Transformation and Cats

Monday is New Years Day. Well, technically, it is Tuesday, and only if you consider that Passover, also known as Pesach, is also known as Hag ha-aviv, the Festival of the Spring. As it falls on the 15th of the month of Nissan, and Nissan is the first month of the Hebrew calendar, it is considered the beginning of a new year. This makes so much sense to me. Look around! Everything is budding! The birds are back; I can hear them rustling through the trees, building nests and getting ready for all those bird-babies! There were squirrels and chipmunks out back this morning running riot in anticipation of the warm seasons. It is a time for rebirth and renewal and I am climbing on board.

I made an appointment with an attorney to start a not-for-profit performing arts organization. Why not?! I’ve been working for others for years; have witnessed greed, egotism, lack of foresight and sometimes utter lack of taste. I have been lauded and fired. If I emerged with anything other than a bloody nose and wounded spirit, it is a reputation for quality and integrity. It is time to put those on the front burners and banish my cowardice to the rear… or the trash can!

First decision: should I call it PAN (Performing Arts of Newtown) or Stray Kats Productions? (Feel free to way in on this, oh loyal followers.) Okay, the first is obvious, and probably the better choice since it represents instant recognition. But the second is taken from my husband’s and my last names: Striano and Katcher. In addition, something of a phenomenon has been happening around my house in the appearance of several feral cats that stroll up my driveway and around to the back woods, lounge on my wood pile, hunt for mice, and generally tolerate my presence in what has become for them an everyday path. Being a dog-lover, I have never been comfortable around cats. They scare me. I don’t speak “cat”. But there is one, a soft, grey cat who approaches closer than the others and is the most frequent visitor to my rear deck, who looks at me with the same curiosity and fear that I have for it (Him? Her?) that I can’t help thinking is some sort of totem.

(Found at Sayahda.com) “According to author Ted Andrews of Animal Speaks, cats... are associated with myth and lore, magic and mystery. Nine lives (I seem to reinvent myself every few years), curiosity, independence, cleverness, unpredictability and healing... Cats have more rods in the retinas of their eyes which enable them to see effectively in the dark. The dark is often associated with mankind's fears.(Loaded with those fears!) Since the cat is at home in the dark, it serves as a valuable ally into the world of the supernatural and the unknown and can help those with this totem move through their fears efficiently. (Very helpful when you don't quite know where you are going.)

The energy field of a cat rotates is a counterclockwise direction, the opposite of a human energy field. Because of this, cats have the ability to absorb and neutralize energy that affects humans in a negative way. This is part of the healing medicine that the cat holds. (Hmmmm...)

If something affects you in a negative way place a cat on your lap or find a cat to pet. Your energy field will immediately realign itself and inner balance will be restored. (Gotta catch the cat first.)

Because of their x-ray vision, acute hearing and high intelligence they were used throughout history as guardians and protectors. In ancient Egypt cats guarded the temple gates and were used to ward off evil. (Ah, a common thread! Cats: Egypt: Passover!)

If cat appears in your life the blending of magic and mystery is at hand. A trustworthy teacher, the cat will guide you into the world of self discovery and transformation.”

Wow! I can use some healing and transformation!!!!

Okay, so I’ve gone from Pesach to totems in three paragraphs. Clearly I’m a person in search of meaning in my life. Perhaps this is it.

I'm done!

I give up. I just lost out on a role because I “looked too young”. Then they cast someone who is about 10 years younger than I am. I should be flattered but I am so pissed off that vanity can’t get a toe-hold in my dark mood. What’s the point of anything? What’s the point of dieting to be thinner? Of using face cream to keep those wrinkles away? I should just blow up and look like shit and maybe then I could catch a break! By the time I get to play roles my age I'll be too old and feeble to learn the lines!

I don’t know what to do anymore. It’s been too long and my arms are tired from treading all this water. I need to let go but letting go means surrendering to a power I no longer believe in. When I hung up the phone having received this left-handed compliment I drained the remaining ice-cream in the freezer and polished off the rest of last night’s bottle of wine. Stick a fork in me; I’m done.

Lucky Me

My husband won the lottery. Don’t get too excited; he won $56 on a combination of three scratch-offs. Okay, it’s a lot better than nothing which is what you usually get on these things. It’s even better than a $2.00 winner which essentially allows you to purchase another ticket and lose your money later rather than sooner. But forgive me if I don’t get all rah rah, ya ya, ga ga (he’s also obsessed with Lady Gaga) over it. You see, I need a few more zeroes to get really excited. But not him. He was thrilled. “We won the lottery!”

He said we didn’t win more because, when I scratched off the second of two consecutive cards he purchased, I casually said this one wouldn’t be a winner and he said I was being negative but really, do they ever put two winners in a row? That’s not cynicism; that’s pragmatism. So is there something wrong with me or is there something wrong with him?

