Schwartzie and the mice

Next Sunday, I’ll be reading and having a conversation @ 2 pm November first for a Boston-based group, Revolution—arranged by my friend and fine poet Charles Coe.  When I know more details, I’ll post it on my FB page

Schwartzie has always been a laid-back cat.  His weirdest habit has been an affection for mice he showed by catching them very carefully and washing them, fussing over them as if they were a kitten and never harming them. Then Thursday night during Jeopardy, he came charging into the living room crying with a wriggling mouse in his mouth.  Before either of us could take the mouse and put it outside, he put it down on the rug, killed and ate it entirely.  We were astonished.

Then an hour later while we were both reading, he caught another mouse and ate that one too, while Willow watched in surprise or envy or admiration – watching from a foot away and never interrupting as she used to when he had a live mouse in the bathtub and was adoring it. He is asserting himself as top cat, and the other  cats seem to approve.  It reminds me of the period after Max was killed by coywolves and Oboe, who had always been a mama’s boy who saw no reason to leave off being a kitten at age four, stepped up and took over, even defending out land from invading cats.

I aw my friend Karen this week on the sun porch Wednesday. Tonight we’re going over to Tash and Stephanie’s where we’ll eat outside on their deck with a propane heater overhead.  Dale and Stephen will be there.  I can’t remember if I wrote that both Woody and I have voted.  We finally got our ballots in the mail, but I can no longer trust the Post Office to deliver in a timely manner.  Woody dropped both of ours off in the dropbox at Town Hall.

Once I stopped trick or treating around age 12, I lost interest in Halloween.  Still have little interest.  Many years ago, we went with Stephen and Dale to a big party with dancing [that was long before I injured my ankle – which put an end to my dancing where we had a wonderful time and Woody won a prize for his cat  costume.  That was fun.  I can’t think of another Halloween party or event I enjoyed. Actually, the first fifteen years we lived here, before real estate prices went sky high, there were lots of kids living in our development.  I liked giving them good candy – the kind I would have liked at their ages.

Finally, the lettuce, arugula, and radishes, red mustard and Chinese cabbages have grown big enough in the September plantings to make salads.  We love our fall salads.  if a frost holds off long enough, we may even get cabbage.  The weather has improved to the extent we haven’t had to water the remaining crops for ten or twelve days.  I’m almost afraid to write that perhaps the drought has ended at last, for fear that will jinx the weather.  We had one heavy rain and a number of light ones.  The light ones I don’t mind. They don’t help the low water table but they soak into the soil and have minimal runoff.

With the cooler weather, I’ve been moving clothes around again, putting summer dresses, skirts, tops and pants away and bringing transitional and winter gear out of the walk in storage closet.  Ours is a utilitarian house, but a big storage closet was one of my improvements about 35 years ago when I added a small wing to the house.  Woody and I were just getting a lot more serious and committed in our relationship, so I built a room for him.