Cap'n Jack
Intro Content
Kathy: This is permission to play. A podcast for creatives and other humans who sometimes wonder: Where the F-- did my mojo go? My moxi, my marbles. Why am I so stuck, lost, depressed? God, how do I break free? Well, I have something I live by: Think less, play more. This podcast is your permission to play. Together we'll explore all things helpful for the care and feeding of the creative soul. Welcome. I'm your host, Chatty Kathy. Keeping it.
Hey guys. Welcome back to the podcast. This is what I call one of my little Chatty Kathy minisodes, or sometimes I call 'em my Little Golden Nugs, which, or my little Golden Keys. I don't know. I don't know. We're gonna find out what these are called. But for now, these are my little minisodes, and I will be posting these probably once a week and, but no pressure on me. Um, but it'll be in between my longer conversations that I have with my lovely and amazing guests. Because number A: it's fun and two, I just have thoughts sometimes that I feel I need to share, so I just pop on my phone, record them just for you.
Take a quick listen; they're meant to encourage you, brighten your day, give you a little lift or a laugh or a, huh? What the...? So I hope you enjoy Chatty, Kathy's Little Nugs. I don't know, maybe you can help me figure out what we're gonna call these. Enjoy [00:01:00] and we'll talk again soon.
Main Content
Hey buddy.
Okay. Just thought I'd step outside. I've been sitting at the computer all freaking day. Oh my God. Oh, and it's a gorgeous Fall day. It's like, wow. The sky here where we live is mind blowingly blue, then when you add in all green of the oaks and the conifers, it's just like, wow. So I'm sitting here with my feet in the grass, grounding as they say, which is a thing I find to be extremely grounding.
Honestly, it does something to my body, pulls out the nervous energy and gives it to the mycelia and they eat it. But uh, earlier today I was feeling stressed out. I was trying to get Jack-- So Captain Jack, he's our old, [00:04:00] octogenarian kitty cat. He's 20 so that would make him in his nineties, they call that a nonagenarian. Hmm. Who knew?
Boy, he's been through it with us. I'll tell you. He's this beautiful black kitty cat; he's got one of those cute kinda little smu-- not smushed faces, but sort of like a, I don't know how you describe it, like a short snout, so he's got a little square short snout. Anyways. Cute.
He's been with us for a really long time and super patient, sweet boy. Yeah, Captain Jack's got a swagger to him I think that's what's got him through in life. Like I said, he's been through it with us. He was born up here in the mountains, lived with us for his first probably, I don't know, five years, then relocated down to Los Angeles with us for a year, came back up here to the mountains, and then relocated to New Orleans for a year, then back up here to the mountains.
And I'll tell you, he has grappled with foxes and other neighborhood menaces and has come out on top every [00:05:00] time. Boy, I'll tell you, he's earned his many lifetimes. So you know, he's down to one eye-- sounds terrible, but he's got one eye with a detached cornea so he can't see out of one eye, and then he can kind of only see a little out of the other eye; we have to wave our hands and get down low and wiggle our fingers to get him to lock on and then he'll follow us around. And, took him into the vet in January of this year, so almost a year ago, because he seemed like there was something wrong, his eye looked kind of funny and Dr. Tom looked at him and said, "Yeah, he's circling the drain and it wouldn't be wrong for me to put him down here today." I was like, What, what? Wait a minute, I'm not ready for this.
He had a whole, like, his whole belly was like a roster belly. He wasn't liking to be pet and brushed or any of that, and he wasn't really grooming much, so he had this one big dreadlock on his belly and so I was, I showed that to Tom. I said, I think he's in pain. I think this has to go, but he won't let me brush him. And so Dr. Tom took him back and gave him a shave, and he [00:06:00] brought him back in with his, his little wrinkly tummy, his little bald pink wrinkly tummy.
But he seemed so relieved and he came home and stretched out in front of the wood stove and bared his lovely pink belly for all the world and just slept and just seemed so happy. And so Mike and I had long discussions about should we take him back? Should we, I mean he has some kind of kidney thing and, but Tom was like, we probably should just call it good. And we just weren't ready to make that decision because after he got his belly shaved, he started eating regularly, started purring and wanting to be pet and getting back up in our laps. And so I think he just, I don't know, he just needed a shave. So...
Off and on in these last nine months he's rallied and then kind of got kind of funky and his eyesight is slowly gone and he's he barely hear. He's Gotten a little, I don't know, he'll wander around in circles sometimes and bump into things and [00:07:00] we just grapple with whether we should have him put down , but he continues to eat, he continues to ask for food, he continues to announce to the world, Hey, I just did a poopy. Um, he's still using his litter box. He purrs, he wants to be scritched and scratched. So it's like, well, you know, we just take it a day at a time. As long as he's not outwardly suffering, we just keep inviting him to go if he wants to head over into the wide, far fields...
So today I, invited him to, go outside; he loves to come lay out on the front porch and bask, but it's, the weather's turning a little colder, so now he'll come, like, feel the air at the front door before he goes out. And it's so funny cuz he'll run up and then feel the air and then he'll just sit like, Nope, not today.
It was so lovely out. I thought, well, I'll, I'll leave the door open for a second. I left the door open, I came out and I thought, you know, I'm gonna stick my feet in the lawn, found a ray of sun and stood in it, ground my feet [00:08:00] into the soft grass and kind of marveled at the grass.
It's like, here's this amazing plant that will bend under the weight of my body and cushion the souls of my feet and connect me to the earth. And then when I step away, it pops right back up. I'll tell you that just made gratitude well up inside my heart. And I just stood in the sun for a moment and soon enough this little soft brushing across the top of my feet.
I looked down, and Jack had come and laid down right next to my feet and furled his tail across my toes, like, Yep, you got it right, Kath. You got it right. How do you think I've stuck around this long? So. Lessons from Jack. I'll gulp him up as long as he's dishing 'em out. So that's our Captain Jack. We love him. We'll keep him as long as he doesn't start pissing around the house. Sorry, [00:09:00] that's bad.
Outro Content
Kathy: If you enjoyed this episode, please come back for more. I've got some really interesting and inspiring guests on tap for upcoming episodes.
I've got award-winning authors, plant medicine people, nervous system experts, just a smorgasboard of goodness and curiosity.
And also, if you could please help me grow my audience by sharing with your friends, and especially by subscribing to, rating, and reviewing the show. It really does help people find me.
Thank you so much my friends. It means so much that you chose to spend your precious time with me today. Be well and remember to think less, play more. Grant yourself permission to play.