A commentator was kind enough to write in and point out that the link I had included in my last post directing people to Leave Them Laughing, the documentary about Carla, no longer works, and that this is the correct link: http://magicalflutefilms.com/index.php?page=current-production

Please check it out. It's an extraordinary documentary, and the promo is a good chunk of material that really gives you a sense of the whole movie and a sense of Carla.

Meanwhile, back here we're in a wrestling match with the house and garden, trying to get everything ready for family who will be arriving--gulp!--Thursday. In that spirit we did a major dump run on Thursday and Friday, renting a moving truck and collecting all the old dead sofas that were moldering away in the patio, ditto old chairs, crappy falling-apart dressers and ancient TVs left behind by former housemate-tenants who shall remain nameless, and old lumber and bricks and cardboard boxes from the in-law remodel that ended this April (was it only April? It feels like so much longer.)

So we rented this van and then we schlepped everything into it using a hand-truck and a little red wagon and a wooden dolly that C had constructed himself, and it took a long time and made my back and feet hurt, but C was indefatigable and finally everything was loaded. Then we drove it all to the dump and stood at the lip of the truck and heaved all that shit onto the great stinking American trash-heap.

As I was moving old boards in the backyard, I uncovered a nest...of kittens. The black and white feral cat who jumps our back fence and hangs around scavenging from the compost pile, and maybe catching mice and birds, had given birth to her babies in the shadowing shelter of those boards. I startled her when I moved them; she sprang away and glared at me as I peeped at her babies. C even picked one up--their eyes weren't even open yet--and she hissed at him and bared her teeth. if looks could kill, he'd be six feet under right now.

He put the kitty back and we brought out a little saucer of half and half and then contributed some food from Dede's stash. Later, he went out and bought a special formula for nursing mothers, and he's fed them about four times or five times a day since then.

"We're not going to adopt them," he assured me.

"Uh-huh," I said.

He's the cat person in the relationship. I like cats okay and Dede and I get along fine, but she's daddy's girl and he is her total love slave. She climbs up his chest and licks his nose; when he hasn't shaved for a day or two she rubs against his chin and exfoliates herself.

I had my Little Sister on Saturday and told her the story of the kitties and of course she was entranced and wanted to see them. We stood at a respectful distance while the mama cat regarded us warily. I asked my Little Sister if she wanted to name them. At first she called the mother cat Blackie, then she changed it to Mommy. Then she called it the name of her granny and the two black kittens she named after her real big sister and me. The black and white kitty she gave her own name.

Myself, I'd like to name the kitties after the Three Sisters in the Chekhov play: Olga, and Masha, and Irina. But what about the mother? She's black and white and reminds me of one of those cookies with chocolate and white icing, so I guess I would call her Cookie. But she's wild, so that would be Wild Cookie.

There's still a thousand things to do to get ready, but we do something every day: buy presents for the ring-bearers, weed the garden, vacuum. C designed and sewed the chuppah using fabric I brought back from malawi mingled with some material he used to make curtains. My dad woke us up this morning, asking what was the weather like, what clothes should he bring? I told him it could be anything from 50 degrees to 90 degrees, bring everything. He's as excited as a young boy about this wedding.