I must be extremely light sensitive and diurnal.
I get sleepy the moment the sun sets these days, which is very early this time of year.
During the summer when evening light remains until 9:30 or so, I’m fine from about 5 a.m. (or whenever the sun rises in the summer) to sunset, but in fall and winter, I’m like a bear: no light, No Kris. I go to bed!
Sometimes this means I go to bed at 5 or 6 pm, but when that happens, I get my eight hours of snooze by 1 or 2 a.m., so I get up and write or clean or do something else to piddle around until I can get back to sleep at about 4 or 5. The sun doesn’t rise here this time of year until sometime after 7 a.m., so there are only about nine hours of daylight this time of year. And I’m fine during those nine hours. Awake, alert, active.
But when the sun sets, I crash. Fast!
Fortunately, I don’t suffer from SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder). I don’t get depressed at all. I just get sleepy, yawn-some, tuckered out, petered out, wiped, exhausted, zzzzzzzzzzzzz, etc.
My little sister had SAD BAD before she retired because she woke up in the dark, went to work in the dark, and drove home in the dark, so it seemed like all she ever did was work in the fall and wintertime. She had to use light bars and put up holiday decorations and start playing Christmas movies in October to keep her sane enough to keep getting out of bed and doing what she had to do. She says she’s better these days. When you’re retired, you can work with your natural rhythms and not feel compelled to get up when it doesn’t seem natural or right.
If I lived nearer the equator I would probably have no problem, but this far north, sunrise and nightfall happen at such different times of the year between summer and winter that the difference is stark.
I remember riding bikes at 7:30 at night on some summer nights, with the sun still warm and inviting with plenty of time to spare to get back down the mountain. During winter, the same bike trail closes at dusk, which is about 4:30 this time of year.
In Other News
My new Mexican crayfish are doing fine. They take no guff off anybody, little as they are and will remain. (They only get to be about an inch and a half long fully grown).
Two days after they came in, I found an exoskeleton of one and freaked, until I realized that one of them had just shed his shell and all was well.
Below is a little snippet of one of the crayfish. About thirteen seconds after the video starts, you’ll see a ghost shrimp enter stage left and swim right by it…
Not all of the ghost shrimp who get near survive. I saw one of the crayfish munching on a dead ghost shrimp the other day, but most of the time the crayfish leave them alone. (Ghost shrimp are “feeder” shrimp. Lots of other fish eat them when they can catch them, so I buy 30 at a time for $10 — usually once a month — and they live until someone catches them. They’re excellent at hiding, and very fast at scurrying out of harm’s way.)
Mom’s Upcoming 100th Birthday Celebration
After I wrote the 5000+ word ode to mom yesterday, I went into all of my photo albums to find images of her. When I did that, I got lost in nostalgia and hauled out plenty of images not just of Mom but of other events that happened in my life, many of which I hadn’t thought about in years. I found some great images of me with critters. Here are just a few of them…
Astride a camel, God only knows where!
Lion Country Safari in So Cal, perhaps?
with Doc/Darwin, the chimp inside the Battlestar Galactica getup!
I call this one “Cat Got Your Tongue?” (with Demetrius bobcat, Yelm, WA)
with Dreyfuss (jaguar/leopard mix)
With Major at Gentle Jungle, Colton CA about 1977 or ’78
With Kerstin (Tini) Dartsch, Tippi Hedren and Natasha at Shambala Preserve about 1992
With Rajah or Rahni at Gentle Jungle
Unexpected bear wrestling at Gentle Jungle — got quite the bruise on my left upper arm from that encounter!
Filming Rajah or Rahni when the other one decided to ambush me from behind (with love and chuffs)
Rajah or Rahni as a cub
(Here’s one of the poems that appears in my book LET NO DAY DAWN THAT THE ANIMALS CANNOT SHARE)
MEMORY OF A TIGER CUB
The tiger cub winds herself around my legs
And chuffs in contentment,
flopping onto the floor
As we sit, pretending to be quite unruffled
By the incident. We are all professionals here,
And should expect to be buffeted by
tiny tiger paws
From time to time.
