For years I’ve identified as an “I” on the Briggs Myers Personality Scale but I also realize that I’m given to too some self centeredness and a need to be alone. Still, after a brief period of solititude and not welcoming people and places into my life I feel myself coming back. Once again I am reaching out to people and things that I had pushed away or left in the background. The late author Merle Shain was a Canadian author I heard years ago do an interview with Larry King on his radio show . Shain wrote in her book “When Lovers Are Friends ” that loneliness is something you do to yourself. It has taken me years to understand that concept. Lately I’ve watched my married friends more closely. Some really do seem to like each other. Some barely tolerate each other. I watched this weekend as a married friend expressed her loneliness and bitterness in small, hostile ways to those attending a party at my house. I realize it was not my job to save her. She knew better than I…but not enough to take the “I” out of her equation . It seemed to me that that her husband not “acting” right was not the key to her misery but her own inability to love herself. Love is something that must be expressed and revealed to others with no conditions, otherwise it is anything but love. I also realize that folks ought to like each other too in romantic partnerships. Jean Claude and Roxie, a boy and a girl, are the best of friends. They like their alone time and they give each other space to go and grow. They also have different tastes – Jean Claude likes boxes and furry sticks. Roxie likes laser toys and Mariah Carey. Yet they have points of commonality such as filtered water and scratching post boxes. They show affection for each other often but often let each other just be – without judgement or fear of loneliness.
Box Theatre
JC in The Box
CCL and I had a ball Friday night at the theatre. We saw a rambunctious musical version of A Christmas Carol with songs covered from Broadway show tunes. Big fun. As most of you know CCL and I get plenty of entertainment from Jean Claude and Roxie too. Of late I’ve kept the empty box from a JC Penney delivery in the living room for Jean Claude’s amusement. After I got home from the play I decided it was time to ditch the box. Jean Claude followed me out to the backporch pantry and jumped inside of it. Perhaps it’s the J.C. on the box. His message clearly “ditch the box and ditch me.” The box now rests in front of the fake fireplace in the basement. Jean Claude spent time inside it today.
Things That Go Bump In the Night
Is it something I Said?
Years ago Richard Pryor recorded an album “Is It Something I Said.” The album cover is a classic and features the comedian tied to the stake in front of a large group of people dressed in hooded robes holding flaming fire stakes.
Very funny and very obvious. Anger is an emotion we all experience. An unpleasant emotion yet a necessary one to expel the poisons that can inflict the soul. There are those who contain their anger as if it is something wrong in expessing it openly. So much hidden anger. As a cook I am aware that even a pot of food on simmer will eventually come to a boil. But there are a lot of flame throwers out there. People say things that are cloaked in thinly diguised rage. The veiled compliment. The query about your weight, height, sex, male friend or work life – with the added “You look tired. ” The poisonous fake concern. I am lucky that there are people (and animals) in my life with healthy dispositions and a sense of self. It is important to surround oneself with TRUE people who express themselves. People who are positive but let you know where you stand with them good or bad. As humans we get on each others nerves but conflict is necessary. Ultimately true friends lift the spirits. Those who care ,whether close friends or business associates, offer more with the candor in their everyday conversation than the curtain of a smile.
So apparently I come by it naturally
I’ve always thought that I was a cat person and that my parents merely tolerated my love of those feline critters. How wrong I was!
Having my mother look after Jean-Claude and Roxie, I see that she too is a cat love and now, I just found out my father is a cat person!
He called me one day, from SC where he lives, to tell me that a cat kept coming around and he was feeding it. Fast forward to a week later and the cat has moved in. Now he calls me with cat questions and cat updates. It’s the cutest thing (for the Family Guy fans, he’s acting just like Quagmire did when he got James). And the Cat (no name) is acting just like a cat. She wants to eat when she wants, be petted when she’s ready and has adopted the second bedroom as her own. She follows him around the house and is a good companion.
Cats choose their owners. Roxie tapped my leg with her paw and JC threw himself around my mom’s neck. In life most of us have this same instinct of “family”. People we just met that we feel like we’ve known for years. People we know will be a part of our life and people who can come in and out.
Here’s an email my dad sent me on Cat:
“Cat” seems perfectly fine that there are only 2 of us here. She spends her days sleeping and prowling, but last week when I had tours, she was shocked to stay outside all day. She hates the cold. If put out, she meows and hangs around until I let her in. Most cats escape; she’s the opposite. Within 15 min. oft my coming back, she’ll see the light on or hear movement and show up.
Now she wants to eat all the time. She thinks whenever I go to the kitchen she’s supposed to be fed. When she’s really full, she sacks out in [the guest] room. Otherwise, she’s burrowing under the covers, where she plays contently, or walking across my chest, after looking me straight in the eye from 3 inches away. She placed her dish next to the refrigerator where she prefers it. She likes dining out, too. On the step. She’s such a time player! Very in tune and intelligent. Plays w/ others well.
Cats & All That ™ 