Bistro Bijou

[unpredictablebijou]

Bright blessings, all.

thanks for your sympathy. we're walking slowly through the usual grief. I'm trying to do some writing about it and of course failing.

Champie, doll, I did manage this:

A Little Spelling

Heart as rhythmic as the turning Moon,
Earth beneath you, hearth that warms your skin,
Art and medicine combined like beat and pause
Redeeming yours in rhythmic counterpoint.
Thread this chant through every tidal surge,

Through the motion of the healthy blood.
Hear it in your bones and over time,
Reclaim the even ticking of the clock.
Embrace this hour and let the Moon and Sun
At perfect synchrony lead your sweet heart,
Dear Heart, to health, embraced by rhythm's rhyme.



much gratitude and affection.

bj

 

[PandoraGlitters]

hey all

I'll be out for a bit. one of our dogs, Nissa, died this morning.
It was not entirely unexpected. She's always had some medical problems. But she was only 7.

I miss her, and we are very sad. carry on, you beautiful people. Back soon.

love and gratitude,

Captain Bringdown

The trust and friendship of an animal
is a gift and a privilege. And a wrenching
pain when it is lost.

:::sending you gentle hugs and tissues:::

-Dora

 

[champagne1982]

Hear my whispers in your chest
each time blood courses
along the path to bless
real trust and loving care
to hold your spell near
silouhetted against my breast.

Remember well the precious kisses
eager wags and licks await your face
simply to greet you and say I love you
too. Now scratch my ear... yes, there.

 

[normal jean]

Actually I was pretty nerdy in school. I never once even had detention. All my wild activities occurred outside the school, and mainly involved hallucinogenic drugs, New York City (or Philly) and rock and roll.

And I was (and am) an utter pacifist. The only time I ever got in trouble in school was getting sent to the principal's office once for refusing to salute the flag. lol.

I would have befriended you. You were weird then, too, right? I've always loved the weird ones. I was saying to ee recently that my main criteria for attraction to another person is that they show signs of being an oddball like me.

Hack, hack, cough, cough. No really.

well Sis. no wonder you loved me immediately


the feelin's quiet mutual

 

[UnderYourSpell]

We have a secret, you and I,
That no-one else shall know,
For who, but I can see you lie,
Each night, in fireglow?
And who but I can reach my hand
Before we go to bed,
And feel the living warmth of you
And touch your silken head?
And only I walk woodland paths,
And see, ahead of me,
Your small form racing with the wind,
So young again, and free.
And only I can see you swim
In every stream I pass,
And when i call, no-one but I
Can see the bending grass

 

[Eluard]

We have a secret, you and I,
That no-one else shall know,
For who, but I can see you lie,
Each night, in fireglow?
And who but I can reach my hand
Before we go to bed,
And feel the living warmth of you
And touch your silken head?
And only I walk woodland paths,
And see, ahead of me,
Your small form racing with the wind,
So young again, and free.
And only I can see you swim
In every stream I pass,
And when i call, no-one but I
Can see the bending grass

Really lovely!

 

[Angeline]

Really lovely!

It really is. I skimmed past it before, and am glad I saw your comment as I went back and read it. UYS is really good at writing rhymed verse that doesn't sound trite. That is not such an easy thing to do imo.

 

[unpredictablebijou]

Indeed, UYS, just lovely. And Champagne, as always, your skills blow me away.

I'm surfacing again.

Nissa and her brother Buck were abandoned on our land by some nazi redneck neighbors, on a cold night just before a New Years Eve blizzard in 2000. By the time our german shepherd Shadow finally got us to follow her to the little space under the house where they had been hiding, they'd probably been there for at least 36 hours. M and I had just gotten home from a New Year's Eve party. We spotted them and both of us burst into tears. We crawled under the house, still in all our party finery, and held them, poor hungry shivering little orphans, and cried like babies for a while, and then we took them inside.

M bedded them down in a laundry basket together and then got up every 4 hours to put dog food and milk and formula in a blender so they could eat. They were so tiny they weren't even weaned yet.

Nissa was always the strong one, and we know that she kept her brother alive there under the house, giving him strength through the hunger and cold until they were rescued.

