Gros Bon Ange

Vodou Kitty

Going to Seattle positively cinched it...I'm a city girl. Walking through the streets on a spectacularly beautiful day, the library of libraries, the coffee houses, the nice young spine surgeon at the Suchi bar, the galleries. Great place, Seattle.
Jazz Alley, the intimate venue where Manhattan Transfer did a swingin' set, was the place for celebrating. Great place in line, good seats on the balcony, tasty food and, as always, a most congenial audience. Birthdays at Jazz Alley are a tradition, and one worth keeping.
Back to the no-traffic, scenic and breathtakingly beautiful coast, it's the perfect rest stop for my body with cascading pulled muscles from the tip of my toes to the top of my gluteus maximus, and climbing. Pain like an ice pick in various muscles has resulted in a twisty smattering of "Icy Hot" patches strewed up my leg, a constantly roving heating pad and space heater pointed to the current most excruciating muscle group. This is a recuperative place, but not one for a girl who swoons in the expansive reference section of the Seattle library.
And in Portland, my dear friend Brian, talented writer, director, photographer and more, with his adorable wife and soon to be baby, wait mere blocks away for the move to the city. Brian and Kitty are apparently destined to live in walking distance from each other, having previously done so in Santa Monica.
But, before the move to walking distance from Brian, there is wild work to be done. Our house in Astoria was alleged to have a spirit in residence, and unexplained things were happily blamed on her.
Until, that is, the Vodou dolls took up residence. Now we have full fledged knocking on the baseboards that stops immediately when the name of the Vodou spirit in the room is said, leaving sceptical witnesses speechless.
Because Brian's wife is with child, I thought I perfect gift would be the Gros Bon Ange (a sort of Vodou Guardian Angel). Click if interested in more
Gros Bon Ange

I talked to Brian last night, and he, the most logical writer I have ever known and a devout atheist, told me that he hung her up near a cabinet, where the kitty litter bag sits on the floor after its placement on the shelf, over and over. Ignoring that, the cat's scratch mat has moved, while he and his wife were watching it.
"Does this spirit like cats?" he asked.
I have no idea.
One Seattle Vodou art buyer put his piece in the truck of his Mercedes, and found it open every morning until he got home. I'd say take it out of the trunk.
This cat thing has me baffled.
My guess is that it's used to a people Kitty, and may be confused.

Birthday Babies

Seattle Transfer

My man didn't want to spend his big six nine with Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice. Instead, he wants to be with Tim and Cheryl and Alan and Janis.
Never let it be said I'm not a most accommodating wife.

From the Church of the Living Swing

Black Cross

There was Old Hezekiah Jones, of Hogback County.
He lived on a hill in a weatherbeaten hovel.
And all that he owned was a two-acre plot
with a bed and some books and a hoe and a shovel.

Old Hezekiah, black as the soil he was hoeing,
Worked pretty hard to make both ends meet.
Raised what he ate, with a few cents over
To buy corn likker that he drank down neat,

And a few cents more that he put in the cupboard
Against what he called "de rainy season,"
But he never got to save more'n two or three dollars
Till he gave it away for this or that reason.

The white folks around knew old Hezekiah...
"Harmless enough, but the way I figger
He better lay off'n them goddam books,
'Cause readin' ain't good fer an ignorant nigger."

Reverend Green, of the white man's church,
Finally got around to "comin' ovah
To talk with you-all about the Pearly Kingdom
An' to save yo' soul fer the Lawd Jehovah!"

"D'ya b'lieve in the Lawd?" asked the white man's preacher.
Hezekiah puckered his frosty brow,
"Well I can't say 'yes,' so I ain't gonna say it,
Caze I ain't SEEN de Lawd....nowhere....no-how."

"D'ya b'lieve in Heaven?" asked the whiteman's preacher,
"Where you go, if you're good, fer yer last rewa'hd?"
"Ah'm good," said Hezikiah, "good as Ah'm able,
But Ah don't expect nothin' from Heaven OR the Lawd."

"D'ya b'lieve in the Church?" asked the white man's preacher.
Hezekiah said, "Well de Church is divided;
Ef they can't agree, than Ah cain't neither...
Ah'm like them....Ah ain't decided."

"You don't b'lieve nothin'," roared the white man's preacher.
"Oh yes Ah does," said old Hezikiah,
"Ah b'lieve that a man's beholden to his neighbahs
Widout de hope of Heaven or de fear o' hell's fiah."

There's a lot of good ways for a man to be wicked...
They hung Hezikiah as high as a pidgeon,
And the nice folks around said, "He had it comin'
'Cause the son-of-a-bitch didn't have no religion!"