Cats, Dogs and Nature Oh My!

So.. i neglected to mention quite a bit in yesterday's 1st blog post!  Therefore, will get right on it.  :)  My partner and i.. let's see.. i'll call him Sebastiano when i refer to him here.  He is, after all, a tall, dark and very handsome, though not Italian man.)  We have four cats who we adore with all our hearts.  Two were adopted from the local Humane Society, and two just 'found' us and decided they wanted to stay with us forever.  You see, i am an animal (all animals, birds, reptiles) lover to the core of my being.  And for the most part, a nature loving.. tree hugging liberal where politics are concerned.  S and myself love to make trips to southern OR and northern CA just to spend quality time with the big trees!  I get sad when i see, as i did yesterday, a train chug by with about 25 cars full of fresh, huge logs that were recently healthy, gorgeous trees.  Definitely not a fan of all those 'logging' shows on the history or discovery channel, etc.  But i won't get started (too much) on that now.  Every once in awhile on these pages you will see a liberal rant or 2, but i'll try to keep those to a minimum.  Although to me, remaining silent about things i feel are wrong in some way, is the same as condoning such things. And the older i get, the harder it is for me to remain silent about anything.  And i mean anything.  I was, once upon a time, a shy, meek and mild individual.  Those days are loooooong gone.  Life is too short to be silent too often.  I try to meditate about 20 minutes a day.  It helps keep me calm and centered.  And i am quiet during those times.  :D  Unless, of course, i decide to chant!

I am, as i maintained in yesterday's post, a voracious reader.  I read 3.. sometimes 4 books at a time.  Not exactly the same time, mind you.  I'm not Wonder Woman.  The 3 i'm currently reading are..

'The Rules of Civility', by Amor Towles
'Death Comes for the Archbishop', by Willa Cather
and
'A Good Hard Look', by Ann Napolitano

Reviews to come soon!  Occasionally.. or maybe more often than occasionally.. i'll review a book i loved that i read many years ago, or as recently as a year or a few months ago. Sometimes i read children's books because i love the stories and the illustrations.  Love to read glossy magazines like 'Vanity Fair' and 'Vogue'.  The ads are often my favorite things in those.  I find them fascinating!  I also love magazines like 'Orion' and National Geographic'!  I can't get enough of language, pages and stories!  Though i have some guilt when i look at books and realize they're made up of paper.. which is made from trees..  Alas, maybe that will be another post sometime.  Anyway, I'll keep you 'posted'... :)

And i'd also like to mention that the name for this blog was suggested by a well respected and much admired,  (by myself and many others)  former teacher of mine.  Don't know if he wants to be mentioned here, but he knows who he is.  Thank you Mr. S!

Sincerely yours on this last day of July, Two Thousand Eleven..