Jack

When one isn't enough, add another one, when two makes you happy and along comes three.... what to do? I am talking of course, about cats, and who wouldn't want one... but three? Is three really too many? When you start walking around the house as if you are walking through water, trying not to step on any tails... maybe there is a problem?

When I first moved out on my own I got a cat because I wanted some company, someone to depend on me so I didn't feel so alone. I rescued this 2 year old kitty, malnourished, skinny, and jumpy, and turned him into a beautiful, healthy, lovable cat. I love my kitty Rico. But Rico was home alone a lot, esspecially over the summer, and would howl at night because he was lonely. So I got my kitty a kitten to share his days with. Sierra is the most adorable, cutest kitten you ever did see, and so loving and entertaining. She has brought Rico out of his shell so he is not so scared of the world anymore. But not too long ago, about a month, along comes Jack. Jack is your average tomcat wannabe kitten. I found him starving in my back yard. I talked to him and he ran to me all purrs and curls. When I picked him up to pet him I could feel his bones through his skin. So I fed him and he adopted me. There isn't a day goes by he doesn't express his gratefulness. He is a small kitten because of malnutrition. At first I guessed his age at 4 months, but when the vet saw his teeth were adult and that he'd had them for a while he realized Jack was much older, about 7 or 8 months. So after Jack had eaten so much food he took a two day nap and the other cats got to know him. They all love each other now and I'd hate to separate them... but three cats? Can I claim them on my taxes as dependents? What is it about cats that makes it so hard to say no? They are so fuzzy, warm and cute! They purr! What other animal purrs? They have cute little pink noses and funny expressions. Who really, can say no to a kitty?

Within These Walls

I like making the ugly things pretty; the broken things work again, and the unsymmetrical conform to my vision of symmetry. I enjoy watching the work I do on my own house improve its value. Even little things like getting a pretty porch light makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. There is nothing better than improving the quality of life by improving the water one has in ones house. At least that is how I feel right now. I just installed a water softener in my house. If you have never lives with hard water you cannot fully understand what it means to have rocks fall on you from your shower head. You cannot understand the pain of clean dishes caked with powdery white mineral deposits; or the embarrassment of having company bruise their hands when they go to wash up. The horror of a black toilet bowel, the expense of buying new faucets and shower heads and hoses whenever one wants to have company over. To go from that to the slippery bliss of clean water, soap that actually subs, dishes that sparkle, a dish washer that stays white and a shower head that sprays water in straight streams. I feel so rich because I'm doing 70% less cleaning and it feels so good! I also feel as if I've made the house worth improving further, which makes me happy because I love making the ugly things pretty, the broken things work again, and the unsymmetrical conform to my vision of symmetry.

The Life of Money

I sometimes wonder if the $20 I'm holding in my hand was ever owned by a Millionaire. I wonder what he used it for. Did he give it to the cashier at Starbucks for a Vinti Mocha Latte no foam with whipped cream and nutmeg and cinnamon sprinkles? Did he give it to a little girl selling lemonade by the roadside? Do Millionaires even carry cash? Why am I obsessing over what Millionaires do with their $20 bills you ask? Do you ever notice how $20 can seem like so much until you break it to buy lunch at $3.25? All of a sudden you no longer have $20, but a $10, a $5 a $1 and 3 quarters. The Quarters get lost somewhere, maybe you use the $1 to buy a couple stamps or a small drink somewhere; the $10 might buy a quarter tank of gas and then you just have $5 which you can't even use for a tip unless you ask the waiter to give you change and you know as soon as you do that it's bye bye $5 and your $20 was spent all in one day. I wonder if Millionaires have the same problem I do. I wonder, when I break my $20 at the Cash & Carry, if it later makes its way into the hands of someone with even less than I, if it is possible, and if it is then traded for cheap bread and canned fruit at the local Food Mart. I wonder if most people spend their money on things they need or on things they just think they need. Do most people know the difference? I wonder if I am taking well enough care of the money I do have because some who have so little cannot.

Starry Night

There are times when the cold does not disturb me. When there is rain and there are clouds I always feel a little down, but sometimes when it's cold I am inspired. There is something in the chill; something about the warm air rising up and leaving the cold air behind that brings to me a clarity of mind. It lasts only for a brief moment before I shiver and wrap myself against the cold, but in that moment there are stars in the clear black sky; the moon a close sharp contrast to the distant starry night. In that moment the wet pavement glistens in a bath of orange streetlight, and my breath hangs before me as a vapor slowly rising to the stars. For a brief moment I think I hear singing and see myself an invisible spec on the surface of a particle of dust in the vast universe.

The painting, Starry Night by VanGogh reminds me of this feeling in a strange way. As paintings go you might not consider this painting very clear, more of an impression. Sometimes I feel like an impression in the painting of life; walking around brashly sketched with flakes of pink and gold and brown. But when it gets cold like on that Starry Night, there is that moment of clarity and affirmation that makes my speckled impression'd life worth living.

If you haven't before I would encourage you to go through a book of classic paintings and find one that speaks to you, if it is possible to find just one. One thing I like about art is that I can let it leave an impression on me without letting myself hate it. I can appreciate even the negative feelings that come to me when I see some art. It takes a good artist to illicit a strong emotion from the audience.

Aurora: Nature showing off

The Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights (known as Aurora Australis in the Southern Hemisphere) has been a facination of mine for years. The idea of Sun-charged particals zipping through the magnetosphere only to collide with atoms in the upper atmosphere, getting them all excited so they emit their energy as light is probably not what most people think about when they see an aurora. I find myself picturing the Sun reaching out long, whispy, yellow fingers and drawing on the canvas of earth somewhat like a child with finger paints does in a paint book. Seeing all the different colors probably doesn't spark scientific thought in any observer's mind either. No one will be thinking, 'over there we see charged particles colliding with oxygen, and over there they are colliding with nitrogen!' However, I find a strange romance to the scietific jargon. Sometimes I feel like I'm running around like a charged partical looking for some nitrogen atom to collide with. One can draw many beautiful allusions when one knows why the pretty lights in the sky are there. Or if one doesn't know, one can always be like Charlie Brown and lay back on a snowy hill and say "that looks like a blanket!" or like Linus and say, "I see the Valkyrior, war-like virgins on an errand, mounted on horses, armed with helmets and spears and the light is the reflection of their shields!" But however you see it, seeing an aurora should be on everyone's top ten list of things to see and do before they die.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora_(astronomy)

Getting On Board

One of my favorite things I did when I lived in England for 9 months was ride the train. It wasn't a nice train, more like the small town, run-down, transit buses you find back around my home in the Northwest American States. The fabric on the seats were worn, the carpet thin, the doors squeeled when they opened and kids had scratched their names on the windows. I didn't worry about all that during my 3 hour ride from Manchester to a small town on the east coast, right on the North Sea. The terrain passing me by was beautiful English countryside with stone sheep pens, wooden sheep gates, and elderly English shepherds with their black and white boarder collies. The motion of the train and the consistent noise of the wheels against the track was calming, almost meditative in mood and all the stresses I'd had of flying from Seattle to O'Hare to Manchester, just slipped away, just like they do at the end of a stressful work day when you head down to the local coffee shop on your way home, order a chai tea "for here" and settle down with your laptop in an overstuffed chair to spend some mindless hours on Yahoo Answers sharing the wealth of knowledge you posess. Or is it just me? Here at Chai Train you are welcomed to climb on board. I don't promise everything will be pretty and decorative, but what you'll find here are the kinds of things people may talk about in quiet tones, sometimes humorous, sometimes serious, but calming like drinking chai on a train.