Dearly Beloveds

Your Bloguero notes that it's been 3 long months since he tickled the ivories at The Dream Antilles.

That calls for an update. Here it is now.

Your Bloguero is busy writing haikus. He is posting them regularly on Facebook. He has posted more than 400 of them. You can see what he's writing if you click the link.

Why haiku? As John Lennon wrote, funny you should arsk. Haiku because most of what your Bloguero sees on the Internet is so dehumanizing. And ironic. Cat videos, photos of brunch, selfies, political screeds, verbal barking. Ooof. All this when Social Media are so perfect for evanescent poetry. Like Haiku. Of which there is not a ton. Your Bloguero cannot imagine an Internet inundated with poetry.

Your Bloguero laments that he is no Basho. He regrets that he will never write a haiku as perfect as this:

Blossoms on the pear

a woman in the moonlight

reads a letter there.

It is perfect, isn't it.

But he will try again and again to write a good one. If practice truly makes perfect, a proposition about which your Bloguero nurtures significant doubt, your Bloguero is practicing. And trying.

Enough With The Cats! Please!

I've had it. Maybe it's because it's going to be beastly hot here in 12037 today:

Partly cloudy with a chance of a thunderstorm and a chance of rain. High of 90F with a heat index of 104F. Winds from the SW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 30%.

.

Maybe it's because the hoped for thunder showers didn't arrive last night so the just planted seedlings and the just weeded garden may have to be wateredd by hand. Maybe it's because I'm sore from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet from two days of weeding and planting and digging in the sun. Or maybe it's just because I'm fed up. Hasta la madre!

I have no idea how it happened. The Internet's fixation with cats, which runs second only to its obsession with creating and disseminating porn, has created a tsunami of felines doing feline things on video. How cute. How wonderful. How like my very own cat. How predictable. This comes replete with stupid (cute, funny) captions and ridiculously cheerful, synthetic music. How awful. How revolting. This cat genre has gone entirely too far. Enough already. Basta ya! Just stop it, please.

Let's quit all of this anthropomorphic "cuteness." All of this "cheerfulness." It's killing us all. It's making our brains look like Swiss cheese. It's making us look like utter morons to people from other galaxies who are watching us. Have we no self respect? Enough Lolcats, enough ceiling cat, enough I can haz cheeseburger, and this latest from Maru. Maru 4? Enough. Please stop. Please.

Get away from the screen. Go for a walk. Take videos of dogs and horses if you have to wean yourself from this addiction. Let this be the last video of cats. The last one ever:



Did you watch the video? Did you hear that sound track? Did you see how clean that house was? How shiny the floors? OMG. Rescue us all from this. Surely life has more meaning that this.

Can we please stop now before it gets even worse? I shudder at the possibilities.

Cornelius's Journey Home

This is Cornelius. He is ten. Today he left home.

For the past two or three years, Cornelius has had a seizure disorder. He has big, grand mal seizures. Sometimes he has as many as 4 or even 5 in a day. Sometimes he goes for weeks or months without a seizure. But when he has them, the seizures leave him exhausted, hungry, a frequently hurt. When he's having a seizure, he thrashes around unless someone holds him down. This doesn't stop him from seizing or growling or hissing or from peeing involuntarily, but at least it keeps him from being hurt.

We don't know why he has seizures. When he was a younger cat, he was hunting in the barn. Sometime fell over on him and probably pinned him. He was stuck for 4 days. We couldn't find him. But then he returned home. He was skinny and freaked out. We nursed him back to health. Later we discovered that he had lost all feeling in his tail. This led to him occasionally burning his fur on candles or fires. And, we suppose, this was the initial spinal trauma that eventually led to his seizures.

About 5 days ago, after a few week stretch of not having any, his seizures began again. They were fierce. They seemed to go on for a long time. We gave him his medicine. This usually works after a few days. Yesterday, after a series of particularly hard seizures the day before, Cornelius was feeling somewhat better. The seizures had stopped. This morning he even seemed his normal self.

For the past year or so, Cornelius has not gone far from the house. He stays nearby with Maya the Dog and Romey the Cat. They range far into the fields, he doesn't. He usually stays inside or in the yard or on the deck. Mostly, he sleeps on vacant beds.

This morning we were surprised to see Cornelius walking in the field headed away from the house. He hadn't been there in years. Then we lost sight of him as he walked up the hill, walking farther away from the house.

Throughout the day today, we've gone out with the dog to search for him. We call his name. We make the "kitty kitty" noises. We've walked all the fields to call for him. We've driven the car up the road to search. We've emailed the neighbors. We cannot find him. Now it's dark.

There is always a chance that he will turn up, return from wherever he is. He hasn't eaten since this morning. And he hasn't had any medicine today. But tonight I think he won't come back.

I think he's left to find a place to die, to leave his body behind. I think he's finished his earthly journey.

He's been a great friend and companion. We already miss him. May he be well, wherever he might be. May there be many blessings on his journey home.