Scrungy and Friends

Update:

2008-03-16T15:44:00.000-07:00

Mike has posted his story of his trip to Waldorf, Maryland and his slideshow...go to Windsongs of the Heart.

Scrungy and Friends is in Transition...

2008-03-15T17:26:00.000-07:00

I've decided that Scrungy and Friends is not going to be my main site anymore. A little while back I was trying to make Scrungy's site more for him and the characters in his books--his home base. It will remain...but not as my main site. It will be some time before I figure out what exactly to do with Scrungy's site so I'm not closing it down. I hope what you will come to visit me at Windsongs of the Heart. A site more dedicated to my writing, and not limited to just cat stories. Anywhere you choose to visit I'll get the message. But there probably won't be much activity on this site from now on.

Mike's Adventures, Neighborhood Nightlife, and the Adventures of Ragpuff, will all be posted on Windsongs of the Heart. Gretchen's site will remain and so will Mike the Mysterious, along with his Teleportal site.

When I first started blogging almost a year ago, I wanted to call my site Windsongs of the Heart and felt discouraged about it at the time. I've decided to go back to the original thought as it will be more useful for me professionally. Thanks for being fans of Scrungy and Friends, I'll keep everyone posted when he is active again.

Adventures of Ragpuff: Episode 3 - The Decision

2008-03-11T13:45:00.000-07:00

For more Cats on Tuesday...go here.

The Adventures of Ragpuff: Episode 3:
The Decision

After Ragpuff had mercilessly been dumped in the gravel pit, rescued from certain death from dehydration and starvation by a large, round man living at the edge of the gravel pit, Ragpuff found a temporary home. He had food, water, shelter, and could explore the fields around the house at his leisure while his new companion worked all day in the gravel pit. The food was good, the company was good, and the hunting in the dust covered field-grass was good. Ragpuff should have been content, but he wasn't. In his dreams he longed to be back in his safe chair, behind his safe window, with the funny talking woman and the man who didn't talk much. Ragpuff was restless.

~~~~~~

I have forgotten how many days and nights I've been here with this wonderful, cheerful, round man, but they've been great. At dinner every night, I eat what he eats then I settle down in his lap for a good, long massage. Often he uses his back scratcher on my back like he does on his. It's a wonderful tool, this long piece of painted wood with three curved little fingers. It gets into all those ridges around my spine…all the itchy spots that plague me during the day. I know I have fleas; one can't help but get them living in such a dirt filled world as this. I even had a tick once from my many treks through the tall grass chasing down delectable little critters. The round man found it and took care of it. The fleas…well, they aren't too bad. I mean if a cat can't take a few flea bites now and again, then I guess he couldn't be all that worldly, like I am.

I think it was at the beginning of summer when I was dumped out here and found this wonderful human being. I was skinny and dirty when I first arrived, but now my fur is fully grown out, I'm very plump and I think I've even grown a few inches—I know my feet certainly have gotten bigger. I love it here. I could stay with this man forever. In fact, I think he's going to be really sad to see me go. But the days are changing and I need to move on.

The leaves on the trees are turning yellow and orange; some are starting to fall to the ground. The air feels cooler in the day and is now cold at night. I suppose I really should stay where I am. I'll be warm and safe. But I keep having these nagging dreams about my first home. And as much as I really like this man, this place, I'm lonely somehow for my funny talking woman and the man who doesn't talk much, and I've never forgotten my plan to find my way home. I could be called very foolish for making such a decision as I'm about to make, but I can't help myself. I've got to continue my journey. I need to try and find my home.

So with that decision made, I ate breakfast one last time with my good friend and gave him some really long meows, a bunch of head butts, and an extra loud rumbly purr. My way of saying goodbye. He just laughed, ruffled my fur up the way he does every morning and went out the door to his monster truck to go to work for the day. Then I left.

When I had gotten to the edge of the tall grass I looked back once more at the slightly tilted, shaggy, gray house, sitting peacefully in the shade of some rather large oak trees, then I turned my back on the place forever and darted into the field.

During all those days that the round man worked, I roamed the fields. I have become pretty adept at catching and eating my own meals. I have enough body fat stored, in fact, to last me until I find my home again. So I'm not worried about starving to death anymore. From previous jaunts through the field, I know there is a creek at the opposite edge that runs along a tree line of skinny willows and cottonwoods. I've even picked out the very tree that I'll spend my first night in.

The sun's been coming up later each day and this morning it was barely light out when I left my friend. I'll always remember him and his gentle hospitality. His wonderful backscratcher. But I have plans. I have to move on. I am going on, for as long as it takes, to find my first home.

The sun had warmed the earth pretty good by the time I got to the tree line. I took a long drink from the cool waters in the creek then climbed my intended tree. From its lofty branches I can see out over the field of grass. Off in the distances, the tops of the mountains of gravel are just barely visible. In the opposite direction I can see a black ribbon with many monster cars running up and down it. I figure that black ribbon leads to people, to houses, but I have decided it is too dangerous to follow that foul smelling track. I will follow the creek as far as I can and hope that it leads me to somewhere safe.

The trouble with being dumped out in the middle of nowhere like I was, I don't exactly have any idea where to start my journey to find home. I just know that while I was in my safe chair, behind my safe window, I watched the sun come up every morning. And since I was born in a shelter and never really got to stay long with my mother, I have no idea which way was what. At any rate, all this planning requires a lot of thought. I have gone as far as I'm going to go today.

Not only is the sun coming up later each morning, it is also going down earlier each night. Sitting in the tree, I 'm still trying to figure things out. The real question is, do I follow the sun going down, or go towards the sun coming up? If I shut my eyes really tight, maybe I'll be able to remember the things I used to see around my window when I was safe at home, and where the sun had been when I'd gotten lost and found those buildings. After some more hard thinking, I realized that the buildings I had been attracted to had the sun coming up behind them. So all I have to do now is pick a direction and stick to it. I'm pretty sure I was taken towards the setting sun that day when the lady grabbed me and threw me in that box, so I figured that maybe I ought to go towards the sun coming up. The problem is the creek. I'd like to stay near it as much as possible but it isn't running in the same direction all the time.

Well, after all that thinking, I spent the long, lonely night in the crotch of the cottonwood tree. For the longest time I missed the round man. I even thought I heard him calling me long after dark. He never gave me name, he just called me, Cat. Maybe it was all just in my head. Maybe I thought I heard his voice calling me because I was about to make the biggest mistake of my life by leaving that gentle man. I had to close my eyes tight and concentrate on my plan, or I'd give in and return to my second home in the gravel pit, and stay forever.

Shortly after opening my eyes, the sun rose up over the field and the black ribbon full of cars off in the distance. I feel pretty good about myself now, my ability to find my way home. After a quick breakfast of a few voles I'd found rummaging around the leaf litter, I took another long drink from the creek and headed along its banks in the direction of where I thought my home might be. During the day the sun was my guide. It warmed my left shoulder and flank in the morning and then my right side in the afternoon. Wherever this direction leads, it has to come to a place where people live.

Mike's Visit to Tucson Arizona and the Cat Realm

2008-03-11T13:44:00.000-07:00

Mike's Adventures in the Desert

Mike here:

View the slideshow of all the picutres at the very end...

Oh, the fun begins again. I've taken quite a hiatus from traveling. The last time I went on an adventure was for a week in November, 2007. I had visited Yoggie in Sweden.

I came home from that trip to a chaotic household. Gretchen's Mom Bean (my Mom Bean, too, actually) was ill, our Pa Bean was ill. There had been a death in the family and My Granny Bean was very sick, too.

So it was decided that I stay home for the rest of the year. We had a pleasant Christmas, everyone was much improved by then and I just lay around resting and enjoying the season with my adopted family. I was supposed to start traveling again in January, but there were some technical difficulties to the places I was supposed to visit and more trouble with Mom Bean's heart, so I didn't actually get back out onto the cyber highway until February 21, 2008 when I transported over to spend a week with my pals in the Cat Realm who live in the desert—Tucson, Arizona.

The Cat Realm created a transporter room for me, and Gretchen, at the controls, got to send me on my way. I must say I was pretty nervous at first; I wasn't so sure Gretchen knew how to operate the control panel. But everything went fine. It was so cool, Gretchen counted backwards…3…2…1…and before I could say goodbye, this bright light enveloped me and my little red traveling bag, my melted fur began to buzz a bit, and then I was flying through the wormhole. I could feel the air getting warm as I got closer to the end of the tunnel.

Mrs. Oz, who had been appointed by the Cat Realm to be my official tour guide, had been expecting me and was outside waiting for me. I never, ever, know just exactly where I will materialize, so it was just as much a surprise to me as it was to Mrs. Oz that I popped out of thin air right in front of her face. Evidently, Mrs. Oz had been to a party the night before and had consumed quite a number of nipitini's, needless to say, she had a headache and was a little out of sorts when I startled her by the Yucca plant in her garden.

After my brain-twisting trip through the wormhole, and the different climate that I was definitely not used to, Mrs. Oz took me inside to a lovely spot in front of the cozy fireplace where I could take a nap. She built the fire just for me. She curled up beside me and napped, too. It was cool enough that I actually needed to pull out my favorite blue blanket and wrap up in it. It's supposed to be sunny and warm in Arizona, isn't it? Mrs. Oz told me that normally Tucson gets about 350 days of sunshine in a year, but it seems the sun disappeared and it turned cool just as I arrived.

There are three cats at the Cat Realm. Karl, Emil, and Mrs. Oz. Every morning they make a perimeter check around the house. Usually one of the staff, the Butler or the Maid, goes with them just in case there is a Coyote or a Bobcat lingering about. It was actually chilly outside and I had to wear one of my sweaters.

After our walk through the garden of cacti and yucca plants and palms, Mrs. Oz showed me where the outside bath tub was. It was too chilly to use it at this time of year, but it's the coolest thing—outside, surrounded by beautiful plants and art and little plastic yellow ducks everywhere. The place made me almost want to take a bath. And you all know the kind of bath I got last—in the washing machine and then the dryer…my melted fur was the result. So maybe I'll stay out of the tub for now.

Karl, Emil, and Mrs. Oz all had a good laugh remembering that their, now spirit sister, Anastasia, had once lost her glasses in the tub. Last year Anastasia went for a walk in the desert one day and never came back. I can tell by the way they talk about her that she was really special to them and that they miss her very much. I got Goosebumps…like she was nearby.

The next time we went outside it was to see the vegetable garden. I had to put on another sweater outfit because it had gotten colder. They have to keep the vegetable garden protected by fences to keep the vicious Javelina out. But the Butler had built a ladder for us and we got to visit the garden.

I have to tell you that everyone at the Cat Realm wears sunglasses. Even their big cactus wore sunglasses. I got to climb right up in the middle of this huge cactus and get my picture taken.

Because I'm fiber, stuffed with fiber, the prickly thorns don't bother me. I think it did worry Mrs. Oz, though. By-the-way, Mrs. Oz is sitting on the steps in front of their house. It's a cool house, too.

Besides the cats at the Cat Realm, there is Brody. He's a fluffhead like me, but he's a penguin from Antarctica. He wears sunglasses, too.

Karl, Emil and Mrs. Oz don't like leaving their ranch, so on my second day, when we visited the Saguaro National Park, Brody and a chap called Dicky Duck became my tour guides. Dicky Duck is a traveler, too.

First we went to the Tucson Rodeo Parade. There was so much going on that I couldn't take notes fast enough. But it was fantastic. The rodeo is all about horses. There are no motorized vehicles in the entire parade. There was a congresswoman in the parade and she let me ride on the back of her horse for a brief time. She was really nice, and it was really neat to ride on the back of a horse, a gentle swaying, up and down motion…the horses were walking very slowly. I imagine that if they had been running it would have been a very bumpy ride. The horse was all white. We didn't go to the actual rodeo. That would have been too much to do in one day. I bought some souvenirs at the parade. Two cowboy hats, a pink one and a blue one. Karl also gave me a real, authentic sombrero as a present.

On the way back we drove up a mountain to get a good view of Tucson. Wow. I made some notes as we drove over Gates Pass. There is this great view of the Baboquivair Mountains with Kitt Peak at their northern end. From our vantage point we could also see Old Tucson Studios where they say many movies, and the TV series, High Chaparral, were filmed. Brody said it's now a tourist attraction.

When we crossed over Gates Pass we drove into the Saguaro Forest. The saguaros are the largest cactus in the States. They get so high—like reaching 40 feet—and mostly just grow in southern Arizona and western Sonora. Of course, I had to have my picture taken in the giant cactus. Me, Dicky Duck, and Brody. The spines don't bother them either. Brody is a fluffhead and Dicky is plastic. It stayed pretty cloudy the whole time we were out there. Poor Dicky kept telling me the sun would definitely shine again. He said things look a lot better when the sun is out.

We stopped at the Parks Visitor's Center and I took more notes. There were lots of pictures to look at in the visitor's center. Dicky seemed quite spellbound by the pictures of the Javelina. They also had a lovely gift shop where I bought a little book about the desert for Gretchen—and some more souvenirs.

They also had this kind of hands on table that tourist could touch different things. Of course, here again, was another photo opportunity for me and Brody and Dicky. Because we are so small, we were allowed to get up on the table. There was a desert tortoise shell, a Javelina pelt, mule deer antlers, a javelin skull and a saguaro boot.

There's actually a little story about the saguaro boot. "The Gila Woodpecker uses the Saguaro, and burrows through its tough outer flesh into the body of the plant where there is plenty of moisture, and a relatively cool environment shaded from the searing desert sun. Once through the skin, the bird makes a sharp downward turn and hollows out a space for itself. A cactus, being little more than a living water container would continuously lose moisture, and be open to infection if it didn't do something to protect itself, so the Saguaro begins to exude a resinous sap around the void which the bird has made. The sap gradually solidifies to form a hard, bark-like substance around the wound, rather like a scab on animal skin, only this scab doesn't go away. The woodpecker has learned to leave the newly excavated burrow for a while in order to let the sap harden, although other birds sometimes decide to make it their own before the woodpecker returns, particularly desert owls."

It was a very educational trip to the desert. There was so much to see, so much beauty. Once we got home from our long drive, Dicky, Brody and I just had to have a nap in the furry cat bed by the window. A perfect end to a perfect day…even if the sun didn't shine.

It was Sunday Morning and bright blue skies were finally over us. I put on my western duds, my boots and sombrero that I brought along, then we headed out again on another tour. The sun is so warm here. It really makes a difference when the sun is out. Wow! Anyway, Dicky showed Brody and me a beautiful place that just takes your breath away. It juts right up out of nowhere. Big and white in the bright sun. It's called San Javier del Bac, or the white dove of the desert, but everybody just calls it "the mission." They said it took from 1783 to 1797 to get built. Four whole years. Wow! Some person, called Tohono O'odham built it under Franciscan and Spanish direction. They were working on part of it while we were there, fixing it up. I guess they are taking the old crumbling stucco off and putting on the more traditional plaster made from lime, sand and cactus mucilage. The gooey sticky slimy stuff from the inside of the cactus. Yuck. But I guess it works. We got to go inside the mission, too. Wow! There are really no words to describe how beautiful and big that place is. They had a place where you can buy special candles and light them for people who need their prayers answered. So Brody, Dicky and I bought a candle and lit for Gretchen's Mom Bean. We wanted her to have some extra help in getting well.

There were a lot of food booths for tourist outside the mission. I got to eat some traditional Indian Frybread! We met a guy at one of the food booths whose nickname was Duck. And another photo opportunity was born. The food guy, Duck, had his picture taken with Brody, Dicky Duck and me.

It was a good day and it's a good thing I had my boots and sombrero on, or I'd be sunburned. I know what you're thinking…a black fluffhead can't get sunburned. And while that is true, there is my plastic nose to consider…it could get soft and maybe melt. After we got back to the ranch we rested up for the Oscars. Later when the Oscars were on Mrs. Oz was glued to the TV set. The butler said she was just worried about an actress wearing a prettier fur than hers—and a crush on some guy actor.

We almost got in trouble later that night. We kind of had our own little After Oscar Party and we woke the maid. We had used the hearth for a makeshift stage. All the fluffheads of the Cat Realm were invited and we were having a raucous good time when the maid put the kibosh on the whole works. She said that is was in the middle of the night and we should be asleep. I was embarrassed that we had disturbed her in the dead of night. Mrs. Oz was kind of putout that our little party ended so quickly. But we had a good time while it lasted. Karl and Emil had been sleeping in the butler's place and missed the whole party.

Oh, and I want to mention how awesome the sunsets are out here…they take my breath away.

The rest of the week I just kicked back and napped with Emil and Brody in big furry cat bed. Emil gave me his red glasses to wear…don't I look just too cool? Anyway, after we rested a while, I did my interviews with Karl, Emil and Mrs. Oz. Once we had that out of the way we could have some more fun.

Friday I showed off my hats on The Cat Realm's blog. They dedicated Fashion Friday to Anastasia. They still miss her a lot. I wish I could have known her. I think we would have been friends, too.

Karl said that if I can come for another visit sometime, we'll go visit the infamous, Tombstone—you know, where they had the gunfight at the O.K. Corral! I understand there's only been a kazillion movies made about that gunfight. We might even try to get down to Nogales, Mexico and taste some wine in Nogales. Oh, I do hope I get to come back. I think I behaved myself pretty well, except maybe the After Oscars Party we threw in the middle of the night. The Cat Realm was a great host and pretty much wore me out. But I loved every minute of it. And they were kind enough to ship all my souvenirs home to Gretchen by the US Mail. Only my hats went with me through cyberspace.

Even a fluffhead knows that all good things must come to an end, sometime. I really had a great time and have made some new pals. Friday night, my new friends, Karl, Emil, Mrs. Oz, my buds Brody and Dicky came to the transport room with me to say goodbye. I gave them all hugs and thanked them over and over for such a great time, and then before I could blink I was whooshing back through the wormhole and plopped out in my very own control room that the Cat Realm built for me. Gretchen wasn't there right away. She was either off having a snack or a nap. But I didn't have to wait but a few minutes before she came and got me.

Exhausted as I was I had to tell Gretchen everything about the Cat Realm and how nice they were to me, how much fun we had and about all of my tours. She loved the new hats and though she's not keen about having things on her head or around her neck, I think I might be able to persuade her to pose with me someday, her wearing the pink one and me the blue one. The sombrero and those rattle things…hee, hee…they're all mine.

Now for my Interview with the Cat Realm—Karl, Emil, and Mrs. Oz:

Mike: How long have you lived with your bean(s)?
Karl: since October 2004
Mrs. OZ: since September 2007
Emil: since October 2007

Mike: Do you have a favorite bean?
Karl: the butler
Mrs. OZ: the maid
Emil: both

Mike: What's your favorite food?
Karl: beef
Mrs. OZ: stinky goodness
Emil: everything I can get my mouth on

Mike: What's your favorite treat?
Karl: butter
Mrs. OZ: stinky goodness
Emil: whatever they give me

Mike: Where do you like to sleep?
Karl: on the windowsill at the maid’s place, the dresser at the butler’s
Mrs. OZ: on the maid
Emil: on the bed

Mike: Do you dream? What are your dreams about?
Karl: lizards!
Mrs. OZ: to fly
Emil: food

Mike: Do you like fluffheads, you know, those crafty little creatures with fiberfill for brains?
Karl: I have a BIG dog fluffhead but I do not care for it
Mrs. OZ: couldn’t care less
Emil: sometimes I like to play with one for some seconds
ALL: but we all do like Brody!

Mike: How many fluffheads live with you and your bean?
Karl: don’t know
Mrs. OZ: don’t know either
Emil: no idea

Mike: Do you get along with your fluffheads? Really?
Karl: yes
Mrs. OZ: yes
Emil: I guess

Mike: Do have a special fluffhead friend?
Karl: Brody
Mrs. OZ: Brody
Emil: Brody

Mike: Do your fluffheads ever talk to you? Do they talk to your beans, you know, like I can transmit my thoughts to one special bean in my house?
Karl: of course, what a silly question…
Mrs. OZ: sure, why would he not?
Emil: yes, of course Brody talks to me

Mike: You have a very nice place here; tell me about your weather and your surroundings, what is it like outside your house? (Mountains, seaside, desert, woods, etc.)
Karl for all: we live in the Sonoran Desert. Outside of our house are cacti, mesquite tree, all kinds of shrubs, desert stuff. We live right on the East Side of the Tucson Mountains so we have a nice view of those. We also have lots of desert fauna: coyotes, bobcats, rattle snakes, owls, hawks on the negative side (they all prey on us), lizards, rabbits, birds, butterflies, mice, rats, spiders on the positive side (we prey on those)

Mike: Are you an inside only cat or do you get to go outside?
Karl for all: we go out after sunrise and have to be back in before sunset.

Mike: Do you keep secrets from your beans? Sometimes Gretchen and I conspire against her mom bean in the middle of the night. It really freaks her out. Do you do things like that?
Karl: no. I show them the lizards I catch – but I do keep them too by not letting the staff near me when I got one! Hahahahahahahahahaha
Mrs. OZ: no.
Emil: can’t talk about it – the staff might read this…

Mike: Have you been gifted with any hidden talents?
Karl: all my talents are out in the open.
Mrs. OZ: the staff just found out that I am a gifted hunter, in spite of my missing canines!
Emil: I can make myself invisible!

Mike: Is there anything in your house that bothers you? That you're afraid of?
Karl for all: no. If there would be we would have a talk with the staff and the thing in question would be removed.

Mike: Do you stalk and capture real live critters like mice, spiders and stuff? What kinds of critters do you stalk? Do you eat what you catch?
Karl: lizards, rats, rabbits, lizards, birds, lizards. Sometimes I eat them – sometimes I don’t.
Mrs. OZ: birds. I do not eat them, I kill them and play with them. The staff is not happy!
Emil: butterflies, lizards, rats so far. I am still honing my hunting skills!

Mike: Do you have siblings or housemates? Do you get along with them?
Karl for all: the three of us all get along fine. Emil interacts and plays with me and Mrs. OZ, Mrs. OZ and I tolerate each other but don’t really socialize.

Mike: Do you have a sweetheart?
Karl: RUIS, my wonderful fiancé RUIS! I love him very much!!!
Mrs. OZ: no.
Emil: I am not allowed. They say I am too young….

Mike: What is your most fun activity?
Karl: lizards
Mrs. OZ: laying on the maid
Emil: playing with the whirly bird toy

Adios amigos!

Slideshow of Mike's Visit to Arizona

2008-03-11T13:38:00.001-07:00

Making Story Boards

2008-03-04T14:53:00.000-08:00

I had to reproduce and share this article by Veda Boyd Jones a writer for The Writers Magazine. It's exactly what I do to write my novels.

"Map out your story location--

If a house figures over and over in your story, don't rely on memory for important details. Draw a floor plan. You don't have to be a licensed architect or draw every room to scale—just get the basics down. Whose bedroom is next to Andrea's? Where is the window the golf ball shattered? What's the quickest way for the murderer to get from the master bedroom to the study?

If the location of furniture and objects is important to your story, draw a room with everything in place. Refer to it instead of looking back through earlier pages to figure out if the main character puts those critical keys on the night table or on the bureau.

Of course, there is no need to stop at drawing the house. If a town layout is important to you story, draw a map. Label the major characters' homes and the location of any building your charters enter. If you use an actual town for a setting and want to use real places and streets, get a map from the chamber of commerce or on an online map site.

Use your floor plan and map as reference tools. Tack them to a bulletin board above your computer. Using these visual aids will save you time and make sure that little details are accurate."
--Veda Boyd Jones

Since the space in my apartment is quite limited, a drawing board in the living room and little useable wall space in the computer room, I've learned to use the unpolished side of white poster board for large scale maps and sites that I need to keep track of during a story. I use the foam-core board for stability so I can prop them up readily when needed. I also use the notebook size graph paper for the smaller details and keep them in the binder in which I am doing the research.

Sometimes I draw the people, or the characters such as cats…for a more visual effect. When I was writing for the Nano challenge in November I was working on a murder mystery that took place in a large camping area. I had lots of prominent and background characters that I needed to keep track of. It was fun doing all the prep work before writing the story and using the drawings and details I'd mapped out as I went along…to keep me in bounds.

So when I read this little article I was pleased to learn that I wasn't the only one doing that kind of story prep…and that I was right on tract as a writer. To add to the murder mystery's needed characters, I created a sort of casting call of actors that I thought would fit the personality of the people in my story. I did the same with the cats. I gathered pictures and pictures—way more than I needed. I printed little pictures and pinned them or taped them to my story boards as needed. It reminded me a lot of my childhood when I sat with scissors and cut out figures from magazines and pattern books—paper dolls—thus creating the people my sister and I needed for our games.

Today is Squillions Day!

2008-02-28T13:50:00.000-08:00

Go here to see how it all started. Gretchen and I adopted our virtual Squillions on July 26, 2007.

Deedum resides on Scrungy and Friends Site, while Petunia resides on Gretchen's site.
We love our little virtual Squillions.

Sun! Maybe? and a Meme

2008-02-25T12:53:00.001-08:00

My daughter, Paula, who was tagged by Rhonda, tagged me for this 4 Things about Me meme.

4 Things About MEME

4 Jobs I've Had:

Cake decorator, Nurses Aid, Manager of Camp-resort, Ad copy writer-freelance illustrator.

4 Movies Watched Over and Over:

Somewhere in Time, Down Periscope, High Road to China, Pirates of the Caribbean-all 3

4 Places I Have Lived:

Alaska, Hawaii, Montana, Texas.

