Sumptin' Happenin'

There's something happening. Thousands of people are gathering in the streets protesting. Protesting what, you may ask. You name it. Just protesting.

Occupy Wall Street is a grass-roots activist protest movement without focus, without a leader. People are camping out in parks in various cities. People are getting arrested for disrupting traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge. People are dancing and singing in the streets. And it's spreading across the lower 48.

What's driving the protests? Who knows? Public ennui? Corporate greed? Joblessness? Poverty? Loss of the American Dream? Fatigue? Deep-seated fear?
Some protesters want to stamp out corporate greed. Others are worried about what we humans are doing to the environment. Still others just want a job. Everyone wants something, even when they aren't articulating the collective angst that has driven them into the street.

I watched several news clips of the protesters. I saw myself in many of them. In the young girls with their long hair and long skirts, I saw myself protesting the Vietnam war, for women's rights, and against Dow Chemical. In the older protesters, I saw friends who wanted to hang onto the American dream for one more generation. I saw people of all ages hoping to find a way to rediscover a moral compass, personal, corporate and national.

We've lost our way. Our leaders in government haven't a clue how to take us up the next steps out of the mess we're in. We are floundering in deepening ruts of disfunctional government. We see our friends and neighbors struggling to keep going. Many are falling behind. Their children will fall behind.

If Occupy Wall Street, with all its disorganization and energy, turns a new spotlight on our collective problems, then it has a benefit. If not, at least the protesters can say they tried.

And they can vote next year. If they can find candidates who listen, then they should vote for them. If not, then they should vote for the candidate who is closest to their desires. And then they should continue the protests.

If this is our US Autumn, then we need to join the protesters. There's something happening there. What it is ain't exactly clear. We can help make it clearer.

I think we have a mouse

Shortly after Mocha, our new kitty, came home, my husband Terry and I began to suspect we had a mouse in the house. Mocha sniffed and sniffed every corner looking for the furry intruder. We thought she had found the scent in the living room, but the trace vanished almost as quickly as it began.

We'd hear Mocha chasing something in the middle of the night. At first we thought it was greeblings, those invisible critters that send cats on midnight rips across the room. We flipped on the light about three in the morning, only to find the most innocent looking pussy cat on the floor at the foot of the bed.

We kept watching to see if we could find the mouse. After all, I didn't want to walk downstairs one morning and step on what remained. The more Mocha searched, the more we searched, the fewer traces of said tiny furry critter did we find. Mocha wondered if it were in her office bed. No, but she looked long and hard before she decided it hadn't invaded her hidey hole.

I was about to give up and declare the house mouse-free, when one morning I came down to the office in the basement earlier than usual. Before it could flee, I captured the mouse in a digital image. All I can say is, "Eeek, a mouse."

What's in a name?

Apparently, a lot, since it took us several days to decide on a name for our new kitty. Here's the tale of the naming conundrum.

When the kitty selected Terry as her forever male human, the shelter named her Stella. Her six bright orange kittens were all named for different types of cheeses, Cheddar, Edam, etc. I knew immediately I could not go through life yelling "Stella" like Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire. Just wasn't going to happen. I asked Terry what he wanted to name her.

"Spike." Well, that would be different. I don't know too many kitties named Spike. My girlfriend Karen Wrigley happened to call a couple of days after we brought her home. Karen is an animal communicator and gave me a reading. She said the kitty was too soft to be called Spike. This was during the time she was hiding in the ceiling over my home office. Karen told me she liked high places. No kidding.

We dumped Spike and kicked around Houdini, because she was an escape artist. Then, it was Cheshire, because she liked to vanish. Blondie came and went, as did Ginger.

Finally, we said she looked more like a cup of mocha coffee than anything else. She's fawn-colored with spots where her stripes would be if she were a tabby. Almost looks like a fawn-colored Ocicat. Mocha stuck. When she's doing her midnight greebling chases, she acts like she's had too much Mocha Java before bedtime. Nicknames are MJ and Mocha Java.

Karen was right about her being soft. She is. And now that she's settling in, she's with us most of the time. Still can be a boo-kitty when there is something new. She has to act scared, but it's all an act.

Generational Memories

Every generation has its seminal event, that moment in time where you always remember where you were when...

The Greatest Generation will never forget where it was on Pearl Harbor Day. Every living member can tell you what s/he was doing, what happened next, how many neighbors, family and friends went to the draft office on Monday following the attack.

The Baby Boomers know what happened on November 22, 1963. It remembers the horror of a young president murdered in front of his wife and the nation, the funeral procession, John-John saluting his father's coffin. We remember how we cried and wondered what had happened to our country and what would happen next.

The next generation remembers the Columbia shuttle disaster, as do previous generations. Our children can tell us what they were thinking when they watched the first teacher in space die and knew her students had just seen the same thing.

The current generation has 9/11. Ten years ago we stood as a nation, united by an attack on our basic value system. The "bad guys" struck out symbols of our power. We hung flags in front of our homes and dared them to do it again. The world stood with us and said, "Today we are all Americans."

I have flown a flag every day since the attack. My original 9/11 flag had to be retired when it became too ragged. It's replacement is nearing the end of its life as well. A new one waits in a drawer, knowing its call to duty will come.

What happened? The world hates us. We hate each other. We can't seem to agree on anything. We need to work together, but don't want to. We know how, but I think too many find it too much work to try and fix our problems.

Sigh. Can't we return to the unity and commonality of purpose we felt on Sept. 12, 2001?