Turns out my Rascal Cat Olver blisses out to streamed Jimmy Cliff. Cat Oliver used to calm with streamed Mozart, that cat Ambien, not so much now. If old reggae works now, thanks Jimmy Cliff, it works.
When Oliver The Cat is antic, no catching up with his destructive capacity. Just get Cat Oliver to sleep. Thanks, Jimmy Cliff.
But meanwhile. Moving things from storage, so many, so many, boxes of books. I sort of knew that cats liked their bookstores and that bookstore owners, and shoppers, liked their cats. So I guess it shoud not surprise that my little guy Oliver has been book-box top-sleeping since these forty-some cardboard squares got plopped out of storage and into my living room a few days ago (with very, very, so much, much very appreciated human help).
That is, Cat Oliver lounges on book boxes when he isn’t scaling bookcases. Tried all solutions to the cat climbing. Nothing deters. Oliver just purrs, “hmmmm, been meaning to get around to that George Saunders on the next-to-top shelf, cat-think I’ll just jump up and pull it down.” Purr.
We’ve had a pretty easy winter here. Lots of gloomy but not dangerous days. Yesterday was warmish but really rainy. So I thought I’d stay in and clean the refrigerator. (And take care of my new jade plants, and that pothos ivy from, for real, my 2001 office.) (And do the handwashing.)
Did it, all of it.
How, though, can I not see this whole picture.
I salvalged all I could of fresh produce, lots left, still good, froze some things. Food waste, I don’t think anyone, surely not me, would endorse. People on this planet, 2023, are literally starving while someone like me, trying to be conscious, still can just toss brown avocados in the dumpster. (To be fair, those way-too-brown avocados were not what any human should eat. Still-good avocados, seems universally agreed, yup, good. Except for their criminal cartel and environmentally destructive associations, yeah.)
And, yes, I do use my emptied first-world Voss bottles so as not to just run the faucet, instead save what I can in those plastics, for jeez, the plants. Jeez, turn off during tooth-brushing, almost seems pathetic. People risk their absolute lives, crushing even their own feet, to get healthy or even sometimes, desperately, dirty water, to wash, to cook, to drink.
Handwashing, takes time but saves water, take better care so buy less…all connected…for another post on stuff. (Some of storage included clothing from high school that my Mother had hand-sewn for me. Rocking the Seventies.) But gosh do I must observe my privilege. That I even have a place to keep decades-old sentimental clothing, just for sake of sentiment, not need.
And the soap and water to clean my stuff on a rainy February day.
How can I not see this whole picture.
Oh and yes, Bernie has been making appearances for It’s OK To Be Angry About Capitalism. (Some of it, not all of it, I would say.) But going in the book. It’s all data.
Dayna Finet 