4 Shows I Watch:

Masterpiece Theater, Lost, The Closer, Pushing Daisies

4 Places I Have Been:

The Grand Canyon, Carlsbad Caverns, Yellowstone, Glacier National Park

4 Favorite Things to Eat:

Graham Crackers and Milk, Lemon cookies, Fried Chicken Livers, Banana Nut Bread

4 Places I Would Rather Be:
Hawaii—back in the 1960's, a little white house in the country, a cabin in the eastern mountains, Michigan

4 Things I Look Forward To This year:
Staying vertical, having steady heartbeats, planting flowers, finishing Scrungy and other books in draft.

That was fun…I'll tag Thomma Lyn and Julie and Marilyn

Silent Sunday

2008-02-24T16:47:00.000-08:00

The Sun is Making a Comeback

2008-02-22T14:27:00.000-08:00

The days are getting longer, the sun is trying it's best to return and I am trying my best to recover. After the Ablation they put me on Sotalol and that nearly killed me. I'm now on the medicine Amiodorone for my heart rate and it seems it is beginning to work it's so-called magic. It takes almost 4 weeks to get enough into my system to keep things under control. I've not yet had two weeks worth. So, I'm yet to be a believer, but I did feel better yesterday and I'm trying to do the same today. I have to take several naps a day, but I'm vertical again--more often than not, that is.

Thanks again for everyones prayers, the furryones purrs, and all good wishes to my regaining my health and strength. I walked out to the mailbox today and had to take my cloud pictures.

Mike is in Tucson, Arizona with The Cat Realm. Please check in on them often and see what trouble Mike is into. So far he's postured himself in a giant catus. It's a good thing he's made of fluff.

I'd say more, but it's also time to rest. Till next time...

It's All About Hearts

2008-02-14T15:01:00.000-08:00

Happy Valentine's Day to all my friends...

loved ones...

and occasional visitors...

The sun is shining outside in a perfect blue sky and inside is my heart, now beating better and less stressed. On Tuesday I was supposed to get set up for a pacemaker. However, the specialist thought I should try one more drug and if that didn't work, the pacemaker would be the last resort. In a way I'm glad, especially since now that I know what all a pacemaker involves. I didn't know that they actually cut the pathway from the atrial to the ventricle chambers and then attach the pacemaker to make the ventricle work. Since I'm mostly atrial fib, that wouldn't stop my atrial chamber from continuing to have irregular episodes. It's all a lot of doctor-ease and I'm not at all sure I want any part of any of this anymore. But I do have to have something to control the A-fib episodes. The drug they put me on in the hospital was creating more problems and making things worse. It took everyone nearly a month to figure that out. Friday night's episode in the ER finally woke a few people up. So as of Tuesday I'm feeling better. I'd love to say great! But that feeling great passes when I stand up or have been up too long and keep pushing to do things.

The drug I'm on is not without some very hefty risk of which I shudder to think about and don't really want to go into them. With God's help we'll get through this. When I was viewing the funeral services of our late prophet, President Gordon B. Hinckley just recently, I was impressed with something he said to everyone all of the time...even to Larry King once. "It will all work out."

In the past week, while beginning to get depressed and very worried about my heart condition, I kept seeing President Hinckley's face and hearing his words over and over in my mind. "It will all work out." So, as Gretchen has already told everyone, I have adopted his words as my new mantra...it will all work out. I'm up doing more in two days than I've been doing in nearly a month. I'm encouraged, and no longer scared (well maybe just a wee bit scared...the drug's worth hasn't been proven on me yet).

It will soon be time to plant primroses and for awhile I thought I wouldn't be able to do that, but now I think in a week or two, I will be able to plant dozens of primroses. I've even sat at the drawing board, re-mapping and planning Scrungy's next big adventure--his Mission. I'm excited again.

Poor Little Snow Soldiers

2008-02-08T13:52:00.000-08:00

I got an email from my youngest with this picture and these words...

The Perception of Our Realities
"Millions of snowmen die every year in winter's battle. They rally before their death in the fields where the front marches on. Their voices become one in union as they cry for an end to such bitterness but, the harsh realities have been proved to no avail, their feirce opponet has muffled them all." -Amie

I loved this and I had to share it...and I had to move the focus off my last post.

It's odd to see the snow like this. The Oregon beaches sometimes look like this on very windy days. Only instead of snow sculptures, they are sand sculptures.

I also found that another daughter, BK, had used this same picture for WW.

I'm doing better in someways, but still have irregular heartbeats and not so good days. It's a struggle to get back to normal life and I cannot wait until I do.

A Ruby Day

2008-02-03T15:03:00.000-08:00

Yay! We've made it to the Ruby Milestone. As of Groundhog's Day, yesterday, my hubby and I have been married 40 years. Now all we have to do is go for the next 10. Right?

I'm feeling better and sitting up at the computer a few hours a day now. I wanted to spend more time visiting with friends today but after posting two blogs, I'm going to have to come back and visit later. I forget I need to rest until I start to hurt, or go into A-fib. Tuesday's a doctor's day; maybe I'll have some more answer soon. Or questions.

The sun keeps popping in and out of storm clouds laden with heavy downpours. Gretchen gave up chasing the sunny spots and went to her bed to nap. I'm about to do the same.

I've received more great cards from Gretchen's furry friends…thank you all. You've been a wonderful motivation for keep me moving forward instead of wallowing in misery.

I'm starting to get itchy to write a short story and work on my novels…
I know better than to try that right now, but, boy is it hard to resist.

Hugs to you all for being so supportive and such great friends.

Still A Bit Out Of Focus

2008-01-31T13:47:00.000-08:00

Do I look a little fuzzyheaded to you? You don't look so clear around the edges to me, either.

I've been home a week and don't feel all that much better except that all the mind bending drugs have worn off and I'm now faced with reality. I'm so washed out that when I look in the mirror I can't see myself.

I don't have a lot of strength yet but I just had to post and thank everyone, again, for all the cards and comments and emails. I’m not able to respond the way I would like to right now, but today I'm sort of vertical—for awhile, at least. So, for now, I have slipped to into the margins of blogging and have become a "temporary lurker". I'm there reading, but not commenting. It takes a good deal of concentration to type and I'm not there yet.

I'm still not sure of all the facts yet, because I now have a whole team of cardiologists and they tend to talk only among themselves and not so much to the patient. It appears I was in a ventricle flutter when I summoned the paramedics. I was more worried about Gretchen getting scared and bolting out the open door, than of dying. I had to be zapped twice while awake; there was no time to put me under…so they say. Actually, I had no pulse by then and they apologized as they revved up that machine and zapped me anyway.

I made it up the road to the hospital and went into Flash Pulmonary Edema. This is the fourth FPE event and I'm not too thrilled about surviving it again. The main reason being that in all likelihood there is still another chance for it to happen again. When next I woke I was up in a Portland Hospital Cardiac Care Unit. I wasn't allowed to be kept totally asleep while on the ventilator this time because they couldn't keep my blood pressure up. Finally they started giving me a combination of pain meds and mild sedatives that didn't drop my blood pressure and still keep me at a reasonably comfortable level. I'm not going into anymore details about those hours of half-life. I had to stay hooked up to the ventilator while I was run through another angiogram. I still have a strong heart, no clogged arteries—no heart disease. I was quite relieved that they could finally remove that breathing tube. I didn't need it to do the next procedure; the first of what I have just learned will be many ablations to come. An ablation is where they go into the heart through the leg, in the vein like the angiogram, and burn, or cauterize the nerve endings on the heart. They figured on fixing my problem in one fell swoop. Unfortunately, there were way too many little damaged nerve endings to take care of all at once in my condition. They took care of a few and then will do some more later on, once I've received some of my strength back. They totally changed all of my medications and are waiting to see if what they have given me will hold a normal sinus rhythm, otherwise it's a pacemaker. Something else I'm not strong enough to go through right now. I can tell you the drugs are not working and I'm like a wet noodle most of the time, just riding out the waves of low, or fast, beats, waiting for that nothing feeling that is an actual normal sinus rhythm. Those moments are few and far between. Every time I'm left in A-fib too long it damages the nerves in my heart which creates scar tissue and has to be burned off. I guess my heart is a pretty big mess at the moment.

Well, this has taken more out of me than I thought it would. I wanted to say so much more…but that will give me something else to talk about another time, won't it. I just wanted everyone to know that I have appreciated, am appreciative, and still appreciate all the prayers (and the purrs from Gretchen's friends) good wishes, cards and thoughts. You all mean so much to me. I miss blogging and writing and visiting with friends.

You're all a great bunch, so please be patient, I'll stop by to visit someday soon.

Warm hugs to you all...

The Beat Goes On!....sort of...

2008-01-25T12:58:00.000-08:00

Thank you, one and all, for every good wish, kind thought, your prayers, purrs and warm cuddly fuzzies..emails...comments and smail mails.

I came home from the hospital yesterday afternoon. I thought I was ready to come home, but now, some 24 hours later...I think another week...or two in the hospital would have been better. Of course I have a slew of appointments ahead of me, at which time I hope to be able to determine what happened to me. At this point, my husband (who came in as the ambulance was packing me up--and daughter #3 who lives three thousand miles away) knows far more than I do about my heart--flutter-- I'm told it was first thought to be a heart attack because I was in V-tac (whatever the heck that means) and had no pulse or heart rate. I was shocked...twice! Not something I'd look forward to having to go through again awake. My cat didn't run out the door in fright...that was my only worry. My Cat.

So when my brain clears from all these nice relaxing drugs and I no longer have the desire to sleep for 24 hour straight. I'll be back. I'll try to read a few of the comments and good wishes a little at a time over the next few days…and if I miss somebody…please excuse me ahead of time and blame it on the mind numbing drugs. I have a strong, clean heart….go figure…but I have/had some electrical problems that had to be fixed (burned) and I'm on some new rhythm drugs.

Love you all for being my friends and caring so much. ((((((((BIG HUGS))))))))))
PS….if you can't make sense of what I just written, then neither can I…Everything is very, very fuzzy right now.

Lots of Prayers and Good Karma Needed

2008-01-18T12:23:00.000-08:00

This Paula from bassetknitter here to say that Gretchen's bean (my Mom) is very very ill. She had a cardiac emergency and had to go by ambulance on Wednesday to the big hospital in the city.
She is in the cardiac care intensive unit and hooked up to a ventilator and many kinds of machines and having many tests and procedures done.

We have been quite worried and concerned for her so if you could send good thoughts, prayers, karma, etc... her way it would be very much appreciated.

Gretchen was a bit shook up by all the commotion of the paramedics working on my Mom and taking her away in the big noisy rig, but she is being comforted and soothed by her Pa bean and actually they are a comfort to each other as he was shook up by this event.

I will continue to post updates about my Mom on my blog and also if anyone wants to send her a card you can also email me through my blog.

Cats on Tuesday: Neighborhood Nightlife: Episode 6

2008-01-15T00:18:00.000-08:00

Cats on Tuesday is hosted by Gattina.

Neighborhood Nightlife is the continuing ruminations of Necco, an apartment cat whose only contact with the feline race is through the open windows at midnight, while her guardians sleep.

Episode 6: The Mystery Lights

The sun's warm, yellow rays finally tipped over the tops of the trees, bringing Necco back awake. It took a few minutes for her mind to focus. It was dawn, the nightmare was over. Had it really happened? Necco yawned, stretched and shuddered, a flurry of cat hair rained down from the windowsill onto the carpet.

Still sitting in the windowsill where Necco had waited for the low slung sun to break over the easterly line of trees around the village, she delicately washed her face by carefully licking a paw, dragging it across an eye then down the bridge of her nose. Shifting paws, she licked the other one and repeated the process. All was quiet in the neighborhood now.

It had all started around midnight, the usual time for Thorny to visit his feline friends in the apartments at Rainbow Estates Senior's Village. Necco was usually always the first to jump onto her windowsill, her human guardians having opened the window a crack to let in some fresh, cool night air for sleeping. December was always a rainy month in the moderately cool northwest. This year it seemed even more so. Colder, too. Sometimes, so cold that the sliding glass windows could not be opened more than just a tiny sliver.

Because of the heavy wet winter clouds, Necco had missed seeing the stars and the cycle of the moon's phase for the whole month of December. As fantastic, mysterious, and exciting as December had been for the village, with all its bright, twinkling lights decorating each leaf-barren tree along every walkway and entryway, windows filled with decorations, often a small Christmas tree twinkling in front of the large plate glass windows of living rooms around the village, nothing was as fantastic as the lights Necco and her friends had witnessed for the past few hours. The red, green, gold, and blue of the Christmas lights, winking and blinking and bringing wonder and amazement to Necco's wide, curious eyes, could not be compared to the glowing, red, green, and gold-white lights that seemed to hover over her building, spreading terror and awe into all who witnessed them.

At midnight her guardians had drifted into a sleep that locked out the world around them. The man and woman in Necco's life seemed to be able to sleep through anything and had slept soundly through this event as well. Her friend, Frog, was the first to spot the lights above them. Easterly, more to the south, they twinkled and blinked. Just distant curiosities. Then, after first having gotten the latest gossip from Sissy, the white Persian that lived in the first apartment on the corner, Thorny arrived for his usual visit.

The night had been clear, cloudless for the first time in nearly forty-days. The air, though damp from the constant rains, was cold and crisp. Only the largest of the stars twinkled brightest through the bare tree branches above the competing village lights. The moon's first quarter phase having just set over the southwestern horizon, an hour before midnight, left the clear skies in inky darkness. Thorny sat on the hood of a tenant's frost-covered car, alternately shifting his massive body from one paw to the other in an effort to keep his pads from sticking to the frozen metal. With puffs of frozen breath he gave a report on the events of his day and the latest gossip of the village. But, Frog's attention was on the mysterious lights looming larger.

"Frog," Thorny asked, abruptly stopping his gossiping and turning to look at the spot of space that had so captured his friend's attention, "what is so interesting up there? You've been staring off into space the whole time I've been talking and…what in the world?" Thorny had noticed the lights blinking on and off; red, green, and gold-white. They were not moving the way an airplane or a helicopter would. There was a country airport nearby where small planes often landed in the darkness. Sometimes helicopters would buzz overhead late at night, too, often scanning the earth with their large, bright-white search lights, helping the cops chase down a crook, no doubt. So seeing red, green and gold-white lights in the skies around the village were not unusual at all.

Markus looked up at the same time as Thorny. Necco was next to spot the lights growing in size. She shifted her feet uncomfortably on the wooden windowsill, fidgeting nervously, her paws sweating as she remembered thinking only last month how the new cats above Frog, the polydactyl sisters, were somehow alien to this world and had come in disguise to overthrow the earth's human population and replace them with cats who had opposable thumbs. At the time, she had dismissed that ridiculous idea after contemplating on her own oddity, the single rapier on the side of her right front paw. Could it be true after all? Were aliens really coming?

Her male guardian was a huge, huge fan of science fiction movies and TV programs. He watched them over and over and over until Necco, who'd often be sleeping in his ultra warm lap, would get so bored with them, she'd move to the other room to finish her nap on the bed, even if it meant sleeping on a cold comforter. Flashing endlessly across the large, wide TV screen she'd seen strange lights in the sky that would grow brighter and brighter as they hovered over a house or a person, then, suddenly—poof—they'd be gone in a flash, the alien spacecraft disappearing into the blackness with them. Sometimes the shows her male guardian watched seem so real that she often dreamt about them. Maybe that's where she got the idea in her head about the two polydactyl's being aliens. Too much sci-fi.

To be sure she wasn't dreaming now, she leapt from the windowsill, bounced once in the middle of the sleeping couple, bounded down the hall and leapt onto the living room windowsill. The outdoor village lights spaced about the landscape produced too much light for her to see anything in the black sky but the brightest of stars. To further take her mind off such ridiculous notions of alien ships coming to the village, she decided to have a bite to eat. As she purposely stood over her bowl of kibble, crunching nervously on a tiny, fish-flavored morsel of goodness, her ears perked backwards, towards the open window in the bedroom. She heard the faint gasp of her friends and rushed back to the windowsill, expecting to see a spaceship landing in the parking lot, flooding the air with blinding light while scooping the cats from their windowsills—sucking them up into its giant mouth and disappearing with them forever.

Was Necco a coward? Was she going to shrink from disaster while her friend's lives were in peril? What could she do, really? She was locked behind a heavy, double-paned, glass window, only open to the outside world by an inch. Barely room enough to slip a paw through the crack. And then what? What could she do to help save mankind—catkind, from the evil forces that filled the skies above them right at that moment?

Imagination gone astray is a terrible thing to a cat. Cats are grounded creatures. Sure of foot, sound of mind. Balanced. Sensible. Sane. Aren't they? They knew the order in which the earth rotated. East to West. Didn't it? Necco wasn't sure anymore. Many times she had let her imagination run wild and ended up feeling remorse for her thoughts, for recently accusing Sissy—Miss Prissy Prudence—of being a snob, stuck up…for accusing the web-footed polydactyl sisters with the extra toes of being aliens…

In the silent darkness, the red, green, and gold-white lights blurred into one massive, spinning display. Suddenly, as Necco had feared, an enormous round shape overshadowed the parking lot, the village, and the trees around them. One by one the round globes of the village blinked out. The stars seemed to disintegrate. Then she saw it. Just like on the TV screen, a hot, bright-white light shot out of the mouth of the beast as it hovered over them, over Thorny, and suddenly…poof! Thorny was gone. It was too much for little Necco's heart to bear. She tore at the window, pawed desperately through the one inch crack at the screen. The great light that sucked Thorny up into its belly now searched the windows for the others. Necco watched in horror as Frog was torn from his windowsill, siphoned through the small opening of his window like liquid sucked up through a straw. Markus was next. Then polydactyl sisters were drawn into the beast belly like the others. Everything happened so fast, not a single yowl had escaped from anyone's lips.

Her mournful yowls, however, could have wakened the dead; it should have wakened her guardians. Wails of terror spewed from her throat. Hot, lava-like tears fled from her eyes…there was nothing she could do. Her guardians seemed frozen in place—why wouldn't they wake up. It was too much to bear—she bounded from the windowsill, and back again, then back to the bed where she pounced, pawed, and nipped at the cold, stiff humans lying in the bed. "Wake up!" She screamed as she tore at their covers, "The aliens are sucking up my friends! Wake up!"

"Necco?" The voice was distant, alien.

Oh no, I've been sucked up into the beast as well.

"Necco?"

A bright-white light was shoved into her eyes, making it hard for her to focus on the strange being at the other end of the light wand. She suddenly became aware that she was on a metal table, strapped down. Tubes and probes hung from every orifice. "They got me," she screamed with silent despair. "They got us all!"

The light darkened and the voices resumed. She could hear the metallic clinking of surgical instruments and muted voices laughing in the distance. Laughing at her? How terrible. It is one thing to be abducted by aliens and quite another for them to be laughing at her! How rude.

"Necco, sweetie…it's time to wake up, little one. It's all over."

Oh no, that voice. The aliens have my female human, too?

The veterinary assistant lifted the multi-colored cat up off the table and placed the drowsy feline back into her guardian's arms. "She's going to be a bit out of it for awhile, a slight hangover effect…like too much catnip. We only gave her a small sedative to clean her teeth. You can take her home now."

I'm Still on The Planet

2008-01-09T23:49:00.000-08:00

I love taking pictures at night. I stepped outside after it had quit raining for a few minutes to mail a letter and couldn't resist trying to capture the jewel-like raindrops on my tree. Naturally, they don't show up the way I saw them. But all the trees just sparkled in the outdoor lights.

I appologize for not being around for so long. I didn't realize it had been nine days since I'd last posted something. I had good intentions, just really busy. I had been working on getting a submission packet ready to mail for Scrungy: Abandoned. It got put in the mail today. Now I wait. Actually, I'll be pretty occupied with other writing while I wait. So I've crossed my toes in hopes that someone at the publishing house will be thoughful enough to send me a rejection slip. I'm far below my quota. I plan to fill a wall with them.

I had intended to get a cat story written also, but Tuesday has come and gone and I have not even started one. So next week.

I'll be back.

Cats on Tuesday: Gretchen Tells A Story

2007-12-31T22:13:00.000-08:00

Cats on Tuesday is hosted by Gattina. For more cat antics go here.

The Christmas Tree Skirt
as told by Gretchen the Cat

This is the third year I've gotten to spend Christmas sleeping on my favorite bit of cloth. In the human world it is called a quilt, and in this particular case, the bit of cloth that I love so much, and only see for about a month in the dead of winter each year, is called a Christmas tree skirt.

The simple, but colorful bit of cloth that is tied around the base of the tree each year has a story that I'd like to tell. My human being (or my Mom Bean in my world) has told this story to many visitors, and reminisces about it with her daughters, and husband, each year, so I pretty much know it by heart and would like to share it with you.

Today is what the human world calls New Year's Day. A day, when typically, my mom bean removes the bright, red and green decorations and the tree that has been so brightly lit for several weeks, and places all of these things back into old cardboard boxes, then removes them from the house. I will not see these things again for eleven long months. I don't even know where they are taken. But every year they disappear, only to reappear again when it's time for Christmas.

Everyone I know, so far in my life's journey, makes such a fuss over Christmastime. Not only do those, mmmm…smell so good boxes, come back inside the house and release their familiar scents, but the humans in particular, seem so busy. So bothered by shopping and wrapping and baking and visiting and cards getting mailed on time. It's an exciting time for everyone, including me. Boxes come in the mail with more strange scents to explore; envelopes containing pretty cards come every day, too. Once they are ooed and awed over, my bean hangs them on a red or green string for all to enjoy. I must admit that their sparkly, bright, red and green, gold and silver colors do add to the festivity and excitement of the month.

But given all that fuss and commotion, there was a time long ago when my favorite bit of cloth was transformed into the all important Christmas tree skirt. Today, I watched as my mom bean picked it up, shook out the pine needles (even artificial pine trees seem to shed their needles), folded it and set it aside while she gathered up the rest of the pretty Christmas things, wrapping them in bits of tissue, and putting them carefully back into those boxes. I put my paw upon my folded bit of cloth, breathed in one last long sniff, and then said goodbye to it one final time, before it disappeared to that place I don't get to see.

My bean said that even though they've had some meager Christmases since then, there was none so remembered in the hearts of her family as the one that this tree skirt was made for. It happened, I'm guessing, close to thirty years ago. Long, long, before I came into this world. My mom bean, pa bean, and all the kid beans, had just moved from a place called California to a place called Illinois. They had a really nice life in California and always had nice Christmases. But she never really had a pretty tree skirt to put underneath the trees over the years. I think she said they either used a large white sheet or fluffy cotton batting under the tree to look like snow. I've never seen anything but my bit of cloth, so I couldn't really tell you for sure what it was they used or why they even wanted it to look like snow.

Anyway, this one particular Christmas where my fond bit of cloth was transformed into a tree skirt, was the poorest Christmas my bean family said they'd ever had. They had no extra money for a tree, or presents…not even wrapping paper and ribbon.

So one day my mom bean had an idea. She told pa bean to go hunting in the woods with a saw. Now, if they had lived in another state, perhaps, they could have gone out into the countryside and cut down a traditional Christmas tree. Where they lived that particular December there was no such place to cut a free pine tree. So mom bean suggested that pa bean go out into the countryside somewhere, and search the woods for a deciduous tree (the kind that lose their leaves in the fall each year), that was shaped most like a Christmas tree, cut it down and bring it home.

In the basement mom bean had found a bucket of white house paint. In the garage, pa bean had emptied a bunch of junk out of a five gallon bucket and filled it with rocks. When mom bean had painted every branch white and it had dried, they brought it inside and set up in front of the large windows of the living room. She then taught the girls how to make ornaments for the tree. Some they had from other Christmases, but this tree was much larger than any they'd decorated before, and with no pine needles, there were lots and lots of spaces to fill. She said they didn't even put any lights on the tree, either. Anyway, the tree soon bloomed with ornaments, and garlands of popcorn, and even without lights, she said it was the prettiest Christmas tree they'd ever had.

Now, for the tree skirt part. Mom bean said she was a scrap saver. She had moved a lot in her life and the one thing, beside the kid beans, that she made sure traveled with them, was her box of fabric scraps. The girl beans were old enough that year to sew and from her scrap box they made all their gifts for their family…that included grandpa and grandma beans as well as auntie and uncle and cousin beans. Everybody had a handmade gift that year. And every gift was wrapped in tissue paper, too, my most favorite kind of wrapping paper.

Somehow, there was no white fabric, no cotton batting, not even a white sheet, large enough to be used as a skirt for the tree. All she had left, after the girls had made all their gifts, were small bits fabric, nothing large enough at all for a tree skirt. She was in a hurry to come up with something. Pa bean had just brought home some brand-new, clean, large pieces of thin, white cloth that he'd used at the machine shop where he worked. She confiscated them and turned them into a circle of cloth. With the bits of red and green scraps she cut out trees, candy canes, and a pair of bells that she appliquéd onto the white circle. She sewed a bit of red edging around the top to make a tie. One last thing she did before placing it under the magic white tree was to embroidery the year, 1980, and the address where they had lived.

The following Christmas things returned to normal. They had a live, spruce tree that year and many store bought gifts and wrapping paper. Mom bean worked for a fabric store that year, too, and instead of just buying a new, fancy tree skirt, she brought home some red Christmas print fabric for the backing of the white circle, and some red and green trim with red and green fuzzy balls.

