Full Moon Cat Lunacy

The cats like to go outside when the weather is warm and the moon is full. They chase those things which they can see but we can't. I wonder if they ever catch them, whatever they are? Cats must have very interesting inner lives. They seem to be endlessly fascinated. I find that an enviable state.

I, on the other hand, must concern myself with such things a the holes which have unaccoutably appeared in two of my four pair of pants. I must arrange a trip to Chico, the metropolis of the northern Sacramento valley and site of our regional emporium, the Chico Mall. I could, of course, purchase a lesser quality garment at K-Mart, and avoid the trip, but I prefer to buy the actual Levi's.

When I came to this place, I adapted to local custom by beginning to wear denim, which I almost never wore in Los Angeles. I could adapt still further and wear denim with holes, but I have to draw the line somewhere. In fact, I'd like to buy a pair of Dockers, but I'd probably be considered a citified sissy boy and be lynched the first time I wore them. Discretion is indeed vital in a backwater such as this. Ah, if they knew that I had once drunk wine, I'd be in trouble!

Spring (hack, wheeze) Is Here (ahchoo!)

The groundhog lied. Plants are budding and flowering like mad, pollen is floating on the warm breeze, birds are nesting, and all the green lichen on my shaded walk has dried up and turned brown in the heat. Oh Antihistamine, Goddess of Spring, go back to sleep!A February spring has never worked out well here. Within a few days, everything will be frozen up again, or drenched by rain that will wash away the pollen before the bees can collect it. In fact, the bees are noticable by their absence today. The hives may have been infested by those mites which troubled the bees a few years ago. Or maybe the bees know something that nothing else in nature seems to know. Maybe they know that it isn't really spring!

Steinbeck Centennial

Today was the 100th anniversary of the birth of John Steinbeck, California's greatest novelist, and my favorite American writer after Mark Twain. Although he received the Nobel Prize for literature in 1962, his reputation with academics and critics has not been very high in recent decades. Perhaps it is because his work is easy to read, and modernists tend to think of his storytelling ability as a flaw. The reading public continues to enjoy his books, though, and they sell about two million copies a year. No writer has captured the nature of California as well as Steinbeck. He understood both the bright and dark sides of the state, and presents it with all its flaws intact. I hope that in the future, academics and critics will come to realize the real depth of his work, and they will acknowledge that his positive reputation with the general public is deserved.

Heh heh

Here is an Ode to Sluggo, courtesy of Harry, (who assures me that he is not seafood.)

Sluggo, of course is livid. He showed me his blue screen almost as soon as I had read the entry. Another of Sluggo's faults, it seems, is that he just can't take a joke. Fancy- a computer with no sense of humor! Hah!