I just heard her dispatch some squeaking thing.  I did not get up to save it from her.  She is probably licking her chops right now, having just chomped down the last bite.  Maybe it was a baby rabbit.  It squeaked like one.

I'm having trouble keeping her clown collar on her.  I bought her a birds be safe collar but the quick-release under-collar is too quick to release--she scratches it right off.  Maybe if I put it on her when she has just fed she will be happy enough to ignore it and get used to it.

In other home news the raspberries are coming in.  W says they've never ever been this early.  It's still May and we have both pink and blonde raspberries already ripe.  The blueberries are on their way as well.  We will probably not get very many of them, because the crows are waiting for their ripening as well.

I'm planing my tulsis outdoors today.  Rama tulsi, the most medicinal Ocimum, and Kapoor, and Vana.  These are the Ayurvedic names, and two of them have the exact same Latin name according to the seed company I got them from.

Bergamots are going out as well.  Three of them.  Should be interesting to see how they fare.

I never know what will live and what will die in my little garden.  

Today I picked up this pet that I call "Kitten" and she felt significantly heavier---more like a cat than a kitten at eight years of age. She is so kittenish most of the time that the name is no stretch. She has been very good company this last week.
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Woke up at 4am eastern time (1am Pacific time) to fly back to the left coast. Due to a coffee mistake (didn't ask and was served caffeinated at 8pm) I slept only 2 hours. Wow does that make for a long day. Arrived in Portland at 10:30am local time, and was grouchy by noon and incoherent by 5pm. Went to bed at 7pm and slept 11 hours, and I feel almost normal this morning. Phew!

So I woke up in the upstairs room here at Will's, which is to be my new home. The room that was the bedroom in this house will become my office. It is a pleasant room and will be even nicer once I can clear the old juju from it. From this day forward any time I use something from my old apartment it is moving to Will's house.

My old apartment smells like cat shit, has no toilet paper or paper towels on the roll, has vines growing into the stairway, has compost rotting in the kitchen, and is generally covered in cat hair and disgusting to me. It quickly becomes apparent how much energy I put into keeping the place clean, and how quickly things will decline in my absence. Emily's new boyfriend, the unemployed smoker from Jersey, is still hanging around. He avoids my eye. He may be the housemate she is thinking of having move in....a disaster in the making. The downstairs neighbors are very upset at her for making noise all night long every night, walking with heavy feet and moving furniture around at 4am. I don't know what she has been up to but I know that she is neurotic and the new boy is likely to aggravate that. I was a moderating presence.

So I have 9 days in PDX before I leave town for another adventure. In that time I am supposed to relocate my possessions from the apartment and clean it. I am leaving Kitten there until we return from Idaho. I hope she doesn't freak too much when the bed etc are removed. I will relocate her to Will's in June.

More later, hope you guys are well. I haven't read anything on LJ in a month or so, so if there has been some major happening in your life please let me know.

True story, just happened, 6:49am. Kitten just came muttering into my bed. She let out her little vibrato meow and I reached over sleepily to pet her hello. My hand landed on something wet. I let out a howl of disgust, thinking it was a dead mouse. She jumped down out of the bed, and then on the bedroom floor something went crunch. I turned on the light, and there was a spot of bright red blood and a few gray feathers on my white bedspread. I looked down at the kitten, and she was hunched over, eating the bird. Crunch, crunch, crunch, methodically. I laid back down and listened. Then I got up, to get a rag so that I could get the blood out of the carpet. By the time I got back the kitten had finished eating the bird, and was crunching on dried cat food. There was nothing left but a small pile of tail feathers that moved in the wind I created. No blood on the carpet, but the down comforter has a new spot. There's a drizzle of blood on her white chest.

Kitten is injured. I don't know what happened to her but I think it was yesterday or the day before. She has lacerations on a front leg and a hind leg, and she can't jump. She's been laying around looking glum. The injuries look like maybe she tangled with a fence or a door, not so much like another creature, though I suppose it is possible. I don't think any bones are broken, but the wounds are painful. I moved her food bowl down to where she could reach it. She has been particularly needy, too, wanting to sit or lay on me a lot. I pet her constantly, wanting the love to help her heal.

I have this strange chair that is the corner out of a segmented sofa. It is supposed to be off white, but it is so old and dirty that it is more like gray mottled with brown. Last winter the roof leaked on it and the stains were the worst yet. I generally keep it covered with a blanket. Today I propped it up on the bannister of our tiny 2nd floor porch. I sprayed it with dilute dish soap, scrubbed the spots a little and hosed it off repeatedly. Then it started to rain. I thought "great, it will get rinsed off well". But then the rain set in as if it would never end. The chair might never dry left out on the porch. So I just wrangled the oversized ugly thing back into the foyer and set a fan on it. This chair only came with me to Oregon because my cat loved it. It is the thing that has told her we are "home" in the several moves we have made so far. I think this may be the end of the chair. It is a piece of garbage that I carted here with me from Arizona. I often think back on the stuff I loaded in a truck to bring here. Junk. But this chair has had its moments. It has been a good meditation chair. And it fits well in small nooks beside windows. I think I paid Suzanne (not this Suzanne but the prior one in my life) $10 for it. I can barely believe I paid ten bucks for this. But here it is. Funny how possessions can complicate our lives. I would have done well to get rid of it a long time ago, and the cat would have known some other way that we were home.

I keep thinking I should get rid of 90% of everything that I have.
Then I cram more stuff into the closet that I might use someday.

Shakti is sitting on the window sill in the east window of my office. The full moon is high and clouds are drifting past it, torturing the vampires. Suzanne is starting charcoal in a hibachi on the porch, and the pug beast is snorting in the hall.
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Well now the weather is getting interesting. Some time last night there was some rain that froze when it hit the earth, covering cars, snow, railings and everything with a thin coat of clear slipperiness. The cat hates the cold weather, refuses to go out. She has become quite upset with me, since I am of course responsible for this weather. She peed on both of the bathroom carpets, which became trash. Then she peed on my old sleeping bag, which was out in the closet. I pulled it and washed it, replacing it with a new sleeping bag which did not have so many stinky smells on it. She peed on the NEW sleeping bag. So today we got her some different kitty litter, hoping that she will PLEASE pee in the catbox instead of on carpets and sleeping bags. Kitten has also been tearing up the carpet in this apartment. She is going to cost me dearly if she doesn't cut this out soon. Luckily my order for non-freezing weather should be fulfilled within a couple days. And unfortunately this crusty stuff isn't anywhere near as good for skiing as last nights light and fluffy. Oh well. Situation static, household tense, waiting, watching, wondering what will happen next.