Three Twisted Knots

From Lira:

I’m not too proud to say I cannot be bothered to learn much about popular music, so I keep my radio tuned to DragonPop and hope for the best. The tiny bubble tub in the back garden was taken away, but TAC replaced it with a larger one. It is larger. It is larger, but it looks a bit like a well bucket. ‘All the very best hot tubs look like well buckets,’ she said, when I asked her why it looked like that. ‘It’s important to get the right mix of rustic and comfort. Just sit in it for a while and you will understand.’

Even with the heat, Dorcha seemed reluctant for me to take his blanket off. I think he feels more secure when people can’t see his full coat. I’m not sure why. It might be those shadows that look strangely like bats.

In the treehouse, I always got this wonderful fantasy radio station, with lots of fiddles and songs about selkies, stuff like that. Here, the radio seems a little different. I don’t even know how far away I am from where the treehouse used to be: no-one will take me back there.

I miss it. I miss being surrounded by crystals and living in a treehouse you had to climb up to on stairs or a rope. TAC says this house is better. It’s better because it has a big back garden, space for Dorcha, space for guests.

But it doesn’t really have space for guests. It has an upstairs space that I can vacate if TAC wants to have guests in it. That’s not really the same thing.

The water did look inviting, though. I could just dabble my feet; there was an idea! So I grabbed my book (The Healing Power of Songs to Cats) and plonked down on one of the very comfortable pillows. The afternoon was just starting to grow long.

I’m trying not to overthink things very much, but I think this book showing up on my coffee table has everything to do with Slaine. She is a sly and wily thing.

Right: the bloody music. Every afternoon, DragonPop plays two hours of what it calls “oldies.” For the most part, it’s not bad, but (and this is what made me remember I was talking about the music), this really strange song came on and knocked me right out of reading.

The song was about summer, which I guess is topical, since it seems to be summer here. I’ve done so much hopping about from plane to place to pocket universe to wherever the wind seems to blow I hardly notice seasons. But this song — I found it so disturbing I had to look up the lyrics on the internet. The song is, “Those Lazy-Hazy-Crazy Days of Summer.” Someone called Nat King Cole made it famous, even though it used to be in German or something. It is, according to the website I found, a polka. Which is both a kind of dance and a kind of dot, it seems. Further research suggests that the dance preceded the dot.

OK, I do feel lazy, so I guess that part is true. It isn’t particularly hazy here, but, again, according to further research, haze is associated with summer: something to do with ozone reacting with pollution? I got bored after about half a paragraph. Luckily, the air is fairly clear here, so I don’t think I have to worry about haze and its potential negative effect on my health and well being very much. Crazy? Do people go crazy in the summer? Or do they go crazy trying to live through the summer? Personally, I prefer Realms, and I guess seasons, that are cool and misty and possibly about to snow. So, really, I guess anything but summer. It would appear that I am not like most people, or at least not like most people who would actively seek out this song.

One of the things I hate about songs (and conversely, one of the things I love about songs) is that sometimes you cannot get them out of your head. This song was like that. The only thing I was capable of singing to my cat after I had turned off the radio in a rage (I pushed the button especially hard) was “Those Lazy-Hazy-Crazy Days of Summer,” and she did not like it any more than I did. There was no healing power within this song, it seemed, not for Slaine.

“Who,” she asked in disgust, “likes soda and pretzels and beer?” Her glare was palpable. “If you do not stop singing that, I will scratch you. And then I will scratch poor, innocent, stupid Dorcha.”

“He is not stupid!”

“I’ll bet he loves that song.” She stalked away, tail like a flag, only twitching.

Does he? I didn’t think about it for very long. Instead, I eased myself into the steaming water and became entranced by the afternoon sunlight blipping into bubbly sparkles. I did glance at the book and hope it wouldn’t be wet, but I wasn’t super worried about it. I think I saw another copy in the house somewhere.

I grabbed my mobile when I got out of the barrel tub and set up that telescoping thing that lets me take a picture: all I have to do is tell the phone to take the picture and it does it: can you believe that!

“Hey Dorcha, let’s take a pretty picture together.”

“Wet,” came a breathy baritone. “You are wet. Step forward so I am not also wet.”

Dorcha could talk? “Why haven’t you spoken to me before?”

“No point. Cat takes up all the air,” he said. “Picture OK, wet not OK, got that?”

“Um, sure,” I said, and stepped forward as requested.

“Thank you.” Could he be possibly the only polite animal in the universe? He was certainly smarter than Slaine gave him credit for.

And then. And then, he started to sing.

Roll out those Lazy-Hazy-Crazy days of summer!
Those days of soda and pretzels and beer
Roll out those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer
You’ll wish that summer could always be here!

Help.

Notes & Credits

(Sponsored items as always, are indicated with a “*”)

Featured:

• That hot pink bathing suit: Miamai, Beth Bathing Suit*. This is available at the Miamai Main Store, and there’s a green colour as a group gift!
• The Big Comfy Hot Tub: Moss & Luna, Lotus Barrel Soaker Tub, available at the Moss & Luna Main Store.
• Dorcha the Diva Horse: Portrayed by Teegle’s Icelandic Horse. Available at the Teegle Main Store, but you already knew that. 😉
• Slaine, although not pictured in this post, would of course have been handily portrayed by CKit Falconry’s Brown Tabby Main Coon Cat*, which you can get at the CKit Falconry Main Store.
• The Healing Power of Singing to Cats book is from Octubre, and impossible for me to resist. It’s at the Octubre Main Store.

Other Fancy Stuff:

• Lira’s face paint: safe for mortals, rose brow, double pink
• Glasses: Petrichor & Ersch, Owlien Glasses (at the Warehouse Sale)
• Septum Ring: Opalite, Moth Septum
• Hair: Doux, Adrienne
• Earrings: FaeTal, Beck
• Neckpiece: Sigma, Elysia Choker
• Chest Tattoo: safe for mortals, dancer
• Eyes: Hexumbra: Audre Pride BOM Eyes*
• Signature Ring: Kunglers, Phoebe
• Nails: Eventyra, Shades of Pink
• Lira is styled on a Legacy Classic body and a Lelutka EvoX Raven Mesh Head. Her eyelashes are Void Demure.

On the Set:

• Fountain: Octubre, Nevermore
• Stable: Love, 1-Prim Barn (retextured)
• Hay Bales: Lore, Harvest Bale Stack
• Hedge: Love, English Hedgerow

Horse Deets:

• Dorcha’s Eyes: Teegle, Blue Fantasy Eyes
• Blankie: Cheval D’or, Buzz Off Blanket
• Mane: Teegle, Silky Mane
• Tail: Teegle LE Icelandic Tail

All photographs taken in the back garden of my Linden Home, a 2048 Copperfield Maplecrest, in Understuff Caverns.

https://youtu.be/MRmEZMAfD3Y?si=q7dbiBZ3yFBgL2f2

(This video doesn’t want to embed, but click it, with my apologies!)
(The rest of the Nat King Cole catalog is ever so much better than this album. Have a listen.)