Cats in the Cradle

Grady is just not eating. I’m not sure what to do. She has been resting comfortably, and we have all been loving on her. I’ve been applying the steriod powder to her hotspot on the inside of her leg; it is looking much, much better.

But, she just won’t eat anything. Not moist cat food, not tuna, not dry food, not cat milk, although she did take a few sips of cow’s milk (warmed) and is drinking lots of water. If she doesn’t start eating by tomorrow, I will take her back in. I don’t want her to starve. She seems content…but, it is making me anxious. I gave her a bath last night. She did really well, and it was good to get her all cleaned up.

The girls made a salon for Gene last night…it was called “Be You”. We have a sun room with burnt orange velvet curtains, which they had hanging down, and pulled back when they brought him into the salon. He got to soak his feet in the foot massager with warm, soapy water and they had arranged the different colors of nail polish, lipsticks, eye shadows, glitters…and one tube of blue hair goo. So, while Gene’s feet were soaking, they colored his hair bright neon blue. Niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice!

We went rollerskating yesterday at Millineum, over on the East Side. Such a beautiful facility! Lily went around 110 times! Gene commented that all the video games were about shooting other people. There were games that actually had the warning: STRONG LIFELIKE VIOLENCE, which, indeed, they did have…and there was no monitoring, no parents watching the kids play these horrific games.
It made me sad that such a great place to hang doesn’t offer something for kids besides violent practice in the video games.

The cool thing about this place is that there IS bowling, movies, food, and the skating rink. Where are the mentors? Maybe they are there, and we just didn’t witness any of it. Where is the church involvement? Maybe we just didn’t witness any of it. Where are the conservatives who allegedly care about children? Maybe we just didn’t witness any of it. Maybe all these groups come at other times to help teach, mentor, share, love, and outreach. I’ll ask next time I go.

I told Lance today that the phone bills are ridiculous. Next time I do some fancy dinner party for some non-profit organization and the president of Southwestern Bell telephone shows up, I’m going to have a copy of our phone bill in my bag and pull him aside to say,
“Hey, what’s up with this? How can you guys charge so much? Tell me why this is.” I don’t care if it puts him on the spot. I want answers. I want to know why everyone is being charged out the wazoo, and some people don’t even have ANY phones….it’s crazy, I tell you!

We had a super time with Gene. I was on stage today when he had to walk on out to his car to head to the airport. He was so James Bond about it. I asked the audience to say, “Goodbye, Gene!” He and Chris Ng sat together on the front row and chatted….two nice guys. Standing back stage, waiting to go up between bands (I was helping emcee, too), it was neat to watch their eyes looking up to the opera singers…They looked totally enchanted!

I think Gene had more food this last week than I can imagine. We went to the Clay Pit and had Indian food last night….mmm. Gene had not eaten it before…I think he is a fan now…..I love that Saag Paneer….and who can resist naan? Who, I ask you? Mmm. I wish I had some right now.

My eyes are really tired. I’m having a hard time keeping them open from the heat and fatigue. My sleep the last two nights has been horrid. The ambien is starting to make me feel paranoid, I’m afraid. Last night I couldn’t sleep; I was so worried about the Any Baby Can benefit I was participating in today. Of course, it was a fantastic turnout, great bands, nice folks….I just worried I was going to forget lyrics or let them down in some way. It went swimmingly…especially when a male firefighter (I was calling him Fireman Buck…that was his name tag:
Buck) joined me to sing “I Wish You Well” on stage. That was suh-weet! And everyone was dancing; La Zona Rosa is a fun venue cuz you get to be LOUD!!!

We didn’t go see Adrian (Belew) last night. I wanted to, but we were wiped. It’s been a long, fun week. I did talk to Adrian’s son the other day when I called Adrian’s house, and we hadn’t spoken since I stayed with them to make “Two Kinds of Laughter.” He’s a young man now! We had a delightful conversation..what a good kid he is. He told me, right off the bat, that he had a girlfriend now. That made me smile, he was so proud to share that with me (last time I saw him, he was about six, you know.) He was very excited about it. I can understand. I remember my first boyfriend. He went off to ski with his parents at Christmas time, and I was hanging out in our gameroom…oh, this would have been back in 1974?…and it was a cold, dark night. I was just rolling the balls on the pool table, doing nothing…when there was a knock on the gameroom door, and I opened it, and there was Greg! I coudn’t believe it….He’d only been gone a week, but my knees got all wobbly and I could see his breath turning to steam from the chill of the night; he was lit from behind from the porch light. It was as if he was stepping off a train and it was war time, that’s how much my heart leapt at the sight of him! Ah, young love.
Congratulations, Stevie. Enjoy every minute of it.

The best part of having Gene visit (besides starting our hilarious documentary) was watching how much iolana LOVES him. She just couldn’t get enough of him! I think they must have been dearest friends in another life. They are so comfortable with one another. I swear, our faces were hurting from all the smiles. She was entertaining us just with her complete joy and enthusiasm.

And…after we took Gene to Indie Pop for gelattos last night, Lily started talking in an English accent, just out of the blue, and that was making me laugh so hard I had tears in my eyes. She would say, “Motha, I am missing Asia.” For no apparent reason, and we were bursting out, cracking up so hard. Then she went through a litany of countries, in this sweet English girl accent, and she started cracking herself up.

Wow. LIfe is good. Even during the blue times (lack of sleep just makes you sad. There is no way around it…)

Now…if I can just finish this record. Ugh. I am at that point where I am getting sick of myself/the music/the level of patience required. But…I am still excited about the income.

You know what I mean.