—From EF—

We took our sushi picnic to the ocean today. The savage heat wave has abated. We have Eli and Meg coming up on Saturday and staying overnight. Lear has one more weekend. Life is good. And I have a lapful of kittens, purring their asses off as I write this.

Getting these kittens was a REALLY good idea. My time on Facebook is clearly diminished, and I feel more warmly grounded in my body. I look forward to many years of sweet feline company. I was startled, doing the math, to realize that these cats will see my 90^th birthday.

I have always felt that laughter is manna for the soul, and these critters are truly funny. They may be more dignified when they grow up, but it’s not guaranteed. I myself am a great deal less dignified than I was as a kid.

Our process of converting about forty years of archive video of our theatre productions to DVDs seems endless, but actually it should be done by the end of the summer, and rescuing the echoes of our work from decaying magnetic tape is the soul’s equivalent of a good workout at the gym.

We’re looking forward to collaborating on final edits of Galahad’s Fool with our publisher, and the coming spring will see the book out in the real world. Meanwhile, redrafts on Chemo, the newest wig-bubble, are seeing a good coherent yarn forming. A bale of garlic is curing out in the garage, and this year’s tomatoes are flowering. I actually spotted a second butterfly in the yard today, which is a sad statement to make but also a joyful one.

Whatever is coming will come, but it will come with kittens and garlic and love.

—From CB—

When I grow up, I want to be a kitten.
I want to pounce on my brother and let him pounce on me.
I want to frisk over the sofa and fall off the back with a green bag over my head.
I want to purr.
I want to lick fur.
I want claws.
I want to chase my tail without the worry of catching it.
I want to hear the tap water and jump to the sink and watch it flow and fill the sink, and then the plug is out and the whirl goes down and I wonder.
I want to find every thing I don’t grok and grok it and still hold the wonder.
I want to gallop, then lurk.
I want to fling a stuffed mouse and catch it.
I want people to laugh.
I want to sleep the sleep of the dishrag.

Not a cat: just a kitten.
Then wake up as me, illumined.

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