance. Funny how I feel like an expendable feature myself these days.

Just A Taste

Got dark... just like that, its
brewing now with cardboard boxes
prevailing across parking lots
into oncoming traffic.

There are storms due tonight
with twelve year old kids
waiting to
ride bikes in the rain,
going over to a friend's
before the power goes.

Gargoyles on the patio
and figurines reading books
by candlelight;
kittens batten down hatches

against the squall by knocking
shelf-top ceramic brothers
to the floor before running
off to hide under sturdy furniture,

while garden gnomes peer in
from the outside warning us
of active funnels spotted in the
next county - just the smallest
bit of what its like.

This is what's hanging on our wall next to the dining table... Robert told me they had some framed prints at the supermarket last week, so he alerted me also to the fact that there was only one of these in the whole mess of Elvis's, Sponge Bob Squarepants, Barbie, and I think there was even a Minnie Mouse if I'm not mistaken, lol. Turns out he hid it very well from anyone else but told me right where it was, so I brought it home the other day, after work. I've seen that pic before, years ago somebody had it on their Xanga, and I'd always liked it. So now it seems a stroke of luck that we actually have it there to look at when we come home. :)

I come out here in the heat and breeze
out here where nature is at its best,
where in the morning a three-quarter moon
can still be seen as dawn breaks
within this line of vision.

Out here where the chattering of myriad birds
all hail a new day and compete to be heard
over the roar of a window unit and the
squawk of a parrot from the next lot over.

I come out here to write in the heat
where a breeze is more than a welcome friend,
where pilgrimages are made to these flowering plants
several times daily by bees and wasps,..

Out here where small peices of bread drop like
clockwork from a balcony somewhere overhead;
a treat for squirrels and their feathered homies.
I come out here to absorb and process
and find new ways to see.

George Lucas never saw it coming...
http://www.jokefrog.com/flash/store-wars.shtml

It seems like I haven't posted in forever...
Yesterday was the first day of summer, and last night's first full moon of the season... It came up low over the trees, you could barely see it. The day before, it was vanishing low as well. It's been really nice out too, the weather has cooled some (for the moment) and it's made for great sleeping weather.

They were shooting a commercial at the Pet Shoppe yesterday. I tried to stay out of their way, lol.. last week I was told that I might have to be in it if they didn't have enough people for the shoot. (Crossing my fingers I would be left alone, lol) Then in the afternoon, they come through my work area in the back "Well are you ready to be in the commercial?" I say, "... not really." :P Eventually he got someone else to use, what a relief!

Who needs a ferret when you can bond with a kitten?? Oh I still enjoy the ferrets at the Shoppe but I couldn't see having to keep it in a cage whenever nobody's home. And you'd have to watch them like a hawk to keep them out of danger, not to mention how they love to chew on stuff - and possibly swallow something harmful. I've been researching them for a while, there's just too many things you have to watch out for. You have to "ferret proof" your house even more than for a small child, cause they can get into places out of natural curiosity, and mischief - that could prove fatal - especially if no one knows they're there. Always a chance of them getting stepped on or smothered :( I wouldn't be able to deal with that. Sooo... when I noticed a super deal on some of the domestic kittens yesterday, I couldn't resist.
He's a super energetic flash of fur I'm calling "Bono" at the moment. I toyed with some other names... Pablo (Neruda), Vincent (van Gogh), Buk, Morrison (Jim or Toni) Lorca, Garcia, Giovanni... quite a list there, lol.

I've left many of the groups in Yahoo recently. There was one group in particular, well a couple that I was having problems in, so I decided to leave entirely. Then I got to thinking, I'm in so many as it is... I ended up cutting my list way down, just so I could focus more on the ones that mean the most. So I apologize if anyone's wondering why I up and quit their group for no aparent reason. Maybe sometime in the future, I'll rejoin a few. But at this point, it's not likely.

Last weekend I was lucky enough to get a DVD of Def Poetry 2nd Season... Robert brought it home last week, so I spend a good part of Saturday getting an overload on "spoken word" lol. Monday we popped in a tape of Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window. I've never seen it before, but I've always liked Jimmy Stewart. So that was pretty cool. Then last night after getting the kitten, we stayed up to watch Soylent Green and Westworld... Its funny that they showed those back to back like that 'cause years ago when those movies came out the first time, they showed them in that order at the drive in. Lol, I remember that line from the movie..."Soylent Green is people, it's people!!) Like that skit on SNL years later when they made fun of it and turned it to "Soylent Blue."

