Streamlining

24^th June 2013

Dear Cassi,

It was the odd happening of my weekend that I worked an extra day and so had one day off only to sleep through almost the full duration. It was not until Monday afternoon that I finally woke for the day and found myself useful. As it stood I had my work cut out for me.

       

Pickles had put some work into the dishes and so the sink was still disgusting. I know that he ran the dishwasher once this morning before I roused and I ran a second after I made us a chicken salad.  This made almost no dent in the dirt and grime of my home and so I labored on with laundry and dishes literally until the moment I grabbed my coffee box and left for work.

       

Here it becomes necessary to note that measured out my coffee, creamers, and sugar for the week. These all went into a set of glass jars that I keep in my old turkey pan. On a Monday, the turkey pan and my coffee box should be full, and so I should have no need for grinding coffee for the week.

       

This makes for one less thing I need to do every night and so should streamline my week. Every morning when I come home I should restock my coffee box for work and every night I should then have to do no more than pick it up before I leave.

       

This is again one of my futile acts of streamlining my life. Surprise will overwhelm me if I manage to do this again next week. I’ve come up with idea after idea for how to make my life faster and more efficient by never have I kept the practice and rarely has it been much of an improvement.

Never give up, little sister,

Richard Leland Neal

Sunday Bells Issue 13 Sin

Wounded Cat

Dear Cassi,

       

Today I came home to a horrible happening. My dear ginger cat, Caramel, was licking his wounded leg which had developed an abscess in the night and exploded before the morning. The leg itself was rather swollen, and I imagine full of the custard colored pus that oozed from the hole at his knee.

       

He’s limped for the past two days and been wanting closeness to comfort his pain. Caramel is my big fluffy boy, and so I have much the want to hold him. His temperament is such that he has little love for laying about and would much rather wrestle his brothers and sister. He is a cat that will stand embrace only for short spurts but in light of his condition has sought out companionship. 

        

Two other of my cats have limped, but neither suffered for long as they recovered quickly, but my Caramel was not so lucky, and so I boxed him up and took him to the vet. With him went his sister Cheshire who needed shots. The long drive to the vet was a difficult as the cats would not stop crying, and Caramel clawed at the fake leather carrier that held him.

       

It was my early thought that some furan body lived within Caramel’s wound and this put there by annoying neighbors who disliked my cats on their car. The Veterinarian said it was probably from the cat fighting with another animal. Only time or a hundred and fifty dollar x-ray can tell. It was already two hundred for cleaning, bandaging, and antibiotics.

       

I have always loved my animals, but love will never pay vet bills. I still have no regrets keeping all four cats. This just reminds me that I should prioritize. In this world, responsible folk have to know what’s important.

Know your world, little sister,

Richard Leland Neal

Parasite

14^th May 2013

Dear Cassi,

       

For some time now I’ve had this reoccurring dream about being lost on this campus. I’m not sure if it’s a college campus or a commercial campus, but the buildings are so high they block the view home. I can also tell you they are made of white concrete and decorated with muted pastel. There is a sterile hospital feel to this place. The people of this place are always turned away from me as I wonder about searching. I feel as if I am just a phantom among them, but they have no identity.

       

I would wander around the campus looking for the parking structure that has my car, but as dreams would go, there was more than one place my car could have been. I would wander around as the sun went down in my dream feeling the need for sleep but finding no place to even sit. This was a thing that in my dream would last days, and I would get more and more exhausted. I felt trapped in a world where my efforts were useless. 

       

Trapped and weary are feelings common to my life, and I think you can understand these feelings as well as I. The feeling is strongest in my back along the spine. It is pain but not just pain. I feel an internal nagging itch that cannot be scratched and yet will not go away by any other means.

       

Then there was my dream this morning and it was so vivid in nature but so very strange. It started with a black shape moving beneath my skin.  I caught it and it writhed under the pressure. Feeling a hard body I pressed and the thing came to the surface as some mutant thorny turtle protruding from my flesh. The thing was not a true black but rather the dark gray brown of burnt car oil. I squeezed this like a pimple and it came away taking with it large shreds of skin.

       

As is the nature of dreams the product of this action was rather large by comparison, and I saved it in a specimen bottle. There was some blood but not much, and the wound was little to worry over. I then found myself wondering that same campus in search this time of a doctor to look at my bizarre parasite. Sometime in this adventure my legs were wounded and I took to having to crawl. The specimen became very large as things can do in dreams and was much the burden.

       

In my crawling, I found friendly faces that both helped me along and at times asked for my help. I found my way to a lab where my injuries were seen to, and I so left to wonder again looking forever for my way out. My steps were retraced and the building finally looking familiar I found myself oddly alone but without disorientation.

       

In the end, I found myself somehow, as only can be in dreams, able to fly and so flew home. I felt so much joy as the wind rushed by and the scenery ran beneath me. After a long time, I was finally free.

Freedom lives in your heart, little sister,

Richard Leland Neal

Don’t Fear the Mirror

6^th May 2013

Dear Cassi,

Over the weekend, sleep was like a fever calling me back to it as I would wake and move then return to slumber. There were piles of dishes and dirty clothes, but when today came and the hours of my work drew near I had things under control.

Before I left for work tonight I put my last load of dishes in the dishwasher and set the time delay. This machine gives me an automatic four hours before it starts to run. Then I set the washer with a load of pants with seven hours before it would start its washing and so I will come home to a washed load of dishes and clothes one to dry and one to put away.

It was at seven in the evening that I looked in the mirror and knew I would get no sleep today. The point of no return had long passed. The situation had yet to click in my head until I looked in that mirror and saw my three days of facial hair and the unruly bush atop my head.

I was a mess and I stunk. I know at some point over the weekend I showered but when? My diet had been healthy, but the long hours of work and long hours of sleep somehow left me more frazzled than refreshed.

Don’t fear the mirror, little sister,

Richard Leland Neal

Ego Solus

I will not hide my scars for they tell me how I came here.

I will not forget my past as it teaches me the truth.

Sunday Bells issue 12 The Best Sermon