July 11, 2004
Another scorcher out here on the desert. Must be about 105 out, doesn’t drop below 80 at night. This is our Hell season. Water in pool is lukewarm. Buddy Boze Hatkiller swam several laps with me this afternoon. On the third lap he caught up with me and pawed his way up on my shoulders. I really didn’t mind this, but he kept kicking with his hind legs which scraped me right in the crack of my you-know-where. This didn’t feel real good, so I stood up in the shallow end and flipped him over my head. He looked like the Walapais I grew up with doing a soft push off the diving board at the Kingman Muni pool, going almost all the way over and landing on the small of their backs which created one of those delayed concussion splashes, like a depth charge off a sub killer. Buddy didn’t like the style of the dive or the wet head deal and he gave me the biggest sad eyes I’ve ever seen as he swam for the steps.

Speaking of goofy animals, I was cleaning out a box in the garage this morning and found two photos of our ol’ King Kat, Big Tom. He really was a King. Lived on the roof, Dodged coyotes and owls and raccoons for about 11 years. One of the above got him, we assume. He just stopped showing up. Don’t know how or when. We miss the big goofus, although I can say with some sadness, he never swam laps with me.

Worked all morning on narrative for my upcoming graphic novel. Then switched gears and worked on a big gouache of El Lobo Con Un Ojo (the one-eyed wolf). Also whipped out a cool scratchboard of the face of my protagonist, closeup, monster lit. The balloon will say, “I just want to know the truth, Man”.

Kathy left at four to go stay with her mama. Debbie Radina stayed with Betty last night.

Big monsoon blowing in right now (6:23 p.m.) Blowing dust, wet air, not much else. We’ll read about all the damage in tomorrow’s paper.

“Cats are intended to teach us that not everything in nature has a function.”
—Garrison KeillorÃ