I just read what I last posted and I was so worked up about the swastika. It was more than a month ago, which is about 3 feline lifetimes and I am over the swastika. We filed reports with the ACLU and the FBI and the cops came and said, “maybe block her?” which of course we hyper-vigilant types just can’t do (hypervigilantes??). We went on vacation (excellent time at Fire Island), and then came back and then BOOM! Calvin got a directing gig in LA and things shifted.

Then it was a sprint to school. Daisy left for her semester abroad yesterday. Calvin left for LA 3 weeks ago. I am working on my alone skills and am improving. For example, I just watered the plants on the deck and I have 3 plans this weekend, which is perfect. It is quiet, though, and empty without him. I don’t know if Maggie has noticed. She’s coming out only in the evening with an aide.

The PTA is chugging along, though there is some unpleasantness and that is a new part of it! I’ve decided to put the unpleasantness next door with Maggie, inside my mind. When it rears up and I start to pick at the issue, I say to myself sternly, Go next door with Maggie!

Will this work? In the past have not been so disciplined with my mind’s wandering, punitive narrative. Usually I let it natter along and I suffer and lash out at someone. But I cannot control the situation and fix it, so I have to live with it like I live with Maggie next door.

I really need to update this blog more often because I need to tell you about the Karens and the vampires of Fire Island

Wyatt and I took a few walks in the evening on Fire Island while Calvin cooked dinner. Thank you, Calvin, for cooking dinner. Now that I cook dinner because you are gone, the dinners are terrible. I blame you for that.

As we headed back on our very last walk, we noticed security guards at every corner of the town, and we asked a friendly-looking one why they suddenly were there? It was a Friday night.

He told us that at night the vampires and the Karens come out on Fire Island. They begin as regular people out at the bars in the towns on either side of Seaview, which is where we were. As they drink, they change into vampires and Karens, beings who drunkenly steal bikes, vomit in weird places, crash bikes and require airlifts back to Long Island. Karens are female vampires who are belligerent with the security force, who are retired policemen.

The guy motioned toward a bachelorette party walking by and said, “They’ll be Karens in 3 hours.”

It really made my day. Fire Island always feels like Narnia, a beautiful world full of secrets that you can never understand. This retired cop was our Mr. Tumnus, letting us into the Fire Island dilemma of drunk people on bikes in the dark, the White Witches, so to speak, on this tiny island which will someday sink beneath the Atlantic Ocean.

Daisy and I met the woman next door because we tried to pet her cat. He was on the steps behind a closed gate and we asked if he would come out. He didn’t move, but his lady came outside and opened the gate, saying he needed love and pets but was very socially awkward.

The cat did love pets and we petted him a few more times. His lady lives on the island all year round. She came during the pandemic and ended up the caretaker of a half-dozen cats. I asked a lot of questions about life on Fire Island but she didn’t tell me much. Maybe there isn’t much to tell.

Okay, what else? Not much.