I try to act normally, but inside
I am dying with excitement,
Thrilled by the cub, loving the cub
Who now sleeps soundly atop my
shoes.
Someday she will weigh three
times more than I.
And will she remember the evening she
slept Soundly atop my shoes?
I know I will.
Newborn Romeo 2015
With orphaned fawns from the Mt St Helens Eruption, 1980
Rajah or Rahni, bigger still!
With Natasha Tigress at Shambala
(Here’s one of the poems that appears in my book LET NO DAY DAWN THAT THE ANIMALS CANNOT SHARE)
NATASHA TIGRESS
Natasha tigress, burning bright
There in heaven, safe tonight
How we miss you here below…
We sigh in your afterglow.
We miss your stripes, your kiss, your eyes
And sit and wonder why goodbyes
Should leave us feeling so bereft:
Natasha, you have never left!
We feel your presence in our minds
We see you EVERYWHERE, divine!
The tears we shed do not impart
The joy you left us, tiger heart.
We know your god will treat you right
And you’ve no pain or needs tonight
But we hope, rightly enough,
You remember us fondly—with a chuff.
Sneakers, the first serval cat I ever met — before adopting one of my own!
These two images of Sneakers (above and below) are especially poignant to me.
I didn’t publish all of my animal poems in my book LET NO DAY DAWN THAT THE ANIMALS CANNOT SHARE. Here’s one about Sneakers and me that didn’t make the cut, but I found in my album yesterday and it made me cry:
SNEAKERS
DAY ONE
Sneakers greeted us with a hiss and a swipe of the paw,
a bundle of nerves,
a caged, cornered, defensive creature.
We spent time talking to him in friendly, quiet tones
and offered him glove-covered hands in friendship.
He wasn’t convinced.
DAY THREE
Sneakers sat deep inside the bowels of his den box,
hissing and slowly blinking fear-colored eyes.
We waited, and then gently offered affection.
Once out of his enclosure, he tentatively
offered an arched back for a caress,
still hissing, still less than comfortable.
DAY FIVE
Sneakers tried to trust us, wanted to trust us,
but feared, expecting betrayal.
We sat with him beneath the tree and didn’t betray him.
He allowed me to pick him up, to handle his feet
and play with his spotted tail,
and for a moment — only a moment — he purred.
DAY SEVEN
Sneakers made us proud today. Today he
stayed outside his den box when we came,
and arched his back and purred.
Today was graduation day.
And we graduated because Sneakers the Serval,
the cat everyone fears, fell asleep in my arms.
The diploma was quite beside the point.
Following are images of Deaken, my very own serval son!
Born May 16, 1979 – Died September 11, 1996
June 1979
My love of critters goes back as far as I can remember… I love them all!!!
Splendid memories!!!
And… I just ran across another poem/prose piece that didn’t make the cut and get into the book. Here it is!
EXTRA! EXTRA! READ ALL ABOUT IT!
Suddenly Apes Are Smart!
Coco and Washoe and Judy
In a mere 15 years — WOW!
Instant Brainpower!
They use tools,
Speak sign language,
Operate computers,
Understand the concept of Time —
of past, present and future!
Wonder of wonders!
We have elevated their lives!
Uh, no… They have elevated ours.
They have always used tools,
Spoken a language,
Understood the concept of Time…
They have always had feelings of love,
Loyalty, sadness and fear.
It took us a long long time
To get off our high horses and admit it.
Because to realize that other beings’ lives
are as unique and precious to them as ours is to us
Is a concept we sidestep at every opportunity.
Next thing you know, we’ll discover they have souls,
and go to heaven, and …
Before you know it, the President will be a chimp!
RELAX! No chimp in its right mind would take the job!
12-13-1978
P.S. And in hindsight, a chimp would have been better than DJT, causing a heckuva a lot less damage!
