Povey Prattle

I never knew until today that the word “sublime” is derived from the word “liminal”. “Liminal” is a word that means thresholds, especially “sensory” thresholds. Sensory thresholds are those times and experiences when sight, sound, smell, touch, or hearing move us beyond our minds into a sense of awe, wonder, or mystery. We are taken to a “place” which transcends “mind”, a place which is rooted in feeling. “Sublime” is a word which describes those feelings which are “sub-liminal”.    If we are aware we will experience the sublime in such happenings as  sexual ecstasy, or music, or worship, or nature. "Tis better to feel the sublime than to sublimate those feelings".   Or so says I!

My sweet junior cat “Adelaide” has been leaking drops of urine all over the place during the past few days.   Of course I had to create three isolation areas, one for Adelaide, one for Ada (the senior cat), and one for Penne my dog, before I could identify which of the three was the leaker. Without a doubt it is Adelaide.   I hauled her off to the veterinarian, who identified a weakness in the wall of Adelaide’s bladder. Such weaknesses are more common in canines than in felines, but nonetheless my lovely Adelaide is suffering from this condition.   She will stay at the veterinary clinic for the weekend where she will receive a drug which may or may not ameliorate her condition.    Then I will face a Hobson’s choice. (1)     If the drug is not efficacious then I might have to decide to have her “put down/destroyed/euthanized/put to sleep” - (whichever word works best for you). (2)     If the drug does work I’ll have to administer...

There is more public outrage in the U.K. and U.S.A than is healthy. Too much outrage about too many matters. Hush  Think   Reflect. Listen to the other side. Hush again. Count your blessings. Now speak .... gently.

POVEY FAMILY POOCHES.  One British, the other American -  but with quite a visual resemblance. "Purdy" the dog who was adopted by my niece Laura about six months ago, in England. ============================================== "Penne"  the dog that I adopted about 18 months ago in the U.S.A.

Having recently overdosed on history and biography I reached for a book entitled “the memoirs of a beautiful boy” ( Robert Leleux, St. Martin’s Press, 2007) in my most recent visit to Sarasota’s Selby Library. The book is a memoir about growing up gay in an isolated town in Texas during the 1980’s. It’s a slender book, one which I was able to read in two afternoons. The dust jacket reviews indicated that the book might induce hearty laughter, but at the most it made me smile.   Despite the hyperbole of the dust jacket I found the book to be a tender memoir with sweet, poignant, sad, and funny parts.   I enjoyed reading it.   In one passage Jessica, a truth telling friend of the author says this: “Honey pie, life is not a layaway plan”. She is so right.   Life is never about what may happen next week, or next year.   Life is what is happening right now, and the ways in which we respond to “today”.   More importantly, life is not about postponing happiness...

There has been a lot of rain today in Sarasota. We received over 3 ½ inches in about 12 hours. There has been some local flooding, but none which has driven people from their homes. I like rain (‘tis a particularly strange pleasure for folks born in England), and I am grateful for every drop which falls in oft-times parched Florida. It has been bearable. Nonetheless, I have been a bit grumpy, since it’s been hard to walk with my dog in some of today’s torrential downpours. I was delivered from my grumpiness when, as I walked in the rain, some muse reminded me of the disastrous floods in Pakistan. I have read about those floods, but since I (almost) never watch television, I had no visuals to remind me of the horror which is being endured by more than 14 million members of God’s family in Pakistan. “Why”, I asked myself, “have you had no compassion for the suffering people of Pakistan?” As I dug deeper into my thoughts I, to my alarm, found that I was thinking thus: . Fir...