Here we are in the Hinterlands!

It’s a beautiful Sunday morning here. After thunderstorms all night long…

But the new Central Air Conditioning is unbelievably fantastic. What a godsend, truly. I slept really well. We ignored the thunder and lightning and high winds all night long…

Plus, I had moved all the outdoor potted plants and flower pots onto the kitchen porch yesterday, to keep them safe from sailing away on the wind, and when I went out onto the kitchen porch at 4:45AM this morning , not only was everything perfect, but Tiki was out there, sleeping happily in a veritable jungle of blooming flower boxes.

I am of course trying to just look at the positive stuff this morning, although yesterday was a really difficult one — having to decide to postpone the trip to NYC, which I was really looking forward to.

But now I have a total of 6 days off to just relax — and God knows, the house is CLEAN!!

I found out yesterday that the “trip insurance” is practically a scam. So I am out the cost of the airfare to NYC, but it wasn’t that expensive. Still. It was sort of the final straw (I also found out yesterday, by way of a “little bird,” that Sandra might be going into semi-retirement but hasn’t told me yet… She’s currently in Atlanta, shooting another episode of the “Ms. Pat Show” for Paramount+. So we’ll see how she’s feeling when she gets back.)

When I got home from my shift yesterday, I called Wayne to sort of vent about everything — he and I were going to be having dinner together on Thursday in NYC. He told me the same thing had happened to him once, regarding “trip insurance”, but it had ended up costing him almost 3 times as much money as I’d lost.

Later, during the night, Wayne sent me this on WhatsApp. It made me feel better because I had sent a REALLY nasty email to Travel Guard yesterday, and I hate sending nasty anything’s to anybody, but after reading this, I’m guessing mine was just one of millions they probably receive:

And then, around 3AM, when I got up to use the bathroom, I saw on my phone that my niece had sent me a friend request on Facebook! Yay!

Technically, we follow each other on Instagram but she hasn’t posted there in a few years. She is my half-brother’s daughter — the half-brother who is half-Cherokee and absolutely nothing but trouble.

Here she is at age 6 months, in 1997! I had bought her that little dress she’s wearing:

So that was a very nice alert to find when I looked at my phone at 3AM.

And late yesterday afternoon, I finally got an email from my best friend Valerie in Brooklyn. Mentally, she’s doing better, but she does have to have surgery on both hands on June 15th.

So here’s hoping that when I finally get back to NYC, she and I will both be back to normal.

And as soon as we can get everything sorted back out, we’ll get that mini-podcast up and running, finally.

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At least both of my shifts yesterday were really nice ones. And the torrential rains didn’t start until early afternoon, so my drive back out to that guy’s farm yesterday morning was just lovely.

And his home was almost an hour’s drive from my favorite 95-year-old Japanese man’s house. And from a whole different direction than I usually take, so that was a lovely drive, too.

And, yes! Me and my favorite 95-year-old Japanese man had a great day!! Finally, we were alone! The house is back to normal!! And we went out for sashimi & sake and had a really lovely time (ALONE) together!

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As for Tommycakes, I’m just taking it moment by moment, and I hope she will last for the whole summer but when she goes, hopefully I will be here for her final journey.

For readers who are new to the blog — Tommycakes is one of my rescued feral cats. Meaning, she is not domesticated. Feral cats attack people, so they can’t be put into pet carriers– you have to trap them in order to transport them anywhere.

I have (humane) traps in the basement, but the traps are so traumatizing to them that at this stage, since she is so frail and thin, I doubt Tommycakes would survive getting trapped. And even then, no vets around here will handle feral cats. When Daddycakes (her brother) was dying, I found one vet 45 miles from here, who was willing to let me bring him in. He was so far gone and suffering at that point, that I just wanted him to be put to sleep. So the vet was willing to do that for me.

Otherwise, with the ferals, I have to just let God take them in their season. So far, Tommycakes is at least still eating.

Tommycakes with one of her kittens, 13 years ago

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Okay.

Speaking of trying to look at the bright side of things!

74 years ago today, my adoptive parents were married!

Their wedding day was a really happy one. And so was their honeymoon. I’ve decided to just think about that part of it today and let all the rest that came afterward just go…

Happy heavenly anniversary, Mom & Dad. RIP.

And on June 4th, Tom Petty’s 2nd wife, Dana. posted this:

They had gotten married earlier, in Las Vegas, but had their official Wedding Day on June 3rd. Little Richard (on the far right) was the Minister who married them.

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And here’s this!

My birth dad, Don May, and his older brother, Earl, were friends with the Country singer, Johnny Paycheck. They all grew up together in Greenfield, Ohio. My dad’s younger brother, Ralph, who was a professional country singer as an adult in Nashville, was friends with Merle Haggard.

When Johnny Paycheck met my Uncle Ralph in Nashville and found out he was one of the May boys from Greenfield:

JOHNNY (to everyone in the room): “Those Mays were so poor, that when they had me over to lunch, they fed me mustard sandwiches!”

My dad later concurred that they’d been very poor…

And meanwhile, here’s my favorite Merle Haggard song — a song I first learned about in an interview Rolling Stone Magazine did with Keith Richards!

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And here’s this!

The Rolling Stones in London, 1971!!

And the Rollings Stones at some other time, backstage someplace!

And the Rolling Stones, nowadays:

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And here’s this!!

The Birthday Party by a swimming pool!!

And don’t forget!!

THREE days away!! Buy tickets HERE!!

And Nick Cave sent out a really lovely Red Hand File the other day! Wherein among other things, he had some great things to say about Freddie Mercury!! I loved Freddie Mercury!! And I got to see Queen in concert in Columbus in the mid-seventies. Wow, what a great show!!

But Nick also had this to say about the upcoming live shows this summer — for the band and audience alike — a quote from the song “Rings Of Saturn”:

“This is the moment, this is exactly what we were meant to be“

To read it in full, visit HERE.