When I was a kid, I would bike the blocks over to the library (making sure the creepy old man of the neighborhood wasn't following) and take my pick. I was a cautious reader, relying heavily on old favorites. I read a lot of outdated books- those books written before WWII, that the library was stocked with. Everyone always seemed happy in those, ready for adventure and ready for escapades. I still have a few of these old books in my own collection, picked up from library sales.

I find their allure is rather gone and their happy worlds a trifle tiring. I finally read "The Witch of Blackbird Pond" last year and loved it. I couldn't read it as a kid- I was too shaken by the deep depression that hung over the family in the book. Not surprising I couldn't read it then, after all, I was an undiagnosed child with deep depression myself. Sometimes things hit too close to home. And though I was an avid book reader and pedaled to the library more times than I could count, I never considered a Summer Reading List. No, summer was the time when you could read whatever you wanted and not be hampered by things like Ten Boom's "The Hiding Place" or Richardson's nauseating "The Peace Child." No more dull christian biographies or equally dull fiction. I read books by George MacDonald, allured by the idea of fish leading someone to a fairy woman and hardly understanding what Unitarian (as MacDonald was) could be. They were happy days when I poured over Beatrix Potter (even at twelve, I would sneak into the kid section and read them one by one), MacDonald, Agatha Christie and biographies on Mary, Queen of Scots, Katharine Hepburn (who knows) and Rose Wilder of Laura Ingalls Wilder fame. All this to say: this is the first summer I have created a list for myself of summer reads. There are only two entries but I think that's enough.

1. Jane Eyre: for month's now, St. John Rivers has been an illuminating figure in my life. He deeply believed that God would have him go be a missionary and yet, this belief only made him rigid and unhappy and in essence, a dangerous person. Stepping away from the branch of christianity I was born into, I can't help but seeing this in every person I encountered in that religion, including myself. Rivers allowed himself to be a person only in a very particular way (using God as the justification) and because of that decision, he refused to realize his self. So anyway, it's time to reread Jane Eyre and read over Rivers again and since I have a Norton Critical Edition of Jane Eyre, I'm ready to go!

2. Tess of the d'Ubervilles: I've held out on Hardy for a long time. Reading archaic dialect is not my idea of a pleasure reading but hells. I recently read a short story about a girl reading Tess and Wuthering Heights for Her summer reading and lets just say I've been inspired. Besides, if I read Tess, I know I'll understand the aforementioned short story in a much deeper way. And that's like swinging candy in front of a candy addict. So does anyone out there have a Summer Reading List too? Show and tell!

It occured to me as I sat staring to space here, at my writing desk, how imaginative shopping can be. All I envisioned was myself at Trader Joe's selecting a chunk of Gruyere cheese out of their basket of cheeses. I read somewhere that Gruyere cheese is delightful in a grilled sandwich so of course, I have to try it out. Better yet, I'll go to the local Pennsylvania-Dutch restaurant that has a tiny local organic market on the side and buy some Gruyere from the cheese seller tomorrow. Perfect! The pleasure of imagining myself picking out cheese and purchasing it, is even greater then what I imagine the finished sandwich will taste like. Though I'm not knocking that! I wonder if the cheese'll be from Wisconsin or Vermont because that's where the seller's main suppliers are. There might be a cheese wheel or two out, imprinted with vines, flowers and the maker's name. Cheese wheels are the medieval monks' invention and whenever I see a golden wheel, I get an itch ot try and make cheese myself in some dark and cool springhouse.

No cows. Oh well. So I'll buy the cheese made by someone else's hands and why not pick up some fresh butter as well? Add local eggs too and some heavy cream- for an orgy of soup making. Two soups from this fine farmgirl.

The cheeseand now, the bread. Will I make the bread to toast or will I just use store bought? Store bought today. Still haven't picked up a baking stone. I wonder what it'll be like tomorrow when Jeff and I shop for a few of these local items? Will I just be stressed, hot from the humid heat and intent on moving onto the next errand? Or will I carefully pick up my small square of Gruyere and think how someday I may make a monkish cheese in a big hoop?

