Thursday, October 30, 2008

Bus Log: June 26, 1971



After baths, dinner, sleeping warm, and a bright blaze in the wood stove just from burning trash, everybody feels considerably finer.

Patches, our bowlegged tortoiseshell kitten, is washing herself for the third time as I write (en route to Salinas on Route One.) The three boys are playing Alphabet. We had some trouble starting the bus, but are now cruising at 55, fairly quietly.

Last night the kids talked tensely in their sleep when they finally got to sleep. We found A and Patches curled up together in A's bunk, our daughter atop her orange-and-violet tie-dyed sleeping bag, face down, bottom up, just like the cat except for her wild gold thistle hair and white long johns.

(The original bus log has a very long, detailed story of the genealogy of Patche.)  The story ends this way: The day before our departure, BL, N's friend who hopped backward on the shakedown trip, was delighted to learn that his mother would let him keep Victoria, the white kitten with a victory sign on its head. And the remaining kitten, as Papa Manx and his lady gambol on the green back at Winfield Street, is our Patches, who has her father's long hair and tolerant disposition.




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