When she died, Nissa weighed about 130 pounds and looked more like a grizzly bear than a dog. Strange to think that there was a point when I could carry them both in my arms at once.

Nissa was smart enough to figure out that humans often smile with their lips closed, and she learned to smile that way, edges of her mouth drawn up and eyes closed a bit, the way a human would grin happily. She used that look to flirt with guests, particularly men. She had crushes on certain friends of ours and would follow them around, smiling her people-smile until they paid attention to her.

She was a big girl, pretty overweight because after starving as a child she could never quite feel secure about food. She came from inbred hunting dog stock and got the worst of the genes - poor confirmation in her mouth, bad hips, bad skin. She and her brother had had to watch some of their siblings shot and killed, right in front of them, and gunfire would send them into a complete panic. We'd let them hide in the back room on Saturday afternoons when the locals would be out shooting TV's and cans in their various back forties. The words "gun" and "shooting" would make them cry and hide.

For all that, though, Nissa was happy. She loved to hear her name, to be told she was pretty. She had her very own couch in one of the outbuildings, all hers. She adored us all. She knew she was important; it was her job to bark down the coyotes that sometimes gather like a street gang and howl insults across the road from the field opposite us. She was diligent, clever, and deeply loving.

On Thursday morning she went outside and laid her body down under the silver maple tree that shelters M's office. By the time he went to call the dogs in, she was gone, gently, to sleep. it wasn't her usual place to lay, stretched over the roots of the tree like that, and I want to believe that she intended to simply move her soul into the tree, so that she could continue to keep watch over the house.

R, who is among other things a carpenter, built a cedar box, and the three of us carried her up the hill to the back corner of the land, where her aunt Mimsy is also interred. It was midnight by the time we were struggling to haul the box up the last steep little hill across the creek. The path, kept open by the deer and coyotes that come across the fence there, was muddy, and still pocked with patches of ice and the hoof-prints of hungry does. Briar rose and hedge thorns caught at my field jacket as I hung tightly to the rope handle of the box and helped haul it up the slick path.

The other two dogs, Buck and Foxi, walked with us. They didn't behave like they usually would, chasing off into the brush after rabbits or running circles round us as we moved. They were subdued; they seemed to understand.

We didn't stay long on the hill. The wind had come up from the south and it was cold in the clearing.

Muddy, tired, we took the other two dogs back to the house. There was no moon and we walked through the trees by starlight.

Back in the living room we got out the scotch - vodka for M, - and held a toast to our little bear. Then we watched the Marx Brothers in Day at the Races and laughed, and cried, till we felt a bit better and were tired enough for bed.

Our loss is her gain; she is just as present in the land and the trees, but far more comfortable. It's a big space, the space she leaves. Her brother's a little lost without her. We're all a little lost. But life and death contain one another, and the bones lie always just underneath the surface of the flesh. That is good, that is a good thing, that is a correct thing. It is less difficult, this grief, because it is so natural. I too will be released, someday, from this discomfort, and become mushrooms and new earth. That is as it should be. And it is beautiful. What is happening to Nissa now is beautiful.

I am back. I am here. And I am listening.

bijou

 

[Homburg]

Excuse me, I have something in my eyes...

Thank you for sharing that, it was lovely. It brought back memories of my first cat. I still get blue when I think about her, and it's been eight years since she went on to her reward.

 

[Angeline]

Excuse me, I have something in my eyes...

Thank you for sharing that, it was lovely. It brought back memories of my first cat. I still get blue when I think about her, and it's been eight years since she went on to her reward.

Ditto that. It was a lovely sendoff you gave your big baby, Bijou, and no more than a beloved family member deserves.

And Homie I know just what you mean. I have one doggie in particular that I saved from the pound and raised from six weeks. He has been gone more than ten years, and even though I don't get sad or cry over losing him anymore, I still think of him often and miss him. He was my best buddy, maybe ever. I often think god sent us to each other.

 

[Homburg]

I think the ones we rescue mean just a little bit more. Sequel, my long gone kitty, was one I rescued. I was the only person she would tolerate, through great persistence on my part. She came to love me deeply, and that emotion, from that little bundle of fur, was so incredibly womderful. She was a hateful kitten, but a loving and devoted cat.

