The View From Here

Krazy Kat's Transformation

Krazy Kat went beyond her Katness into the Great Next Thing a few months ago. She had been becoming lighter and lighter, as though she were actually a sparrow zipped into a Krazy Kat suit. Her back end ceased being able to synchronise with her front end. Towards the end of her time, she stopped eating, drinking, peeing and pooping. She slept in a Krazy Kat fetal kitten ball of delicate fluff in the big chair. I fretted over the process of her demise. She did not appear to be in distress, merely at the end of her journey of 19 years as the driver of her Krazy Kat Kar. I wished she would just sleep away to the next Krazy Dream, but she did not. I attempted to eye dropper some liquid into her, she was not amused. I spent time sneaking up on her to see if her little sparrow Kat ribs were moving oh so slightly, or not at all. I wrapped her up in a blanky and held her like my Krazy fur baby, hoping she would fly away. Finally, I made a call and requested an appointment for assistance. I carried her out into the blazing sunshine of a Fall afternoon. I walked her around and put her nose up to the leaves of the rhododendron she would sleep under and let her sniff the dirt where she had her little summertime sunny Katnaps. I put her in the car and drove her away. I parked my car and carried her into the office. Only Krazy Kat's face and blinking, almost gone eyes were peering out from the blanket. The girl behind the counter looked mildly confused when we walked in, but smiled sweetly at Krazy Kat and me and asked if we had an appointment. I responded, "Yes, at 3:40". She flipped through her cards and said she was not finding us. I looked around noticing the charts of human spines and other non-pet like advertising. I realized I had carried Krazy Kat into a chiropractor's office. The girl looked at me with kind bewilderment as I made my apologies and offered no explanation regarding this final adventure with my Krazy Kat. Surely she thought I was an eccentric, aging "Kat Lady" stopping in for an adjustment, carrying a half-dead Kat (blinking out from a baby blanket) like a tragic substitute for a long lost and forever mourned infant of long ago. I am sure she was relieved as she pointed us to the vet's office across the street. As I returned to my car, the absurdity of the moment brought me some needed perspective. I had imagined this moment would be a solemn one, including dramatic lighting and melancholy music and close-ups of me bravely holding back tears. Instead of an Oscar worthy moment, it had become a Lucille Ball skit featuring me attempting to assist Krazy Kat while she teetered on the precipice of the Great Whatever.
Krazy Kat remained enigmatic and unfazed, her green, green eyes blinking in the afternoon sun. We made our way across the street to the appropriate location where Krazy Kat could spring into her next adventure; away from the Here and Now, and our time together; an aging eccentric human woman and her roommate and fuzzy companion, Krazy Kat. I will miss her.

Krazy Kat Balances Work and Play 

Krazy Kat Celebrates The 4th

Krazy Kat is missing once again....she has her own agenda which does not include public notification of her plans to become invisible.
I gradually become aware that I have not seen her in hours. I search all her hiding places.
She is a Kat marching to a different beat. She has a developed a routine of taking possession of a "nest" and refusing to vacate until she receives a "message" heard only by her very own Krazy Kat ears. (She should wear a little tinfoil hat.) Her previous nests have included the front burner of the electric stove and her litter box. She strenuously resists all attempts at eviction once she has deemed a location to be hallowed Kat ground. Because I am her human and my own kittens are grown and gone I have made futile attempts to move her in the interest of her comfort, or in the case of the stove burner, safety. All such attempts are met with the wild eyed stiff-armed resistance indicating her strong belief I am attempting Krazy Kat assassination. Eventually she abandons the coveted throne; her period of tenancy lasting anywhere from a few hours to a few neurotic weeks of turf battles between well-meaning human woman and certifiably insane Kat.
Undoubtedly her current absence has to do with the Happy Patriots exploding mortar rounds on the beach below my home well into the wee hours of last night: revving up for what I can only anticipate as all out warfare come this evening.
This is my first Independence Day in this location. We are in the heart of the military industrial complex; much of the economy dependant on the government. Patriotism abounds. I imagine the evening,s festivities will be ear splitting and somewhat dangerous. Revelry and patriotism here includes setting off massive amounts of legal and illegal fireworks.
As for the missing Krazy Kat, I am sure she is sleeping soundly in a new, recently discovered, freshly claimed and currently undisclosed location, dreaming of newly mown Katnip fields and chorus lines of tubby, slow dancing mice.

The view from here....... 

Sunday,Sunday

Low tide day......herons slo'mo'ing across the exposed tide flats. A scent of 2nd grade turtle bowl wafting upward from the sun exposed bay bottom.
I am procrastinating once again. Drinking coffee and thinking about what I "should" be doing. This is a well crafted game. It consists of a persistant internal dialogue of things I "SHOULD" do. I watch myself stubbornly resisting my "shoulds" like a recalcitrant child. I sip my large cup of strong coffee, I play at the computer.
I am now taking my blood pressure twice a day and keeping track on my computer. I never imagined I would be a silver haired woman with her own blood pressure monitor. Somehow, from Haight Asbury to here has become a blur of time and sound. That reckless, anti-establishment dancing girl with hair down to her butt; the 94 pound bundle of political activism who provided an endless source of parental angst and despair while blithely committing overt and covert acts of civil disobediance, now sits in her cliff top duplex looking out at her world which presently includes ownership of a personal blood pressure monitor.
I now have a career working in a field I could never have imagined my counter-culture self in: however, the pay is more than I have ever made, with benefits. ( Because I am single, my annual salary still does not place me in the "median average income" for my part of the country).
Although, my less than "median" wages have allowed me to rent this spacious duplex with a view of the water and the mountains. I have, for the first time in my life, two bathrooms, a dishwasher and a new car. My car even has a garage where it rests while waiting for me to arrive with my little "beeper" which signals it to unlock it's doors and welcome me with a blink of it's lights. It never fails to give me a little shiver of delight to see it's shiny automotive self patiently waiting in the gloom of the garage. This happiness comes from years of driving mechanically marginal vehicles. I have now allowed myself to stop fretting about arriving at destinations and believe I will be able to get home without having to push my car, or swear at it, or cry because I may have to hitch a ride with a serial killer-lunatic.
This all seems ridiculously extravagant considering I have lived in places which are smaller than my garage. I lived with 4 children in a house heated with wood and only one bathroom. My children put bricks on the woodstove at night before bed, then would wrap the heated bricks in a towel and carry them upstairs to their unheated bedrooms to warm their toes and sheets while they slept. I have a fireplace now which I use to burn pieces of mail I don't want marauding gangs of identity thieves to pluck from my trash. It seems ridiculous to have a fireplace, there is no place for a woodpile, no place for a well worn stump to serve as a chopping block. I no longer have my favorite little "lady" axe. ( I spend sometime wondering when or where I let go of it; or how I decided a tool I used and relied on to help me provide heat for myself and my children was now expendable.)
Unable to picture the time and place of its departure from my life, I take a large sip of coffee and continue my proscrastination game.......