No Strings Attached

Posted By Kathleen David on June 27, 2019

It has been raining a lot in my area or gloomy cloudy days or dense fog.

This morning the sun is shining and all three of our cats have found their individual sunny spots to lounge in. There has been some shifting as the sun starts to move across the room but they all seem content.

Of course I said something about the temperature and it goes up to a summer humid level just to prove me wrong or make me sweat a lot or get ready for travel that will take us to the South.

Caroline is enjoying her summer vacation by sleeping in. She had to get up at 5:30 AM to make the bus that she had to leave the house for by 6:25 AM. Now she is basking in her ability to get up at 7 or even later. She is turning a little nocturnal as most teenagers do.

Peter is getting ready for the first of a series of conventions for the summer/fall as he is going to the North Texas Comic Book Show this weekend.

Caroline has a series of activities this weekend as well that she is looking forward to.

I am going to work on puppets and get ready for the next leg of our journey, as we will be at CONvergence in Minneapolis Minnesota over the 4^thof July weekend.

Then onto Shoreleave and beyond with a family vacation and SDCC sandwiched in there for good measure.

We finish off the month of July at GalaxyCon in Raleigh North Carolina before heading home for the month of August.

Then DragonCon for the Labor Day Weekend is the last one that Caroline and I will be attending as she starts her Junior year in High School. The exceptions are a couple of local events for us. Peter has a slate of conventions he will be attending in the fall and winter.

I am grateful for our summer slate of adventures.

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Posted By Kathleen David on June 24, 2019

Imagine an umlaut over the u so it sounds like food.

I feed the cats wet food once a day when I get up. Each had their favorite kind and turn up their noses at the other ones.

When I come downstairs I am met with purrs and meows. If I do something before going to the kitchen to give them their food, I hear about it.

Once they have eat their fill, they go to their morning nap positions unless there is something great going on live cat TV (The open front room window).

If I have run out of wet food, they figure that out about the time I get my first cup of coffee, which seems to the signal that no wet food is forthcoming.

They have dry kibble in case they get hungry during the day and a water bowl if they are thirsty.

All three of our cats were feral before we took them in.

Fig we found after a Nor’easter in a tree a very wet and bedraggled kitten.  She became Caroline’s cat after Caroline spent the weekend in the kitchen with her letting Fig come to her rather than chasing the cute kitten. By the end of the week they bonded. FIggy waits for Caroline to get home and meets her at the door.

Inky found us and it took a bit to get her inside but it was a good thing we did since she was slowly going blind from an eye infection. I don’t think she would have made it through the winter. She is a scaredy cat but attached herself to me. Caroline can now pet her but it took 5 years to get to that point.

Mewlan we got at a local no-kill shelter. We found out that she had been a feral who had been fix. They didn’t notch but chopped off the top of her ear. Then she was captured again. She went with one family that returned her because her gait made it look like she had brain damage. She has a genetic defect where her back knees did form correctly so they can slip in and out of joint. She is a klutz but she is our klutz. She latched onto Peter at the shelter and see him as her human.

They can be total furry dumb-áššëš but they are our furry dumb-áššëš and we love them.

I am grateful for our cat companions.

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Posted By Kathleen David on June 23, 2019

It is nice when you wake up to bird song rather than lawnmowers being used to quickly mow before it gets too hot to go outside.

But then this morning the temperature is lovely with a nice breeze to just add to the nice feeling of being outside.

I am writing this sitting on my back-porch at the picnic table the girls bought their father for Father’s Day oh so many years ago. It is made of metal and plastic so it has worn well over the years.

So right now I hear the breeze blowing through the leaves, the birds chirping, and some squirrels barking with the occasional car sound as they go down the street.

This sort of thing clears my mind. A moment to pause and just be in that moment. As thoughts come I shoo them away to leave me with the sounds of nature for a moment.

I grew up in cities or near cities but have an affinity for the sounds of nature. I like living where I can get away from the manmade noise of the world and just be in the sounds and feelings of nature. You can even do this in Manhattan if you go to the right part of Central Park.

I think greenery is important to mental health. Peaceful moments where all there is are sounds of nature and your own breathing. I tend to slow mine down and fit into the rhythm of what I hear around me.

A pause before getting the day going. Mine is going to start with clean up cat barf because I heard that lovely sound as I am typing this. Then onto the next thing and the next thing until day is done.

However for the moment I breathe in the air and listen to the sounds around me and let a sense of calm wash over me.

I am grateful for mornings like this.

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Posted By Kathleen David on June 22, 2019

And the wheel continues to turn.

Today is probably the day that I am going to have to start the air conditioning unit that means a bunch of filter changes and system checks.

I like that we got to almost July before I even contemplated turning it on. But it also makes me sad because this lovely cool weather is all part of climate change.

I have no idea if I will be blogging between now and September. If I do, it will be random at best. Once we get back into the school year and things settle down I plan to be a little more consistent.

