Time

“For us physicists, the distinction between past, present and future is only an illusion, however persistent.”

-- Albert Einstein

Pessoa

“The only attitude worthy of a superior man is to persist in an activity he recognizes is useless, to observe a discipline he knows is sterile, and to apply certain norms of philosophical and metaphysical thought that he considers utterly inconsequential.”

-- Fernando Pessoa, “The Book of Disquiet”

I wish I could believe that, as it is perhaps the one standard of superiority that I can meet.

Storm

Ash finally comes in. That's two down, with only Coco to go. It had been a long time since a storm separated me from the cats. It was in the forecast, but I did not believe it was going to rain this hard. I figured we must be way past our quota by now. Since the ground was still saturated from Deluge 2015, the lawn is already converted back into a pond. In fact, I cannot see how Coco makes it back to me. She is going to have to wade through water. I know that cats are marvelously light-footed, but I have not known any cats to be able to walk on water.

* * *

1630

There she is, perched on the back fence corner. We look at each other for a few minutes. I urge her to come, but it is as I feared: she does not care to go swimming. I know it's crazy, but I decided to go to her and wade through the water myself. I figured my chances of carrying this off and getting her back inside with me were slim, but it was either this or none. I got a hold of her, which amazed me enough, and I am not surprised, though disappointed, that she wants to fight me and escape from my grasp.

I am determined to make this work and won't easily let go; I think we are fucked if I don't make this work, because the lawn is not going to drain anytime soon. I actually succeeded and got her in the house, and it looks like we both managed to evade injury somehow, not that she wasn't giving it a pretty good shot to either escape me or at least make it painful. She would keep anchoring her claws into a fence for a firm hold, despite my efforts to quickly pull her away from any paw holds, and I had to pause and worry about pulling too hard, being afraid to injure her, maybe break a leg or mangle a paw, on top of being afraid for myself about getting clawed.

Why do the cats still need to fight me, after all these years? Can't they see that all I have is love for them, that I just want them to be safe and happy? But I knew from the beginning that they will break my heart, just like Calico and Willy did. It is just a matter of time.

World War Three

"The atmosphere is a feeling that war is not something that’s impossible anymore."

-- Fyodor Lukyanov, Russian foreign policy analyst

"We'll be here for Estonia. We will be here for Latvia. We will be here for Lithuania. You lost your independence once before. With NATO, you will never lose it again."

-- President Barack H. Obama

"You just can't have this kind of war. There aren't enough bulldozers to scrape the bodies off the streets."

-- President Dwight D. Eisenhower (1957)

~ ~ ~

The more you read these days about the situation in Russia and eastern Europe, the more you feel a dreadful inevitability of war and nuclear strikes.

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