She remade the little tree skirt and filled it with some fluffy stuff to make it poofy. She then quilted around the appliqués she had sewn on the year before. It looked pretty. She said it was a reminder to all the family that the poorest Christmas they'd ever had, was also the best Christmas they'd ever had. The very last thing she did to the newly, redesigned tree skirt that year was embroider the date, 1981 and the new address where they were living.

Each year after that, the same little tree skirt had been unpacked from the Christmas boxes, a new date and addressed added, and then placed under the tree, until the last kid bean had grown up and left home. Mom bean said that many times she wanted to buy a store bought tree skirt of velvet and lace, all fancy and new. But each time she opens the Christmas boxes she changes her mind and puts the old one under the tree.

It is a family jewel now. A treasure of Christmases past. The white tree, the bits of cloth, the additions of backing, and quilting a year later, and all the addresses that they'd spent their Christmas at: it's too priceless to toss aside, now. For that I'm happy. For me, it's been the best part of all the fuss and muss of Christmas, and since my very first Christmas here, I've claimed a corner of it as it was spread beneath the tree. It's now my bit of cloth, my tree blanket, and even though it's been washed a few times, it still carries all of the smells of love and happiness past.

Happy New Year Everybody!

Mike's Belated Adventure to Sweden--with Yoggie

2007-12-25T23:37:00.000-08:00

This Cats on Tuesday is sort of a few hours late getting posted. I'll blame it on the holiday...

For more fun stories and pictures about cats and their antics...visit Cats on Tuesday host...Gattina

Mike the Mysterious aka Mike the World Traveler

Episode 4: Visit to Sweden

Mike here:

Well, this is Christmas Day and I've commandeered my caretaker's computer to write about my visit to Skane, Sweden that took place over a month ago. I left Oregon with plenty of things in my luggage to keep me warm. I even took along my blue blanket. Visiting British Columbia, Canada, didn't prepare me for how cold it really was in Sweden. Thank goodness I decided to just go cyberspace all the way there and back. I mean I enjoyed my plane ride experience to Taiwan and all, but once I got to Yoggie's place I was glad I was spared the airport business and the cold blustery winds off the sea. So, on November 19th, I left my warm apartment and popped into Yoggie's warm house. If it hadn't have been for Yoggie's hanging bed on his radiator, I'd still be cold.

Now, I know what you're going to say, that a fluffhead like me wouldn't know hot from cold. But like I've said before, I'm magical and mysterious, even a little bit mischievous, and I experience hot and cold just like any other creature. So, I no sooner said hello to Yoggie than I opened up my suitcase and put on all my warm things. I must admit, I should have told Gretchen's bean to pack mittens and booties, but I didn't think about those things until after I got there.

Yoggie let me wrap up in my blue blanket on his cute, hanging bed. It was this big, soft, furry like hammock. Yellow with huge black paw prints all over it. I mean his hanging bed was huge. There was more than enough room for both of us to sleep in it at the same time. Yoggie's not a half-pint either. He's a big fellow, Gretchen. Pictures don't do him justice. Not only is he a huge mancat, but he's a lot more handsome in person. We also hung out on the bean's bed a lot, too.

For those of you that don't know, already. Yoggie, and my furry sister, Gretchen, are sweethearts. I'm not kidding! They really do love each other. They've never met outside of the blogosphere, but they write notes to each other all the time. Yoggie is a romantic Cat poet. He can write the neatest stuff. He gets all goofy looking in the eyes, when he talks about Gretchen. Now that I've actually met Yoggie, and spent some time with him, in my opinion, Gretchen has got nothing to worry about. He's a real prince o f a mancat…she actually calls him her Prince and he calls her is Pearl. They've got some serious feelings for each other. He even asked her to marry him a few months back. Poor Yoggie, Gretchen had to turn his proposal down…for the moment, anyway. While I had the opportunity, I explained things a little better to Yoggie. Gretchen is so young, and so shy, and had just started meeting other cats on the web, that his proposal kinda of scared her a little. She just needs more time, I told him, and he seemed to understand that; at least to say, he was cool with it, for now.

The land that Yoggie lives in is very far north and is pretty flat, at least the part that I saw. He lives very close to the sea and he blogged about it a few months back. I would have loved to have shown you all the pictures he posted of the Swedish countryside, but they were pretty small and I'd forgotten to ask his permission before I started writing this. So here is the link if you want to see where he lives ... go here...You'd be amazed, honest!

Yoggie said that Sweden is a virtual paradise for cats—almost everybody in his country has a cat or two. There are at least nine million humans and over a million, point three, cats. Heh, the woofies are in the minority at only seven hundred thirty thousand something. Honest! That's what he said. He should know, he lives there. But to be honest, how do humans know for sure how many cats and woofies there really are? Surprisingly enough, he said they don't have any rabies, either.

Yoggie lives at the very southern tip of Sweden, and if you go way up north, there are real live reindeers and wolves and brown bears and a whole bunch of Swedish dogs. Heh, all the woofies live in the north with the bears, and all the cats live in the south with the humans. Pretty good arrangement, I'd say. Oh, and I forgot to mention, lots of friendly Moose live in the south, too.

If you like fish, this is the place to be. Cats are well fed here. Somehow, even the cats here like the cold…and I'm talking, minus a bunch of degrees, cold. And dark? Wow, only mid-November and it's darker longer than it is back in Oregon. I don't know how they do it. I know Yoggie and I did sleep a lot of the time. I guess what I'm saying is, not only bears hibernate. I was seriously thinking hibernation was really good idea. Yoggie told me the summers make up for the long, dark winters though; they get the midnight sun up there.

Yoggie has this magical little friend, too. His name is Jingle Bells. He's really called a squillion—a cute little ceramic cat with a tiny bell hanging around his neck. He gave me a tour of the library. Floor to ceiling bookcases filled with books. Gretchen's bean would be so jealous for all that space for books. And, lo and behold, if there wasn't a green fluffhead bookworm hanging out on the bookshelf. He claims he's read almost every book on the shelf, already.

It was only the middle of November and Yoggie's beans had put up their little Swedish Christmas tree just for me to enjoy while I was there. We didn't tell anyone that I actually climbed the Christmas tree. I didn't hurt any of those cute, little Swedish ornaments, honest! We had a lot of fun running around the house. We didn't go outside or anything like that…too bloody cold to go out into the garden, but he showed me lots of pictures of the birds and other creatures that he'd seen.

On my last night in Sweden, Yoggie threw a surprise party for me. Imagine, me getting a surprise party. Wow, I was so overcome with emotion. He invited all his friends and we had fun all the long night long. I had been wrapped up tight, in my blue blanket, snoozing away on a green pillow when the Christmas Mice from Norway came in and shouted, SURPRISE!

A special fluffhead Moose had also come all the way from the Swedish forest just to see me. We became good friends. We've both got fluff for brains, but he's got something magical, like me, going on up there in between those antlers, if you know what I mean. I got along famously with Yoggie and his little friends. I truly had a good time.

Soon it was time for our interview and then I had to pack and get ready to leave. I hated to say goodbye to any of them, but my week was up and I had to get back home. So, on Tuesday, November 27th, at six in the morning, I put all my stuff back into my suitcase, zipped it up and said goodbye.

And now for my interview with Yoggie:

Mike: How long have you lived with your bean(s)?

Yoggie: I live together with them since February 2006.

Mike: Do you have a favorite bean?

Yoggie: I love them both! My female human is at home more often and we snuggle up to each other a lot. My male human is great for playing!

Mike: What's your favorite food?

Yoggie: FISH!

Mike: What's your favorite treat?

Yoggie: Vanilla ice cream or pudding.

Mike: Where do you like to sleep?

Yoggie: In my cat bed at the heater or on the bed of my humans or in my cat bed in the living room.

Mike: Do you dream? What are your dreams about?

Yoggie: FOOD! Gretchen.

Mike: Do you like fluffheads, you know, those crafty little creatures with fiberfill for brains?

Yoggie: Well, I like Mike! And toy mice!

Mike: How many fluffheads live with you and your bean?

Yoggie: It would take more than 9 lives to count them... About 200???

Mike: Do you get along with your fluffheads? Really?

Yoggie: I like to nibble on them…

Mike: Do you have a special fluffhead friend?

Yoggie: MIKE!

Mike: Do your fluffheads ever talk to you? Do they talk to your beans, you know, like I can transmit my thoughts to one special bean in my house?

Yoggie: Sometimes they talk to me and say that I should stop nibble around on them. They talk constantly to my female human. They are her friends. That's why they are everywhere in the house. She told me that she still have some (a LOT) of them in the apartment of her parents and that they (the fluffies) will come over to Sweden as soon as the baby is born.

Mike: You have a very nice place here; tell me about your weather and your surroundings, what is it like outside your house?

Yoggie: Around my house are just fields and fields and fields... But it's close to the Baltic Sea, too: only 7 km!! That's why it is so windy here. The wind always comes from the sea. It paints the sky orange at night and we have wonderful sunsets and sunrises here.

Mike: Are you an inside only cat or do you get to go outside?

Yoggie: I LOVE my garden!!!! I love to play around there and go hunting and practice my jump skills.

Mike: Do you keep secrets from your beans? Sometimes Gretchen and I conspire against her mom bean in the middle of the night. It really freaks her out. Do you do things like that?

Yoggie: I don't tell my humans how often I scratch my claws on the back of their living room chairs...They are still pretty new.

Mike: Have you been gifted with any hidden talents?

Yoggie: I am a talented jumper!

Mike: Is there anything in your house that bothers you? That you're afraid of?

Yoggie: Well, in the garden there is the striped cat. We have lots of catfights. Inside the house?? No, just loud noises I don't like.

Mike: Do you stalk and capture real live critters like mice, spiders and stuff? What kinds of critters do you stalk? Do you eat what you catch?

Yoggie: I have hunted birds, moths, rats, mice, butterflies, bees, flies, bugs, spiders. I ate everything of them but not the birds and rats. I just presented them to my humans.

Mike: Do you have siblings or housemates? Do you get along with them?

Yoggie: I have no housemates besides my humans. Siblings?? I can't remember…

Mike: Do you have a sweetheart?

Yoggie: YES!!! Gretchen!!!!

Mike: What is your most fun activity?

Yoggie: Playing with my male human.

Merry Christmas All

2007-12-23T19:27:00.000-08:00

Personalized Glitter Graphics

Cold Fuzzy Moon

2007-12-21T17:07:00.000-08:00

I steppted outside to take out the trash and couldn't resist taking a photo of the, not quite full, cold, fuzzy moon through the branches of my winter bare, Japanese Maple.

Mike's Adventures to Taipei, Taiwan: Part 2

2007-12-18T19:16:00.000-08:00

Mike's Adventure to Taiwan

Part Two:

Yesterday, I left you wondering what Adan and I were talking about, besides the pigeon sisters. We talked and laughed, snickered, and giggled over the first ten interview questions that I ask of my host. Interviews are fun and I learn a lot about my new friends. It took us all afternoon to finish, we had our supper, played with Michico, and then went off to bed. Michico suggested that we go to sleep early because she had a big day planed for me. Adan doesn't like to go outside, so it was perfectly alright with him if I spent time being a fluffhead tourist.

And what a crazy tour Tuesday was. Because it was a weekday, Michico couldn't take me to this next spot. So Michico's Grandpa took me to the tallest building in the world in 2007. It's called Taipei 101. He said that it is the tallest in the world right now, but next year it will not be. I guess that means that somewhere in the world there will be one taller than this one. Whew, I'm dizzy just thinking about it. The whole time I was standing on top of the world, 508M high, I was thinking about Gretchen. She doesn't like to leave the apartment either, but I wished she did, because sharing this wonderful, awesome sight with her would have made it all the more special. Michico's grandpa went out of his way to see that I had a very nice time. I was very happy touring with Grandpa and enjoyed our time together gazing out over all of Taipei.

Pretty soon it started getting dark and all the street lights were turning on. Taipei was so beautiful at night. Grandpa pointed to a green circle way across the city. He said that was Miramar Wheel and it was our next stop. I thought that high tower was something, but you should have seen this great, gigantic, super huge, Ferris wheel. It was all lit up with green florescence lights and our carriage went round and round, while the lights all over Taipei glittered and sparkled in the night. When we got to the top, the wind got so strong that it made my carriage shake. It was breathtaking. I wished for Gretchen to see what I was seeing, but now that I think about it, it would have scared her to death. I was even scared there for a minute, but, wow, what a ride! It was so interesting, too, because when my Ferris wheel carriage got to the top, I could see the Taipei 101 building.

I cannot tell you how utterly and completely worn out this rag bag, meaning me, was when I got back to Adan's apartment. I curled up next to Adan and went right to sleep.

Talk about a whirlwind tour. It took me all day on Wednesday to get over the spectacular sights I'd seen while touring with Grandpa. That night, Michico took me to a really special place where cats and people to hang out together. It was called Minimal Café. I was a very relaxing place. Michico told me that this was her favorite cat's café. She said that there were lots of café's like this one, but she liked this one best. It had a very unique atmosphere. The lights were turned down low so that the cats would feel calm and comfortable. She said the dark interior design let people go inside and feel peaceful. It was like a store for cats and the café's owner took care of many street cats that hang around this café. She worked very hard trying to care for all the stray and abandoned cats. Each cat in the café had its own life style. Everyone on the café's staff worked very hard to help momma cats give birth to their kitties, and help the sick ones get well by having charity bazaars and stuff to raise money for the veterinary bills. The café owner's philosophy was that cats give people joy, so the staff worked very hard to keep the cats safe.

I was introduced to the main café cat, a very beautiful, gentle cat, giving tender love and care to all the café's customers. She was very nice to me and showed me how very warm the coffee machine was. She said it was the best heater for cats.

We left the Minimal Café and went through the night market near there. So many stores and most of them had shop cats. A boutique, a hair salon. Wow, the whole city seemed to love cats a lot. It was pretty exciting to see all those furry little bodies hanging out and preening themselves in the shop windows.

Thursday, Adan and I spent our time playing and hanging out in front of his windows, taunting the pigeon sisters, and then we finished the rest of my interview questions.

Friday was the icing on the cake. We went to the Night Market in ShihLin. It's a fascinating place. Gobs and gobs of people, shops and food…lots of food, everywhere! Michico held on to me really tight. She was afraid I'd get lost in the crowds. Besides all the food shops, I also got to see the Night Market's temple. But the food—I couldn't stop eating. Michico kept bringing me things like fried chicken. She had to stand in line for a long time just to get me a juicy piece. I also had something called Pepper Pasty…that was very famous, too and also had long lines. And something else called Water Fry-fun. Dumplings, I think. But it was very, very tasty.

On Saturday, it was time for me to leave. I was very sad to say good bye to my new, friends. I had such a wonderful time in Taiwan. I saw so many wondrous things. I found out that I really liked being up high and looking out over the universe. Arion and Michico took me to the airport and told the people at the boarding gate that I they had to take very special care of me and make sure I was comfortable. I gave Michico and Arion huge hugs. I'd given Adan a huge hug, too, before I left him at his apartment.

I have to say I had no trouble at all with the flight, once the plane left the runway. I had my own seat by the window, next to an old, white-haired gentleman carrying a large teddy bear with a huge pink bow around its neck, home to his granddaughter in Oregon. Of course, I asked him if he knew my beans and Gretchen. But he shook his head and told me no, that Oregon was a big state and there were a lot of people in it—he didn't know everybody. But he was kind, had a soft soothing voice, and didn't seem to mind talking to a fluffhead at all. While I rested my weary, wiry, black head on his knee, he told me the story of his life. I think. I woke up when the plane was landing. I needed to find some cables in a hurry and get home to Gretchen and her mom bean. I found a telephone station and teleported the rest of the way home.

Taiwan was a wonderful experience. Adan is a great cat and friend. Michico is a warm and charming hostess. Anyone planning on visiting them will have the time of their life.

Part 3: Mike's Interview With Adan

2007-12-18T19:00:00.000-08:00

I saved Adan's interview for last. It was a great interview, even if there were too many questions.

Adan's Interview:

Mike: How long have you lived with your bean(s)?

Adan: 10 years. There are 3 beans taking care of me, one is Pamilla mommy, and Michico aunite, the author of my blog, and Toshie aunite. I live in Michico's room since I was 1 year old.

Mike: Do you have a favorite bean?

Adan: Wowww this is a sensitive one, hehehe. But I would dare to say, my favorite bean is Michico. I think it's because she taking care of my food and litter box every day, and I snuggle with her everyday (Can you see the smile in that picture? Yes, I am happy to be with Michico). But, my favorite body temperature is Pamilla's, because her body temperature is the hottest, but she dislike I snuggle with her in summer, she says it's too hot. And my favorite massage skill is Toshie aunite. I always could sleep very quickly after she massage my hand.

Mike: What's your favorite food?

Adan: Still ordinary cat-dry cookies, but right now sometimes Michico also cooks something for me, I love them very much as well.

Mike: What's your favorite treat?

Adan: Dry laver!!! Dry laver!!! Dry laver!!! Dry laver!!! Japanese Dry laver!!!

Mike: Where do you like to sleep?

Adan: I think the answer is obvious, I love sleeping on Michico's bed always~!

Mike: Do you dream? What are your dreams about?

Adan: I have dreamed in a warm world and everything is made of dry laver, and when I woke up, Michico already took the dry laver in front of my face. And I have dreamed seeing Pigeon sisters with Margaret. The others are not so clear. I forget my dreams after I woke up.

Mike: Do you like fluffheads, you know, those crafty little creatures with fiberfill for brains?

Adan: Oah...Gee... I can't tell if I like it or not? I even can make the difference about their head or tummy.... But to me, I believe your brain is not made of fiberfill, because you know traveling around the world, my fluffhead doesn't.

Mike: How many fluffheads live with you and your bean?

Adan: Well, Michico has many dolls, but no fluff ones, let me introduce you a fluffhead, it belongs to Toshie aunite, it's a sea otter. This sea otter is given by 3 sisters's mommy, for Toshie's gift. Toshie keeps it until now.

Mike: Do you get along with your fluffheads? Really?

Adan: I think I often sleep with Toshie's sea otter on the shelf. I used him as a pillow.

Mike: Do have a special fluffhead friend?

Adan: Actually no I don't have my own fluffheads , but I think Toshie's sea otter is my fluffhead friend, and so are Michico's dolls.

Mike: Do your fluffheads ever talk to you? Do they talk to your beans, you know, like I can transmit my thoughts to one special bean in my house?

Adan: Sometimes, the sea otter will fall from shelf to bed. I think he was talking to me he go to bed first. And same time talk to Michico, I made him falling again and again. He often transmit his thoughts to Michico that I always make him falling all the time. hehehehe~!!

Mike: You have a very nice place here; tell me about your weather and your surroundings, what is it like outside your house? (Mountains, seaside, desert, woods, etc.)

Adan : The features there are night market next to our house, so people eating things are easier and convenient, and there is a mountain next to ShihLin, so, it hold some monsoon, not easy to get rain. And let me show you the night market near my house, this is our surrounding.

Mike: Are you an inside only cat or do you get to go outside?

Adan: I am an inside cat, I am afraid of going outside.

Mike: Do you keep secrets from your beans? Sometimes Gretchen and I conspire against her mom bean in the middle of the night. It really freaks her out. Do you do things like that?

Adan: There are not many things I can keep secrets, but I try. Sometimes I do something interesting, like I love stay in front of bathroom's door while Michico or Pamilla mommy is taking bath. After they open the door and seeing me they will surprised, or shock, that will make me happy.

Mike: Have you been gifted with any hidden talents?

Adan: I think I have telepathy. Hehehehehe~!

Mike: Is there anything in your house that bothers you? That you're afraid of?

Adan: Oah, Yes. I like to open every drawer in my house and adventure, it really bothers me that I can't get inside every drawer. But I am afraid of when I get in, Pamilla and Michico will displease~! There are some places I am not allowed to go.

Mike: Do you stalk and capture real live critters like mice, spiders and stuff? What kinds of critters do you stalk? Do you eat what you catch?

Adan: Well, I catch some bugs, yes. But there are no mice in my house, a little few spiders and tiny one, if Michico didn't see bugs before me, I usually catch them for fun.

Mike: Do you have siblings or housemates? Do you get along with them?

Adan: Right now, I am an only cat, but I have a turtle - ASHIRA.

Mike: Do you have a sweetheart?

Adan: My Pigeon sister? Noooooo, it's my Pamilla Mommy, Toshie Auntie and Michico~!

Mike: What is your most fun activity?

Adan: Playing Toys for sure~!!!

Mike: Adan and Michico, thanks for your invite this time, I am really, really happy. This trip and interview is now finished.

Adan: We are also glad you can be here~! Next time you may come again, there are more places you haven't been there~!

The End

Next Tuesday I will tell you about my trip to Sweden. It is so cold there that I had to pack special things in my luggage to keep extra warm.

Mike the Mysterious Is Back...

2007-12-17T22:30:00.000-08:00

Cats on Tuesday...for more cats in this group visit Gattina, here:

Mike the Mysteriuos, aka, World Traveler, is back home for the holidays and is catching up on his travel log...this is part one of two on his visit to Taiwan.

Mike the Mysterious: World Traveler:

Visit to Taiwan
Part One:

Mike here:

It's time to get back to my travel log and tell you all about my visit to Taipei, Taiwan, and with my host Adan and Michico.

I left on November 10th, yeah, you're right, that's been over a month ago. But right after I got back from there, I zipped off to Sweden to visit Yoggie. While I was in Sweden my human caretaker, and my live, furry companion, Gretchen, were having a few crises to deal with at home. So, I apologize to my gracious host Michico, and my new live, furry friend, Adan, for taking so long to write my story and tell everyone about all the fun things I did while I was visiting them.

First off, I teleported up to Portland PDX, caught a flight on an airplane with humans, and crossed the ocean to Taipei. They let me sit up front in the First Class section next to this little girl with long red braids. She was scared to fly and the flight attendant let her hold me on her lap the whole way. Of course, I'm sure everyone thought it kind of strange that I walked into the airport on my own, waited at the gate with all the other passengers, and then boarded the flight right behind the little girl. Humans are strange. They must have thought that I was some kind or battery operated toy, walking around the way I did. No one picked me up, or even asked me any security questions. I guess having my passport strung around my neck helped. But after crossing the ocean on that big jet liner, in the care of that sweet little redheaded girl, I think people came to think that I was just the girl's toy and never gave me another thought.

It was a really long flight, too. We seemed to fly all night long. I got to gaze out the window, the little girl had a window seat, and I saw all the stars in the universe. What a sight that was. Not every fluffhead, mysterious or not, gets a chance like that. The little girl and I had a great time watching a movie on the back of the seat in front us. I couldn't hear what was being said because the little girl had the headphones on her head. That's okay, though, she had no way of knowing that I was a special kind of fluffhead and would have been interested in hearing the movie, too.

The big jet thundered across the sky and landed with a little jerk on the runway. It sounded like a million lions all hollering at the same time, and if I fly again, I'm going to ask my caretaker for ear muffs or something. Because I'm so magical, my ears are pretty sensitive to sound. More so than the ordinary cat. Anyway, I could see this little island far off and it didn't look like it was going to be big enough to land that huge plane on. But to my surprise, it landed just fine, and when I got off the plane, via the arms of the little red headed girl, I could see that Taiwan was a big place and had lots of room for airplanes.

I recognized Michico right away and jumped down from the little girls arms and raced across the huge airport. Michico recognized me right away, too, and we wasted no time in finding a seat on the bus, and then the train that took us to Taipei, the capital of Taiwan. We boarded Taipei's Metro to Jiantan Station where Michico lives with Adan in ShilLin. Jiantan Station is very beautiful and very busy.

Michico spoke English to me, but she could have spoken in her native language, I understood her every word, because I'm so mysterious, and all. She took me into her apartment high up and I could look out over the city around us. Wow, what a view that was!

Adan greeted me right away and we got along famously for the whole visit. I was pretty tired when I first arrived, even for a magical fluffhead, and I took a long nap with Adan on his blanket. Teleporting over there would have been a lot faster and less tiring, but I was a little afraid that I'd drop out of cyberspace over that vast, cold ocean, and no one but the sharks, would have known it. So I'm really glad that I took a human conveyance with wings.

The next day, Adan woke everyone up very early, wanting his breakfast, and as he usually did, he went right back to sleep as soon as he ate. Michico had a great many things for her and me to do, so we told Adan, we'd see him in the evening. Adan seemed to be okay with that. He wanted me to hang around and see his pigeon sisters, but he agreed there'd be plenty of time for that later. So Arion (that's Michico's cute boyfriend) came by and took Michico and me to see a Film Festival. There were three films. We saw two of them…Asiemut, about a couple that went on their first cycling expedition, 8000 kilometers across Asia. Discovering the world and themselves at the same time. The next one, Mountain without Barriers, was about two blind men and a man with no legs that tackled a 100 foot rock tower in Italy, wow, now that was something! Michico said it "really rock my heart!" She talks so cute.

The best part came after the Banff Film Festival. We stopped to eat Haagen-Dazs ice cream. I got to talk a lot with Arion. He's a very sweet young man, just perfect for Michico. And Adan sure likes him, too. I can tell. I slurped up all the strawberry ice cream I could while I had the chance. Yes, I do eat some things…

When we got back to the apartment, Adan greeted me, happy to hear about my day with Arion and Michico. He could tell I'd had strawberry ice cream and licked the leftovers off my wiry fur. I told him all about the movies and how much fun and exciting being out in the world was with a whole lot of people around.