The cats are enjoying the open windows and the bird song. I am amazed that we haven’t had more lawn mower noise this morning. I guess everyone went to the beach instead.

So a group was protesting with an online petition to have Netflix cancel Good Omens for many reasons including the voice of G-d is a woman, Adam and Eve were of a dark skin tone, and “another step to make satanism appear normal, light and acceptable”,… “mocks God’s wisdom”. 

One small problem, Amazon Prime is the home for Good Omens not Netflix. This lead to one of the funniest twitter runs ever. Neil saying on his feed, “Let’s not tell them” to Amazon Prime’s feed saying that they will cancel Stranger Things if Netflix cancels Good Omens. To which Netflix’s feed agreed. I have been following this and having some good laughs along the way.

I have to get on top of the puppet situation. I have two weeks before the travels start and then part of August but that’s it before DragonCon.

I am grateful for friendship and honesty.

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Posted By Kathleen David on June 20, 2019

There are remembrances you just don’t want to write and this is one I have been dreading for a couple of years now. And honestly this is about the ninth draft of this entry. 

How do you sum up the passing of one of your best friends on this planet?

Well I could start with how we met.

We met over a bottle of spirit gum and became instant friends for that strange cosmic reason that you just click with certain people or as Gonzo put it in the Muppet Movie, “There’s not a word yet for old friends who just met”.

It was I think a ChattaCon but I could be wrong when I was helping with the Masquerade and Byron came to ask if I had brought my make-up kit. One of the contestants needed some spirit gum to re-attach their beard that was coming off. I had and brought the bottle over to two amazing costumers who had done this set of Satyrs that were breathtaking. We got to talking and after the contest was done, we got to talking and drinking.

That was the beginning of a beautiful friendship with Jeff and Angelo.

I cannot really talk about Angelo without also talking about Jeff. They were the couple that had the steamer trunk full of papers so that they could do legally what I got when I married Peter. They got married when they finally could. When I heard that the Supreme Court had made marriage the law of the land for all, the first people I thought about were Jeff and Angelo.

We had so many adventures together.

He and Jeff did the heavy lifting on our Beauty and the Beast costume we presented at Magnum Opus Con with me as Vincent from the 80s tv series and my sister Sheila was our Catherine.  As I was heading out the door, Angelo stopped me and said, ‘Wait it’s not right yet.’ He looked at me for a moment and grabbed some clean tube socks stuffing and shaping them. He said “Left or Right?” I said, “What?” “Your dìçk, do you want it to hang to the left or the right?” He then proceeded to make me look like a dude with a left hanging bulge.

He loved Disney. His favorite character was Donald Duck. We went to Disney World a couple of times over the years. The last time we went I was able to get them in free with my Disney pass. We were silly all over the park. I have the pictures from those trips and they still make me smile.

Broadway was another passion we shared. I was really proud that I could get them back stage at Phantom of the Opera and meet Michael Crawford. Theater was something we spoke fluently. I got them a speaking gig at the Yale School of Drama and they gave a lecture on special F/X make-up. They impressed everyone in the room.

Puppetry was a touchstone for all of us. Angelo and Jeff were the creators of Sox with Attitude a Drag Queen puppet show they took all over the place. They were amazing. You can find some of their work on You Tube. The puppets had more and better outfits than Angelo and Jeff had.

He created the badge and card for Peter’s Patreon account. His abilities with graphic design and sound design were amazing. . He could mix anything into anything no matter how different the two pieces of dialogue or music were. It was magical to watch him figure out how to do it. Most of Sean’s parties had graphics designed by Angelo.

He could be a son of b at times. He dug his heels in and it was close to impossible to change his mind. He was right and you were wrong.

But he was Angelo and I loved him very much.

We might not see each other for long periods of time but when we got back together, it is like we were never apart. In jokes were a given. Bad puns and jokes went back and forth.

I love that he had a ‘bullsh*t” button that he would hit when someone gave him an estimate of how much longer he was going to be in this world after he had been diagnosed with cancer. He beat that expired date with great glee and the next one and the next one.

I could tell he was slowing down and getting very tired on many fronts. But he still made the best of the quality of life that he had. There were still quips and jokes. But he kept apologizing for his lack of memory or suddenly forgetting things. And that annoyed the ever loving out of him because he was a brilliant man who mind was betraying him.

He was a smooth talker. He once said that we were lucky he didn’t become a televangelist. He and Jeff did create their own religion called Jeffangelism. He was really good at getting people to donate for various charitable causes. He and Jeff gave a lot back to the community.

I will miss my friend who dragged me along on madcap adventures. He was there for me when my world was crumbling around me. Who would let me call him up and just vent about things I had no control over and it was driving me crazy. Sometimes he gave me ideas and advice and other times he would just let me talk myself out.

He and Jeff had been together for over 30 years, which is a rarity these days. My heart goes out to Jeff who now had to deal with everything that happens when one’s partner dies.

He was a good man, a good friend, and a good human being. We shall not see his like again.

I am grateful I had Angelo in my life.

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