What a strange morning here.

I am still feeling sad about Tommycakes being gone now. When I got the cat bowls out this morning and remembered that I needed one less bowl now… I can’t believe she was with me for 14 years. And she was a rescued feral. Who would have expected it?

I was planning to trap her as part of that “trap, neuter, return” effort to keep feral cats from breeding and creating more and more cats all over the neighborhood. I was not planning to keep her or her sister and brother– who had all started living in my backyard back then, as kittens.

I named them Huckleberry, Tom, and Becky after the Mark Twain characters–

And I got all of the genders wrong. Tommy and Huckleberry turned out to be girls and Becky was a boy!

Anyway. It was a small nightmare from the start, since Tommy and Huckleberry were pregnant and had their kittens in my basement. Then I got all of them spayed and neutered.

Only 2 of their kittens were tame enough to be adopted, and since the rest of them (a total of 8, parents included) were completely feral, the cat rescues wouldn’t take them because they would never get adopted. And since the Humane Society assured me they’d keep the cats for 6 weeks and then euthanize them…

Jesus.

It turned out the neighborhood I was living in at the time was going to be basically torn down, with office buildings put up. Tons of construction on a very busy street. They had no safe place to be returned to.

So I ended up keeping them all.

4 of them have since passed away here at my current house. But I lived in 3 houses with all 8 of them — having to trap them all every time we moved.

I made a promise to them, though, once we settled here in the 125-year-old house in the middle of nowhere, that we’d stay put and I would never trap them again. (The trauma of trapping them was unbelievable, even though I was trapping them inside the house.)

Here is Huckleberry at the first house, when she surprised me by having kittens in my basement:

And here she is in my family room, overseeing all her kittens on my couch, a few weeks older:

Here’s Tommycakes with her 3 kittens, out in my sun room:

Tommy’s kittens were named after these 3 folks (and again, I got the genders wrong):

Two of Tommy’s “kittens” are still with me (they are 13 now) — Francis and Scotty. Zellie (who turned out to be a boy) was tame enough to get adopted.

Anyway. It’s been a really long journey. A lot of stress involved along the way. But as I said, I’m down to 4 ferals now. Huckleberry and Doris (she was named after Doris Day). And Francis and Scotty.

Oh, and here’s “Becky” — I ended up calling him Daddycakes. He passed away soon after we moved here, on April 15, 2019:

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I’m also noticing that I have to keep reminding myself that I am no longer working with my favorite 95-year-old Japanese man.

Every time I feel myself filling with anxiety, depression, stress — I have to remind myself that, once my vacation is over, I am no longer going back to that house, so I can let it all go.

Interesting, right? Almost like the “anxiety, depression, stress” creates a void that automatically wants to be filled. Until I remind myself that the cause of it all is gone.

What a “vacation”. It has been just so weird.

And even though I know that eventually my schedule will fill back up with clients, for now, I have only 9 hours of work once my “vacation” is over…

it is just so weird.

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Okay.

Well, I loved this.

Keith lighting up sometime in, like, 1968?

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Oh, and I finally watched this on Britbox. I was aware of the film when it came out (2009), but for some reason I didn’t see it until yesterday.

I loved it. Wow. “Nowhere Boy” — John Lennon Biopic:

It focuses only on John’s life as a teenager in Liverpool. I identified with it so much — especially all the heartbreaking stuff about his birth parents (he was raised by his Aunt Mimi).

Anyway. For whatever reason, I never knew that much about John Lennon’s life before the Beatles. Just a few minor details. But it was so fucking intense and mostly sad. But the film is really well done.

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Okay.

I loved this.

A Nick Cave quote from an old magazine (sort of similar to his comments in his Red Hand File the other day):

And here is the set list from the Netherlands show last night (it doesn’t say what the encore was, though):

And here are a couple of great photos from the show last night.

I love how the shot of someone else’s phone is also in the shot:

And in this one, I like how it looks like that one hand is holding up a tiny piano, while that other hand is holding up…. well…. you know:

You have 2 days to get yourself to Germany to see the next show!! Buy tickets here!!

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And that’s all I have for now.

I know I will survive this weird vacation, but I am just in the strangest frame of mind right now. And the loneliness is off the charts. I had so been looking forward to having lunches and dinners with various friends in restaurants, being in all that busy noise of Manhattan.

Oh, I put a question to a chat bot this morning: “Who would make the best boyfriend for Marilyn Jaye Lewis?”

Its answer was flattering but bizarre. It basically said that while I was a well known and highly regarded writer, there was no known answer regarding a possible boyfriend, except for perhaps male characters in my books…

WFT???

Anyway.

Well, enjoy your Sunday, wherever you are in the world, gang.

Thanks for visiting.

I love you guys. See ya!

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Let’s close with this!

From Dublin the other night!! Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, “Get Ready for Love” (short):