On The Threshold of A Whole New Life!

 

Psssssst! Bhindi, have you seen
how hard mom is at work packing
for our BIG MOVE?
like...NOT!



 

Not my fault the barista put
TWO SHOTS OF ESPRESSO
IN MY LATTE!


 

I walked to say "Good Bye" to
places I love, and ferries I will
never take to Alaska...which
actually one can ride all the way
out to the Aleutian Islands practically
To Siberia!
ALAS, not going that way...




 

Yes, packing is hard work. So,
after walking to say "Farewell, Ferry"
it was time for a good read at another
cafe...can never underestimate the
Healing Power of Lattes and Poetry
in the Pacific Northwest...nor the
poets one meets at such places.
It was Sunday.
I had been stuck in bed so long
it was WONDERFUL TO BE
OUT AND ABOUT...


 

Soon, we will live in the heart
of a Big City, in Seattle's famous
International District, where we
plan to run into Apolo Ohno
skating down the steep hill we
will live atop, with a View of 
The World!
And close enough to the stadiums
to hear the Seahawks games Live!
Go 12th man (fans who cheer so 
CRAZY-LOUD in a stadium built by 
Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen with 
acoustics specifically designed to 
amplify US to prevent 
opposing teams from hearing their
quarterback, hee-hee) hence, 
our moniker as Seahawks "12th Man!"
We were even accused of artifically
PIPING IN CHEERING IT WAS SO
LOUD ONE YEAR SO MANY TEAMS
COMPLAINED, TO WHICH WE SAY:
"wah!"
And we were exonerated.
We really are that loud!
So, we can sit on the Terrace and just listen
to the Stadium Rock and hope that
9.0 earthquake predicted to take us off
the map never makes that stadium ROLL!



 

From the roof of our new digs we
can enjoy a latte and watch ferries
ply back and forth across Puget Sound,
maybe even get a glimpse of a wayward
pod of orcas known to occasionally
leave the San Juan Islands where we
live now to come south for reasons
only they know...We will watch 
stars at night and we will dream.


 

And just up the steepest hill in the
world on our block we will remember
our Tai Chi, of course we will,
and practice diligently aside the
sculpture gifted Seattle by our
sister city, Kobe, Japan. This park
switchbacks from our apartment
down into the International District
where a vegan Chinese restaurant 
will surely become a regular lunch spot!



 

Who cares, ma, we loves being
Bellinghamsters! And you'd better
start packing and stop dreaming.
Or keep dreaming and let's stay!



 

What? I'm a Guinea Pigster and 
always will be no matter where
we live? In that case...
HEY EVERYBODY, I just got
my nails trimmed, how awesome
is Squirrel NOW?!?

Yes, we are moving.
It is bittersweet, we love it here so.
My neighbors are enthusiastically pitching 
in to ensure I am actually packing instead of
1) reading every page of every newspaper
that was being used to wrap things
2) finding things in every piece of art
while packing and pulling out all my
art pens to redraw what I felt needed
improvement, which was nearly
everything...
3) staring into space, the Final Frontier
if someone didn't make me start actually
PACKING!
4) saying good-bye to so many...
We are packing, we hope it gets done in time,
the movers will come and whisk us away
to the heart of the Emerald City as a brand
new life Awaits us...
(and I can't breathe!) I can't breathe!
What panic attack? I can't breathe!
Big City, us?
I can't breathe!
Piggies, calm yo'mama!
Piggies...
ACK! WHAT HAVE WE DONE?

(P.S. if i already posted a blog just like this one
blame it on my brain which still insists I stare
blankly into space and repeat things I have
already said and done...sigh.)
Thank you.

Just Piggies!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yes, MariFun, this is me, Squirrel the 
Magnificent! We all hope you continue
feeling better and we all Lurves YOU!

"MOM-O-PAWS" or "THE BIG CHANGE OF LIFE"

 

There is talk...whispers...
we have all heard her.


 

And we's seen it, too, like that
mover guy who came over who
rescues dogs so all he did was sit
in mom's big, blue chair and put
us on his lap and brush and pet
us while we munched on WheeK!
Grass because..."MOM! Why
was a guy from the moving 
company here? MOM!"


 

He was here to give us a quote?
Well, here's a quote, ma:
"FEED US! LOVE US!
PUT US ON YOUR LAP!
PET US!"
So...whassup, seriously,
strange things, strange!


 

Can you smell it, Bhindi?


 

Please, do not disturb my
Buddha-nature, I iz at peace.
At peace with my Wheek!Grass.
We iz One wid da Universe...
Ommmm.....


 

That pretentious Liddle BuddhaPig! I know
something up cuz I iz on Runabout TRYING
TO GET IN JUST TO FIND OUT WHAT UP?
I iz alwayz the first to know...Chief YumYum,
Captain Jack Sparrow! Master of My Domain,
and by that, I mean EVERYBODY'S DOMAIN!



 

I should be the First to KNOW!


 

Well, Captain Jack Sparrow, for once
you ISN'T THE FIRST TO KNOW!
WHATCHA GONNA DO NOW?


 

Ooooh, I is still such a liddle pig, I never
really grew, mebbe I ought to speak wid
more respect to YumYum seein' as how
he did after all raise me to be the Mohawk
STUD
I is today...hmmm......


 

Fine, then, here's what I know: Mom is
going through "The Change" and it takes
a Village, so she has hired movers
to help her. Why is wimmin so 
complicated? What is a mover, anyway?
Wait a minute...wait...one...minute...
my brain is working! I iz THINKING.
hUh...sumpin' very unusual going on!