My friend Chris recently sent me a link to this Facebook page, “ShitMyDadSays”. My favorite quote was, "No, I'm not a pessimist. At some point the world shits on everybody. Pretending it ain't shit makes you an idiot, not an optimist." I learned tonight that I have been appointed to our local Arts Commission, an appointment that comes packed with the caveat that a member cannot benefit from their position. Right off the bat, this means giving up two potential sources of income, small as they are, and they are small. Isn’t that funny?

Still, it would be so nice to be able to expect good fortune; to somehow catch a break. I admire my husband’s spirit, even if I think he’s slightly insane. I think it’s all that hard work he’s doing, trying to keep us afloat during these difficult times. He’s exhausted and it is well known fact that exhaustion can produce delusions. Which is why, when he called me from work tonight to tell me he’d won the lottery again, I was delighted to learn he’d scratched off another $2.00. As long as he’s happy.

Slushed

It’s snowing. It seems like it may never stop snowing. The calendar says it will be spring in three weeks but I am skeptical. I could go outside and blow the snow off the driveway one more time but my husband brought me some Kahlua and Vodka before he left to stay in the City and having a cocktail seems like such a better idea than manual labor that I will let the snow accrue until the morning and will deal with it then. They say it may snow all day tomorrow too. My in-laws are upstate NY and they had four feet of snow as of 8:30 a.m. with no sign of it stopping over the next 24 hours and they were laughing. I suppose that is what people do when there is nothing else to be done; they laugh.

We were laughing last night as we drove through the end of the world. In a moment of what can only be described as insane, some friends and I drove into NYC last night for dinner and a show. My guardian angel, JK, treated me to this wonderful, death defying evening. Dinner on Restaurant Row with gourmet prices and Weight Watchers sized meals prevented it from being a total assault on my diet but, oh boy, was it good! I am grateful! I am grateful! The play, Mamet’s “Race” was great. I love James Spader. David Allen Grier:really good. Richard Thomas: excellent. Kerry Washington: could have been anyone. Overall evening: a ten. Driving home? White knuckle time. This blizzard, this amazing blizzard, had eyes. Looking at the weather channel, it was as though someone had arbitrarily decided to paint New York State white and Connecticut green. The road was horrible; didn’t see a plow or salt-truck, and cars, or their drivers, were freaking out. I’d left my Prius in JK’s driveway and was grateful for her SUV as we worked our way out of Manhattan as I’d never seen it, up the West Side Highway, on to the Henry Hudson and up to the Hutch with drivers literally freaking out on the unplowed road. Snow was driving at the headlights at such a rate I would have sworn we’d entered hyper-space like in Star Wars. Then, in Norwalk, it just stopped! No snow, no ice, no slush; just rain. The thermostat jumped to 39 degrees and last week’s accumulation was gone. We were safe. Snow didn’t hit us until the wee hours of the morning but it’s as if it has been making up for lost time. I have no idea what time it is. I have been watching reruns all day and changed out of my pajamas only long enough to clear the driveway.

So I’m home; I’m safe; I have cabin fever that is only dulled by this incredible White Russian I have concocted from my husband’s parting gifts and a dollop of International Coffee’s White Chocolate Macadamia Nut non-dairy creamer. I am as sloshed as my driveway is slushed. Spring? Right.

Demographic

Oh my God, I’m a demographic!

I signed up for the New York Times online that delivers carefully selected articles in areas of personal interest directly to your computer. I don’t buy the paper anymore (one of our many cutbacks) and this seemed like a good way to keep in touch with the newspaper and the City I loved so much. I was understandably intrigued when the email arrived with the following banner: “Millions of Unemployed Face Years Without Jobs” by Peter S. Goodman. (Not plagiarizing!) So I clicked on the link and was greeted by the subtitle, “The New Poor”. The lump in my throat threatened to cut off my air supply.

I read that “roughly 2.7 million people will lose their unemployment check before the end of April” unless Congress approves President Obama’s plan to extend benefits one more time. That’s me! I read that 6.3 million Americans have been unemployed for six months or more. That’s me!! I read that the percentage of women from 45-64 years of age who have been unemployed for six months or more has doubled compared to the “deep recession” of 1983, when it was 7%, to 14%. THAT’S ME! I read, “Every downturn pushes some people out of the middle class before the economy resumes expanding. Most recover. Many prosper. But some economists worry that this time could be different”. I fought the temptation to head for the liquor cabinet. It was, after all, 10 a.m.

I brushed my teeth, threw on my gym clothes and prepared to greet the acting student who has been a lifeline during these difficult times. It was a private today; part acting class, part therapy session…for both of us. All I can do is keep putting myself out there and doing what I love. Perhaps I will be one of those who recovers. Perhaps the loss of a steady paycheck has forced me to become more self-motivated. Perhaps everyone else will get jobs and they will once again donate money to theatres and I will get jobs, and the parents of my students will once again be able to afford classes and camps, and I will not just be one of those who recovers. Perhaps I will be one of those who prosper.