Oh, wow, was Adan in for a surprise on Sunday. I'm sure glad I got to go with Adan. Michico brought out the red carrying bag and Adan knew right away where they were going…to the VET! Yikes, I'm sure glad I'm made of fiberfill. Being a fluffhead, and magical, to boot, sure has its advantages. Adan didn't want to go anywhere in that red bag. He ran into the bedroom and hid under the covers. Auntie Pamilla was there and she pushed Adan into the bag, while Michico quickly zipped it shut. He was almost too strong for those two girls.

Michico showed me around the VET's office. I have never been to an animal doctor before and it was filled with a lot of sick pets. The doctor introduced me to this beautiful cat named MOMO. She belonged to the veterinarian.

Adan was taken out of the red bag and sat down on a cold, metal table. I sat right beside him and I could feel his anguish. He didn't like that hard old table, and frankly, neither did I. I felt sorry for all the poor cats, and other pets that have to sit their bare, little butts on that cold, metal. Then Adan had to have his temperature taken…the hard way. He was so embarrassed that I was there to witness that probe being projected into a particular sensitive part of his anatomy. All I could do was tell him to hang on, it'd be over with in a second. His temperature was perfect and next he got a shot—I guess for good health to come. Michico was taking pictures of the whole experience, heaping more embarrassment on poor Adan.

As soon as he got his shot, Auntie Pamilla, who was giving him words of encouragement, also, helped him relax a little and he let Michico take his picture with the doctor. After he got weighed, 4.67kg, Adan quickly jumped back into the red bag and eagerly waited for someone to zip it up so he could go home. He was very happy to be home again, and we just hung out on his bed, resting up from his ordeal.

On Monday, we sat in front of Adan's huge windows and watched his pigeon sisters fly around. He told me that one particular pigeon sister flies to the sixth floor air conditioning unit on the building across from his, everyday.

We also watched the busses go up and down the street way down below us; way, way down below. It's really cool to be so high up. Everything on the street below looked so tiny…and so busy. After we were tired of watching pigeons and busses, we decided that it was good time to start the interview. Adan told me that he thought the interview questions were really too long, so we only worked on the first ten questions.

Speaking of a long interview, I've decided that my travel log is a bit long at this point, for one post, so I hope you will come back tomorrow, and I'll finish telling you the rest of my adventures in Taiwan.

Your friend, Mike, the World Traveler

Belated Birthday Song

2007-12-17T13:12:00.000-08:00

Happy Birthday again, dear Daughter

...here's your song...

And Santa Whispered:

2007-12-16T14:35:00.000-08:00

"Teach the children the true meaning of Christmas"

The Star: A heavenly sign of prophecy fulfilled long, long, ages ago, ~~The shining hope of mankind.

Red: The first color of Chirstmas symbloizing the Savior's sacrifice for all.

Fir Tree: Evergreen~~The second color of Christmas shows everlasting life. The needles point heavenward.

The Bell: Rings out to guide lost sheep back to the fold~~Signifying that all are precious in the eyes of the Lord.

The Candle: A mirror of starlight reflecting our thanks for the Star of Bethlehem.

Gift Bow: Tied as we should all be be tied together in bonds of goodwill forever.

Candy Cane: The shepherd's crook used to bring lambs back into the fold~~A reminder that we are our brother's keeper.

The Wreath: A symbol of the never ending eternal nature of love...having no beginning and no end.

Hey, Thomma Lyn....Happy Birthday to YOU!!!

2007-12-14T00:00:00.000-08:00

Which Historical Lunatic Are You?

2007-12-12T19:11:00.000-08:00

Which Historical Lunatic Are You?
From the fecund loins of Rum and Monkey.

Which Historical Lunatic Are You?

You are Charles VI of France, also known as Charles the Mad or Charles the Well-Beloved!
A fine, amiable and dreamy young man, skilled in horsemanship and archery, you were also from a long line of dribbling madmen. King at 12 and quickly married to your sweetheart, Bavarian Princess Isabeau, you enjoyed many happy months together before either of you could speak anything of the other's language. However, after illness you became a tad unstable. When a raving lunatic ran up to your entourage spouting an incoherent prophecy of doom, you were unsettled enough to slaughter four of your best men when a page dropped a lance. Your hair and nails fell out. At a royal masquerade, you and your courtiers dressed as wild men, ending in tragedy when four of them accidentally caught fire and burned to death. You were saved by the timely intervention of the Duchess of Berry's underskirts.

This brought on another bout of sickness, which surgeons countered by drilling holes in your skull. The following months saw you suffer an exorcism, beg your friends to kill you, go into hyperactive fits of gaiety, run through your rooms to the point of exhaustion, hide from imaginary assassins, claim your name was Georges, deny that you were King and fail to recognise your family. You smashed furniture and wet yourself at regular intervals. Passing briefly into erratic genius, you believed yourself to be made of glass and demanded iron rods in your attire to prevent you breaking.

In 1405 you stopped bathing, shaving or changing your clothes. This went on until several men were hired to blacken their faces, hide, jump out and shout "boo!", upon which you resumed basic hygiene. Despite this, your wife continued sleeping with you until 1407, when she hired a young beauty, Odette de Champdivers, to take her place. Isabeau then consoled herself, as it were, with your brother. Her lovers followed thick and fast while you became a pawn of your court, until you had her latest beau strangled and drowned.

A severe fever was fended off with oranges and pomegranates in vast quantities, but you succumbed again in 1422 and died. Your disease was most likely hereditary. Unfortunately, you had anywhere up to eleven children, who variously went on to develop capriciousness, great cruelty, insecurity, paranoia, revulsion towards food and, in one case, a phobia of bridges.

It's Beginning to Look Like Christmas

2007-12-09T16:47:00.001-08:00

I was cleaning out a catchall closet the other day and came across this little story. I picked it up from someone along my travels in life and now I don't remember who, when or where I found this, but I thought of passing it along for anyone who might want to use it as part of their Christmas.

The Three Trees

Far away on a hillside grew a forest of trees, little and big, old and young, tall and small. They loved the warm sunlight of summer, spring's cool slivery rains,, the gorgeous reds and gold's of autumn, and winter's blanket of glistening snow. Sometimes, too, they spoke of the future, of things they would like to do and be when they grew up. In the forest there was a mother tree, and her three children.

One of the trees said, "You know, I should like to be a baby's cradle. I have seen people come into this forest carrying babies in their arms. I think a baby is the sweetest thing I have ever seen, and I should like to be made into a baby's bed.

A second tree spoke, "That would not please me at all. I want to be something important. I should like to be a great ship, strong and stately. I should like to cross many waters and carry cargoes of gold."

The third little tree stood off by himself, apparently in deep reflection, but he did not speak. "What would you like to be? Asked the mother tree. "Have you no dream for the future?"

"No dream," he answered, "except to stay on this hillside and point men to God. What could a tree do better than that?"

Mother tree looked at him fondly. "What indeed?" she said.

Years passed and the three little trees grew up to be beautiful, tall trees. One day men came to the forest and cut down the first little tree. "I wonder whether I shall be made into a baby's cradle now. I hope so. I have waited so long," he whispered. But, the little tree was not made into a cradle. Instead it was cut into rough pieces and carelessly put together to form a manger in Bethlehem. He was heartbroken.

"I do not like this at all, "he wailed. "This is not what I planned to be – shoved into this dark stable with no one to see me but the cattle."

But God, who loves little trees, whispered, "Wait, and I' will show you something." And he did.

For there were in the same country, shepherds abiding in the fields, keeping watch over flocks by night. And lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shown round about them; and they were sore afraid. And the angel said to them, "Fear not; for, behold I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes lying in a manger." And it came to pass as the angels were gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds said one to another, "Let us go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us."

And they came with haste and found Mary and Joseph and the babe lying in a manger. In the stillness of the night God had laid there his own little baby, the Son of God. The manger quivered with delight. "Oh, this is wonderful," he whispered. "In all my dreams I never thought to hold a baby like this. This is better than all my planning. Why, I am part of a miracle." Out on the hillside, the trees of the forest clapped their hands because their brother, the little manger, had seen his wish come true.

Years passed by and men came to the forest to cut down the second tree. "I wonder whether I shall be made into a great ship now," this one thought. "I have waited so long. Now, perhaps I shall do great things of which I have dreamed." But the little tree did not do great things. He became a tiny fishing boat, owned by a simple fisherman named Peter. The little boat pondered while Peter washed his nets. "To think that my life has come to this," he said. "Just a fishing boat, and Peter is only a fisherman."

But God, who loves little trees, said, "Wait, and I will show you something." And he did.

Far out from the crowd came a person called Jesus, who entered the little boat and sat down and taught the people. He spoke words of such wisdom, beauty, and light that the multitude, and even the little boat, listened eagerly. When he had finished, he told Peter to launch out into the deep and let down his nets and when Peter brought up the nets there were so many fish that the net broke. The little boat trembled – as much with the weight of the fish as with the wonder in his heart. The little boat was so happy. "This is wonderful," he whispered. "In all my dreams I never thought to carry a cargo like this. Why, I am part of the miracle. Jesus came to earth to teach all people the way to live. This is better than all my planning."

And out on the hillside, all the trees of the forest clapped their hands because their brother, the little boat, had seen his wish come true.

Years went by and men came to the forest to cut down the third tree – the one that just wanted to stand on the hillside and point men to God. He was most unhappy as the axe cut into his heart. "I don't want to go from here," he thought. "Why couldn't they just leave me alone?" but the men did not leave the little tree alone. They tore away its branches. They cut into its bark, deeper and deeper, to make parchment. The little tree quivered through all its being. "This is terrible," he whispered. "Oh, I never wanted this to happen to me – I, who only wanted to point men to God. This is awful."

But God, who loves all little trees, said, "Wait, and I will show you something." And he did.

For one day, the parchment was given to a scribe to carefully copy a most sacred book. The little tree tingled with excitement as he felt the words burn deep inside him. They told of the Savior's life and love for all mankind. "This is wonderful," he whispered. "I am part of a miracle." Jesus great mission was written on the tender parchment for thousands then, and millions yet unborn, to read and learn of the greatest life of all. If they lived what they learned they would someday return to God and live with Him again. "In all my dreams, I never thought to point men to God in this way. This is better than all my planning.

At this Christmas time it is good for all of us to stop and think of that which Jesus has done for us. All of us are like the little trees. We are growing and learning and have a dream of what we would like to do someday. Like the little trees, we can each become part of this miracle. We can remember that Jesus, the son of God, was sent as a gift to each of us to teach us the way to live. We can study and learn the teachings of Jesus and keep his commandments and live as we should. Then, we too, can live again with Heavenly Father and Jesus and with our parents and family forever. This is the miracle of Christmas.

(author unknown to me)

Stormy Sunday

2007-12-02T16:22:00.001-08:00

My husband is home from the hospital. He's got major life changes to make in his diet. It was depressing yesterday, but today, he's taking the news better. No more eating out, eating dinner in a box, or out of a can....darn, that means I'll have to start cooking again. Dialysis is most likely his future. Things are quieting down and I'm getting more done.

We're keeping Mike home for the holidays. So maybe I'll get caught up on his adventures in December and be ready for him to travel again in January.

The End! YaY!

2007-11-30T20:38:00.000-08:00

Thank goodness the end of November has finally arrived. It started off bad and ended up even worse. It was not a very good month for writing. But I was committed; determined to finish.

On November 22nd, I completed the required 50,000 words for my NaNo Novel and became an official Winner on their site. Anyone making it to 50K is considereded a winner. I continued to write, however, until my story was finished. I had planned to end it tonight, the last day of the challenge and I did. 66,152 words, 20 chapters.

I was a different kind of story for me, something I had always wanted to write...a murder mystery. Okay, well now I can say I did. Or rather, I've written the bones for one. It certainly is not complete and I will get a better feel for how things should be when I start the editing...rewriting. I'll need to make it longer, and probably more exciting.

But I'm patting myself on the back for sticking with it everyday, through one of the roughest months I've ever had with my family. One death, two hospitalized, make that three, I was in there one night. My mother is home, not doing as very well. Adjusting to a complete new way of life. My husband is in the VA hospital, kidney failure from his severe diabetes. My mother-in-law was burried on Monday.

I finished my novel. YaY! Now I won't be so stressed and can go back to work on making some final corrections to the Scrungy books and getting them ready to send to publishers.

And I can return to blogging....

Update: Still Climbing

2007-11-24T21:48:00.000-08:00

My goal of 50,000 has been made, but my story has not ended. At first I thought I would just keep going to maybe 100,000, but I realized I wouldn't be completing a novel in 30 days. So I'm bringing it around to a close, and hopefully, will be able to say, by the end of November that I completed a novel in 30 days, which was the premise for NaNo in the first place.

So, my meter on the sidebar shows 100% but I'm continuing to climb.

November 23rd, the day after Turkey day, I wrote, with no pressure at all, 2,763 words.
Tonight I casually added another 2,081.
I'm not pusing myself...I'm not interested in going back to the hospital anytime soon. I'm being a good girl and resting up like I'm suposed to be doing.

My mother is better, she'll live. They got to her in time.
My heart went back into normal sinus rhythm after 36 hours, just as I went to the Dr. office on Friday morning. Everything is quiet and calm...for now.

Gretchen didn't even bite my ankles when I came home from the hospital on Wednesday night.
In fact, she's being really sweet and cuddly.

Whee...I Did It!

2007-11-22T20:15:00.000-08:00

Whoopee! Yahoo...Toot! Toot!

I made it to 50 K!

Now I can just coast until November 30...

I told everyone around me when I started NaNoWriMo that no one could get sick, die or have a melt down until Dec, first!

Well, everything started off fairly well. I was a little stressed in the beginning. Things got better in the life around me situation and it got easier to find a writing pattern that worked. Until...
Last weekend I began to get antsy about finishing this. For once I wanted to complete something! Anything! From start to finish...and in record time.

I began pushing myself a little more and increasing my word count. By Monday I was moody, I hadn't achieved what I thought I needed to do...but that little nagging voice in the back of my head said I was about to have a crisis and if I'd just give a little more to my writing time I'd reach 50 K early and then I could coast. Since I'm not physic, and I don't listen to that nagging voice very well anymore, I wasn't thinking that the person around me to have a crisis would be me. I have a very sick husband, and I expected he'd be the reason that I wouldn't be able to finish. Then everyone wanted to crash land at once. We learned Monday that my husband's mother, back in the Midwest, was very ill and would not make it. My mother is having problems and I wasn't feeling well, and the family out here, was close to cancelling our Turkey Day plans. And got cancelled because...Tuesday night I went into the mother of all A-Fib episodes and spent the next twenty-four hours in the hospital....away from my computer, 3,000 words shy of my goal. Worry, worry, worry!

So now, I'm home. I'm still in A-fib and feel really lousy, but not critial yet. Good friends brought us a Turkey dinner tonight. Sadly though, my mother-in-law died while I was in the hospital. My husband is, of course, too ill to return home, that's okay, everyone knew that. My mother is finally going to give in and go to the doctor on Friday...tomorrow, and so am I. Yuck....More interruptions!

But guess what? I did it! Some this afternoon and some tonight! 50,024...and counting...maybe tomorrow, if I'm still around.

I may be dead tomorrow, but at least I finished something. My novel is not anywhere near being complete at just 50,000. I've got 17 Chapters and 189 pages (double-spaced, of course).
I'm thinking that if I don't croak from this atrial fibrillation, (chronic) then I might get close to 100,000 words on this novel, but certainly not by the end of November.

I've enjoyed competing with my writing partner...Thomma Lyn who has kept a head of me all the way. But we're both estatic that we did it! However, the race for us to finish our novels is not over...I may be ill, and lagging a bit, but I'm going to finish this novel and it will be a good one. As soon as I get my heart to cooporate, I'll continue my little writing sessions each night.

Cat Tuesday: Mike's Adventure in British Columbia

2007-11-19T19:48:00.000-08:00

For more cats on Tuesday....go here...

Mike's Adventure in British Columbia

with Kellie the Orange Cat

Mike is currently in Skǻne, Sweden with Gretchen's sweetheart, Yoggie. He just got home from Taipei Taiwan and his visit with Adan and Michico. So there's lot to write about. Today, I'm going to post what Mike had to say about his visit with Kelly the Orange Cat in British Columbia, Canada.

Mike here:
On October 29th, I teleported up to British Columbia, Canada for a week's visit with Kellie.
Wow, what a trip that was. Lots of exciting things happened that I had no idea were going to happen. After spending a week with the Ballicai in Tennessee, I figured Kellie and I would just kinda hang out around her house, like I did at Mao's. Just have lots of snacks, play with her toys and just get to know here.

Well…I no sooner popped through the Chunnel at her nice warm house, when the next day, Kellie and I flew off to Galveston, Texas to join up with the Lucky Luxor Road Trip. I met Dragonheart, and MontyQ. Lux of course, and Parker. I'm going to go visit Parker when I get back from Sweden. They were a great bunch of cats to be touring the country with in a big, red, double-decker bus. We were singing all kinds of fun songs as we passed from one state to the next, visiting a lot of cat blogosphere friends along the way. A fellow cat called, Monty Q, was the loudest singer in the group. He had a little different tone than the others, however. In any case we visited a lot of great kitty fellows until Kellie and I got to Daisy Mae Mause's house in San Diego. Then we flew back up to British Columbia for a few more days.

Kelly and had a great time playing tent wars in her pink cubes. And guess what? I won, yay!
And I enjoyed hanging out in Kellie's cat tree, too. We batted balls all over the place, had lots of fun spazzing time together. Kellie's mum seemed to like me, too. That's always import that the beans like me, after all, it is their house I'm staying in. I wasn't too bad, I don't think. Kellie said I was a bit mischievous, but presently, I can't remember….

On November 5th, I said goodbye to my lovely, new friend, Kellie and her beans. She had a lovely home and lives in a very lovely country. But before I give you her interview, I have to tell you what happened to me on my way home.

You see, it never occurred to any of us in Gretchen's household that teleporting through worm holes in cyberspace would require a passport. Not one us thought about technical difficulties with a bunch of fiber optic cables, until it actually happened. Now, mind you I'd been flying across the border from Canada to the US with Kellie, twice, and traveling all over the States in a bus full of cats, so it just never occurred to me that I'd need some kind of identification. I mean, to the real world, I am just a fluffhead, right?

Well, I was whizzing along through the wormhole, I always keep my eyes shut tight, so I don't get so dizzy, but anyway, here I am, whizzing along at top, light speed and all of a sudden I land on the hard pavement outside the US Border crossing between Canada and the States in the middle of the night.

Wow, imagine my surprise when I found myself lying there in a lump of fluff, starring at the toe end of the border guard's boots. I looked up and smiled at the biggest guy I'd ever seen. He was staring down at me with his hands on his hips, and he had meanest scowl on with face I'd ever seen.

The next thing I knew, this giant hand comes down and grabs me by my tail, no less, and holds me up eyelevel with his face. He still wasn't smiling, so I figured, uh, oh, that's the end of Mike the World Traveler. Not only was I at a dead end road in my existence, but I found out I couldn't even charm this guy with my Mysterious eyes. His head wasn't filled with fluff, so it must have been filled with cement. He couldn't hear or understand a single telepathic transmission that I was frantically sending out.

He took me inside the building and put me on the counter in front of a broad lady with a badge pinned to her buxom shirt, and said, "Look what just fell out of the sky! You figure it's some kind of spy…an illegal alien disguised as a poor imitation of a stuffed cat?"

The lady officer turned me over a couple of times and then found my tag. You see, almost all fluffheads are made somewhere in this world and they have a tag of ingredients, sewn into their body somewhere. Mine happens to be a white tag sewn into the inside of my left, hind leg. So it stands out like a sore thumb.

Well, the lady could read. She grabbed the tag, and held it, and my leg, up close to her bifocals and muttered the words "Made in China." Then she uttered the most amazing words. "This ratty, old thing was probably dropped out of an airplane by some little kid. It's not a threat to us," she laughed a terrible scratchy kind of laugh and then opened the door to a closet full of various kinds of things. I figured it must have been a place that held all the stuff they confiscated off the people trying to bring things across the border that they're not supposed to.

I didn't think I'd ever get out of that closet. When the lady shut the door, it was terribly dark in there. I must have sat there for hours, before I realized that I had been tossed on top of someone's laptop computer. I managed to get the thing open and turned it on. I quickly tapped in my pass code and shwoooosh! I was back in cyberspace, hopefully on my way home, to Gretchen.

A few seconds later I plopped through my portal, and whew, what a relief it was to be home again. When I explained my frightening experience to Gretchen's mom bean, she quickly made up a passport for me to carry on all my next adventures.

Here's what Kellie revealed to me in my interview with her:

Sunday, November 4, 2007
Mike's time with Kellie The Orange Cat

Kellie: I have had so much fun with Mike! We have done so many things that I am a little tired and in need of a nap and I suspect Mike is too.

Mike: How long have you lived with your bean(s)

Kellie: In one month it will be my 6th year Gotchaversary! My Mum and I picked each other out in December of 2001.

Mike: Do you have a favorite bean?

Kellie: My favourite bean is my Mum, she is very good to me, she talks to me, she feeds me good food, buys me the toys I like and is very cuddly.

Mike: What's your favorite food?

Kellie: I really like Fancy Feast stinky goodness too, but I'm not allowed to have it anymore because it makes me have digestive troubles, so I now just eat Science Diet dry food.

Mike: What's your favorite treat?

Kellie: My favourite treat is Tempations, I wish I could have a whole bowl of them :)

Mike: Where do you like to sleep?

Kellie: I like to sleep anywhere my Mum is. I sleep cuddled up to her in bed, cuddled on her chest or lap while she reads or watches t.v., I even sleep on her feet or on her lap when she is on the computer.

Mike: Do you dream? What are your dreams about?

Kellie: I dream alot. My Mum laughs sometimes when I reach out or meow when I am sleeping. In my dreams I am chasing the fuzzy coloured mouses that live in our house. We have them everywhere! Over the years my Mum says she has bought at least 10 12 packs of the mouses and they are always disappearing. They are very sneaky and hide under the washer, dryer, stove etc.

Mike: Do you like fluffheads, you know, those crafty little creatures with fiberfill for brains?

Kellie: I love fluffheads. My Mum has lots of them, but the majority of them live in my Grandpa's attic. We do have a few at our house, including a sock kitty that Monty Q's Mum made. She is my Sisfur Cherry.

Mike: How many fluffheads live with you and your bean?

Kellie: Right now we have 2 teddy bears, 1 Halloween kitty and my sisfur Cherry.

Mike: Do you get along with your fluffheads? Really?

Kellie: I get along with my fluffheads, except my sisfur Cherry sometimes scares me and I pounce on her and rough her up a bit. Usually, my Mum has to take her away from me or I will just keep bunny kicking her.

Mike: Do have a special fluffhead friend?

Kellie: Cherry is my special fluffhead, she is the only one I allow on our bed.

Mike: Do your fluffheads ever talk to you? Do they talk to your beans, you know, like I can transmit my thoughts to one special bean in my house?

Kellie: Of course they talk to me, they are not mute. Cherry and the Halloween cat sometimes taunt me and try to get me in trouble, but usually they are nice to me.

Mike: You have a very nice place here; tell me about your weather and your surroundings, what is it like outside your house? (Mountains, seaside, desert, woods, etc.)

Kellie: We live in the southern interior of British Columbia, Canada. We are an hour's drive from the Washington border. Our town of 30,000 people is located between two lakes, which is very nice in the summer and also very busy because a lot of people come to visit our town in the summer. We grow a lot of fruit here in the summer; cherries, peaches, apples, pears, apricots and the list goes on and on......

Mike: Are you an inside only cat or do you get to go outside?

Kellie: I am an inside only cat, although I have a nice closed in deck that I get to go out and play on in the summer time. Sometimes I whine to go out on the deck in the winter and my Mum lets me out but I come in very quickly:)

Mike: Do you keep secrets from your beans? Sometimes Gretchen and I conspire against her mom bean in the middle of the night. It really freaks her out. Do you do things like that?

Kellie: I sometimes try to drive my Mum crazy by staring at the wall for a long period of time, until she finally gets up and tries to find what is on the wall and then I walk away. It is so funny!

Mike: Have you been gifted with any hidden talents?

Kellie: My Mum says I have a hidden talent of being able to tell the time. I am always waiting for my Mum at the window at 5:05 to greet her when she comes home from work. I can also tell when my Mum or Grandpa's car drives up. When I am home with my Mum and my Grandpa drives by to park I run to the window to greet him.

Mike: Is there anything in your house that bothers you? That you're afraid of?

Kellie: I don't like the sucking machine that my Mum walks around the house every couple of days. I don't know why she has to accompany it around the house, but she does. My Mum wishes that I liked it so she could vacuum me, but I'm afraid it would just suck me right up!

Mike: Do you stalk and capture real live critters like mice, spiders and stuff? What kinds of critters do you stalk? Do you eat what you catch?

Kellie: I stalk, capture and eat spiders and flies that dare come into my house. A few years ago I also stalked and captured 4 bats that I captured out on my deck (the deck is enclosed with screen and lattice work. I brought them in the house and my Mum was not impressed. I killed one and left the others alive and fluttering around the house. Mum phoned Grandpa and he came and captured them and put them back outside, even after all my work of capturing them for her! That same year I also caught a bird and brought it in. I left it by the front door for my Mum, I also took a bite out of it and then threw up beside it. Again, my Mum was not impressed and I was no longer allowed to go outside while Mum was at work :(

Mike: Do you have siblings or housemates? Do you get along with them?

