I didn't spend a lot of time on the computer...
Animals
Clue alert: When they look like this, they're not homeless. Offer treats if you want them to keep visiting, but about a cubic centimeter of treat on any given day. Obesity is not good for cats.
Ganked from Messy Mimi's blog. I don't know who posted it first. Anyway, it's worth finding out whether a visiting cat is all about extra food. My experience is that they're more interested in the cats than in the humans, but sometimes they do know when someone on their circuit could use a purr and a cuddle...
Same source, same day.
Good News
No link, because it's private...In town I met an old acquaintance who had been very concerned, when I was seeing more of him a few years ago, about his children. Daughter lived nearby and was always promising to do little extra-pair-of-hands things for him and not doing them; apparently too busy taking drugs with a housemate who sounded as if person needed some jail time. Son lived far away and only ever called to report needs for money. Neither seemed to be a Christian. We used to pray for them.
So, as I was walking in the direction of Compuworld with a freshly cashed paycheck to bail out my working desktop computer, old acquaintance offered to drive me out there. (I had not really expected to walk all the way. It was still an August afternoon. I'd been planning to walk slowly for a few hours and let someone know where to meet me after work.) Just to chat and catch up on news. Some projects were going well. An older mutual acquaintance had died.
We had collected the computer and stopped at the Wal-Mart nearby, and a call came in on the person's old car phone, which almost never picks up a call. It was the far-away son. He was working. He had gone into the same skilled trade as his father. He wanted advice about a job.
"I'll have to call from your sister's house and get her help to explain that," said the father, quietly, looking at some very technical stuff the son had sent through the phone. To me he said, "Let's stop for food and drink and wait for her at her house."
So we had supper in his car in daughter's driveway. The house looked tidy. If the dopey, messy housemate was still there, person must have been out on a job. Animals were socializing across fences between large, well-kept dog space and horse space. All of them looked well kept and eager for human company. Clearly this was the home of a responsible adult.
Daughter came home, still sounding impatient and full of herself, but she took time to help her father and brother use her phone. A horse had been nonverbally talking with me across the fences while we waited. That horse was due for a good walk with its human and didn't want to wait. It pawed the ground and pulled horse faces, plainly saying "Hurry up! I want my human now!"
Father and son talked for more than an hour. When the phone battery started to run down and the daughter pried them apart, they expressed love for each other. It is always such a delightful feeling to see that one's life experience has done someone else a bit of good.
It was evident that the father's Christian influence had done his children quite a lot of good. He is a cheerful old fellow, but after that talk with his son he was radiant.
I love to see young people behaving well, making their parents radiate joy!
Music
Even as Celtic dance tunes go, this one is "A Wild Rumpus."
Poem, Exposition of
Earlier in the month I wrote a "blitz poem" about the times when the most important step to take is the step back:
I'm not sure whether any of the generation of poets who survived the Blitz in the 1940s would count this as a poetic form. But it does work in real life.
Other years, in August, I've been annoyed by spiders spinning big webs right across the path through the not-a-lawn. Going anywhere in August meant having my face and hair festooned with cobwebs.
This year, the signs of the seasons came early and it was still July when I saw a great beautiful web, freshly made, shining in the morning dew. Right across the path, as usual. The spider was at the top, looking down.
Instead of impatiently tearing down the web, I took time to admire it. It was about two feet square and seemed perfectly symmetrical; nothing had blundered into it yet. "What a fine job," I said. "You must have been working on it all night." And I carefully turned it to the side of the path.
And there, Gentle Readers, it has remained. For their size spiders have much more in the way of brains than other cold-blooded animals; I'm convinced that this one understood that a compromise was being offered, and accepted it.
Meanwhile I've enjoyed the rewards of stepping back: web-free hair.
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