Beauty Itself....

The wind was brisk and we saw the leaves falling down, not like rain that falls perpendicular to the earth unless strong winds are sweeping them away but sort of like kettle cooked potato chips falling from the skies.  We heard them falling and I am not sure why that was so mesmerizing.

There was a certain energy in that back yard.  Two squirrels hugged the pine in tight grips and Gingerella was under the impression that he could hide behind the agapanthus plant.

Mr Sweet Pants who was eating treats was examining the situation with wide eyes!

I looked above and saw the golden pile of dates hanging off the palm tree, way up high, a very nice treat for the squirrels for the days to come.

Moments later, and while I was staring at the palm being blown around I found Mr Sweet Pants high on the pine, it seems that he wanted the pair of squirrels that were stuck on that tree.

Here's the Sweet Pants high up,

then jumping across,

and then landing on the garage top.  I knew he would be up there for a while (because it is so pleasant there, I too have climbed there with a ladder), and so I started back to the condo.

On the way back I stood by the neighbor poinsettia from the last year to take a picture, and

Gingerella too stopped by to take a look.

That day we all practiced seeing Beauty Itself, pure and unalloyed...

“what if the man could see Beauty Itself, pure, unalloyed, stripped of mortality, and all its pollution, stains, and vanities, unchanging, divine,...the man becoming in that communion, the friend of God, himself immortal;...would that be a life to disregard?” 

― Plato, The Symposium

Cat boys send you purrs and kisses...happy november everyone!

Ciao!

one Sunday morning not too long ago...

To be frank, had someone told me ten years ago that I'd be sitting on a patio one beautiful Sunday morning doing brunch with two cat boys...I would have said, "whaaa"?

And now, here I am in the company of two cat boys, one Sunday morning.
This is how we live.

Mr Sweet Pants was both slanky and in good humor after eating his Tuna and Turkey Tickles.

He decided to sit on the patio wall and check the neighborhood from that vista instead of doing the rounds on foot.

The cyclamen had multiplied and thrived in the cool sunshine that our patio offered.

The rascal Gingerella, Mr Puffy Pants, who loves grass and so I make pot after pot of green grass,

was munching away!

Munch, munch, munch,, he made such a cute sound.

MUUUNCH!!!

He then decided to check my plate, which naturally is his plate.

I can only be filled with gratitude at this turn of events....

Wear gratitude like a cloak and it will feed every corner of your life. ~Rumi

Mr Sweet Pants and Mr Puffy Pants send their best purrs and best wishes and little kisses.

Ciao everyone!

When I tell my friends that

I am going away to Nebraska for a few days they all chuckle at my excitement!!!

What I love about visiting Nebraska is the direct contrast to the landscape that I leave behind for a few fast days.  You might know that the population of the Los Angeles area is greater than the entire population of Canada or of Australia.  That alone should tell you that people here live together in a social experiment.  We practice to live together without hurting each other, and that is all good...

but we do miss

the open skies, the clean air, the golden fields that have no complaints about how they were treated.

the roads that are actually clean and uncluttered with only the necessary number of billboards, no intrusion on the skies, marketing ploys kept to a minimum.

This is a tough place for a city dweller because we are used to orient ourselves using various benchmarks, something that is clearly missing here in the open fields.  The landscape changes all the time because these clever farmers keep doing things such as planting or plowing or harvesting and so it is easy to become disoriented, and the clouds come and go rapidly too.

Here is a field waiting to be harvested. The one above is done and maybe waiting to be seeded for another crop.

In my in-law's front yard this plant was growing as well as many other colorful ones. I fell in love with these leaves.

One day we drove over the Platte, serene and flat...I am only sorry that the Sandhill Cranes had already left.  You might know that these cranes migrate twice a year between Canada and the warmer southern lands but stop midway here to restore and replenish.

I was ready to strut the streets with my red shoes. 

Actually I wore these for the football game that we were to go to at the Lincoln Memorial Stadium...I knew that I would be readily accepted as a fan with these shoes.

This little fellow, Fugie is his name, is a California boy who chose to live in Nebraska.  He is very happy living with the in-laws.  He hunts various critters and is a lightweight bad ass when the situation calls for.

Tough as it always is to leave the clean blue-skyed state for the hustle and bustle of the City of Angels, we were most pleased to come back to the cat boys...one Mr Puffy Pants siting out on the patio wall,

and one Mr Sweet Pants waiting out on the front door steps.

Yup, life came back to normal rather rapidly here with these cat boys.

When I am going away to Nebraska for a few days my friends chuckle at my excitement!
When I return I chuckle back at their astonishment!

Catboys sent you pawfuls of kisses and their best November wishes!

Ciao everyone!

Exhaling summer ...

Autumn for us is like a deep exhale after a summer of heat, a delicious pause before inhaling a new season of hustle and bustle, family and friends, peace and contemplation, or whatever else.  Cat boys really like this season...the crisp weather delivers in metered doses, cool mornings, warmer and warmer daytimes, cool and cooler evenings.  It is the season of games, and who knows more about games than cat boys.

Last Sunday was a typical autumn Sunday for our part of the world...a cool morning where heat was carried by quanta of light that reflected off the air and dust particles, Gussy felt the electricity and so did Ollie from the look of his wild mane.

We three decided to go to the back yard of delights after moseying around here and there, a private location where we step into the pretend kingdom. 

 "Let us sit", I said, and that is what they did!
Sure, there was the urge to grab them, wrestle them, and give them kisses on their funny faces, but I had to admire beauty from afar as one admires it in the wild, from afar, no touch.