Advice; or how to keep busy when you're not.

I get most of my ideas in the car and then I have to figure out a way to remember them until I get home. I’ve tried a tape recorder but everything sounds so lame when I play it back. The voice in my head is so much more intelligent than the one that hits the air. I’ve tried calling myself and leaving a message; same problem. I’ve tried writing while I drive but the result is illegible. So I simply make a mental note to remember. Sometimes it works.

The ideas come to me because I listen to the news on CBS radio and sometimes what I hear is so provocative I need to respond. For example, this morning, the commentator introduced a doctor who was going to tell us how to avoid salt to lower blood pressure. His brilliant interview consisted of telling us not to eat it. How many people do you know who have gotten high blood pressure from bathing in it?

Another expert told us how to avoid conflict with your “ex” by cutting him or her out of your life. In the case of shared children, she advised “not to beg”. Huh? Okay, she acknowledged that, when you have children, it is impossible to completely cut your former spouse out of your life. Arguing is pointless and counter-productive. But begging? She admitted she was calling on personal experience when it came to the begging. Apparently, her ex-husband became her ex because he’d found someone else and she compounded the problem by begging him to stay. I think much better advice would be to get rid of the bastard. Don’t fight; don’t argue, don’t beg. Just consider yourself lucky that the bastard is now somebody else’s problem and pity the poor woman who poached your man; he belongs to her now. As a veteran of parental divorce and spousal divorce, I believe the best way to deal with an ex-spouse is to try to remember, as quickly as you can, something… anything… you once liked about this person to entertain the notion that you might want to spend the rest of your life with him or her. I’m not saying ‘forget the negative’; just put it on the back burner. You’re divorced so you don’t have to live with the shtick anymore. Close your heart from hurt. Don’t let it fester. Get out. Get busy. Value yourself. The sooner you can do that, the sooner you can normalize relations for the sake of your children and the sooner the stress leaves your life. This is not to say that there aren’t a bunch of ignorant assholes out there that make reconciliation next to impossible. But the sooner you can find a way to cut your dependency on this person, the sooner you will be on the track toward a happy life.

So, it seems I have discovered something else to “do when you’re dead”: give advice. Hope it helps.

Black and White

I’m so bored! It’s snowing again… still… The view outside my window might as well be in black and white because that is all there is: white sky, white snow and trees in varying shades of grey. An occasional squirrel, also grey, frolics through the trees making it seem like it is snowing harder but it is just the branch he has used for a springboard that has sent its load down to the ground where I will have to shovel it away. Thanks Rocky. I wanted to look up the name of the person who dreamed up Rocky, the Flying Squirrel, but my internet connection seems to be having difficulty. It is just that kind of day: no instant gratification. Even eating doesn't help. Once upon a time I would have looked up the answer in my Compton’s Encyclopedia. Why we got Compton’s I don’t know. The gold-standard of encyclopedias was Britannica. My Aunt and Uncle had Britannica. Maybe it was the cover. Britannica was brown and Compton’s was white and grey… like today!

And speaking of the days when TV was black and white, whatever happened to all those door-to-door salesmen? Could you imagine hauling an encyclopedia around in a suitcase all day? And The Fuller Brush Man? The Hoover Vacuum Cleaner Man? The Avon Lady? Okay, Avon is still around but it’s not the same. We had cake delivered by the Duggan’s Bakery and our sodas by the Seltzer Man; Good Health Seltzer. He was the strongest person I knew. Have you ever lifted a seltzer bottle? It’s heavy! Put six of them in a wooden crate that’s heavy even when it is empty, add a bottle of Fox’s Ubet and pile on another crate of Dr. Brown’s Cream Soda, Black Cherry, Celery Tonic and Root Beer and you have a cargo worthy of Hercules. I think of him when I have to carry a single 2 liter plastic bottle. Of course there was the milk man, and the metal box outside our door from Cloverdale Farm. The milk would have a paper cap and under the cap would be a half-inch layer of cream. To open my plastic half-gallon of 1% I had to go through TWO security measures!

Just the fact that all these people came to your door… that they would be let inside… UPS delivered a package the other day; when I heard the knock at the door I jumped three feet. Nobody comes to my door! And if they do, they’re certainly not getting in! But still it’s nice to remember a time when everything didn’t have to be hermetically sealed and a stranger in your living room only wanted a commission.

This snow is relentless. But I’m going out before I eat myself into a stupor and before it’s too heavy to push. I’ll wear my black jacket, black snow pants, black boots and will use the grey shovel. Ah, the good old days.