 

[Angeline]

I think the ones we rescue mean just a little bit more. Sequel, my long gone kitty, was one I rescued. I was the only person she would tolerate, through great persistence on my part. She came to love me deeply, and that emotion, from that little bundle of fur, was so incredibly womderful. She was a hateful kitten, but a loving and devoted cat.

Yes, perhaps this is true. I mentioned in another thread that when I first got my Shakespeare, he was covered with ticks and had a bad case of kennel cough. He was the most pathetic-looking puppy in the pound, but also very sweet and gentle, I could tell. I had a tube of beef-flavored vitamin supplement that I had to feed him off the side of my finger in addition to his puppy chow and boy did he grow. He was about 130 pounds as an adult and on his hind legs came up to my chin (and I'm 5'6").

The vet was pretty sure he was a shepherd-great dane mix and he just had the sweetest disposition, but was a great watchdog because of his size. On a side note, a very funny story. My ex and I, at the time, had this huge fiberglass gorilla in the dining room that he and his brother had gotten from an amusement park that was going out of business. (Yes, a fiberglass gorilla. We used to put lights on it at Christmastime. ) You could see this massive gorilla head from the large dining-room windows. One afternoon a repairman came to the house. When he knocked, Shake, who had a big deep bark, started making noise. The repairman heard the bark, looked in the window and saw the gorilla head, and I watched him run (literally run) to his truck and take off. LOL! It didn't get the dryer fixed as fast, but man was it funny!

But Shake was a very loving guy--even if he did chew up all my shoes when he was teething. He had a lot of problems with his hips because of his size, and only lived to be ten. He had cancer and I had to make the decision to have him put to sleep. I kept hoping he'd go before I had to, but he was getting really bad and when I saw how hard it was getting for him to walk, I just couldn't let him suffer anymore. It was very, very hard to do, but I was with him the whole time, and he died looking into my eyes. Sigh. I sure do miss him.

Look at that face! What a handsome guy, huh?

 

[unpredictablebijou]

Thank you, truly. I'm still kinda weepy, and people are very kind about my snuffling as I'm running the register or helping them build jewelry.

We do truly fall in love with our animals, some even more than others. It makes me wonder about all those theories that our most cherished pets are people we've known in other lives, old lovers, siblings, that sort of thing.

I've often tried to write about how similar and how different it is from our love relationships with people. We say animals are family, but on the other hand I think most people are more ambivalent about their family members. It's much closer to a romantic relationship in some ways, at least the way I look at it.

I know I fell completely in love with those two faces in that AV picture the moment I laid eyes on them. O they were so dirty and sad and hungry and scared! Buck still has Foxi, who's his energetic "little sister" and he's doing pretty well. And we are walking through, slowly.

Soul food and comfort food today at the bistro, I'm thinkin'. Easily cooked and not ruined by the occasional extra salt of a tear dropping onto the stove.

For me, it's macaroni and cheese. For M, it's fried chicken, and blueberry pie with vanilla ice cream. For R, it's sushi, oddly enough, but then he grew up in Hawaii and California.

In the midst of grief last night, we ran a tiny last-minute fundraiser for the local humane society, who has lost their usual supplier of blankets and towels with which they line the cement cages. We threw a little party at our Bar, got some snacks, and managed to collect about 3 dozen blankets and almost $200 in cash. When I take the stuff over there on Monday I'm going to tell them it's in memory of Nissa.

I am walking in gratitude so often these days. Every day could be my last chance to express love to one of the creatures that graces my life. And there are so many of them. So many of you.

bj

 

[unpredictablebijou]

Look at that face! What a handsome guy, huh?

Gods, what a beautiful dog! I can see how you'd fall in love with that.

bj

 

[Angeline]

Gods, what a beautiful dog! I can see how you'd fall in love with that.

bj

You can just see from that smile what a friendly fellow he was.

 

[Guest]

..........

 

[unpredictablebijou]

xo to you, to all. Back tomorrow. With desserts.

bj

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

....and when you come back I'd like to grab you and bear-hug. Our pets are like family, it's devastating when they die. I'm glad those around you at work are understanding and allowing you to grieve.

