Kita's Stuff

As I sit in my room, at the computer, out of the corner of my eye, I see Kita come slowly trotting in, carrying my dad's slipper and hiding behind my bed.  Today it's his slipper.  She has snuck in tissues, socks, popsicle sticks, wrappers from ice cream cones, pieces of wood and an assortment of articles I know not what they are.  It all goes behind my bed, and if I try to get them, she scurries under the bed with them, where I cannot reach.  So, under my bed lies all kinds of treasures only a dog would appreciate.  I just hope nothing that smells gets under there, because then I would have a problem.

The way she comes in with her treasures, amuses me.  She acts like she's invisible and that I can't see her and trots proudly right over to her little corner of the world.  She almost looks surprised when I go back there and reach out to pick up what she's brought in.  She's usually faster than I am to pick it up, and down she goes under the bed.  At that point, I give up.  It's just not worth it to get on the floor and try to retrieve it from under the bed. 

Today, my mom and I went to the Jewish Community Center in Venice, that my mom and a few of her friends actually started about 30 years ago.  She's real proud of that, but hasn't been to services there in a long time due to all of her ailments.  We went today because tomorrow they are having a large rummage sale, and I always like to look at the art in rummage sales, and since she knows the people there, we went before the sale started so I could see what they had.  I bought a large oil painting by Charles Stepule (1911-2006) and I really like it.  It's a painting of an ocean bluff with a house and tree on the side of the bluff.  It's kind of dark, but I took a quick photo of it below.  The colors he used in it are amazing. 

I love art - the creating of it, looking at it and watching others create it.  I wanted to be an art teacher when I was younger, but I wasted my youth.  My dad was willing to put me through the Art Institute of Chicago, but I was young then and thought I wanted something different for my life.  So instead, I ended up being a boring secretary out of necessity, because that was the only skill I had learned that would sustain my children and I.  I have a lot of regrets in my life, and that is one of them.

I think I should be more like Kita.  Trot around like I'm invisible and hide the good stuff so no one can find them.  Kind of like my Butterfingers.  But moreso, hide the things that mean the dearest to me, most of which are invisible anyway, so that no one can steal them away.  Hide them in a special, protective place where no one can enter unless I let them.  I suppose that place would be my heart. 

Or, in the case of Butterfingers, the second drawer to my dresser.