Kellie: I am an only cat.

Mike: Do you have a sweetheart?

Kellie: Sadly, I am still a single girl.

Mike: What is your most fun activity?

Kellie: My favourite activity is to chase bouncey balls and coloured fuzzy mouses around the house.

Thanks, Kellie, I had a great time, too!

Mike the World Traveler

Murder is Not Easy

2007-11-17T18:26:00.000-08:00

For the past 17 days, Gretchen has been annoyed, bothered, and frustrated with my late night hours and this novel for NaNo. At 2:30 AM every night, she's catloafed by the door giving me her, "It's Time For Bed Look." She sits and stares at me like that until I get the hint and go to bed.

Last night, or rather at two this morning, she decided she'd help me end my writing session by giving me the clues to where the next body should be found. I have maps all over the room, diagrams, and such, that she finds quite interesting.

After studying them a bit she put her paw on the spot she thought was right. "Here," she said. "This is where the next victim gets offed."

"Well, problem solved," I said. "I'm happy, so I'll just shut things down and go to bed." Now she's happy.

Yes, I'm still working on that novel and will be for thirteen more days. See ya on Tuesday. Mike has returned from Taipei Taiwan and his visit with Adan and Michico. He had a wonderful time. But due to the novel writing thing, I'm a bit behind in getting his adventures posted. Tuesday I hope to post his trip to Canada with Kellie the Orange Cat. He's going to take a rest for a few days, unwinding and getting caught up on his sleep. See you all on Tuesday!

Two Awards...Wow!

2007-11-12T23:22:00.000-08:00

I feel so special for the thoughtful awards given to me this week. I'm just now getting time to post them for all to see. Rhonda gave me the medal of Awesomessness and Thomma Lyn gave me with Smile Award.

It is an awesome pleasure to display them both on my site.

Now, I would like to give to my new friend Rhonda, the Smile Award, because her comments on my post, as well as her site, makes me smile.

I would like Thomma Lyn to have the Medal of Awesomenss. She is the Awesomeness person I've ever met. She's also my, much needed, critique partner and proofer, and she's an awesome writer and I'm honored to be listed among her friends and have her as my Bloody Murder Writing Buddy for the Nano challenge. She keeps me going.

Thank you both...

Cat Tuesday: Mike's First Adventure

2007-11-12T19:20:00.000-08:00

Cats on Tuesday... here and here.

Mike the Mysteries aka Mike the World Traveler.
Episode 1 of Mike the Adventurer

When you last heard from Mike he was getting things set up so he could go to Tennessee and stay a week with the Ballicai. He wanted to get out and see the world. So Gretchen arranged for Mike to go for a trial visit with Marilyn MonREOW, Chairman Mao, Brainball, and Dorydoo. And of course their beans.

Mike had lots to do to get ready to leave. Mike already has his own story site called Mike the Mysteries, however, he figured since he'd be whizzing around cyberspace, through thousands and thousands of fiber optic cables, dizzying wormholes, and the like, that he'd need a teleporting station that he could come and go from. So we gave Mike a new site called Mike's Portal. It's a special place to teleport from to those of whom he will be visiting. There is an agenda kept by Gretchen and she tells Mike when and where he's going to next. His host will get the Portal Key and Password when it's time to pick him up. So far this has worked great. Anyone can go and visit Mike's Portal site, but in order to leave an outgoing blog or incoming blog, they will need the password.

After Tennessee and a short rest, Mike took off to visit Kellie the Orange Cat in British Columbia, Canada. Currently, Mike is visiting Adan and Michico in Taipei, Taiwan.

Mike has left all his notes with me to type and post, but I've been kind of wound up with a novel writing challenge that I got behind. So here's Mike's report on his trip to Tennessee. (Sorry Mike, I'll get caught up eventually.)

Mike here:
On October, 19th, Mao pushed the teleport button and suddenly I was whirling through cyber space to East Tennessee and the Ballicus household. Poor Brainball had been sick and everyone's nerves were a little frayed because Brainball had such a time of it for awhile. But they were happy that I came when I did.

I landed with a whump! Right onto the Ballicai's fuzzy, yellow, jellybean pillow where I rested with Mao for a few minutes so I could recover from my dizziness. That was my first time, ever that I went whizzing through cyberspace and it really was a little like what the TV series, Stargate showed. The wormhole just sucked me right along at a super high speed and within seconds, I popped out the other side and onto the yellow jelly bean. Wow, was that fun.

Soon after I caught my breath, the excitement began. Everyone was so wound up that I was actually there that we all started spazzing around the house, well, all except Marilyn, she's an older lady cat and a little too sophisticated for all that spazzing that Mao, and Dorydoo, do. After that we all piled into Brainball's favorite spot in the bath tub. We had a blast banging around in the tub for a while, then everyone settled down a bit and Brainball gave me a nice bath. He has an extra strong tongue and he was able to get most of the stardust out of my wiry fur. I felt so much better after that bath. I was really grateful, too, that the Ballicai's lady bean didn't throw me into the washing machine and dryer like Gretchen's bean did once.

The Ballicai have the niftiest purr pads. They're made out of some kind of gray stuff that feels soft, and is really cool to lay on. They all let me take a nap on their purr pads. Even Marilyn. It was really hard for me to nap at their house. There was so much to see and do. While Marilyn napped I sat beside her and watched all kinds of critters outside the window. Way cooler than what's outside the window at home (no offence, Gretchen…but it really is) .

Mao and I got on the best. We've become good buds. We loved spazzing around the house, and kind of knocked something's over. But honest, I wasn't' the one who did it. It just sort of happened.

Poor Marilyn kinda got whopped by Brainball while Mao and I were spazzing around the place. I think after he'd been so sick for so long and was now feeling better, of course, that he just had a lot of pent-up energy, and I think I kinda made him nervous, so he took it out on his sister Marilyn. It was over in a second and everyone was getting a long again, but I'll have to admit this one was kinda my fault.

Mao is a riot, he has these insane little sticks that he tries to kill every chance he gets. He calls them evil coffer stirrers and sneaks up on them, grabs them and runs to the bathroom where he bats them around until…they're…well you know…dead! We we're also caught bopping the water bowls about, just to watch the water slosh around. Some of spilled out on the floor, but their mom bean is a kind lady and knew that when cats have company they can get a little rowdy. Sorry, lady bean, we didn't mean to make such a mess.

I lucked out. The real felines had to have a Frontline treatment while I was visiting and I was able to convince their bean that because I have artificial fluff for fur, I didn't need to have that stuff put on me. She agreed. Whew! Got out of that one, easy enough.

After that was over, we all played bat the kibble out of the bowl and all around the kitchen. That was fun, too. Don't worry, the real kittles ate 'em all up when we got done with our game.

I took my interview sheet with me and before I left, they were all so very kind to answer my questions. They giggled a lot during the interview, but here's what I learned about the Ballicai and Tennessee:

Mike's Visit With the Ballicai!
The interview is too long for this post and I hope you will click on this link and enjoy what I've learned about Mao, Marilyn, Brainball and Dorydoo.

Mike here again:
I teleported back home on October 26th and that was the end of the fun time I had in Tennessee with my new best Bud! MaoMao. I just call him Mao. I must have been a good boy because I was invited to come back anytime. Whew, I' was exhausted when I got home, too, but it was so worth the dizzying speed at which I had to travel in the wormhole, through cyberspace. I didn't once fall out of warp speed, either.

Thanks for having me Chairman Mao, Marilyn, Brainball and Dorydoo (Dorydoo and are both black and sometimes her mom bean had trouble telling who was who). And thanks again to the Ballicai's mom bean and daddy bean. You were swell beans and treated me like I was one of your own. I really enjoyed my stay with you.

Till next time...

Mike, the World Traveler

Note from Bean: Mike rested up a few days and then he went to stay a week with Kellie the Orange Cat in British Columbia, Canada. He had a whopping, whirlwind tour…but I'm saving that for next week.

Veterans Day--How Could I Forget

2007-11-11T17:46:00.000-08:00

How could I have forgotten this day,

to honor

all of the men and women who have,

and do so still,

put their lives on the line

everyday for their country.

They've fought, bled, died,

and were wounded

for me.

So that I may blog

and say what I will,

freely.

How could I have forgotten my father's courage,

my stepfather's bravery,

my husbands willingness,

to serve this country,

to risk their lives,

for me.

So that I may

live as I see fit,

buy what I want to buy,

dress the way I want to dress,

drive the size car I want to drive,

speak my own language,

worship whom I choose,

travel throughtout the country at will,

live where I want to live,

work where I want to work,

learn as much as I can learn,

or not.

To speak as I choose,

to support,

to protest,

to rant,

to rave,

choose.

These brave men,

my father's,

my husband,

lived through all the pains

and angusih of

wars and conflict.

Still today they are sometimes

vilified,

hushed

and

spat upon.

Yet, true and loyal they remain

Their will the world

cannot bend.

We just had a world Blog Blast for Peace. It was great to see all those peace banners and show my support with my own banner; however, I wished I would have remembered earlier today, to honor the soldiers in my family, and my husband, and pass that around. I am ashamed that I forgot to post something this morning. My head has been so entrenched in NaNoWriMo that I had not even realzied what date this was, until I finally sat down to read the paper and saw this full page banner. I quickly found the banner on the web and put it here for all to see that I am not ashamed of the men and women in the past, present, or the future, who honor our country, and fulfill thier duty with love and loyality. They would like to see peace. Desperately, so would I. But we need them to stand for us, no matter what....

I am proud of my friends in uniform. I salute you all.

That Time of Year

2007-11-09T14:34:00.000-08:00

This picture came with my Window's programming.

But I thought it was appropriate for this time of year.

I'm still Nano-ing

See you with a cat short-story on Tuesday

Mike is writing about the adventures he's had so far.

Have a great weekend.

Dona Nobis Pacem

2007-11-07T14:31:00.000-08:00

Blogblast for Peace

Cat Tuesday: The Adventures of Ragpuff: Episode 2: The Pits

2007-11-06T19:41:00.000-08:00

For more cats and their stories....check out Gattina here.

Ragpuff continues to tell his story from the day he was dumped far away from the apartment buildings he'd taken refuge at, by an unscrupulous hand. Lost from his first home, he now finds himself even more lost in a strange landscape, a bewildering place full of mounds of gravel, rocks, and no water.

The Adventures of Ragpuff
Episode 2
The Pits

I was not at all happy about my new situation this morning. My tummy was rumbling loudly and I'd gotten really thirsty. I knew there had to be water around this place somewhere. And I needed to find shade, too. The sun was getting hot here, and all there was, for as far as I could see, were mountains of little rock. It was a strange and eerie place, and I definitely didn't want to spend the night there. You have no idea, either, how sharp those bits of gravel are on my poor, tender paws. Not at all like the kitty gravel I used in my litter box back home. I'm really worried that I'll never be able to find my way back home again. I really miss that silly talking woman and the man who didn't talk much. Even more, I miss my special chair in front of the window. It was all for me, my very own…my very comfortable, safe chair, in my very comfortable, safe house, with my very own bowl of kibble and my very own bowl of water. If I ever find my way back home, I will never go outside again.

Oh, if only I hadn't been so gullible this morning and let that lady trick me into thinking she liked me and was maybe going to feed me like the rest of those people were doing that lived in those buildings. Yech! I was really getting dirty there on that black, smelly surface where they kept all those monster cars at night. First my pretty white feet turned black and now, out here, my fur got coated with this chalky white stuff from all those rocks and it felt terrible on my tongue. I didn't like licking my fur or my paws.

Since I'd first got put out here, I had spent the morning wasting a lot of energy trotting around in circles, trying to find my way out of this place, so I figured I'd just have to climb to the top of one of those tall mounds of rock. I picked the one with the funny looking arms sticking out. Not only was it the tallest mound, but it also happened to have the sharpest rocks. By the time I got to the top of it, my paws were very sore, and my poor claws, they were all torn to shreds, but it was worth the climb. Right at the top of that pile of rocks was this funny thing that looked like a long a black tongue. I had to leap up a few feet to get on it, but there was shade. A breeze was blowing, too, and it cooled my fur. I'd been panting pretty hard by then.

After I rested a bit, I walked along this black tongue until I got to a little tiny cage like thing in the middle of it. There was even more shade there, but still no water. My fur was thick with this rock dust by then and I really had to fight the urge not to try and lick it off.

You'd never guess what I found in that little cage thing. A chair! It was kind of soft and cool because it'd been in the shade all day. The only problem was I still needed a really good drink of water. So I didn't stay in that chair long.

After I rested a little bit, I continued to walk along those tongue things, up and down and up and down, until I came to a little house and some grass. Some real grass. I was so hungry I even nibbled a few blades of grass. I never ate grass before, and it was kind of coated with that white dusty stuff, but I managed to taste a bit of tanginess. It didn't help the rumbling in my tummy that much, nor did it help my thirst, but at least it was something.

There was a lot of cool shade under the porch next to the house, so I crawled under there and managed to take a nap. All the time I was snoozing I kept dreaming about my water bowl, filled to the brim with fresh, cold water. I thought I was slurping it up, until I woke up. I found I wasn't lapping up water at all; I was licking that nasty, gritty dirt on my paws. Yech! Yech, yech, and yech!

I must have slept all afternoon because the shadows were long and the sun was no longer hot when I woke up. My thirst was excruciating by then, so I got up to go look for a pool of water somewhere. The little house seemed to be on the edge of a field, everything was covered with that awful dust. I was just about to go exploring through the long grass when I felt the earth tremble and then I heard this loud rumbling. The closer the rumbling got the more the earth trembled and the more scared I got, so I darted back under the porch, not knowing what was making that terrible noise. Suddenly, the biggest monster car I've seen so far, screeched to a halt right in front of the steps to the house. Dust and grit flew all around, my eyes stung with it; my nose was once again filled with it. I coughed and sneezed uncontrollably.

When my fits of coughing and snorting were over and I could open my eyes again, I saw a big round human face peeking under the porch at me. "Hi, little fellar," the upside down face said to me, "Whatcha doing under there? This is a pretty odd place for a little guy your size to be hanging out. Where'd you come from? There ain't nothin' around here but dirt and gravel for miles."

I had to admit, I was happy to see the man, even if his eyes were where his mouth should have been and his mouth was where his eyes should have been. A dry, scratchy meow left my lips. It was the most pathetic meow I'd ever uttered. Next, the man stuck a large hand under the porch and petted my rock-dust covered fur. I leaned into his hand and uttered another, dry, raspy cry. I got a bit scared, though, when the man's hand grabbed hold of the back of my neck and pulled me towards him. But he was cooing real nice to me, and somehow I knew he was a good human, that I'd be safe with him. Until I got rested up, that is. I'm determined to find my way back to my home, my safe chair behind my safe window.

Suddenly, everything on the round face was where it was supposed to be. His eyes were on top and his mouth underneath his nose. He had a real nice way of talking that made me relax and I started to purr. Mind you, I sure needed some water, so I gave him the most pitiful look I could muster, and then went limp in his big hands. I stuck out my tongue and lay my head to one side like I was going to expire right there on the spot if I didn't get some water real soon. For a greater effect, I coughed a little dry cough and squeezed my eyes shut. I think the man got the hint, because he right away took me inside the house, poured me a bowl full of water and sat me, and the water bowl, on the table. Let me tell you, I drank and drank and drank. It took that whole bowl full of water to get all that dirt out of my mouth and throat. While I was lapping up water as fast as I could go, the man was rummaging around in a cold box, much like the one my silly talking lady had, and come out with some good food. Chicken I think. I'd never had human food before, but I could see he hadn't been expecting to take care of a cat anytime soon, so he just didn't keep kibble around.

Well, the day started bad, but ended okay. The big round man and I have been together for nearly a week now. He's gone all during the day, working out there in that gravel pit on that big monster car thing he has, and he comes home when the shadows get long, then we eat supper together. Last night we had tuna. I think I kind of like that. Oh, and one more thing, he comes home just as coated with that old, white dust, like I had on my fur that first day. Only I don't help him lick it off him. Once I finally got all that stuff out of my fur, I never went out to those rock piles again. While he's working, I go off across the field beyond the little house and do some exploring. I’m getting real good at catching gophers and mice and things like that.

A Kitty Who Knows How To Get Warm

2007-11-04T22:10:00.001-08:00

When my mother's cat, Moochie, can't get outside to his sunning rock to get warm...

He tuckes up by the little space heater and places his paws under it for wamth.

Now, this old cat knows how to stay warm.

=^.^=

November is Novel writing time...so that's where I've been...novel writing.

I'll be back on Tuesday, posting the continuing Adventures of Ragpuff,
see you then...

Thursday Thirteen #20

2007-11-01T04:51:00.000-07:00

Thirteen reasons for my Happy Dance!

1. I'm doing my happy dance because I finally started this NaNo novel. I've only been waiting for a whole year to join.

2. I finally figured out how to upload my 1,845 words on my NaNo novel. We were allowed to start writing at 12:01 our local time. I started writing at 1:10 a.m. this Thursday morning and it's now 5 a.m. I was done writing by 3:00 a.m. but it took me a while to figure out where to put my word count on my Nano page.

3. You see, when I was first signing up for NaNoWriMo a month ago, it was running really slow and since then it's sped up to a useable speed, but I'd neglected to get back to the site and figure out where everything goes… It's called use malfunction. It's also called pretty dumb.

4. Near tears, after waiting so long to get started, and being up so late, I finally decided that I'd better read the instructions. So I suddenly wasn't so happy anymore.

5. Still user malfunction. At four I decided I had to eat something, my stomach was in knots. So after a peanut butter sandwich and some orange juice, at least my stomach was happy again.

6. Now I'm happy again all over. I got it all figured out and entered my word count, of course, there was an hour looking at word meters and finally getting one loaded.

7. I'm also happy because I'm getting to try out writing a murder mystery, with twists and turns and plots. Wish me luck. It's not as easy as it first seems.

8. Thank goodness I have a writing buddy. Thomma Lyn is writing a murder mystery, too. I think hers will be a lot better than mine, but I'm really happy she's my buddy in all this. I suspect we'll be having a bloody good time at this.

9. There's lots of characters to be interviewed and a suspect list to draw up. I've been auditioning characters for days. Suddenly I have a need to bone up on forensics, rap sheets, sentences and so forth…hmmm….note to self…watch more TV court shows and CSI. I used to be glued to the TV watching those kinds of shows for the longest time. Now where is all that information stored in my brain?

10. The happy dance also includes getting to set up fictitious towns, places, weather conditions and the like. Ahhh…so this is what creating a world is like. A lot of hard work, but fun. I will need to take time off after six days, of course…even fictitious worlds need a day of rest.

11. The happy dance is contagious. My cat is happy because she gets a lot of petting time sitting across my lap while I type away. She also gets more treats. I haven't figured out why writing means she gets more treats, yet.

12. I'm very happy because I've now got a stash of chocolates left from expecting Halloween visitors. We never get more than one or two, if any. But I always get chocolates just in case, knowing full well, I'll get to eat them when Halloween is over. We actually had two come to the door, and I put handfuls of chocolates in their bags. I still have plenty of happy chocolates left for me.

13. Yes, I'm putting on my happy face, and I'm hoping it lasts, and that the creative sparks keep flying for the next 29 days. I'm happily going to make breakfast, now, and then go to bed. The garbage truck's come and gone, the paper boy thumped the paper on the porch, and the sun will be up soon, but I won't see it, because I'll be happily sleeping. And I have my TT done. Whoopee! I've missed the last two.

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

Happy Spook Night - Wordless Wednesday

2007-10-31T14:45:00.000-07:00

I'ts not Halloween with out candy corn...

Cat Tuesday: Neighborhood Nightlife: Episode 5 - The Aliens

2007-10-30T01:33:00.000-07:00

For more Cats on Tuesday...visit Gattina here.

The Aliens

All throughout the day, Necco had crouched over her paws on the end of her guardian's bed, wondering, pondering what it would be like to have opposable thumbs. She'd never heard of such a thing as a cat with thumbs that could open cabinet door, turn door knobs, and grip things like humans did. What kind of strange beast had moved in upstairs above her friend, Frog? He'd said they were sisters named Polly Dactyl and Paddle Foot. What odd sounding names for her species.

Necco shifted her weight over her paws sandwiched under her fluff. A wry smirk curled her lips, as she remembered how her female human had often laughed at her position, calling her a catloaf. Necco didn't know what a loaf was exactly, but she did know what a cat was and the position she loved best to be in while she was contemplating life, or concentrating hard on a puzzle or a problem. When she'd asked Markus if he'd ever been called a catloaf before, he just laughed, too. "All the time," he'd said. When Necco asked him why humans thought that their round, loaf-like position was so funny, he had explained, "To the humans we look like a loaf of bread or a meatloaf. Things they eat, of course. Thank goodness they don't eat us."

Thank goodness, Necco had sighed. Today's reason to stay crouched in a catloaf position had more than one purpose. One, she was puzzled over the idea of extra toes on cats feet, and two, every time she glanced at her own tiny, soft white paws, she cringed. When she was about five months old, she had been taken to the Cat Clinic to get altered. Something she had been totally unprepared for at that age. She had been adopted out of her momma's home when she was just five weeks old. She could climb anything, anywhere, anytime. There was no stopping Necco. She could out climb any house spider, shred a roll of toilet paper in ten seconds flat, and was very proficient at climbing up a pair of jeans to get a hug or nose nuzzle with her humans, sitting or standing.

Going to the animal clinic that first time, to get stuck in the neck by something very sharp and then feeling so terrible odd; so very dizzy and sick at her stomach all at the same time, was not an experience she liked to remember. When she had waked up she found herself with a white strip of cloth around her tummy and two little strips of cloth around each of her two front paws. At first she had thought it had all been a dream while she slept in the kitty cage at the clinic all of that day and throughout the night. She hadn't realized that the operation she'd just had not only took away her ability to produce kittens when she matured, but she had also been deprived of her most prized possessions. Her sharp, little kitty claws. Her weapons of mass destruction. Her only defense against nature, if she ever happened to get outside the human dwelling places and into the real world.

What an effort it had been to use her litter box those first few days after she came home from the Cat Clinic. What an effort it had been to clean her little toes, stitches where her used to be claws had been. As she healed, the ends of her toes itched relentlessly. She had tugged at those tiny dissolving threads that held her wounds together, she chewed on the ends of her toes, licking them again and again, desperately trying to relieve the terrible itch. Over time, all wounds healed. And then…

Necco pulled her right front paw from underneath her ruff, licked it once and then sat admiring it. The smirk on her face morphed into a broad smile. The weapon of choice may once had been the claws on the ends of her pads, however, no human would expect, no creature would realize, until blood oozed from an open wound that one dew claw had miraculously grown back. Curved, sharp, and dangerous. In triumph she stretched her paw, spread her toes and licked her prized weapon again, meticulously cleaning it, honing it with her teeth at times. It was a dazzling piece of armor that kept her feline heritage alive.

Necco shuddered, then quietly tucked her paw back under her weight again. I'm a mutant, she thought. I'm a mutant just like those two cats that moved in above Frog, are. They're mutants. They're probably from another planet, dropped off one moonless night to fool the human population. They had to be aliens' disguised as cats in order to take over the world. How would anyone know? The only thing that would give them away is their opposable thumbs. Disgusting mutants, she spat.

Necco rested in her catloaf position, paws and claws out of sight, until darkness filled the room. The only reason she moved then was because dinner had been announced and she desperately needed a trip to the litter box. At least she still had the claws on her hind paws. Thank goodness that she had been spared the humiliation of being totally clawless. Markus complained a lot about not having claws all the way around. Many a night he'd leaped for the windowsill with a little less judgment that was needed to make a safe and secure landing and slipped, only to land in a lump of humiliated fur on the carpet below. He knew the others in the building were laughing at him because of his lack of dexterity. Had he had the rear claws like Necco, he would have been able to stabilize his faulted landings.

When the midnight hour approached Necco leapt into the windowsill, the cool November air rushed in on her face. She closed her eyes, letting the breeze tickle her whiskers. Opening her mouth slightly, she let the scents from a million happenings of the world titillate her olfactory nerves in the roof of her mouth, giving her a mental image of the things that often go bump in the night. The frogs didn't sing anymore now that early morning frosts were back. The birds went farther away; the nights eerily devoid of all familiar sounds of summer. The soon to arrive snows would dampen the night sounds even more. Right now, however, without leaves on the trees to buffer the sounds of cars on the road, they and their terrible smells were more noticeable.

Light from the round globes that dotted the landscape outside the apartment buildings, illuminated Necco's front paws: two little white booties. She glanced out the window towards apartment number sixteen. Without leaves now, she had a clear view of the window belonging to her newest, and becoming her dearest friend, Sissy. Miss Sissy had been how Thorny had introduced her shortly after she had called Princess Pricilla Prudence a snob. It had been a humiliating moment when she had learned that she had irresponsibly tagged the proud white mound of fur, with the purple collar, strutting around the complex with her purple clad human, of being stuck up, a Snob, with a capital "S." Thorny had put Necco in her place when he told her that Sissy, as she liked to be called by her friends, was nearly deaf. The news had made all the difference in the world to Necco. Markus and Frog were as shocked as she was, but that didn't take away the sting in her heart that she felt for misjudging a fellow feline for not responding to her calls and paw waving through a closed, double-pained window. She had a new found respect for the former, Miss Prissy Prudy, as she was so apt to call her before she got to know her, and about her.

