Continue Day 2

Now, of course, it requires a bit of symbolism to see our 1998 Oldsmobile as a tarn, but the Garvin Nuvi GPS helps the image. Lily discovered that an option for the visual display was not only a wide variety of automobiles, but a giant black bird, obviously a tarn, that flaps his wings as he follows the magenta route to our next destination.

The trip itself was uneventful. The interesting thing was my mental state of mind. I was aware of this first at a rest stop in Kentucky. Lily was inside and I was watching Hussy out in the parking lot. I found myself watching the trees across the highway, and listening to the noise of butterflies flapping their wings. My senses were so keen that it felt as if I were high. Things seemed slowed down and I had a heightened sense of awareness. I thought for a moment that I had just finished smoking a joint of some really good pot.

As I thought about it, I realized that what was doing this was a total absence of stress. For years, I have been trapped into the Earth culture mode of hurry, hurry, worry, worry, and busy, busy. Now, I knew that I actually am a fairly calm person who has always had low blood pressure and a very high explosion set point. Even so, there is something inside the people of Earth now, in their high tech, high mobile society, that pushes them into a pace of life that produces an internal, chemical state of stress. John Norman speaks about this in Marauders of Gor when he refers to the men of Earth as tragic insects hurrying from one nothing to the next fearing they might be late.

I suppose that was part of the reason that I selected the Hoosier National Forest as our first stop. We were going to spend a week in a campground that offered woods, fishing, and quiet, but very little else to do. There was a practical reason for this. We needed to shake out some changes that would help lily and I make it through the coming weeks. We needed to be much more organized, much more careful, and more aware of rest and health issues. Beyond this, however, was the need to allow our bodies to adapt to a slower pace of life that more closely mirrored the daily life of the Gorean of the books. I was thinking of the old Gorean saying. "Stop every so often and smell the talenders."

What surprised me was that this pace change came so quickly. We were only half way to our first destination. A long drive still loomed ahead, plus setting up the camp for the first time. Despite this, I could feel the tension and accumulated stress of years leaving my body creating this feeling of euphoria. I was touching my gypsy soul.

By the way, a word about Hussy. She is a very strange black cat. Lily calls her a cat-dog, and sometimes a feline kajira. We brought her home a couple of years ago when she was abandoned by her previous owners. I wanted her because we had a bit of a mouse problem in our downstairs apartment. She performed that original service with dispatch. She did like to bring the mice up to drop them, still alive and just a bit dazed, at our feet. Some managed to escape this game of hers by scurrying off when she looked up at us as if to say, "look at me."  Still, within a few weeks, the mice were gone and none were ever seen again. Perhaps, they had not all been eaten, but at the very least, they decided to go live in a safer environment. We decided to move her upstairs and let her stay and she became a pet.

She was like a little lap dog. All she wanted to do was sit in our laps while we were at the computer or watching television. She even, sometimes, came to me when I called her like a devoted dog. Her one problem was that once every month, she became a shameless slut. I do not mean she went into heat. That is expected. Hussy turned into a slut, and always found her way outside and came back two or three days later. She would get pregnant, but could not seem to carry any kittens to full term, and lost the first couple of pregnancies. Finally, she had a litter of three. One had a deformed tail, but the others were fine. Just recently, she had five healthy kittens. When they were a little older, and I took a good look at them, I noticed that one looked like a squirrel, one looked like she was part skunk, and one looked a bit like this old guy that lived down the street. Two actually looked as if the fathers might be cats. See, a complete slut.

In fact, we had planned to name her slut, but there were kids involved at the time. We settled on hussy which was a word the kids wouldn't be so likely to misunderstand.  When we started to plan the trip, we had to make a decision about Hussy. I suppose I expected to find a home for her, or leave her at the shelter. At least, that was the plan rolling around in the back of my mind. The reality was different. She is part of my household, and therefore my responsibility. It is interesting how the Gorean philosophy comes to your rescue at times. We can't take a cat on an extended 22 week cross country trip in a crowded car when we are going to be camping and staying with people. It would just be too hard and inconvient to take her, and things would be so much "easier" to just abandon her like her previous asshole owners. Hear the selfish Earth thinking there?

(just a word to my slaves and HOR girls here: Nothing would convince me to abandon even a stray black cat!  Relax, you are safe. Unless you screw up really, really bad, or I find out you can't catch mice.)