The Italian Feast and Schwartzie Works on Xena

The evening of the 24th, we were invited to Karen Pasquale’s house, the mother of Tony Pasquale, a colleague of Woody’s at WOMR. She had just moved to the Cape and is living in a condo in East Orleans. It was the feast of seven fishes, but Tony, who runs and cooks at his restaurant Terra Luna, actually cooked nine kinds of seafood. It was a fine feast and very good company, a lively evening with good conversation. I am working away at the essay on Adrienne Rich’s collected poems, all 1119 pp of them. So far I’ve written about nine pages. I hope to finish by Monday the 2nd. I am also reading lots of mss. that are coming in as submissions to my June juried poetry workshop, about 91 so far. It is filling quickly. In January I need to close it up and start communicating with the poets I’ve selected. Schwartzie continues to grow rapidly. He is predominantly Woody’s cat, sleeps in the crook of his elbow every night.  He’s a bright kitty and into everything, in constant motion. After first befriending Mingus, he then seduced Willow. She divides her affections between Mingus and Schwartzie. At first Schwartzie was scared of Xena, the top cat and huge. The vet said she’s the biggest female she’d ever seen. She’s a gorgeous bullseye tabby with perfect markings. She was on the streets fighting for her life when rescued. She is still one tough bitch when she has to be or feels it’s necessary. She has a strong sense of what she is due from the other cats, although Mingus is her favorite. He is much smaller than Xena and she likes to wash him. She’s especially my cat, sleeps with me always, comes to me for affection, sits when I’m working next to my computer and when I look up stares into my eyes with an intensely loving look. Ocasionaly she will stretch out a paw and touch my arm gently. But she is XenaDestroyer of Toys and cardboard boxes. Then Schwartzie overcame his fear but remained wary. Lately he has been stalking her, not to attack but to be near her. She has been accepting his presence. Yesterday morning for the first time, they were rolling around the floor with each other wrestling. An immense step forward. They spend a lot of time looking at each other. I hope bonding is taking place. All the cats seem a happy family now. I have been knocking myself out with the long essay on Adrienne Rich but I firmly expect to finish it this morning. I’ll have a couple of days to proof it, make corrections and then send it off to Tikkun. I’m eager to be done with it as I’ve done little else [except reading mss. for my juried workshop] since starting the project. Now I should be free to go back to my own poetry. How I long to do that you can’t imagine. And read again. I was reading only her 1119 pages of poetry plus preface and notes and making my own notes for at least five weeks before I started writing the essay. I am rapidly filling my June workshop. We've had only brief snow so far here, twice a bit that disappeared quickly enough. No shoveling yet – that’s because Woody bought a snow blower after last year. We ate our last salad from the garden last week. Woody has plowed all the gardens and built three new raised beds below. Thursday I made a chicken pot pie from scratch and it was incredible. My friend Lilli had given me a new deep dish pie plate for Chanukah and I decided it would be perfect for chicken pot pie – something I’d never made. It’s a fair amount of work but it was worth it. It will go on the list of things I make once or twice a year –if Woody gets his way, more likely twice. We ate the 2nd half last night. Tonight’s New Year’s Eve, not a holiday I cherish. I remember all the disappointing parties I went to over the years, I remember when we had parties here and I think they disappointed people just as much. It’s a night for amateur drunks and bad hook-ups.   We will just serve some of the cassoulet and maybe potato kugel [it’s after all the last night of Chanukah] with friends Dale and Stephen and go to bed before midnight. We’ll probably have the Ohio game on as Dale is a passionate Ohio State fan.

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