Dusting of snow overnight, the plow rumbled through before dawn, and this morning it was icy around here. I had the car for a bit so I bundled up and drove to the park where it was surprisingly balmy & green, whereas I had expected a snow-covered expanse and was mentally (& with wool hat and wound scarf) bracing myself against icy blasts off the mountains. No such thing, the air was mild and calm, the sun springlike, surprisingly since it's not even officially winter yet. Several of the regulars were there, on their walkabouts with or without dogs, taking in the sun. The unexpected ease in temperature and the bright warm light lifted my spirits. On the way back home Creslyn put on Stella the Artist, which I love to hear anytime, but maybe especially when I'm by myself in the car driving and can sing along to it (afterward I said, as always, thank you Creslyn - or sometimes it's Rick, or Will, depending on who puts it on). I know just about all the lyrics now, only one or two la-la's in places. It is nice to know all the words of a song, the closest I come these days to memorizing verse. There is a liberating feeling of ownership & mastery, to be able to confidently sing along. Actually, it's just plain cool. Look - I'll prove to you how much I love this song - I've memorized the lyrics! Also, there is the aspect of being able to mentally, any time I wish, caress the details - "I felt the sting of my own rebuke/Come spinning back like a boomerang" - how great is that? Or, the leaping, homophonic juxtapositions of, "As the daylight creeps/And the floorboard creaks/And your poor heart leaps." Homophonic - is that the word I mean? It's been so long since I formally studied literature - I know there's a term... assonance, I think it's assonance. When the vowel sounds are in agreement, even if the consonants that would make it a perfect rhyme aren't. Assonance is fantastic - it's this unexpected brilliant almost non sequitur of an exciting related association - without the tedium, sometimes (not to mention infinitely reduced possibilities) of being limited to an exact rhyme. Another lyricist who blows me away - Bob Schneider. I don't have all the lyrics down yet for 40 Dogs: Romeo & Juliet, but I do have patches, increasing in size - in a good way, not like the diminishing ice shelves in the Arctics.

You're the color of a sideways look from an undercover cop in a comic book
You're the color of a storm in June,
You're the color of the moon.
You're the color of the night, that's right,
Color of a fight, you move me
You're the color of the colored part of The Wizard of Oz movie.

***
Feeling tired & achey, despite short (but deep) nap, leftover chicken paprikash will be dinner, pellet stove is blazing, with Rafe taking the cure in front of it. Poor Rafe, our marmalade cat, who's had the weirdest wheezing horrible cold or flu for the past couple of weeks. It doesn't seem to go away. D took him to the vet a few days ago, and is giving him antibiotics, and still he sounds - and I'm not trying to be cutesy - like "snuffleupagous," just that snorting, and wheezing, and sneezing, and oozing, and coughing. He is such a trouper, that cat. That's what I meant about him being physically afflicted - all the time - he's got a condition that causes his gums to become inflamed every couple of weeks, which necessitates a trip across the river to the vet for him to get a steroid shot which alleviates the symptoms. I wonder if the steroids have made him more susceptible, or less able to shake off, the "common cold." Rafe is very fortunate to have D and me, that one of us is around to take him to the vet (usually D, but not always). I mean, what if we both had taxing jobs, and children - and a chronically ill cat on top of that? Who could manage that?

Yesterday I referred to Rafe as having the "magic jacket" - that's a Buffy reference - haplessly charming Xander acquires a magic jacket that causes all the women to fall in love with him. That's how it is around here - Gwynnie, Claire, and now too Penelope (newest to the tribe) are in love with him.

My dear, I hope you're having a wonderful birthday, yes I remember. Imagine that you and I are together, I've put the lights out for a moment, and I've baked you a little cake, maybe even just a cupcake, because the ages we are we're watching our weight, and there's a little candle on the cake, one I've planned in advance for the advent of your birthday, and I ask you to close your eyes in the darkness, and I put a match to the little wick on the tiny candle on the little cupcake, and I bring it over to you on a little plate, and your eyes are still closed, and then you open your eyes, and you see the little flame flicker and light the space around the two of us in a russet glow, and I stand in front of you holding the plate with the little cake and the single tiny melting candle and say make a wish, and you close your eyes again and think and smile and inhale and - pheeeeww - blow out the candle, and now the space, way up in the tiny silent aerie of the Slaviansky Bazaar Hotel, is entirely dark again, and our eyes adjust to the darkness, street lights from below and the moon glowing above all shining into the unlit room and without turning on any lights, or even tasting a morsel let alone mouthful, not of cake, your little wish for that moment comes true, and mine too

blowing out this candle, darling
XOXO