Moody Meow

Have you seen this movie? It made me cry.

The idea of a storyteller living on in the stories that he or she tells pulled heartstrings I thought still. Instead of it being a crazy salesman, Grannie is a woman with a huge heart and a determined mind. The parallels interest me. Do I really know my grandmother as a person and not just a booming voice and captivating presence? I don’t know what her favorite flower is. I do know how Gramps proposed to her. I don’t know if she prefers boxers or briefs. I do know that she actually has a pair of rose-colored glasses. All the antiques in her home, the shattered spinning wheel and the tin suit of armor all have a story. I feel like I need to find all the stories and put them down, make them permanent before they are lost to spotty memory and immediate concerns. Recollections take time. Storytelling requires an audience (and one is enough) and rapt attention. I figured in time I would hear all the stories, again and again. But time is not my friend in this venture. So, I will write it down and she will live on as the vibrant strong woman I remember.

We did as much as we could do last night to prepare for the Hurricane. It looks like it should make landfall in Tampa. I kind of wish it would just hurry the fuck up. This waiting game chaps my ass. But we have food, water, flame, and beer so I think we are pretty prepared. The beer was important because I am going to need something to calm my ass down when I get off work. We moved Maru closer to the house, right next to the back porch and David is going to pull in the lawn chairs from the from the front. The back is all cleaned up, so the outside should be spiffy for the storm. The Gardens just need to keep their tree appendages to themselves so my old windows make it intact.
Charley is not allowed to do any damage to my house. I just got my office set up, damnit!

The alarm in the house is irritating the shit out of me. The “trouble” function keeps beeping and we can’t shut it off. Supposedly its because we don’t have an active phone line. The voiceover IP does not work with this stupid thing so there are random beeps in the house. The first time it happened it freaked me out. We keep the office and our bedroom closed so Pip doesn’t do any damage when he wanders out of our line of sight. But when the bastard (the alarm) started beeping, I freaked out, thinking someone was in the house and parked my ass on the porch for over a half hour, waiting for David to rescue me from the unknown cause of the alarm.

I saw the coolest thing yesterday. Driving down Ferncreek, on the sidewalk stood a proud hawk eating the remains of a squirrel. The bird was massive, and stunning with its chocolate feathers and arresting golden eyes. I almost ran the stop sign because I was staring. Maybe our neighborhood is protected. I would like to think so.

I’m at work right now. I want to be home. More later.