 

[Angeline]

A poem for the Bistro

Sex With A Famous Poet
Denise Duhamel

I had sex with a famous poet last night
and when I rolled over and found myself beside him I shuddered
because I was married to someone else,
because I wasn't supposed to have been drinking,
because I was in fancy hotel room
I didn't recognize. I would have told you
right off this was a dream, but recently
a friend told me, write about a dream,
lose a reader and I didn't want to lose you
right away. I wanted you to hear
that I didn't even like the poet in the dream, that he has
four kids, the youngest one my age, and I find him
rather unattractive, that I only met him once,
that is, in real life, and that was in a large group
in which I barely spoke up. He disgusted me
with his disparaging remarks about women.
He even used the word "Jap"
which I took as a direct insult to my husband who's Asian.
When we were first dating, I told him
"You were talking in your sleep last night
and I listened, just to make sure you didn't
call out anyone else's name." My future-husband said
that he couldn't be held responsible for his subconscious,
which worried me, which made me think his dreams
were full of blond vixens in rabbit-fur bikinis.
but he said no, he dreamt mostly about boulders
and the ocean and volcanoes, dangerous weather
he witnessed but could do nothing to stop.
And I said, "I dream only of you,"
which was romantic and silly and untrue.
But I never thought I'd dream of another man--
my husband and I hadn't even had a fight,
my head tucked sweetly in his armpit, my arm
around his belly, which lifted up and down
all night, gently like water in a lake.
If I passed that famous poet on the street,
he would walk by, famous in his sunglasses
and blazer with the suede patches at the elbows,
without so much as a glance in my direction.
I know you're probably curious about who the poet is,
so I should tell you the clues I've left aren't
accurate, that I've disguised his identity,
that you shouldn't guess I bet it's him...
because you'll never guess correctly
and even if you do, I won't tell you that you have.
I wouldn't want to embarrass a stranger
who is, after all, probably a nice person,
who was probably just having a bad day when I met him,
who is probably growing a little tired of his fame--
which my husband and I perceive as enormous,
but how much fame can an American poet
really have, let's say, compared to a rock star
or film director of equal talent? Not that much,
and the famous poet knows it, knows that he's not
truly given his due. Knows that many
of these young poets tugging on his sleeve
are only pretending to have read all his books.
But he smiles anyway, tries to be helpful.
I mean, this poet has to have some redeeming qualities, right?
For instance, he writes a mean iambic.
Otherwise, what was I doing in his arms.

 

[champagne1982]

For instance, he writes a mean iambic.
Otherwise, what was I doing in his arms.
when I should have been home sleeping
there where safety waits?
The words trip pretty from his lips
but do they feed the hungry homeless
as their hope turns into watery soup
down in the basement kitchen of the church
on the corner of 101st and 107th?
Meter and prosody wrap his ego securely
in his id that I long to sleep with a man, aged
by the same catastrophes that shaped
my father and pounded into the same wheel.
The question remains if his poetry
is really cheesy or is it just my mind
screaming cliché, cliché!?

 

[UnderYourSpell]

The poem belonged to my darling Daisy but I thought you might like a borrow and I am sure Daisy would have approved. She was the matriach of my line of Staffies and kept them all in check whatever their size and how big for their boots the adolescents got. I brought her home at 6 weeks and she was smaller than Bugsies head but she sat on my feet and swore at him and he adored her from then on in. He used to pull an old tea towel along the ground for her to chase a game he thought up all on his own but it didnt stop her from bossing him around and making him get off the most comfortable chairs so she could have the bit he had made warm and comfy. She was the ugliest naughtiest pup I ever had and I knew when she had done something terrible and she would put her paws round my neck and grin her big Staffie grin at me before I found the line of decapitated flowers, She grew up to be beautiful and won at all of the dog shows and guarded me on all our walks. If a strange man walked by she would go and give him one bark just to tell him she was guarding me and to stay away. She was a sod for fighting as was Bugsy he went for the head end she went for the naughty bits till I would catch them up and remove them apologising profusely to some hysterical rottweiller owner. All this from a Staffie barely 14 inches high. I too lost her to cancer of the mouth we had her operated on but it came straight back and I had to make the dreadful decision and I held her in my arms and didnt desert her, We buried her the garden and she lies there still and the primroses and snowdrops blossom over her. Her grandson is 13 in May and when it is his turn he will lie there with her.

