the cat & dragon rag

B and I went to the Strybing Arboretum at Golden Gate Park. We walked around for about half an hour. The sprinklers were going and we made a game out of dodging them. We sat for a while on a bench in the "South Africa" garden, which featured trees with long silvery-gray-green leaves. They are, unsurprisingly, called silver trees. (They are a member of the protea family. I love those weird prehistoric-looking protea flowers.) We saw a quail run across the path near there. We also spent some time in the Moon Viewing Garden watching red dragonflies courting each other.

We had lunch at a "refreshingly unpretentious" restaurant on 9th Avenue called "Park Chow."

On the way home, I stopped at the Holly Street Pet Hospital to pick up some prescription low protein food for Selkie. As I entered I saw a large plexiglass enclosure with a cat condo in it. There was a gray cat in there. When the cat saw me he jumped up, all excited, and plastered itself against the glass on my side. I tapped on the glass against his belly. As I was getting my stuff, a boy around 9 years old came in and said "I can unlock the cage if you want to see the cat." I said I'd like that. I played with the cat for a few minutes and talked to the boy, who turned out to be the son of the owners. The cat was up for adoption. The pet hospital also boards animals. The boy said that some people come in and leave an animal and never come back for it. The cat was a male, large and soft, attention starved and rambunctious. He kept stalking my hand.

It appears to be a part of the New Age belief system that if you just take bits from this culture and bits from that culture and give the conglomeration a name with [TM] at the end, you have created something far superior to anything any of those millennia-old cultures has come up with so far.

These were posted by serene on a mailing list we both read.

Five things that are good about me:
Five things I'm grateful for:
Five people or animals who love me without reservation:
Five times in recent memory when I was happy/joyful/contented:
Five things I'm good at:

When Serene posted these, she said that when she's feeling down, making the lists helps her feel better. I think they wouldn't help me when I am feeling down, but I wasn't down today so I didn't have a problem writing them.

Five things that are good about me:

• I'm smart
• I have common sense
• I'm not a victim
• I'm generous
• I pay attention

Five things I'm grateful for:

• My loved ones
• My cat Selkie
• Good financial situation
• My self acceptance
• Coffee

Five people or animals who love me without reservation:

I don't think there is anyone who loves me "without reservation" and I wouldn't want there to be. I think love does partly depend on my making some effort to behave well toward those who love me. But it's also important to me that there are some beings who love me even though I don't *always* behave well.

So here are five beings whose love for me I trust:

• My mother
• My father
• My "outlaw husband"
• My girlfriend M
• My cat Selkie

Five times in recent memory when I was happy/joyful/contented:

• This morning drinking coffee and posting to the net
• Lying down for a nap yesterday afternoon
• Attending Aida at the SF Opera with my dad on Sunday
• Helping my friends pick out a cat to adopt
• At Moulin Rouge with my girlfriend N, holding hands and giggling hysterically when they played [name of tune left out to avoid spoiler]

Five things I'm good at:

• Writing
• Asking questions
• Helping shelter cats feel safe and cared for
• Making quick'n'dirty web sites
• Giving backrubs

From dislexicon:

	New Word	Components	Definition
1:	pseudoselkie	(pseudo-selkie)	false or deceptive selkie
2:	chromoselkie	(chromo-selkie)	color selkie
3:	circumselkie	(circum-selkie)	around selkie
4:	selkielogy	(selkie-logy)	science, theory or study of selkie
5:	ultraselkie	(ultra-selkie)	beyond the normal range of selkie
6:	selkieize	(selkie-ize)	to cause to be or to become selkie
7:	underselkieform	(under-selkie-form)	having the form of beneath or below selkie
8:	thermoselkie	(thermo-selkie)	heat of selkie
9:	circumselkie	(circum-selkie)	around selkie
10:	ultraselkieization	(ultra-selkie-ization)	process or result of doing or making beyond the normal range of selkie