When someone’s pet dies

They will not go quietly,
the pets who’ve shared our lives.
In subtle ways they let us know
their spirit still survives.
Old habits still can make us
think we hear them at the door
Or step back when we drop
a tasty morsel on the floor
Our feet still go around the place
the food dish used to be,
and, sometimes, coming home at night,
we miss them terribly.
And although time may bring new friends
and a new food dish to fill,
That one place in our hearts
belongs to them….
and always will.

This was on a Hallmark card Lois sent us after Bounce died. It’s still the best poem on the subject I’ve seen, apart from the dead kittens poem from Lindsay M that I dasn’t reproduce here.

There’s a gazebo out back of the fOlks’ place where Bounce, and other pets besides, are memorialized. She’s buried out back, but she has company now.

a spare – I don’t want much

Wrote this just now.

I want you to love me
I want you to care
I want you not to complain
when I prance around in my underwear
want you to forgive me
more thoroughly than Christ
and if you always do the trash
oh man, that would be nice

Now I have to leap up and take flower rolls out of the oven before they burn.

RIP recording artist Sophie

And they died
climbing up to see the moon
in Athens
and their life
was a goodies reel of cool
the patterns

they are not
for everyone to see
and our lives,
the red carpet,
will never see their light again
pop that bubble in the rain
and dance while you can
remember their joy
remember their name
:Sophie:

They made very entertaining bubble gum dance pop.

letters and cards

Architectural detail from the Museum of Nature (Victoria Memorial Museum building) in Ottawa – one of the most memorable buildings of my childhood.

Another Grogu sketch for Tom, and I’ve responded to Mary, and …. I still haven’t got them into the mail. You know the pesky, ‘you have to get dressed before you go to the mailbox’ requirement.

It’s a Harryhausen kind of a day. Have fun with this goodhearted countdown of the top ten Harryhausen stop motion monsters.

My site died for a couple of minutes yesterday. My apologies to whichever of the half dozen or so human beings comes here on a regular basis if that was when you were here.

Nevertheless I made great progress on the song project yesterday. THERE’S JUST SO MUCH OF IT and I’m stuck with it until I run out of songs.

it was actually THREE loads of laundry yesterday. At the last possible minute before bed I remembered and swapped the last load into the dryer, preventing BLEAUGH moldy clothes.

Tabbouleh and tea for breakfast. SPAGHETTI AND HOMEMADE MEATBALLS FOR LUNCH.

M Gouldhawke

Read, imbibe, and he’s got a smoking hot POEM about Settler Saturday as well. I acknowledge it, I do.

But if I wrote on my blog every thought I have about Indigenous life, peoples, lands and communities I’d never shut up, and it would STILL be one ww’s uninformed saviourite opinion so I’ll stand behind M´étis writers like him. Also, he lives in MST country. kind of a neighbour….

today

14% of songs posted or preposted for a full year of mayhem.

Meatball sauce is resting overnight in the fridge.

Two loads of laundry done today, and the Time Team was a trip to Montana to digga digga bone (Fossil Fever reference), and I got a letter from Ontie Mary, and I practiced although not too hard, and I have to laugh still because I need to change my strings more often, it does actually impact my ability to make the most out of the Gelis and Niccolo song.

Have fun! It’s a filk of Under the Sea

Follow Friday

Please check out the life and work of @LionessElise on twitter, Elise Matthesen IRL, LionessElise on Etsy, and here’s her Wikipedia article.

I love her jewellery, and gave some to Tammy this past year.

She is a longtime advocate of bisexual rights and she’s supremely witty and humane and competent, like a Dunnett character or somesuch. Just awesome. When I was a budding anarchist in Toronto, Catherine used to recount her exploits and I’d listen with fascinated wonder.

Freedom

this song is 30 years old… the recording as well

This song is about living in Toronto in the 80s.

Call out the word, see what it brings to mind. Some think of butterflies, and others think of guns. I would ask you to think about what freedom means to a child or a robber or an artist or a convent full of nuns. Chorus Freedom, you’re the most expensive thing. Against the weight of you, I must measure everything. Freedom, you’re the most expensive thing. You don’t just put your money down once, you keep on paying. V2 All along a boulevard of facts and fractal dreams, she’s a cynic, and she doesn’t hear the screams. All along a shoreline of corruption and debris, he’s a realist, and he knows what to see. Chorus All the little things that get magnified, pick your side, try to pretend the canyon isn’t really very wide. The poets have their message but it’s all couched in a lie, that we’ll overcome our differences, all we have to do is try. Chorus. My life makes its demands, the kids fall down and cry, friends arrive and food gets cooked and someday I will die. Freedom be my lover like a person not a thought, and anger me, and make me laugh, and make me life with doubt. Chorus.

 

This was one of John’s favourite songs of mine.

sure feels different in 2021

I miss him so bad right now. So bad. Love you man.