 

[unpredictablebijou]

....and when you come back I'd like to grab you and bear-hug. Our pets are like family, it's devastating when they die. I'm glad those around you at work are understanding and allowing you to grieve.

O thank you, sweet. Yes, I'm very lucky with this "job" even though it's hardly a paying gig. I don't think I even combed my hair until Saturday and nobody said anything.

''course, there could be a lot of different reasons for that. . . .

Today is a perfect day for mourning in Kansas. It's been thick and humid all day, with the feel of a coming rainstorm. Short spatters and momentary showers roll through, and the sky is bruised purple, with lighter edges where the clouds lift and the pale sun shows through at the horizon. It is definitely a spring day - finally. Not that it's going to stay this way - it'll go back and forth for at least another month before we can trust it to stay spring.

Here's the radar loop I'm watching. We're about to get a good long soak this evening. The farmers have been burning off their tallgrass for several days, and anyone who didn't get around to it will have to wait a few days now.

It's this time of year when if you drive along I-70 into Kansas, you see things like this.

I did say I was coming back with desserts.

First, visual dessert. I watched Greer Garson in Julia Misbehaves the other night. She is simply luminous.

Whenever it's really cold out, I like to watch Lawrence of Arabia to stay warm. It's set in the desert, yes, but the real source of heat is this pair of handwarmers.

Still thinking in terms of soul food for actual edible desserts, I find myself wanting something homey, comforting and really non-exotic, like this.

And by the way, Angeline, that is a little piece of genius, that poem. I keep going back to read it again. And leave it to Champ to head gracefully into a sequel.

gorgeous. Might also be a good challenge topic, at least for a casual bistro challenge. Poems about sex with celebrities, maybe. With idols, with the unattainable.

just a thought.

bienvenue. Live ta serve ya.

bj

 

[UnderYourSpell]

We are due to get snow this week but with any luck it will stick to Scotland and Wales and not get to us in the south as we are 30 miles from London

 

[Angeline]

We are due to get snow this week but with any luck it will stick to Scotland and Wales and not get to us in the south as we are 30 miles from London

We had 16 inches of snow Friday and yesterday. Ack! It has been snowing here at least twice a week since early December. It's a very, very snowy winter even for Maine. eagleyez has lived here for 15 years (compared to my 4), and he says it's the snowiest winter ever since he has been here.

If you don't want yours, send it here. We'll just pile it in with all the rest of it and not even notice, I'll bet.

I may have posted this (or something like it) before. If so, my apologies. This pic is the view from my bedroom window. (My computer is on a desk right in front of the window.) Anyway, that snow is from early December. If you multiply it by about four (or maybe I should say expand it lol), you have an idea of how much snow is here now. It may not seem like much to say, Champ, but for me coming from New Jersey, it's like having moved to the North Pole. Yikes!

 

[unpredictablebijou]

We had 16 inches of snow Friday and yesterday. Ack! It has been snowing here at least twice a week since early December. It's a very, very snowy winter even for Maine. eagleyez has lived here for 15 years (compared to my 4), and he says it's the snowiest winter ever since he has been here.

If you don't want yours, send it here. We'll just pile it in with all the rest of it and not even notice, I'll bet.

I may have posted this (or something like it) before. If so, my apologies. This pic is the view from my bedroom window. (My computer is on a desk right in front of the window.) Anyway, that snow is from early December. If you multiply it by about four (or maybe I should say expand it lol), you have an idea of how much snow is here now. It may not seem like much to say, Champ, but for me coming from New Jersey, it's like having moved to the North Pole. Yikes!

Man, that reminds me of winters in Michigan when I was a kid. We get that much snow here occasionally, but not very often.

I remember digging snow tunnels through the yard - just going into the five-foot bank sideways and tunneling around the house. That rocked.


bj