 The slender Augustus who was weighed at 15.5 pounds of delicious loveliness was trying to think of something profound while the Big Orange was trying to read Augustus' mind by pointing his ears backwards towards him.

Then they connected by looking at each other but ears pointed back to cover a good distance around them!  Fascinating!

 Then they showed me their profiles, the jaguar and the lion...yes, your mommies were jags and lions.

To one who has been long in city pent,
'Tis very sweet to look into the fair
And open face of heaven, - to breathe a prayer
Full in the smile of the blue firmament.
~John Keats, Sonnet XIV

THAT WAS WHAT WE DID.

Then they looked away from each other,

and right back towards me.  I wanted to giggle but did not.

Finally the slankster got up and with stretched strides

that turned into a hurried gait

ran towards me.

The squirrel was looking from above

when we were walking back home.

I was thinking about inhaling and exhaling, one can say so much about it both physically and spiritually and emotionally.

Learn how to exhale, the inhale will take care of itself.  ~Carla Melucci Ardito

I frequently need to exhale and I have noticed that cat boys really love exhaling, and they look awfully cute when they do that.

Please exhale...happy Tuesday everyone...FALL is here! Cat boys sent you their best wishes...

Ciao!

"richness of conscious life"

"I can only note that the past is beautiful because one never realises an emotion at the time. It expands later, and thus we don't have complete emotions about the present, only about the past." --Virginia Woolf

Last Sunday morning we had some moments together on the patio.  The sun was shining gently and the little bit of nature that we had around us only tweeted...no loud sounds.

I invited the two Misters to sit on the wall for snacks and story telling while I planned to get busy with some repotting of plants.

I had to get my hands out of the soft dirt within minutes to pick up the camera because the delightful crunchy sounds and scrunchy faces the cat boys were making were too precious to ignore.

Here's Gingerella, so pleased, and so much like a baby tiger,

 and even more so was Mr Sweet Pants who had laid down his tail on a straight line.

 Here are the plants that have since been repotted into different pots.

 Here are the cat boys after snacks, each finding his private corner for observation and contemplation.

 We can never get enough of cyclamen.

 Mr Puffy Pants, Gingerella...

 Mr Sweet Pants...

"I can only note that the past is beautiful because one never realises an emotion at the time. It expands later, and thus we don't have complete emotions about the present, only about the past." --Virginia Woolf

A friend sent me the above quote a few days ago and I saved it because so much of it rings true with me, and yet not entirely as I believe that I can appreciate the present moment sometimes quite fully, other times not.  Perhaps this is what Niels Bohr meant when he spoke of the "richness of conscious life".

Are you aware of the state of richness of your life or do you realize it later in time?

Cat boys made many kisses that they blew out in the air for you!  Enjoy!

Ciao!

furry dawn breakers....

4 a.m. this morning Gingerella used all of the lines and meows that he had memorized, and I replied to each one, eyes closed, until he jumped on the bed in the way that a lion jumps to get his prey.

I told him in plain English that I was not going to get up until 5, and he listened!!! True, he spent the next hour galloping from corner to corner but at least he had accepted that we were not to go out until 5 a.m.

4 a.m. and 5 a.m. are about the same when one is awake but I try to delay getting out in the dark because a certain slanky cat, Mr Sweet Pants, likes to go out and find an alley cat to fight with. 

This morning we got out, not until after five, and walked in the lighter areas of the complex.  We went down the street, up the street, and back down the street and up the street a few times and listened to various sprinklers come on and go off.  Sometimes we'd see a dog on a leash, a real treat for the cats.

When it got lighter, much lighter,

the cat boys came indoors for num nums and I thought it was a good thing to let them stay indoors for the rest of today since I had a busy day ahead.

Here is Mr Sweet Pants after his morning excursions and nums,

looking a little sleepy!

Here he is down on the second floor, relaxing on one his several lounging areas, and watching

his brother, Mr Puffy Pants, who had fallen on his back.  We did not know if he had been boxing a lot and was pretending that he was knocked out or if he was just plumb relaxed.

(PS-The ladder against the wall is not tacky decor although it feels that way given the number of months it has been there...it is just left over from some work done that I need to finish.)

Gazing into his hazel eyes I noticed that sleep was about to come.

Yup, it is sleep....

and here are his Puffy Pants....

beautiful puffy pants!

How do you break your dawns?  Do you like dawns?

I find dawn time fascinating as many of us traverse from the sleep world into this one...it is truly a fascinating experience.  I am frequently accompanied by two furry cats, they pull me out of my dreams and I wake up in-between two places! 

Cat boys studied this while I was at work, I am sure:

"Now there are many wisdoms to ponder in the dream, which none but the people of this Valley can comprehend in their true elements. First, what is this world, where without eye and ear and hand and tongue a man puts all of these to use? Second, how is it that in the outer world thou seest today the effect of a dream, when thou didst vision it in the world of sleep some ten years past? Consider the difference between these two worlds and the mysteries which they conceal, that thou mayest attain to divine confirmations and heavenly discoveries and enter the regions of holiness.

…

All these states are to be witnessed in the Valley of Wonderment, and the traveler at every moment seeketh for more, and is not wearied. Thus the Lord of the First and the Last in setting forth the grades of contemplation, and expressing wonderment hath said: "O Lord, increase my astonishment at Thee!" ..."(Seven Valleys)

Cat boys sent you best wishes for a happy weekend and promised to send you pawfuls of kisses.

Ciao everyone!