Cat Sitter

 Neighbor cat Pixie comes in my open door and takes up residence… “The comfiest chair is for me.”

I’ve requested a screen/storm door for the back (north) entrance (it’s such a narrow building, I have doors on the north and south side). This is the north, shadier, and more private side—I love to sit with my morning coffee out here, but in also I’d like some patio stones, since the ground is bare dirt: 

A door would not be to keep Pixie out—I like her—but to keep out bugs. It’s been such a dry summer—we’re in drought—there haven’t been many, but the occasional buzzing fly drives me nuts—I squashed one with my Harry Potter book the other night as I was lying trying to read in bed.

I love my new home so much, I’m a little sad to be leaving it for a while to go house/cat sitting next month. (Living with House Mate, I was always almost desperate to get a break by staying elsewhere.)  

I’ve been rereading the last three Harry Potters in reverse order, and I’m almost done with Harry Potter 5. After (or, before) this one,  they don’t hold my interest. I’ve enjoyed the last three, though their defects drive me crazy: How can J K Rowling be so imaginative as to create this complex world and yet have no sense of humor? I NEVER laugh or even smile at these books. 

(What passes for humor is the Weasley twins’ “joke” charms that make you throw up or get a nose bleed—funny if you’re a snot-nosed seven year old?)

Still, despite their limitations, they’re a good distraction that require little thought—perfect for this August. I’ve been thinking about trauma—it bothered me that Harry doesn’t have PTSD at the end of the books, after all he’s been through—like Frodo clearly does at the end of Lord of the Rings— but what I’ve read says that if a traumatized person has some sense of agency, if they can run or fight, they’re less likely to suffer from the disorder afterward. So maybe Harry was sort of immunized? Or maybe it’s just that HP is a magic fairytale for children, while  LOTR is a war story …

 (I can’t weigh in on CS Lewis’s Narnia because I could never stand to read more than half of one book, they’re so condescending and not at all as if he’s ever met—or been—a child. IMHO.)

Okay—off to work now. I hope you’re all having a good day, or night. Xo