While Necco whiled away the moments before Markus and Frog came to their window ledges, while she waited for the white shadow to appear in number sixteen's window, while she waited for Thorny, who was at that very moment sitting under Sissy's window, singing a sweet, catly tune, Necco thought about the judgment she had passed on the strangers above Frog. They had been in the building for a little over a month now. They seemed nice enough, even if she never got to see what they actually looked like. They didn't sound like aliens, planted on this earth to fool the humans, or the felines. No, they sounded like normal cats. Still it was very difficult for Necco to form a real image of their strange toes, their so called opposable thumbs.

Their names, Miss Polly Dactyl and Miss Paddle Foot, were definitely not of this world. They each had extra toes, and as Thorny had reported more than once, they could open the lever door handle to their apartment and stroll out onto their balcony anytime they wanted. Their humans never had to worry about them darting off into the night, or out into the busy street. Thorny had said they never, every descended the stairs. He had said they were very gently, fluffy, orange and black calico Maine Coons. To Thorny, they were really awesome.

Necco lifted her right paw with the silver dagger, silver in the lamppost light, that is, and licked it clean. She might just as well be an oddity to them, too. Having a dewclaw that had grown back after it was surgically removed. She held her silver dagger up high and flexed her toes. It curled nicely on the side of her paw, was very sharp, and like the polydactyl's that lived upstairs, it was very useful in getting things done. She could very well be classified as an alien.

I Got A Birthday Present In The Mail Today

2007-10-27T19:10:00.000-07:00

My daughter made me a pair of warm socks for my Birthday earlier this month. I just got them today...and I love them. They fit perfectly. Thank you Daughter #3! You did a great job.

Lots of wiggle room.

Gretchen even thinks they're great, too!

Mike the Mysterious has returned from Tennessee and his visit with the Ballicus household. Check out what Mao, Brainball, Dorydoo and Marilyn have to say about his visit on his Portal.

Bear Food

2007-10-26T00:41:00.000-07:00

hee, hee...yummmmm

A Cat Story-Short Story

2007-10-23T23:07:00.000-07:00

I was too late getting my Cats on Tuesday Story posted, so I'm posting my longish, short story now, you may place in whatever catagorey you like, COT, WW or even TT. It's longer than what you're used to reading on this site so you may want to come back when you have a cup of coffee and time to put your feet up and just read.

This is an old story that I've recently re-written about two cats and the their awarness of death. My mother's cats. It is based on something true, but my imagination has taken form in their voices. It was a story I had planned to post for Short Story Writing Month in September. I had submitted one and was planning on a second when I lost my nerve. I've gained some of that confidence back...so here it is. There are no photo's, it was long before digital cameras came into my life.

GRAY AND ME

No one prepared me for this. I didn't know it would hurt so much. I miss him—really miss him.

We'd been friends for only a short time before Gray told me, one cold winter day that he was ill and was going to die.

"I've lived a long time," he had said, in a raspy voice. "I will be leaving before the azaleas bloom."

I stared out into that cold afternoon; even the sun streaming in through the glass door, felt cold. An icy chill sped down my spine, standing my hair on end. I couldn't fathom what death was like back then.

I was taken from my mother at an early age, a wee runt of a calico kitten that it seemed nobody wanted. I was given to a family, if you can call it that, which never cared for me once the cuteness of my early kitten days, wore off. I was left out in the cold and rain, to find food and shelter wherever I could, before I came to live with my friend Gray. So, when he said he was leaving, I'd just gone numb from the top of my brain to the tips of my paws.

I remember the day I first came to this house. I had not rained that day—the first in many. The sun, in fact, was warm and the breeze was whispering gently through the stately pines. The birds were flying around like they had never seen blue sky before.

I sat on the curb of a quiet street and watched them flit from tree to tree. I was contemplating trying to catch one when a kind, old man stopped and said hello to me. I had noticed this man before. He walked this street every day, rain or shine. I had always stayed hidden from anyone's view, but it was such a beautiful day that I just had to capture some of the sun's rays and breathe in the warm, pine scented air.

The old man's voice was very soft, loving and kind. He asked me where I lived. With a shy mew, I tried to tell him that I didn't really have a home. Well, I did, sort of, but I desperately wanted to leave it behind and find someplace new. Someplace where torture and starvation were not the order of the day.

Somehow, the old man sensed this about me and lifted me up in his arms. He seemed startled by how underweight and thin I was. "My goodness, little one," he'd said, "haven't' you been eating well?

In a long, mournful meow, I lied, and mewed to him, "No, not in three days now." But in reality I hadn't had a decent meal in over a month. In all that time, muddy rain water was all I'd had to drink, too.

"Would you like to live with us?" he'd asked, pulling at the dried flecks of weeds and burs from my long, matted fur. "The wife and I will feed you well," he'd added.

That was all I needed to hear. I responded with deep rumbling purrs. I was definitely going home with this man.

As we walked along together, for the first time in a long time, I'd suddenly felt happy and safe. Happiness that would last forever, I thought, until we reached the old man's house. That was the day I met Gray. Before I stepped through the door of that house I had sensed an intimidating presence. But I'd quickly dismissed it because I couldn't imagine anything bad coming from these humans, the man was so kind. He had a true heart. I could tell that much.

After I'd been given a warm bath and a good meal, I was left to take a nap on the sofa. Then Gray entered the room. He had been out most of the day, so he wasn't aware that the old man had brought home a new addition to the family.

The old man and his wife were in the room when Gray came through the cat flap. They'd tried to introduce me. Gray had been polite to them, but only stared at me through the narrowed slits of his dark, gray-green eyes. A threatening growl followed by a row of bristled fur down his back, and a menacing hiss.

The old had man scolded Gray. "Be nice to this little girl," he'd said, "she's had a pretty rough life and we want to her to like it here."

But the old, gray, lump of fuzz just continued to stare me down. His eyes were threatening, daring me to leave the sofa. From the kitchen came a familiar call, Gray abruptly broke off his stare, stuck his nose in the air, and turned towards the kitchen for the light snack the woman had prepared.

From the sofa, I remember watching him eat, afraid to move a single whisker for fear he'd take that as insult and pounce on me. I wanted him to like me then. I needed to be liked.

Having a home with this old couple had been just what I'd been hoping for. I had felt so lonely for so long and after having spent just one hour with these kind people, I felt like I finally had a happy place to live. Forever. I wanted to be happy. I needed to be happy.

For the next three days, Gray avoided being in the same room as me. It wasn't until the fourth day, when we just happened to be left alone in the house together, that he finally spoke to me. And even though he wasn't kind with his greeting back then, he did speak to me, nonetheless.

"If you're going to stay here, young calico," he growled, "then stay out of my favorite chair."
I had been sitting in the old man's lap until he had to get up and go out with the wife. He had inadvertently placed me on the wife's chair to finish out my nap.

It took all that winter, and most of the next spring, for Gray to treat me like a real member of the family. He seemed to just tolerate me being in his territory for the sake of the old man and his wife. We got treated like equals by the old couple, so I guess that must have helped him to finally warm up to me. I could tell he would do anything he could to please the old couple. He loved them that much.

And so would I.

When summer came, so did the company. The old couple's house got very busy and very noisy. That's when Gray started to look after me. That first summer, the old man and his wife's daughters and grandchildren came to visit a lot. First one bunch, and then the other. The grandchildren always teased me, ran after me trying to grab my tail. Gray could see how distraught I was over the loud, obnoxious little humans and told me how to avoid them during the day, and at night, they were more interested in the television than me, anyway.

"Napping on the old ladies bed is the key," he'd confided one warm day, after I'd been chased around the house for the third time. "I just pretend I'm too tired to play and go take a nap on her bed. No one is allowed to go in there except me. So they leave me alone."

That was good advice. From then on, I took a lot of morning naps, long afternoon naps, and sometimes I slept the whole darn day away in the old woman's room. Besides being safe from shrill, giggling voices, and prying hands, the darkened bedroom was the coolest place to be when the days outside heated up.

Gray also knew that by sharing the old ladies room with him, it was the only way for him to get any peace for himself. Sometimes during our naps he'd let me sleep on the same bed. Sometimes he'd let me have the whole bed and he'd take the chair.

The old woman understood our need for a retreat from the visitors. Just for us, she kept a special quilt on the chair, and one on the end of the bed, so we wouldn't get our hairs and dirt all over her ivory, chenille bedspread.

It was during those long summer days that Gray and I finally got to be good friends. We talked a lot about our past. Gray had told me that he had lived here with the old couple since he'd been a small kitten.

"You're lucky," I told him one day, "you've never had to be chased and beaten. No one kept you locked in a dark shed for days on end without any food or clean water." Then I told him how I had to eat sickly mice and insects just to stay alive. I wasn't real adept at catching very healthy mice.

"Well, you're okay, now," Gray had said. "You'll never have to worry about being abused again. I've lived with these humans very near seventeen years now, and I have never once been mistreated."

Even in the short time that I'd been here, I could see that was true. The old couple bent over backwards to care for Gray and me. We always had good food—lot's of variety. The only thing I didn't like about living here so much, however, was the trips to the cat doctor. But Gray told me that was because they loved me they cared about my health, so I'd better get used to them.

Gray had to go to the cat doctor a lot in those last few months of his life. He'd begun having to stay in the clinic for several days at a time. Each time he'd gone to the Cat Hospital he'd stayed a little longer; each time he'd come home, he'd been markedly weaker.

Finally, one day, after a particularly long hospital stay, Gray told me the reason for his sickness.
"I have cancer," he had said, while were tucked up together on the end of the old ladies bed. He was cold a lot those last days and we snuggled together whenever he was home. He liked my warmth. I liked his. Although, I didn't like the smell of his fur when he'd first come home from the animal hospital. "The doctors can't seem to find a medicine that will work for me anymore. So I'm going to stay home now, I'm not going back there again. I will die here, around those that love me best, the old man, the old woman, and you.

I was happy he was going to stay home with me now. Those long days that Gray was in the hospital were the worst for me. I was totally lost. I continually paced from one room to the next, looking for him, calling for him. Smelling his odor in places that he'd last been was the only comfort I found when he was away.

The old man would hold me in his arms a lot. They both knew I was distraught over Gray's absence and tried to comfort me. But I could also sense that they missed him just as much as I did and they were just as worried as I was.

The old woman vented her feelings to the old man the night before Gray came home to stay for good. "I can't bear for Gray to be alone in his suffering," she'd said, "I want to bring him home tomorrow and let him die here, in his own bed, with his family, with all the things he loves around him and snuggled next to his best friend, our little Calico Girl." (Calico Girl, that's what they had named me.) "I can take just as good of care of him as they can at that hospital."

And that was that. Gray was brought home and slept out his final days. Several places had been prepared around the house just for him to nap: one was a warm fleece blanket placed in front of the living room window; the warm rays of the morning sun streaming through the plate glass warmed his fur. On warm days, he'd been carried to spend the afternoons on the cool, comforting quilt on the old woman's bed. And in the evening, he'd find comfort in the arms of the old woman as they rocked back and forth, watching television. I was always just a few feet away in the old man's arms, dozing lightly, listening to every breath Gray took.

When Gray could no longer eat, and could barely swallow water, I snuggled even closer. I stayed by his side every minute. I didn't care to eat or drink either. When the old couple urged me to keep up my strength, I realized that it wouldn't be good for the old couple to lose both of us at the same time. Gray had also urged me to eat, and so for him, I did.

I had told him how hard it was to stand by and watch his suffering. "I'm not suffering, really," he'd groaned one night. "If I'm lucky, one day soon, I'll just go to sleep and won't wake up in this world." I told him I didn't want him to go. "I have to, Calico Girl," he'd said. "It's my time, I have to go."

I had told him how much I would miss him. I cried. We had to be brave for the old couple's sake. Gray knew the old woman liked him best. He would miss her. He'd told me to buck-up and mind not to do anything to make the old woman unhappy. "Once I'm gone, she'll need you to cuddle with. She's a good human. She'll love you forever and will take good care of you till the day it's your turn to die."

Gray had told me that the old man couldn't live without me, either. He'd told me how sad the old man had been before he'd found me. "Oh, the old man loves me, too," Gray had added, "but he knew that his wife had a special bond with me. He often wished he'd had someone like me to dote on, too. Getting old for humans is hard. He needed someone like you to pamper and look after. The day the old man found you in that old gutter was the day he came back to life."

I had asked Gray why I'd made such a difference in the old man's life.

"All his life, the old man had been very busy with work. He travelled all over the world while his wife and kids stayed home and lived most of their lives without him. When he was finally retired, his kids were suddenly grown, gone with families of their own to look after." Gray sighed and shifted his weight, not an easy feat for him to do anymore. "Oh, the old man loves his wife and family dearly, they did a lot of good things together, but as the days went by, the years had piled up a hole of emptiness in the old man's heart that even his grandchildren couldn't fill. The old man's mind was going inactive. He was losing his will to greet each new day with the same eagerness he once had. Old age had suddenly become boring. Lonely. He took a lot of long walks.

"Then, he found you. All dirty, hair matted, half starved for food, as well as for love and attention. The old man's heart melted, and well, you know the rest. Since he found you there's been a huge change in his attitude, his love for life. He's happy again. And I think it's all because you needed him as much as he needed the likes of you."

I couldn't decide if I was more happy or sad that day. Gray always had a way of making me feel needed. I'm glad he let me into his life.

It was later that night that Gray left us. He'd been snuggled in the old woman's arms, rocking back and forth; she had been stoking his head, rubbing him gently behind his ears, when he just slipped away. The old woman knew the second he passed, but kept holding him, rocking with him, gently stroking his coarse fur for a few more minutes. Tears wet her face and dripped onto her bosom.

When next the old woman looked up at her husband, and me, I'd been stretched out across his chest, dozing, we knew that Gray had gone, too. The old man's eyes filled with tears and the couple wept together. My eyes stung, but I didn't weep. All I could do was stare across the little lamp table that divided the pair's comfortable chairs, at the lifeless gray lump of fur in her lap. I knew he'd gone, but I didn't want to believe it. I watched for the gentle rise and fall of his stomach, the low congested rumble of his purr, the twitch of a whisker, how I'd known that pain had struck him again. I watched for some minutes, but all was still. My friend had indeed gone.

Dazed, I'd watched as the old man stood up, he'd placed me back in the warm spot of his chair and patted the top of my head. Then he gently lifted the limp mass of gray fluff from his wife's lap. They didn't speak. There was no sound at all really; even the television had been silenced. The woman stood, wrapped Gray's favorite blanket around him and the old man carried him out the door.

Dazed, I watched the woman as she closed the door behind them and they disappeared into the darkness. In a few minutes the old man reappeared in the doorway and nodded for his wife of fifty years, to come. Carrying a small lighted wand in her hand, the woman stepped out into the night after him. Then suddenly the old man and old woman had stopped, turned to me and beckoned me to join them. Numb from the top of my ears to the tip of my tail, I'd followed them.

There, on the side of the house, where all the beautiful azaleas bloomed each spring, in the hole that the man had just dug, Gray's body laid snuggly wrapped in his blanket, getting colder by the minute. When the old man pressed the earth firmly around Gray's body, I sniffed the dirt. It was acrid to all of my senses. But Gray was in the place he loved the most. He had always loved to lie hidden in the azalea beds, watching the humans stroll up and down the sidewalk. He'd often said that was the best entertainment a cat could have. Besides, chasing mice and digging for moles, that is.

With my right paw I padded down the dirt like the old man and then followed the old couple back into the house. That was that. Gray was in no more pain. He'd never suffer pain again.

We had all been preparing for this day, this hour when we'd have to lay our friend to rest. The human's still had me. They took things better, somehow. I, however, was devastated. I hadn't realized it at the moment Gray took his last breath, I hadn't realized it when he'd been lovingly wrapped in his warm blanket, I hadn't even realized how devastated I would be when I placed my paw on his little grave and wished him a happy afterlife. It took about an hour to realize how really devastated I was that he was gone. Gone!

Gray's death had stunned me. I slept where Gray slept, I ate where he used to eat, I paced, I cried, yowled a horrible yowl, actually. I couldn't be comforted. The poor old man and his wife couldn't console me, and oh, how they tried to console me. For the next four days I moaned and groaned and paced and fretted. Outside I wanted to be. I'd check the grave. Inside I wanted to be. I'd check all the rooms, all the beds…

On the lap, off the lap, back on again. In the door, out the door. I had just about worn out the old couple completely before I finally realized that Gray was truly gone, truly in a better place and I'd truly have to go on without him. The poor old man was afraid he'd lose me, too. He held me, rocked me, carried me about the house, gently stroking my fur, gently whispering in my ear, "It'll be all right, precious little kitty," he cooed, over and over, "it'll be all right."

Somehow winter came and went and it's now spring. The woman and I are digging about under the azaleas today. The sun is warm, the birds are happily spreading their joy, and the old man is planting annuals a few feet away. Everyone is busy. Everyone is happy.

I took my place under the azaleas the way Gray would have done. I watched my humans lovingly care for all the growing things around us, I watched the people walk up and down the sidewalk. Gray was right. This is a good spot for a cat to watch the world go by. I looked fondly upon the all-knowing woman beside me. She was right; this was a good place to bury a cat. This is the place I want to be buried also, under the azalea, next to Gray. And nobody knows this but the old man, the old woman, Gray, and Me.

The End

Written and re-written by DBB

Need a Bit of Nip?

2007-10-22T15:34:00.000-07:00

Mike Is On His First Adventure

2007-10-20T15:00:00.000-07:00

Mike's travels have begun. He left Thursday for Tenneessee. He is visiting Mao, Brainball, Dorydoo and Marilyn MonREOW. He will be gone about a week. He has updated his Story site to his Adventure Site. He is currently enjoying everyday life with his new best buddies.

Gretchen is keeping a sign-up list...go here and leave a comment on her site to invite Mike to your home for a week. Mike also has a Portal--a place where he enters cyberspace. Gretchen has all the details.

He is going to Canada next, to visit Kellie the Orange Cat.

He is very excited to be traveling and we are happy for him, too. He is an adventurer at heart and was getting rather bored with his quiet life in a tiny apartment with two old people, and Gretchen.

Sorry, No Thursday Thirteen This Week

2007-10-18T12:57:00.000-07:00

Flaming Wordless Wednesday

2007-10-17T13:33:00.000-07:00

Cat Tuesday: Mike the Mysterious Travels

2007-10-16T15:59:00.000-07:00

For more interesting cat chat, visit Gattina's Cats on Tuesday...here.

Mike the Adventurer

As you all know, Mike wants to be a writer. This week he's narrowed the field down a bit and wants to try his hand as a journalist. He also told me he wants to travel. He wants excitement in his life…(sorry, Mike, I know it is rather dull around here at times).

Last night, Mike broke into my mind, in that mysterious way he has, his golden eyes flashing in the lamplight, "I've decided to expand my horizons and travel. I want to meet new friends and have faraway adventures."

I was aghast at his request. "Mike," I said, rather haughtily, "You can't go anywhere. You're just a fluffhead like the rest of the stuffed animals Gretchen puts up with. You're legs don't really work and everything you do is done through mind tricks. Besides, where on earth would you go? How would you get there? I'm not putting you in a box and mailing you. Why, you'd get crushed or worse yet, lost, forever. I couldn't take that. What were you thinking?"

Mike glowered at me through narrow slits, his golden eyes barely visible. He transmitted wave after wave of thoughts, coming so fast that I had to put my hands over my ears. "Stop!" I demanded. "Enough. We'll give it a try. I'll ask Gretchen to find out if any of her friends wants you to come to their house for a week."

Well, I told Gretchen what Mike had in mind and she agreed to write to her best friend, a kind of sister-friend, or internet cousin, if you will, and ask her if she would like Mike to teleport over to her house for a week. She lives in East Tennessee and has a house full of feline companions. She wrote Gretchen back and said it would be fun to have Mike come for a visit. She also agreed that teleporting was a better way of transportation for a fluffhead these days.

So it was decided. I told Mike the plan. He got so excited he started rattling off a list of things for me to write down. His mind was racing and it was giving me a headache trying to keep up with his thoughts so I just put him in front of the computer and let him do his own typing.

"Mike, here," he wrote. "I'd like to introduce myself to all of Catdom. I'm Mike the Mysterious looking for adventure and stories. I've written up an itinerary for when I come to visit. First of all, I'm very easy to take care of. I am mysterious, you know, and I can hear, and see and think, and do just about anything I have a mind to. I speak to the feline species and other fluffheads and, on occasion, to extra sensory enhanced humans. I don't need food, and since I don't eat or drink, I don't need the use of a little box. I need no special place to sleep and I carry no luggage. Well, there is one thing I might come with, my little blue blanket, if I can figure out away to bring it along through cyberspace...hmm, I wonder if traveling through cyberspace is gonna hurt. I'll have to report on that after I've traveled through the cable lines. If it's anything like traveling through a wormhole, like they do on the TV show, Stargate, I think that'd be way cool.

"My best friend, Gretchen, has arranged for me to visit the Ballicai first. That's the home of Marilyn MonREOW, Chairman Mao, Brainball, Dorydoo and her really cool humans… I think their called beans in blogging language. I've seen their pictures and read their blogs so I'm really excited about visiting them.

"If that goes well and my little idea works, I'll have my secretary/human take care of scheduling my appointments for my next adventure. Thank you all and I look forward to visiting you soon."

Mike wrote out his interview sheet. He's got a ton of questions for his host. He hopes that his host family will also let him say a word or two on their blogs when he gets there. Like letting Gretchen and me know that he arrived safely and when he will be teleporting home. He has hopes that he will come back home full of anecdotes for me to write stories about. He will come and go through Gretchen's portal. So, the next time you hear from Mike the Mysterious on Scrungy and Friends, he will be giving his account of what life was like in East Tennessee.

Look out cyber world, there's a fluffhead on the prowl. He's intelligent, reads minds, and is sometimes very tricky.

2007-10-14T20:48:00.000-07:00

It was getting dark, I was closing the curtains and noticed our sunset, so I had to share this soft Sunday evening. We have to enjoy the bit of blue skies when we get them now, the Oregon rainy season is upon us, and days, or evenings like this one will be rare.

It's A Cat-Nip World

2007-10-13T00:06:00.000-07:00

Thursday Thirteen # 19

2007-10-10T22:55:00.000-07:00

Yikes…is Thursday here already? I don't know how Thursday comes up so fast. We'll, I've given some thought to this week's TT and I've decided that since a first sentence in a novel can make or break a book in an editor's eyes, I'm giving the first sentence in each of the books in the stack waiting for me to read. Presently, there is a stack of twenty-two books that I've purchased in the past few months that I haven't yet read. I also have six library books awaiting my attention. I'm only giving you the first thirteen I laid my hands on to write this piece. You're happy about that, right?

1. I wanted to find my own way, so this morning I persuaded my father to let me travel alone from his apartment in Kobe to my grandfather's beach home in Tarumi. The Samurai's Garden by Gail Tsukiyama. I also have to read: Woman of the Silk. This author has nine published novels.

2. A month before Christmas, I saw a ghost. Sweet Revenge by Diane Mott Davidson. New York Times bestselling author. This book just came out in September and has hit the NYT bestselling list. I'm a faithful fan. This is book number fourteen.

3. Tell me again why I agreed to help you with this. The Choice by Nicholas Sparks. New York Times bestselling author. And his book just came out in September and made that coveted list right away. Yay! This is book thirteen. He's such a dream. I could be a groupie if I were younger.

4. "Do I appear to be kidding, Sara?" Catnapped – An Animal Instinct Mystery by Gabreiella Herkert. It looks like this is her first novel. What can I say? I'm a sucker for any title with the word cat in it, or a cover with the picture of a cat on it. I'm usually disappointed by book covers, but hey, I'll try again to find another unique cat story series.

5. Mary Alice flung her purse on my kitchen table, where it landed with a crash, pulled a stool over to the counter and perched on it. Murder on a Girls' Night Out by Anne George. This is her eighth book in her Southern Sister Mysteries…Gee, can you tell I'm a cozy mystery lover? And its Southern. I like series books and I'm always testing the waters for my new favorite.

6. The old man woke still tired from a restless sleep in the back bedroom of his small house on the outskirts of Cody, Wyoming, and grumbled to himself as he rolled over, seeking comfort in a new position. Dead North – An Alaska Mystery by Sue Henry, Award winning Author of Murder on the Iditarod Trail. Fourteen books for her. Like I said, I'm looking for a new favorite.

7. Katherine Murray woke on her forty-sixth birthday and realized that nobody needed her. Death on a Family Tree by Patricia Sprinkle. Twenty-three books, broken up in several series, short stories and non-fiction.

8. The houses on Thornberry Lane near the outskirts of Baton Rouge were always the main draw on the Historical Tour for tourists. Hey, Good Looking, by Fern Michaels. My mother reads all her books, and then gives them to me. I currently have three I haven't read yet. She's a very prolific writer with bookoo books written. She's always a #1 NYBSA.

9. Meghan Collins stood somewhat aside from the cluster of other journalist in Emergency at Manhattan's Roosevelt Hospital. I'll Be Seeing You by Mary Higgins Clark. Always a #1 for weeks and weeks after her books come out. I'm going back to some of her earlier books right now. She's written so many it makes my head spin.

