I have an idea for a story.  Here is the title:  Lessons learned from my father: a penny for a piece of wood, a firm handshake, and why you shouldn't take advantage of the LL Bean lifetime guarantee.  

Peace from Kitty.

I'm sitting here on a Tuesday afternoon in September, enjoying a glass of white wine on my porch, watching the goldfinches timidly approach the thistle seed feeder.  There are 7 or 8 kids down the street who have made a slide out of cardboard boxes in someone's front yard and are screaming with delight as they slide down the slight slope into the street.  Overhead, a V of geese honk by and the temperature starts to drop in the late evening.  There are, still, a few last August crickets softly signing in the tall grasses on our street--they soon will fall silent with the cold.

Last night Kitty brought Aaron another bird.  This time, Aaron was appreciative and full of praise for the kill (the first time, Kitty was met with wild and unexpected shock--he was thrown into the bedroom until the bird was set free).  Kitty is growing up and thankfully, his instincts are still sharp.  I look forward to the day we can let him out, into a field, where he can roam and hunt mice in the damp places we, as tall people, can never visit. 

 I grew up with cats, on the coast of Maine.  We lived next to a field.  The cats came; the cats went.  I didn't pay much notice to them--my interest was with our dogs.  The dogs barked and loved and doted and waited.  The cats did not do this.  Bringing this into my adulthood meant I "wasn't a cat person," but when you live in a city, more life brought into an apartment is a good thing.  I'm looking at Kitty now, he is licking his paws, and now his tail.  At night, he crawls in between the two of us and starts licking our arms and fingers--a sign of love.  He will enjoy the warmth of our bed in winter, as his nose has been getting cold with the sudden change in night air.  

The kids down the street are loosing interest in their cardboard sleds.  Dinner for them is on the table, getting cold--mothers are calling now.  I must start thinking about dinner, too.  

  

After driving around, biking around, potting plants, drinking coffee, brushing kitty, talking to mom, remembering old friends who aren't with us anymore, crying briefly, laughing wildly; I sit here and drink a glass of wine.  Before all of this, I listened to an episode of "Speaking of Faith," on Minnesota Public Radio.  Let me just say that I really can't listen to Krista Tippett for too long, I mean only like a few minutes, but so I was listening to this episode only because it came after "Car Talk," and I wasn't finished cleaning the kitchen.  She was interviewing a pagan scholar and environmentalist.  The topic was our collective homesickness for nature, because of modern life and how this collective homesickness is actually related to our roots in paganism, or maybe they weren't really saying that but I think they were.  Anyhow, I wanted to call in and say it wasn't because we missed our pagan roots, it's because there are people like me living in places like Minneapolis and we miss our birth place of Maine every second of every day.  I mean, I'm from Maine, dammit!  Sometimes I want to scream it!  Kitty hasn't even had a place like Maine in his imagination yet.  How sad is that?  He doesn't even know how spectacular it is.  I really am doing okay.  In the middle of the country.  They have sweet corn at the grocery store already, so that's cool.