There's a 70% chance of rushing so I'm on the tinier 30% side, rooting for it. Shop imagninatively! Be interactive! Not a jerking puppet- a rushing maniac! It's very hard to imagine a life where I am creatively involved in everything I do. I come form a suriving people, where much to everything is done without pleasure but simply done because one must. Well, I must shop but the pleasure of it sprang to mind. To me! Who hates to shop! I was only trying to imagine myself into a story I'm working on, not finding a way to spontaneously enjoy obligations. And yet! I got a peek!

There is a pleasure in choosing. Sometimes it seems to me as I labor over a budget and pay off debts and try to create interesting and yummy food within the budget, that I have no choices and when I do, only hard and stressful ones. Real choices come only when you can have the freedom to fling money around at things. But this is not so.

Some of the greatest pleasure is in imagining out bits of my life and then in turn, those imaginings become a defense. A defense that is so calm that it isn't at all defensive. The habits of my lifetime and my ancestors float down the stream and then out of sight. In the meanwhile, I'll eat my bread...toasted with cheese.

Well. We put down Abby yesterday. And I cannot stop sorrowing. She was with me for nearly eleven years- my brother found her in a tree on the farm when the rest of us were off in Toronto. I was eighteen then and I'm twenty-eight now. She always chose to be around me, preferred my lap, my bedroom, Me. So when I married, of course she came along! And she was always my darling pet, very pretty, very floofy and quite funny. And now...she doesn't sit in my lap when I pull out my knitting. Nor will she watch from her perch on a kitchen chair when I'm cooking. Nor will she watch me write or try to lie on my paper while I write. She was constantly around me, she followed me through the house nearly all the time. She tended to be wherever I was and she picked up funny little habits and then dropped them every few months or so.

And she's gone! My brain is having a devil of a time parsing this. We chose to put her down partially for the expense and partially because of her terrible reaction to the vet's the first time a month ago. I mean...she stopped eating for awhile afterwards and I just wonder...well, anyway. It's over. Her suffering is over (because she was suffering. She was drinking constantly and had bad diarrhea) but...is it? What is on the other side of this life? I can only hope, so quietly, very quietly, that she doesn't disappear into nowhere and nothing. She doesn't become blackness, blankness, nothingness. That's she's off somewhere else without her ailing, dying body and that someday...I'll get to see her. Because we were friends. Excellent friends and connections like that just don't die. Not even with pets, I so quietly hope.

So here's to my tender little friend whom I loved and love so much. I wish you didn't have to go, Pud, and well...goodnight, sweet princess, and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.

For all of you Abby-cat fans, I think there's good news.

Abby's eating and drinking so much less and the vet thinks we'll be able to control her diabetes just through diet. Yeehaw! I'm all for that. I'm glad she's going to be easy to care for. Coming from a farm, where cats disappeared and died from just things pretty constantly, it's hard to imagine giving a cat insulin and all the tests and costs involved. We'll still have take her in every half a year for a blood test but I think we both think that's okay. She would have just passed away if she was still on the farm but since I might have caught this really early, she'll have a bit more time ahead of her. Which is nice. Really nice. The prospect of putting one's pet down is difficult and it may be that it'll have to be chosen but for now, we get some more time with the Fluffer

and so does everyone else. 

It's just one of those days. I came across wet dust rags on the pantry floor. Wha.....? The culprit?

Our little drama queen is either insisting that the nice cave-like covering of her litter box is impossible! she needs an OPEN litterbox OR the drama queen has a urinary tract infection. She's not one to pee outside the cozy confines of her litterbox.

The medical community both for humans and critters mocks us all. I'm supposed to retrieve a urine sample from the Fluffer. !?!??!?! I lock her in the bathroom, though before doing that, I have to pull everything out. Towels, rugs. Put in an empty litterbox, sans litter even. And leave her in there for seven hours. Starting at 8 AM till 3 PM when I take her to the vet. In the meanwhile, it is hoped that she will pee in the empty box or the floor. If she does pee on the floor, I have to syringe it up. !!! I begged a syringe off a Target pharmacist tech. I was so grateful for her generosity in giving me one because where the hell do you find syringes anyways?! But it doesn't end there, folks. I still need a fresh poo sample. The fresher, the better.

They mocks us. I tell you.