10. Regain Reilly descended the staircase from the second floor of her parents' home in Summit, New Jersey, as she had on countless Saturday mornings in the thirty-one years of her life. Hitched – A Regan Reilly Mystery by Carol Higgins Clark. I'm a fan, she's light and funny and prolific. NYBSA

11. Matthias cut a comical little figure as he wobbled his way along cloister, with his large sandals flip-flopping and his tail peeping from beneath the baggy folds of an oversized novices' habit. Redwall – The Legend Begins! By Brian Jacques – NYBSA with lots of books. This is the first book in the Redwall series. I love children's books, too.

12. Fireheart's fur bristled with disbelief and fury as he gazed up at the new leader of ShadowClan standing on the Great Rock. Warriors: A Dangerous Path, Book 5 in the series. By Erin Hunter. The greatest adventure of a kittypet I've ever read. An all cat series. Twenty-one CAT books, yes, cats…love cat stories.

13. What did I have, what was making me so scared that my heart was about to beat out of my chest? Okay, it's Paula Dean. She's southern, in Savannah, a place embedded in my teenaged memory and heart. It's her memoirs, she says "It ain't all about Cookin'," and it's written with Sherry Suk Cohen

Okay, I've got a lot of reading to do. With the exception of a few of the just released books, I bought all twenty-two books for my summer reading. The library also sends me five or six books off of my reading list each month. Hee, hee. We'll I learned about blogging somewhere in-between spring and fall, and, well, you know how it goes…blog, blog, blog.

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

Wordless "Golden" Wednesday

2007-10-10T00:09:00.000-07:00

public photo--came with my computer

Cats on Tuesday: Dirty Harry Pays a Visit

2007-10-09T02:07:00.000-07:00

For more Cats on Tuesday stories, visit Gattina here.

Dirty Harry, Pooch Extraordinaire

Long ago, when Harry was new, and his faux fur was white and pristine, he sat upon a little girl's pretty pink bedspread in her pretty pink room keeping her dolls and other stuffed animals, company all day long. He knew he was more special than anything else in the girl's room. He had held a secret.

Little Harry, as he was called back then, performed a very special task for the little girl that no other stuffed animal or doll in the room could do. So he was very special and very proud of his unique features. At first glance, he looked like any ordinary, garden variety, stuffed pooch.

His life wasn't very exciting or adventurous, either. But he didn't mind. Wearing pretty dresses, or getting his hair coifed and decorated like the dolls wasn't all that interesting to him anyway. He didn't mind not being included in the little tea parties, and going for rides in the doll carriage, or rocked to sleep in the doll bassinet.

No, Little Harry didn't even mind not being hugged and snuggled like the teddy bears, the kittens or the bunnies that accompanied him on the little girl's bed during the day, or were tucked under the covers with her at night. None of that mattered to him because he had a very special gift and was made with a very special purpose in mind.

Like most little stuffed pooches he had floppy ears, brown pompom eyes and a brown pompom nose, and a tiny little red felt tongue that you could barely see. His two little front paws were pressed together in a manner like prayer. During the day he was as round and fluffy as any stuffed pooch might be. But nighttime was magical. Each night after the little girl's bath, he performed his unique function. He went flat as a pancake. Really flat. Even his head went flat: his eyes bulged, his tongue stuck out, his ears and tail spilled out around him. He could have passed for a pooch rug. But that was alright with him.

You see, Little Harry was called a PJ-Pooch. Instead of having hind legs, he had a large opening that was hidden under his large, fluffy white tail. During the day his small body held the little girl's pajamas, and during the night his little flat body rested upon the nightstand where he could watch over his princess while she slept. Every morning when the little girl got dressed for the day, she stuffed her little pink pajamas back into his fluffy, flat body where he kept them safe for her all during the day.

Nearly three dozen years have passed since he was new, and when the little girl grew, she outgrew Harry. He sat and waited in a little wicker basket as the years passed from one to the next. The house that was once filled with children's laughter, games and going's on, with grandchildren's visits, and grown up company filling the house during holidays, is quiet now. While age as turned the grandmother's hair white as snow, Little Harry, who has long since left the pretty pink bedroom for a place in the little-used family room, has turned dark, tinged with years and years of neglect and dust. The little girls PJ's, long since outgrown, no longer fills his flat little body, just a wad of leftover fiberfill gives him shape.

Dirty Harry, as he's now called, spends his lonely days sitting in his little, brown, wicker basket waiting by the door, waiting for someone to need him again. But age has turned against him, the way it does for all things. His eyes sag a little; his nose hangs by a single thread, his little red tongue leans to one side. He's never seen the inside of a washing machine, or a dryer the way Mike the Mysterious has. Had he, he could have lost an eye or two, or even his nose.

How did it come about then that Dirty Harry came to visit Gretchen, the real flesh and blood cat and her mysterious little fluffhead companion with the melted fur, you ask? It could have been Mike the Mysterious reputation for transmitting deep thoughts to humans, causing the old lady to think about his loneliness. It could have been just that.

For whatever reason, or however it came to be known for the grandmother, with the snow white hair, to come up with the idea to bring Dirty Harry for a visit last Saturday, he is here now and Gretchen has greeted him like family. Dirty Harry, in all his dust colored floofiness, sits amid the rest of the gang, until Saturday comes again.

He's had a marvelous time visiting Gretchen's place, sitting here and there, in his little brown wicker basket. He's had his picture taken, spent the nights talking with Mike about this and that, or whatever it is that cotton headed critters have to talk about. His little girl, now grown, will come for Harry in a few days and take him back to her grannies house, where he will sit and marvel until time takes its toll. Or maybe not, maybe he will come again someday and while away the hours discussing this and that with Gretchen and her fluffhead friends. Maybe someone will sew his nose back in place and give him a bath… anything is possible.

Wait Ten Minutes...It'll Change

2007-10-06T00:39:00.000-07:00

Thursday Thirteen #18

2007-10-04T00:01:00.000-07:00

Thirteen Things about Awarness Ribbons...

you really didn't think I was not going to say something about pink,

or breast cancer, did you?

1. As you know, October is mainly known for Breast Cancer Awareness…or so I thought. I have survived two breast cancers, treatments and operations, a year apart. It has been three years since I've had chemo. I have not been pronounced clear of cancer, however, because my cancer was found in the lymph nodes on the side of the first cancer site/surgery and radiation, a year later when the second cancer formed on the other side and a bilateral mastectomy was performed. (Sorry that was a mouthful). After chemo treatments, I was supposed to take a popular cancer drug for the next five years. I have a heart condition and medication that interfered with these drugs and after going through three different types of drugs and injections we found I could not tolerate them. So I'm an if survivor/sort of/ we think. If five years comes and I'm still here, then I might be clean. Honest, that's the doctors words.

2. My thirteen is about awareness ribbons like the famous pink ribbon that I so coveted to wear after I had my first surgery. To me, it was a badge of honor...sort of like a Purple Heart is to a wounded soldier. At the time I couldn't find anyone who sold them. I wasn't up to searching real hard either. But anyway, a sweet nurse gave me the one off of her lanyard before I came home from the second cancer operation.

3. Now, pink ribbons are everywhere, along with everything else pink. And while I agree that this is commercialism at its best, I am rather proud of that little pink ribbon in my jewelry box. It's in my jewelry box because I forget to put it on when I go out. Pink is everywhere because a buck can be made and maybe thirty-cents on the dollar might go for Breast Cancer research.

4. But, hey! I'm cool with the color pink and all that goes with it. Without the awareness that is being promoted by all of this commercialism, I would have suffered far worse through surgery and chemo than I did. I might not even be here right now writing this thirteen. Aren't you the lucky ones. I will tell you that radiation sucks the life right out of you. But Chemo, even after having made the great strides it has over the past ten years, still is downright dreadful. And, through all that awareness and research and medication and knowledge…with the type of cancer I had, I'm still here. I'm full of gratitude for those that made it possible for me to survive for the last three years; the color pink and all those little gizmos and gadgets that carry that symbol.

5. Back to the awareness ribbons. Like everyone else, I Google when I want answers, inspiration, research, I'm lazy, or just plain bored. Ribbons, along with wrist bands, seem to have become a symbol for everything.

6. Here's a few (a tiny few—you'll have to Google for more—there were just too many causes to list for this purpose, not to mention the fact at how boring the list is).

7. White: Gender violence; Yellow: Suicide, Deployed soldiers, Endometriosis awareness; Blue: nine causes listed in Wikipedia; Jade: more types of cancer; Purple: four causes. I'm a purple person but not interested in wearing this ribbon.

8. Periwinkle: Hey, I could wear that one. I have Pulmonary Hypertension…I even died from it once and was saved from near death one time after that. That color makes for very expensive trips to the emergency room, not to mention the ICU. I like the color periwinkle. Not enough to wear it though. That's a scary way to go.

9. Then there's Pink and Blue: Mostly infant causes which you might expect, but there's another breast cancer hidden in this one. Inflammatory breast cancer.

10. Orange: Five causes for this color, one of them being for Animal Protection Awareness; Red for Aids, Anorexia, Substance Abuse; Gray: diabetes; Green and Blue: mental health; Green Organ transplantation and donation awareness…a very worthy cause…but Lyme Disease? Teal: more cancer, Sexual assault.

11. A Multi colored puzzle ribbon: Autism awareness. It's a cute little ribbon. Makes sense.

12. Brown: Now this one I would love to wear if it stood for Chocoholics or Chocolate Lovers of the World Unit. It stands for Tobacco awareness, folks. My aunt just died this year due to a tobacco related disease. It was the worst thing I have witnessed in my life. Having had two near misses with pulmonary hypertension (Periwinkle) I know what being deprived of oxygen feels like. Not a good way to die.

13. I gave up my research when I discovered there is a ribbon of every color imaginable for every cause imaginable, and a commercial product for each ribbon/wrist band…whatever. Pick your color. (I still like purple and chocolate….hmmm, maybe I'll design a new ribbon, half purple and chocolate…it would stand for Purple People Eaters Love Their Chocolate Awareness!

Yay! Go Pink, Y'all!

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

Wordless "Smile at Least Once A Day" Wednesday...and think pink

2007-10-03T00:13:00.000-07:00

this is a borrowed photo from an email

Cat's on Tuesday: Maybe, Sort of...Temporary

2007-10-02T01:19:00.000-07:00

For more cats on Tuesday go to Gattina's site, here.

This is proabaly it for this week. I've been doing some fall cleaning and have worn myself to a frazzle. If I get a story written or come up with an idea to post about Gretchen, I'll be back and replace this...if not...tune in next week. Dirty Harry has come to visit Gretchen and Mike.
Go Pink!

October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month: Go Pink!

2007-09-30T20:23:00.000-07:00

Since I'm a two time breast cancer survivor I'm going pink for October. October is also my birth month, so that's another good reason to go pink. You can click here for more information on how you can support Breast Cancer Awareness by turning your blog/website, pink for October.

Taking a Weekend Break

2007-09-29T11:11:00.000-07:00

Thursday Thirteen #17

2007-09-26T23:02:00.000-07:00

Thirteen things I love about the moon.

1. The moon is my favorite of all the celestial bodies. From my southern windows, I also get to see Mars, Venus and Atari as they dance with the moon across the sky.

2. I look forward to seeing the moon in the sky whether it's day or night. It delights my soul to catch a glimpse of the moon in the daylight hours. I always greet it as an old friend.

3. I love taking pictures of the moon, but I don't have the greatest digital camera right now for capturing the moon the way my eyes see it. When my children were small, we had a telescope and I could sit and look at the moon for hours. Although, having small children about, my gazing was limited to just minutes, not hours. Fifteen minutes at most. I also have an older, manual 35 mm with lots of expensive lenses that I no longer fuss with. It requires film. Digital is so right now.

4. Tonight the moon is full, the skies are clear. It was large and round as it came up over the tree tops just after dark. I got the best shot I could for what I have to work with. That's my header. Of course, it does not show the details of the moon's surface as I saw it, but it was the inspiration for my thirteen.

5. I'm in the northern part of our hemisphere, the north pacific, so the moon is usually seen from my bed as it tracks across the southern sky. I often talk to the moon. Wish upon it and wonder at its brilliance.

6. I often lay in bed when the moon is full, with curtains wide open for maximum viewing, and moon gaze. I like it best when my bed is awash in its light.

7. I now live in an area surrounded by lights at night, so I cherish my view of moon because the stars are less visible.

8. I used to live way out in the country. We had a fire ring in our backyard where we cooked out a lot. Often, after a particularly hard day at work, it was comforting to lie back in my chaise and stare upward at the sky full of stars. The moon seemed so much bigger back then. The stars so much closer. I miss that, a lot.

9. I love moon lore. I keep clippings from the newspaper about the moons activities. I use the moon and the moon's light in most of my novels. It's important to me to know exactly where the moon is, or isn't, in my timelines. Plus the moon inspires romance.

10. I am not superstitious, nor am I a moon worshiper. I know who made it and how it got there. That's enough for me. But often prayers seem so much easier to say when the moon is beaming overhead, filling my room, and my soul, with its light.

11. I also used to live farther north, actually several places farther north at different periods of my life. My favorite thing about the moon living so far north was that on a snow covered landscape, the full moon's light at midnight was as though it was noonday.

12. I used to love to go for walks through the woods, the neighborhood, on moonlit nights. I don't live in a time or area where that is possible anymore. Too bad. It was a wonderful experience. I can still visualize how wonderful it was to walk in the moon's light. I was never alone with the moonlight upon my shoulders.

13. Halloween is coming soon. The moon won't be full this year on that bewitching eve, but every Halloween, when I look at the moon, my mind takes me back to when I was a child of five or six. We had spooky story telling time after a round of trick or treating and when I stepped outside to look at the moon, I could have sworn that I had seen a witch on her broom fly across that huge, orange moon. I've never told a living soul, until now.

Wordless "Surprise" Wednesday

2007-09-25T23:19:00.000-07:00

Cats on Tuesday: The Adventures of Ragpuff: In the Beginning

2007-09-24T22:38:00.000-07:00

I'd liked to think that at one time, Ragpuff had had a home with human adults, and maybe some human children. I'd like to think that he had just wandered away from home and got lost, rather than to imagine that he was mistreated, abandoned, or thrown away the first time. Ragpuff was a brief, three day, bright spot of orange and white fluff in my life, and then he was gone. At first I thought he had found his way back home until I learned the truth. I was frustrated at my helplessness to do anything for him when he first came calling. So this little short story series is dedicated to the mysterious little kitten I call, Ragpuff. From this point on, Ragpuff tells his own story. I hope you will come by often to see what else he's gotten himself into. I can only imagine.

The Adventures of Ragpuff
In the Beginning

The air was dry, hot, and foul from the tar that had recently been poured on the place where humans park their smelly, monster cars. It was a mistake right from the beginning to cross under that fence, the one overgrown with the ivy and trees, and pad across that great, black space to where I had heard human voices. It had been four days since I'd heard a friendly, human voice. I was hungry, too. Very hungry. I guess that's what caused me to be so careless as to traipse across that hot blacktop to where the human's lived. Hunger will do that to a kitten.

The first human I saw was short, roundish, and yellowed haired. When she saw me, she beckoned me closer. I knew she had a big white, fluffy and bouncy dog. One almost as big as she was. He seemed like a pretty nice dog, he was also tied to the banister so he couldn't come after me. I could tell right away that she had a cat in her place, too. He just happened to be sitting in the window, meowing at his human who was outside feeding another cat…me.

Well, to make a long story short, there were a few other humans that lived in those buildings and I soon found out that most of them liked me. They fed me, stroked my fur, picked me up and held me, but not one of them invited me in to stay, to be their pet. They were all afraid of something. I couldn't have been me. I was too tiny to be afraid of. But I could sense it; they all were worried something would happen to them if they took care of me proper.

Oh, yes, indeed. Four days ago I had been someone's pet. They had been very good to me, too. A lady who talked kind of silly sometimes and a man who hardly ever said a word. They got me from my momma's humans when I was almost two months old. I also had two brothers and a sister. They all got new homes before I did. So for a while, it was just my momma and me.

Well, I was happy in my new home. I loved my humans very much. One day the kitchen door was left open a tiny bit and I wanted to go outside and see for myself what was on the other side of those windows that I'd been gazing out of for the past four months. I sneaked out real quiet like. I was only going to take a little peek at the world outside. Honest. That was all. A real quick peek, and then I was going to run right back inside and get back up in my chair. I had the nicest chair, all my very own. It snuggled up against the window next to the street and I had a good view of everything.

I took my peek. It was quiet pleasant outside. The porch was covered with ivy and there were pretty little bushes with flowers on them, and some trees that shaded everything and made it nice and cool. A pair of yellow butterflies darting about the bushes caught my attention. I'd often seen them through the window. They looked like a lot of fun to chase after, so I did. After I got tired of chasing the little yellow fellows, I found some small round bugs with really hard shells, scurrying around in the leaves under the bushes. They were fun to bat around. Then there was this huge bumble bee that came by and I followed him for a bit.

After a while, I don't know how long it had been, I was ready to go back inside and get a drink of water and maybe have a bite or two of my kibble. Lo, and behold, the door I'd sneaked out of was closed! I pawed at the wood. I mewled really loud, and used my claws, which I'm never supposed to do in the house, and clawed at the door. I knew there was another door. I'd seen the old couple coming and going from it a lot. Other humans often came in and out of it, too, so I knew it was an important door. I ran around the house and jumped up on the steps leading to the door. I sat down and mewed my little heart out and no one came to the door to open it for me.

It had started getting dark. The sun was disappearing behind the trees. Like I said I'd never been outside before and now I was out and couldn't get back in. A big old dog started barking at me. He came running after me and scared me off the porch. I ran and ran and ran until I was sure he wasn’t following me anymore. Before I knew it, it was dark. I was lost. I've been trying to find my way back home ever since. It had been nearly four days by the time I found the humans in those big buildings. My stomach was really growling.

I was given some food I was used to, kitty kibble, and one nice lady thought I should have some clean water. So I decided that hanging around those human's places wasn't so bad. I was already used to the dark. I slept under the fence at night and made the rounds to all the friendly humans during the day. A lot of the ones that fed me had cats of their own. I talked to some of their pets through their windows, but they weren't all that eager to talk to me. I didn't care, they were sharing their food with me, so that was enough.

There were a few other, bigger cats that hung out at the edges of the fence at night, but they would never let me get too close to them. There was, however, this one large, gray stripped tom that sort of took a liking to me. He let me sleep kind of near him at night. I told him I'd found human's that liked me and I could be happy hanging out with them. He warned me not to go back there anymore. He told me there were some real nasty humans that lived there that didn't like cats. Some of his friends had gotten trapped there during the winter and he's never seen them since. I told him I'd be careful. All of the ones that fed me and stroked my fur, liked cats.

The very next morning I went across the blacktop to visit my friends at the buildings and have a bit of breakfast. A human I had seen before, but had never actually talked to, came up to me, pretending to like me. She called me kitty. "Here kitty, kitty," she'd said, real sweet like. So, I trotted up to her, real friendly like, and the next thing I knew, she'd grabbed me roughly, threw me into a box, tossed me in the trunk of one of them monster cars and away we went. It seemed like a really long time had gone by. I was getting awful hot and thirsty. Pretty soon the monster car stopped, a hand reached in the box, grabbed me by the back of my neck, where my sweet momma used to carry me when I was really tiny, and then threw me off into some weeds. I should have bitten her hand. I should have left claw marks on her arms and face. I know that now, but I was a sweet, friendly kitten, that loved those humans. I thought they loved me, too. How could I have been fooled so easily?

Now, I'm really lost. Very lost. Lost, lost, lost! I didn't even get to have one last meal of kibble before I was snatched and taken way out here. Well, I have no idea where way out here is, but I can tell you, I don't like the looks of what I see around me. I've been up and down this road about a million times since I was dumped out here. I haven't seen another monster car anywhere. Not one. All I can see is a lot of really tall weeds and really thorny berry bushes. There are also mountains of tiny little rocks. Lots of mountains of them. Some of them have arms. Funny looking things. Somewhere around here has got to be some water and a place to eat, and, whew! It's really getting hot. I've got to find some shade, fast.

Another Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood

2007-09-23T12:10:00.001-07:00

Thursday Thirteen #16

2007-09-20T16:35:00.001-07:00

Technically, it's still Thursday where I live. At first I didn't feel up to doing a Thirteen this week, I had so much more I needed to be accomplishing. I'm not getting things done like I want to these days. But then I felt bad that I was missing out on the game so here I am—a day late where most of you Thirteeners live, but here nonetheless. Just random stuff about how I know fall is here.

1. The gold finches have returned to the feeders in my tree. My computer faces the window and as much as I love watching them, they can be a distraction to writing. I've got go back to the store again. They've nearly emptied their Niger seed feeder.

2. The leaves are changing. Tinges of orange and red on the edges of the leaves give it away. Yesterday when I was out away from the apartment complex I saw young oak trees completely changed into flaming torches.

3. The skies are graying over with marine clouds. This happens from now until June. We'll have a lot more low lying, dense gray clouds for most of the day. Some days, we'll not even see the sun at all.

4. I smelled wood smoke in the air for the first time in four months. I love the smell of wood smoke on a cold evening.

5. I have such an urge to go to the coast. I'm a winter coast person, meaning I like being on the beach when most of the summer tourists have gone. The wind is stronger, and colder.

6. I'm cold. Yet I refuse to turn on the heat just yet. I'm now wrapped up in a blanket, have put on a sweater, and wearing warm socks.

7. The windows are closed all day long now, much to my cat's dismay.

8. All the new season TV shows have started. I don't have time for TV anymore, unless I'm sick.

9. My summer annuals are on their last leg. I've started replacing them with sedums, chrysanthemums, and glacier pansies.

10. Christmas cards and gifts have entered the clutter in my brain.

11. Halloween stuff: candy and costumes, orange and black, have replaced the back-to-school specials on the store shelves.

12. I've started drinking hot tea instead of iced tea. (I like herbal blends over real tea.)

13. I ordered all long sleeved shirts from a catalog yesterday. I'm thinking of knitting myself a pair of leg warmers this year. Did I say I was cold?

Wordless Wednesday

2007-09-19T01:23:00.000-07:00

photographer unknown

Neighborhood Nightlife: Episode 4: Jealousy Bites Back

2007-09-18T00:01:00.000-07:00

While you're sleeping, snug and comfy in your beds, dreams floating round in your heads, do you know what your cat is doing at that wee hour, when moon has risen high, wind has stilled, leaving the air thickly perfumed with night flowers?

Of all the things to happen on a day cold enough to keep the windows closed, Princess Pricilla Prudence, tethered by a purple, rhinestone studded halter and matching purple leash, strutted past Necco's window with a short, round, purple-haired woman, also dressed in shades of purple sweats, wearing lots of bling. They even stopped in front of Necco's little garden for the princess to sniff the sweet Alyssum growing in a small pot near the sidewalk.

It was all Necco could do not to break down the window for a chance to talk to the new cat. It was the perfect opportunity, how could her guardians be so unclear about her yowls and tail slapping to get up from their nap and open the window for her? In frustration, Necco sailed out of the window into the middle of the bed and the sleeping humans. The whole bed vibrated with her pounce. With no luck in waking them, Necco walked up and down on their bodies. The female guardian lay on her side away from the window, Necco often laid on her hips, giving them extra warmth. But now she wanted her to wake up and open up the window before it was too late, before that prissy, white cat with the fancy purple bling had moved on, out of site.

Unfortunately, her guardians were used to Necco leaping from the window to the middle of the bed and back again. She did it all night long, and so, having grown accustomed to the bouncing bed, they napped on. It was of no use, Necco hurried back to the window, the white cat had sashayed on down the sidewalk. Fortunately for Necco, the sidewalk wound all the way around the grounds of the buildings, giving residences a place to walk their pets or just get exercise. Necco flew from the windowsill, bounced off the bed and raced down the hall to the dining room window. With luck, the fancy, Miss Prudy and her matching human should be coming round the corner of the building right about now.

Because the late afternoon sun was often strong on the west side of the building, the mini-blinds were down at this time of the day. Necco squeezed through the mini-blinds onto the windowsill and pressed her whole body against the warm glass. It was the end of September; an early cold front had passed through during the night, bringing with it an inch of rain and lots of wind. This was the beginning of the No Windows Open Season for Necco and her friends at the Rainbow Estates Senior Village. For the next six to seven months, life would be boring. Birds filled the trees and dined from a variety of feeders hanging in the trees all year round. She would spend the long, No Windows Open Season, lip sinking her bird and squirrel chatter to the unhearing, unafraid wildlife. The only comfort to this season was the fact that most nights, unless it was bitter cold, her human guardians liked to sleep with their bedroom window open to the cool night air. But not all of the residence of the little village did that. Markus's guardian did, but Frog's guardian didn't. At least she had Thorny to talk to most nights during this season. He went out every night, "making his rounds, marking his territory," he called it.

Necco pressed harder on the glass, distorting her face against the pane, waiting for the poufy white cat to appear. Surely, Miss Prudy and her guardian should be rounding the corner by now. Alas, there she was, stopping every few inches it seems, to smell the flowers, the shrubs, the freshly mowed grass. She and her guardian were in no particular hurry to walk the paths.

It just dawned on Necco why her guardians had their windows in the bedroom closed, the noise makers were there earlier with the lawnmowers, trimmers, and those smelly gasoline wind makers. The leaves were beginning to fall and the men with the blowers took longer than usual with those noisy things, to tidy up the grounds.

