Part of an email I wrote to my sister today about something I heard on a Radio Lab podcast

“…Well the father and son were talking about how they thought it was important that someone be with you when you die — as you die, so you don’t have to go into that oblivion alone. And the son asked the dad if he wanted him to be there when he was dying. And the dad said he wasn’t sure because he wasn’t at that point yet, but he thinks so. He said, he just wants someone he loves to be there, “to be soft with me.”  

And he repeated it.   “Be soft with me.”  

It made me cry. Don’t you know exactly how that is? It’s such a great sentence. It’s full and heavy even though it’s so small. I want to make it a poem.

mother's (cat) milk

Back in 1998-1999, we moved out to the suburbs. Literally if you walked across the street, you’d technically be in the county. Because we were so close to the country, lots of people would drop off animals – cats and dogs – that they didn’t want, or couldn’t take care of anymore.

One of these animals, a calico cat, was dropped off right as we were just getting all settled in our new house. My parents went for a walk, and this cat started following them. It followed them all the way home and was so bold, it ran inside the front door as my parents opened it to walk inside.  

Of course, my sister, Katie, and I decided to keep the cat. We named her Paws. Paws turned out to be preggers and a few months after we adopted her, she had a litter of kittens under Katie’s bed. Katie heard Paws purring loudly when she woke up to go to school. Katie reached under the bed to get Paws, but felt one of the kittens first. Thinking it was a dead mouse Paws was about to eat, Katie ran to get dad who had a look and saw that it wasn’t a mouse, but a litter of kittens.  

A few weeks later, after Katie and I had become familiar with the ways the kittens got milk from Paws’s teats – they sort of push at either side of the teat with their paws making a kneading action to massage the milk out and into their mouths – we wondered if we could get milk from her.  I told Katie to suck on Paws’s teat to see if she could get any milk. If she did, she would report on how it tasted.  So Katie had a go and incorporated the kneading, massaging action we observed the kittens doing. Paws didn’t seem to like this very much. Katie was unsuccessful, and gave up after a few tries.  

 Now to us, this didn’t seem like that big of a deal, but whenever I tell this story, people think we’re absolutely nuts.

value judgement

At this point in my life, I am struggling with whether it is better to judge things based on values of good or bad, or beautiful and ugly. I’m leaning towards value based on beauty.

Which do you think is more important? Productive?

yea-nay voting

Voting with yeas and nays seems like a really bad way to vote. Excluding voting in smaller meetings using Robert’s Rules of Order where there’s usually just some smart mouth saying “nay” for a laugh (me).

But think about Congress using a yea-nay vote to decide something important. What if the “yeas” are those big, loud, old Republican suits? They’re probably really good at projecting their voices.