A Double

Who
takes the
prize today
and with what low
tactics have they earned
such small victories?
In themselves these
golden idols have spun
hypocracy,
fractions to
be called
"mine."

Go Anywhere

Go right, go left
there is no high road there
I'd rather find the place
where the grass is greener
on all sides of the tree
where even the reversals
can uproot themselves
and call it a day.
A new day has begun
and so I find moments
of the smallest victories
borne of temperance
unwarped by the base
urges of the right
always in the right
even when they're wrong.

Douche Envy

Merlin ma'am, I mean man...
A gentle spam by any other name
would still spit rhymes that bring him shame.
Now he's spinning his tires like a Nova that don't run,
thinks he's on fire putting together the sum
of all these lyrical points not making sense.
Gotta wonder how some fools can be this dense.

And I suppose
he's beside herself now...

I could have called you a cross-dressing freak,
wearing cosmetics you stole from the brink
of your sanity, or maybe an ex
who got wise to your flaming confusion of sex.
Now you stand at the mirror, your image a gender swap,
ain't no woman like the one you're not.

I Believe In Statements

I don't believe in the apathy of militant vegans
who tell the world passion is unreal, uncool...
This is where I'm from. This is where I stand today.

I believe that what you believe and what you have
done so far is in direct conflict with how your
actions explain what you can and what you will not do.

I don't believe I care to know the schizoid differences
between your myriad personae; a reclining Buddha and
wanna-be rapper, but I can guess the bottom line of them
all having found their comfort zone of unwillingness
to take positive action... on anything.

I believe in how the power of words spoken,
words read, words imagined
can rush a flame so spiked in adrenaline
it can blind one against his own humility.

I beleive in perspective,
I'm just a poet.
I believe in perspective.
This is where I'm from.
This is where I stand today.

I also believe
the reason this verse
is worth so much is because
its free.

I can't believe that when walking home
from work I spied a Chief's sticker
on a car with Jersey plates
which illustrates how rabid some
fanatics can stoop when completely
beaten at their own game.

This is
where I'm from.

Don't laugh - I was listening to ABBA nearly this whole weekend. Last night Robert and I sat down to watch a documentary on them and their music, Thirty Years of ABBA. There's now a stage production in several different countries, with the title of one of their songs, Super Troupers. I don't think they had a mediocre song in thier entire career, they were all hits. Well of course I posted the lyrics to some of my favorites of theirs in Bailey's, my poetry group. Every weekend there's a chance to post lyrics... so they were my choice this time.

Before that, we headed up to Target for some gardening stuff, came back with all kinds of supplies. I'm still amazed at how nice it is just to be able to go and bring something back for the house whenever you feel like it. I couldn't even think of doing that for such a long time. Its still new to me, but so nice. Already we have some flowering plants, geraniums and impaitiens, small pots of false aralia, and hedera ivy, which tends to climb so we got some bigger pots for them, a trellis for the ivy and a window box for some more flowering plants. Little by little its looking so nice out on the balcony. We go out there after dinner a lot to read and just sit and relax after work... I love that.

Finally caught up to the first show this season of Def Poetry. I am so exited by all that. It was Robert's first time to see anything like that, and he was duly impressed, I must say. I think he's hooked now as well, lol. Highlights: Avery Brooks doing a piece written by Ossie Davis, and Dave Chappelle doing some humorous bits about Ashton Kutcher. Next week I think they'll have Lemon on there, and Georgia Me. They're both good, but we're both secretly looking forward to seeing Suheir Ammad and Beau Sia. I'm tellin' you, don't miss any of these shows if you can help it. Def Poetry rocks.

Things are jumping at the Pet Shoppe, they got in about half a dozen new ferrets last Thursday, a baby conure, some cocatiels and enough parakeets to fill another huge birdcage. So things are getting busy... I'm trying to keep enough time left at the end of the day to be able to handle some of the added stuff they keep talking about. That would be the fish and reptiles. I'll keep the updates coming!