 

IS WE MOVING?
IS WE?
WHERE?
WHEN?
WHY?
WILL WE LIKE IT?
WHO WOULD KNOW?
Oh, Old Mr. Hamburger-Butt,
the fattest of us all, he acts asleep
all the time while he collects
"intel" so I will defer to the one...
the ONLY...
Peter-Peanut! 
Peter, what up, dude?



 

You have "outed me" Squirrel, 
thanks a lot! I don't look smart,
but I iz the one who lays here in
my poop acting like I iz sleepin'
wid my eyes WIDE OPEN like
guinea pigz do, so mom thinks
she can speak freely around me
and thinks I am dreaming of 
going on Runabouts filled with
luscious salad greens topped with
fresh, yellow peppers, bright orange
carrots including carrot tops...

Squirrel: "Peter-Peanut, is there sumpin'
we needs to know?"

Peter-Peanut: "Yes, we is about to go 
through a major life-changing event.
We is moving to da Emerald City,
Squirrel, da EMERALD CITY!
Tomorrow mom goes down there
to sign the lease on our new life...
and we will have a new life, indeed!
We become Big-City Pigz and since
we'll live near Pike Place Market,
JUST IMAGINE THE GOODIES,
GOODIES, FRESH GOODIES
GALORE ALL YEAR 'ROUND!

Y'all stay tuned.
Big changes are upon us.
That is, if mom ever gets out of bed
and packs.
Which she kinda doesn't.
But Pike Place Market!
Yeah for the Pigs of the New World!
More to come...
Loves you, readers, we iz sorry we
been so out of touch. But we iz 
about to make up for it.
Mebbe. 
Cuz we is moving.
If mom ever gets outta bed.
We lurves you all!
Squeeeeeee-for-Spring Produce
fresh from the farm,
love,
all us here at 
PandaPig's Peace Sanctuary!

SEEK AND YE SHALL FIND: COLOR IN THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST SPRING

 

How many shades of Grey?
Just walk,
quietly,
and be receptive...
Color doesn't shout here.
But it will reveal itself,
if one has the patience
for small things.
And subtlety.

 

 

 

 

~*~
A visual hush.

WHADDYA MEAN SNOW?

 

SNOW?

 

SNOW?

 

NOOOOOooooooooo!!!!


 

Everybody gettin' mad, heh-heh.
No Easter bunny, just snow.
Even Vinny mad, Ha!


 

SNOW?! WRaGrrrrrrraGrrrrrrr!!!!


 

Calm down, spring will come.
(not really.)


 

WAAAAHHHRRRRGGGG!


 

ME, TOO: WAAAAAAAAARRRgggghhh!



 

Ma, you promised us an Easter Bunny
who'd deliver Vegetable Matzohs 
to our hay bins,
not THIS, NOT THIS!


 

Nobody sees me.
I haz HAD IT
with winter.

Happy Spring (not really.)
from all of us
to all of you. (really.)
love,
(((us)))

Song of the Open Road

 

"Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road,
Healthy, free, the world before me,
The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose."
~ Walt Whitman
"Song of the Open Road" 
from "Leaves of Grass"

Squirrel is OUT! Before him lie paths between cages to
explore, piggies whose scents must fill his lungs, hay
through which to forage, tunnels of flannel and sticks
through which to race!

O, Squirrel, I am such a fine boy! Poos to identify then leave
my own as proof I lived well and thrived here! Treats left
behind to discover and digest, my happy feet and curious
toes to travel throughout the Sanctuary in search of what
can never be found in my Habitat: FREEDOM!

Roaming is my Middle Name, Squirrel-Roaming my calling,
so off I go, naming some things, allowing more to remain
NameLess in essence for what is a name, anyway?
Only what people call things, but can "hay" define the 
taste, the texture, a long stem with a flower on the tip: 
a hay-flower Divine to eat, hay to chew, nosh, or - in
YumYum's case, hay within which to dig a burrow,
a burrow of comfort in his woven basket! It soothes him.
He remembers His Wildness from our Ancestors,
and when I am on the Open Road
I, too, remember them, for we are descendants from
the Andes in South America where we once roamed free
but not without danger -
We roamed in herds, they say descended from much
larger animals called Capybaras: I dispute this!
We are too perfect exactly the way we are to
have evolved from anything one might call "better" -
for there is no better, no worse, 
Here five guinea pigs live with our own quirks,
our own differences, our own individualities,
united in our love for one another, food, mom,
and 
The Song of the Open Road!
~
Thus spoke Squirrel

K.d. Lang - Hallelujah (Live Olympic Games 2010 Opening Cermony).avi

I am so sorry I don't know how to put this on so you can just press
"Play" to see and hear this. And the link doesn't work. 
I am leaving it anyway because this is what we listen to, what gives us the endurance to Keep On Keeping On: how we clean the guinea pig habitats and Runabouts when I am too weak to stand, too weak to sit up, too weak to breathe...this song BRINGS IT!
LISTEN TO THE LYRICS...I'm too weak to write them. Our friend walzed into the Vancouver Olympics ticketless only to get a front row seat the night she performed this. So we listen to it because of the Truth, that "Love is not a victory march, it's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah..." when I am elbow deep in guinea pig poo, wondering from where the energy will come to do what must be done each evening.  

Yet happy and grateful because this song always reminds me that when I fall, when I fail, still somehow the cleaning and chores get done and continue to be because somehow, somewhere, in that Great Mystery wherein we may sometimes hover in the worlds between Life and Death is a great and glistening, agonizingly pleading...and ALWAYS answered prayer for help: Hallelujah. We have a Sanctuary. We have each other. We have clean living space, 10 refilled water bottles, fresh hay, newly filled food bowls, anything and everything that needs doing, gets done. Since I don't know how this miracle sustains us in the exile of illness, HALLELUJAH!