Necco rose up on her hind legs, rabbit-like, pawing on the window glass. She cried out with her little yilk, yilk sounds trying to get the new cat's attention. After a few good whacks with her tail against the glass, Miss Princess Pricilla Prudence turned towards the sound Necco was making. Necco got excited. She'd seen her! She'd seen her! Eagerly chattering through the double pained window, Necco stood even taller, pawing the glass even faster, making squeaking sounds with her sweaty paws. Miss Prudy turned her attention back to the walking path and strolled on, not giving any indication that she'd ever even noticed Necco in the window.

Desperate to be seen, to be paid attention to, Necco practically tore the mini-blinds from the window in an effort to get to the next window in the living room. She leaped, bounced off the back of male human's recliner and hit the window sill with such force it nearly knocked the wind out of her." Drat," she wailed. "Those blasted trees are blocking my view!" Necco ran back to the dining room window, hoping in vain for a better view of where the white cat had gone to. The old lady and her cat had been completely swallowed up by the trees and shrubs that made the landscape around the village so peaceful and private.

Necco slipped through the mini-blinds again, tore back down the hall to the bedroom, bounced once in the middle of the bed and hit the windowsill with precision. Defeated in her efforts to meet the new cat, she lowered herself into the windowsill, her front paws tucked neatly under her chest, and stared out the window at apartment sixteen. Eventually the little round, purple lady and her fancy cat would have to go back to their apartment. Necco would not be able to get her attention from where she was, but she thought that if she could stare at her long enough, perhaps she could send some kind of mental vibe that would let the precious little thing on the end of the purple leash, know that Necco wanted to greet her. Evidently this lady and her cat were not out for a marathon walk the way most of the seniors that could walk, did on cold, brisk days.

A half an hour later, Necco's eyes, reduced to silts, half dreaming, half alert to any outside movement, caught site of Miss Prudy's white plume as it disappeared up the sidewalk to its apartment. "Snob," Necco hissed. "You saw me in the window, I know you did. Are you too good to talk to anyone but Thorny? Well, we'll see about that, Miss Sissy, whatever your name is. Thorny will be by tonight and I'll tell him what a snob you really are." Obsessed, Necco stayed in her cat loaf position until dinner. After the sudden visit to the vet, the last time she stalked the prissy cat through her window, she was more careful about how much attention she gave apartment number sixteen when her guardians were awake.

The midnight hour came, the bedroom window had been open since dinner. Necco relished in the cool, fresh, earthy air that filtered into the room and bathed her soft, multicolored fur. She dozed, taking in all the sounds from the outside world. The frogs faintly clung to their little harmony in the ditches beyond the trees. Another week or two and they wouldn't be heard anymore. Necco tried to imagine what color halter and leash would look good with her coloring. Strawberry perhaps. Or maybe peach. She loved the color purple, like the prissy cat strutted around in today, but it would clash against her peach and brown markings.

"Necco," Markus called from the window above. "How'd you survive our first full day of the No Windows Open Season?"

"I didn't like it one bit," Necco hissed, her mind still fuming over being snubbed by the new cat.

"So, what'd you do today?" he chattered on. "Besides eat and sleep, I mean."

Necco filled him in on the snooty white cat's sashaying around the village that afternoon. "I'm telling you Markus, she's a snob. I'm going to send deep thoughts to my humans every night in their sleep, I want a red halter and leash. I want to go outside and walk around the village with my humans. I'm not going to rest until I get through to them."

"There you go, Necco, you're obsessing over that piece of fluff again. Thorny may like hanging around her, swooning over her at night, but she's s not really his type. He'll see that soon enough. So give it up, will you? Jealousy doesn't become you."

The sound of the window sliding open in Frog's apartment caught their attention. Frog jumped up into his window immediately and called out to Markus and Necco. "Hey, guys," he said, "guess what I heard today? We're gonna have some new people moving in upstairs soon. Maybe tomorrow. You think they've got cats? I hope they've got a cat."

Before Frog could tell Necco and Markus how he knew such details, Thorny came waltzing across the parking lot with muddy feet. He jumped up on Necco's guardian's car, leaving a trail of muddy tracks. Sitting under the lamp light be began to groom. "So what's been happenin' around here today?" he crooned, looking doe-eyed at Necco.

Necco stamped her feet in a little of fit of anger, slapped her tail against the wall a few times, and puffed out her cheeks. "Your new, fancy girlfriend casually strolled past my apartment today and didn't even give me the time of day. She's such a snob."

Thorny looked aghast that his "Sissy," as she liked to be called, would act like that. "I don't understand," he said, "she's very friendly and told me she was anxious to meet everyone. So, she got go outside today. Gee, I wish I'd have known, I could have walked with her and introduced her to you. I tell her all about you all the time, Necco. About Markus, Frog and the others. She really isn't a snob. Since she's not doing the show circuit anymore, she's been very lonely."

Necco told Thorny all about how she had tried to get the white cat's attention that afternoon, "and when she had looked over at here at me, she just turned her nose in the air and walked away, like she'd never even seen me," Necco hissed again, jealousy oozing from her little green eyes.

Thorny looked around as if expecting someone, then he turned his attention to Necco. "Necco," he whispered as if half expecting to be overheard by the white cat, "I'm sorry. I thought I told you all that Miss Sissy is nearly blind."

Tagged: Christmas Must Be A'comin'

2007-09-17T14:01:00.000-07:00

This is one of the ribbon pine cone ornaments I make each year.

Depending on the type of ribbon I can find each year.

I guess Christmas is on it's way soon, my friend Meeyauw tagged me with a Green Christmas Meme. She was tagged by Kuanyin who lives in Hawaii.

So here goes…all you have to do is answer the questions and tag a few of your friends.

What is your favorite Christmas gift?
Homemade Christmas ornaments (Homemade fudge)

What is your best memory of Christmas?
The poorest one we had where we had to make everyone's presents out of things we had around the house. That was also the year we took a de-leafed deciduous tree, painted it white, stuck in a bucket of gravel and hung our homemade ornaments on it. It was also the prettiest tree we've ever had.

Depending upon where you live do you have a hot or cold Christmas?

Moderately cold

Would you prefer to try the opposite weather at least just once?

I've had Christmas in California, Texas, Hawaii, Florida, Georgia and many northern states where it gets bitterly cold and snows heavily. I've had Christmas on an island in the Aleutians and in Anchorage. No place is Christmas weather best as it is where I'm living at the present.

What do you prefer in a tree? Fake or real?
Real, but for purposes of misplaced heating vents in modern houses, I have to use fake.

What is your favorite carol?

O Holy Night

What is your favorite Christmas dinner?
I would say ham. My family would say turkey, but we've even had tacos and enjoyed them just as much as a traditional dinner.

Do you wear a Santa hat at Christmas?
Not anymore. But my bears do. Does that count?

Have you ever seen Santa delivering gifts?
No, but I've heard him a few times.

To find out what their Christmas are like in their part of the country, I'm tagging:

Thomma Lyn at Tennessee Test Wrestling—Appalachians,

Paula at Basset Knitter--Illinois,

Melanie at Tea Leaves—New York,

Gattina at Writer Cramps—Belgium,

Michico at Adan's Way—Taiwan.

Every year Gretchen's favorite place is under the Christmas Tree

Submitted to Short Story Writing Month

2007-09-14T00:01:00.000-07:00

Short Story Writing Month is going on now. I submitted the first of two stories that I had planned to write.

The Button Box
By DBB
Words: 2,367

Ever play the game, button, button, who's got the button? An old, corroded tin, that once upon a time had held a fruitcake, now filled with little fragments of the past, felt oddly warm in Faerie's hands. The floodgates to Frances Faye's childhood memories were unleashed as she inched open the canister's tight fitted lid. Frances Faye, otherwise known as Faerie, so named because her baby sister couldn't pronounce her name and it came out fair-fee, was relieved to find that all her old friends were still huddled together inside the tin.

Buttons have been around since the dawn of time. Made of wood, shell, stone, metal, they held the garments of man closed, were used as barter in trade or ornaments to royalty. To Faerie, the buttons within the worn, metal box were priceless gems. Every size and color imaginable, all collected by her sweet grandmother, Ida.

A button in the days of the depression was not something to discard. When clothes were worn out and could no longer be mended, the buttons were removed and tossed into the button box. The fabric, what useful pieces could be salvaged, were later sewn into quilts.

From as far back as Faerie could remember she had spent the summers at her grandparent's small ranch between the dusty mesas of southwest Texas. The button box, in the bottom drawer of the sewing cabinet, was brought out on hot summer afternoons as a means to entertain her. And entertain her it did. Faerie whiled away many a hot summer's day playing with each and every button in the box.

Besides being a tool to keep Faerie out her grandmother's hair, especially at peak canning time, the button box held an education. From them she had learned to count, learned the names of colors, and the secrets of her family history. But most importantly, it had unlocked a little girl's imaginings.

Faerie invented all kinds of button games. When the red ones were separated from the white ones they became the subjects of royalty, the gold and silver ones. The blue ones became the queen's army. The beige and brown were the horses and cattle. Tiny, tiny ones were the birds. Large gray ones were the elephants. Because there were so few of them, the cloth covered buttons, were the wise sages and wizards of the kingdom. Green, of course, depending on their size, were elves or faeries. At other times, the buttons were separated into sizes and color groups once again, representing Indians and their horses, dogs and cats. The large ones became Army soldiers. Faerie rarely played war in her imaginings. She didn't like war. So her soldiers were always the good kind. It was war that was all about her as a child. In 1944, when Faerie was five, two of her mother's brother's were in the Army, in Europe, and her father was in the South Pacific, a pilot on an aircraft carrier.

When the war was over, life moved on in a dizzying pace. Service people traveled from one end of the country to the other every few years. Her father had remained twenty years in the Navy after World War II, and had served in two others. His last duty was as a flight instructor at a Naval Air Station in California. At only thirty-eight years old he was killed in a plane crash the day before he was to muster out. Something about engine failure after takeoff. He'd had a very full life, full of adventure. Full of love for his wife and two daughters, Faerie and Caroline. Mother and daughters grieved appropriately for a military family. Life marched forward.

Faerie reached into the button box and pulled out a large, brass button, tarnished with time. It's weight heavy in her hands. It was evidently from one of her father's dress uniforms. She sat it aside.

The quaint little kitchen was still the same as it had been in all the summers she could remember. The little sewing cabinet still held a delightful assortment of treads, thimbles, embroidery hoops, and all the necessary paraphernalia to make dresses, shirts, dolls and doll clothes, and quilts. Faerie ran a hand across the top of the familiar cabinet. Blonde wood, originally, now darkened, nicked and worn smooth in some places. Only the sewing machine had been changed out for newer models over the years. A stack of coordinating fabrics cut into squares, ready to be sewn together, sat off to one side. Faerie moved the balance wheel. It moved easily, well oiled. An image of her grandmother sitting at this little cabinet, her head bent over the needle plate, back hunched over the latest project, knobby hands guiding the fabric easily along, formed in Faerie's mind. Tears filled her eyes, one escaped and dropped into the open button box.

The teardrop disappeared in the mix of buttons. Faerie reached in, and lifted out a handful of buttons, letting them fall back into the tin as sand would sift through the fingers. A tiny round button that looked like a pearl, fell through her fingers, hit the rim of the box and bounced onto the table. Grandmother Ida had made Faerie's wedding dress. It took almost a hundred tiny pearl buttons to close the back of the dress and sleeves. It was the fanciest and prettiest thing she had ever worn in her life. It had taken her grandmother weeks to finish it. Yards and yards of white satin, to make the full skirt and puffy sleeves. She felt like a princess the day she finally got to wear it. At the chapel in town, her Prince was waiting to carry her away for a lifetime of Happy Ever Afters.

Another tear had disembarked and rolled down her chin. Faerie wiped it away with the back of her hand. Happy Ever Afters happened only in fairy tales.

Suddenly needing to distract her thoughts, she glanced at the tea kettle on the stove. The clock above the stove reminded Faerie that the funeral would be in an hour. She stood up and wiped her face dry with the palms of her hands and headed for the sink. After filling the tea kettle and turning on the burner, she rummaged around in the cabinet where the tea things were kept. She found several opened boxes of tea, but chose the herbal peppermint blend that her grandmother kept just for her visits.

While she waited for the water to heat up she walked throughout the small, two bedroom house. A quilt secured with thumb stacks to its pine-slat frame leaned against the wall in the bedroom that Faerie shared with her sister during their summer residencies. The tidy little bathroom with its newly installed tub, sink and toilet, and all new, white floor tiles, glistened in the morning light streaming through the window over the tub. Grandmother was old, but she loved modern things. Her enthusiasm for life had far outweighed her bent-with-age-arthritic-frame. Frame of mind had been everything to Ida.

Something drew her into Ida's bedroom. The room was clean and tidy; the bed with its pale-green chenille bedspread, looked freshly made. On the end of the bed was Ruthless. He had greeted her at the kitchen door, waiting to be let in. It had been two days since Faerie had been notified of her grandmother's passing. Had anyone bothered to take care of the nineteen year old, brown and tan Maine coon in all that time? He had darted through the opened door and promptly disappeared. Faerie had been so caught up in all the living memories in the kitchen she had not thought again as to where the cat had gone. He had not mewed for food, nor did he linger and rub against her legs for love and attention the way he'd always done when she'd come to visit.

There he was, curled up at the foot of grandmother's bed, asleep, waiting patiently for his human pet to remember to come home. She tried to transmit her thoughts to the fluffy wad of fur on the bed. "Grandmother is not coming home anymore, dear old cat. I'm taking her place." It didn't work; the dear old cat didn't even so much as twitch a whisker.

The tea kettle sang out and Faerie returned to the kitchen. Having settled back in the kitchen chair next to the button box while her tea steeped, Faerie dipped her hand into the buttons again, swirling them round and round, as if she were stirring pebbles on the beach. The buttons were cool and settling. An ache crept back into her heart when she picked out a nickel sized, iridescent abalone shell button. She noticed another, and then another. Soon she had removed a dozen of the shinny shell disc and had lined them up on the table.

She poured her tea, added some sugar from the crystal sugar bowl sitting on the round, woven grass placemat in the center of the table. It shared a spot with the little red and green ceramic bell pepper salt and pepper shakers. The grass mat's red dye had faded somewhat to a salmon color.

The abalone shell buttons were so pretty and were on almost all of the latest dresses in the stores these days. Whenever her grandmother purchased a store-bought dress, the first thing she'd do was remove all, what she called, the "cheap" shell buttons, and replaced them with fancier, color coordinated, plastic buttons. Faerie chuckled at the thought. Her grandmother would fuss about how ordinary the shell ones were. Growing up, she'd had lots of shell buttons and glad to have them, but now, in these "modern" times, Ida felt she could squander a few cents more for the colorful plastic ones that matched the fabric.

Faerie rifled her hand in the button box again. Filtering out dozens of creamy white shirt buttons, some with bits of thread still in their tiny holes. It had always been her job to remove the threads so they'd be ready to use again. Faerie hadn't been around for a few years now, ten it seemed, and she had fallen behind on the job.

The kitchen was quiet except for her breathing and the soft, tick, ticking from the clock on the wall. Once again reminding her of the funeral in forty minutes.

"What the heck," she murmured, and dumped the whole box onto the table the way she had done as a child. Enthusiastically, she started sorting the buttons by size. Rainbows began to form. Images from childhood days filled her grieving mind. She stopped only long enough to refill her tea cup and nibble on a few sugar cookies that were still in the black and white ceramic cow cookie jar on the counter. They tasted fresh, as if made yesterday.

Yesterday, the day after her demise, her grandmother was laid out for her viewing in the mortuary, dressed in her brown and white, silk polka-dotted shirtwaist dress that she was so fond off. A pretty corsage of white silk flowers pinned to her left shoulder. Her thin-skinned, gnarled hands laid loosely, one atop the other at her waist. Her soft, creamy-white hair curled so delicately around the ears showing off the large round, pearl earrings. Little bangs were feathered across her forehead. They had done a good job on the hair and makeup. What mortuary had ever done a good job on an old ladies makeup? Most always made them up to look like little china dolls. Bright red cheeks, thin, bright red lips formed into a pleasing, half smile. Faerie smiled at the way her grandmother had looked yesterday in her coffin. Nothing too fancy, just the standard issue for most folks on a fixed income. They had done a good job on her hair and makeup. Whoever their makeup person was had a gift.

Handfuls at a time, Faerie took both hands and swooped all the buttons back into the button tin. She would have time to play with these until she was ninety-one, herself. That's how long Ida had lived, to ninety-one. Once again, Faeries hands absently stirred through the buttons. She could not stop touching them, caressing them. The doctors said her mother had a weak heart, something about a valve leaking and damaged heart muscles. Faerie believed she died of loneliness for her father—a broken heart, one year after his accident, to the day. She missed her parents. Neither of them got to see her married to her idiot, Prince Charming.

Faerie stirred the mix of buttons one more time, this time frantically searching for that single tiny, pearl button from her wedding dress, but it was lost in the myriads of shapes and colors and textures in the box. Another color, a tiny round, lilac, crystal-like button caught her eye. Caroline's prom dress. It was gorgeous. Tiers of lilac taffeta ruffles, layers of lilac netting crinolines. Caroline hated it. It was too tacky she had said, after her grandmother had stayed up nights working on it, less than a week before the prom. Caroline was a different sort of girl. She wasn't feminine in a frilly, girly sense. She was fonder of tailored, square shouldered jackets, and slacks than she was of dresses. Only her long blonde hair, in a single braid nearly to her waist, was about all that was somewhat girlish about her.

Faerie had loved her sister, ten years her junior. Watching her grow up, she had anticipated helping Caroline with school activities, shopping for pretty dresses, and or fabrics and buttons, in most cases for grandmother to make. Usually at the last minute because they could never find that "right" outfit for that "special" occasion and time was always running out.

Time was running out. Her beloved grandmother would be placed in her final resting place in less than a half an hour. Faerie flipped the plastic replica of a lilac crystal back into the box. Closed the lid, stood up and cleaned up her tea things. At least Caroline and her ex wouldn't be attending the funeral. Caroline got her ex Prince Charming; Faerie got the house, the cat, and the buttons.

Welcome to the New Scrungy Site!

2007-09-13T12:55:00.001-07:00

I'm glad all of you have taken the change in stride, I'm beginning to find out that the destruction and reconstruction of sites is a normal part of blogging life.

I think you will find the same old site, as Scrungy's Creator, but with more room for Scrungy and his friends. Which I will develop over time. And hopefully I will not get the bug to change things for a long, long time. I have indeed learned from my mistake. It was a truly dumb mistake, too. But that's what happens when the cupboards are empty of chocolate. I've got to go shopping now.

Thursday Thirteen #15

2007-09-12T18:00:00.000-07:00

Here are 13 reasons why I should not have gotten out of bed today!

This post comes with a warning...I'm having a bad day. Read at your own risk.

Click on the picture to make it bigger.

1. I didn't want to get out of bed today. I wasn't feeling well and should have stayed put. I finally convinced myself to get up and go to the computer...big, big, big, mistake! I broke my site!

2. I couldn't leave well enough alone, I had to try and fix it! I nearly cleaned it clean off the map.

3. If I had been satisfied with the layout of my first site I had I wouldn't be having a problem right now!

4. I wanted a three panel template and thought I saved my old site and didn't! That's because I don't know what heck I'm doing.

5. Now my html template thingy on this bog is not working and I can't refix this site! I'm tired of reading all the help stuff...my mind has turned to mush, my butt has turned to stone. My cat hates me because I haven't moved from this spot since I got up. I didn't listen to my inner voice, I should have been writing instead of screwing around with a new layout...again!

6. I've started working on a new site with three panels, but I won't have it done for awhile. I'm tired of sitting here being frustrated.

7. I've already spent my entire afternoon, trying to figure things out. Wasted...wasted...wasted! Oh, I think I said that already...refer to the cartoon above, please.

8. I been having really bad thoughts all day about just not blogging anymore.

9. I will lose all my archives and have to start over with new ones. Uck!

10. I will keep this old site up for awhile while I'm figuring things out. Maybe tomorrow will be a better day. Maybe this day never really happened and I'll wake up tomorrow and everything will be the way it used to be.

11. The new site will be called Scrungy's Creator II (I think) now I'm beginning to think that was a really dumb title in the first place and maybe I should just come up with a whole new identity.

12. It will be dark soon and time to go back to bed! yeah, for once I can't wait. I've accomplished nothing but producing dark clouds. I'm going to go eat something besides peach pie, something nourishing and healthy...watch TV maybe...then read. Today never happened...today never happened...today never happened.

13. Maybe this is a good thing, Right? I should always learn from my mistakes? Someone please tell me I'm right!

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

Wordless Wednesday

2007-09-11T22:00:00.000-07:00

Cats Tuesday: Scrungy Excerpt

2007-09-10T21:19:00.000-07:00

This reminds me of Scrungy and his freinds as kittens.

The following is an excerpt from Scrungy: Abandoned

Scrungy had never been allowed to be out of Deedum or Zera's sight; likewise, the king's kittens were also not allowed to leave the tower, unless escorted by their father or receiving their instructions from the guards. As restless and curious as kittens were, the four males were not content to spend every day of the summer scooting around the rocks and crevices of the tower. One August morning after Scrungy, Sarlin, Diesel, and Mott had finished their lessons with Asanka and Arjuna, the four-month-old kittens decided to sneak off and go to the edge of the forest. Scrungy had been telling them about how he had crossed the abandoned field and about the huge tree where he spent the first two nights after he had been dumped. They had decided that they were now old enough to do what they wanted and they tracked off through the forest to the edge of the abandoned field.

"This is the tree that I slept in," Scrungy exclaimed. "See, here is the cavity that the squirrel had her nuts in."

Looking up into the branches of the tree, Mott cried, "Wow, this is a giant oak. Look how far up the branches go. We can race each other up to the top!"

"Yes, let's go," Scrungy shouted.

Diesel and Sarlin hung back as Mott and Scrungy scooted up the trunk and out onto a low-hanging branch.

"What are you afraid of, Sarlin?" Mott cried. "Look how much fun we can have. These branches are wide and the bark is thick. It's easy to grasp with our claws. Come on! Don't be a scaredy-cat!"

"Father will be very angry with us for even being here," Sarlin pouted. He peered through the high grass and weeds that shielded them from the field. "We better go back home."

"Nonsense, Sarlin!" Scrungy cried. "We're old enough to be out here, aren't we? Your father always said that cats in the wild grow up much faster than domestic cats do. So we gotta be at least six or seven months old compared to a house cat."

Diesel was torn between wanting to be sensible like his older brother Sarlin, or go up into the giant tree and have fun with Mott and Scrungy. Finally, his urge to scurry up into the tree overwhelmed his desire to stay on the ground with Sarlin. He bounded up the massive trunk and joined his brothers on the lowest limb. "Race you to the top!" Mott shouted and all three scampered up through the branches to the top of the tree.

The old oak that stood as a sentinel to the cat's kingdom was home to other creatures as well, creatures that the kittens had not yet had the opportunity to experience. Very near the top of the tree was a hollow filled with sleeping raccoons, a mother and three babies. So far the kittens knew how to climb up and had just reached the top when the mother raccoon left her hollow and climbed up after them. Scrungy had gone out on one limb, Mott on another, and Diesel was still clinging to the main part of the trunk when the mother raccoon surprised them. Her hissing and snarling, the baring of her very sharp teeth, narrowed eyes, and flattened ears frightened the kittens. Diesel was the closest to the raccoon and began to climb faster until he managed to reach the limb that Mott was clinging to. The mother raccoon was wise enough to know that she was too large for the branches that held the kittens, so she held her position between the two branches. Sooner or later the kittens would have to start down, and then she would make a meal of at least one of them.

Sarlin, still on the ground below, became terrified for his brothers and started to cry. "You're going to die! All of you are going to die! If that creature doesn't get you, you will fall and then you will die!"

To Scrungy, clinging to the highest branch in the tree, Sarlin looked like a large white mushroom growing out of the tree roots below. He could barely hear Sarlin's cries. He could see Mott and Diesel across from him, crying and clinging to end of their branch together with all their might. He knew he had to do something to distract the large beast from her position so they could get past her.

Bravely, Scrungy had started to inch his way towards the center of the tree and main part of the trunk leading down when a large brown and black, tiger-striped tabby bolted up the trunk and lit into the mother raccoon from behind. The two animals, locked in a fierce grip, tumbled over branches as they fell to the ground. As soon as they landed, the raccoon took off running and disappeared into the thick underbrush.

The large, unknown cat lay lifeless at the base of the tree. Sarlin cautiously approached the injured cat as Scrungy backed down the trunk and joined him beside the tom.

"Who is he?" Scrungy whispered. "Is he dead?"

"I think he is still alive," Sarlin whined, "and we are in so much trouble." He looked up into the tree at his brother's still clinging to their branch. "Scrungy, they're still up there. What are we going to do?"

"Don't panic, Sarlin," Scrungy cried. "First we have to get some help. This guy is injured, and one of us needs to go get Deedum and Zera."

"Not me!" Sarlin shouted. "I'll never find my way to your place. I've never been there before—remember?"

"We've got to do something, Sarlin. That beast could come back at any minute, then what?"

A deep, but weak, voice startled them as the creature they were standing over groaned. Instinctively their fur stood on end, their ears went flat against their head as they barred their teeth and hissed. "Calm down, boys," the voice said. "I'm not dead, I've just had the wind knocked out of me."

Scrungy and Sarlin relaxed. "Who are you? What—where did you come from? I've never seen you in the kingdom before," Scrungy said.

The large stripped tabby got up off the ground and shook his body to remove the bits of grass and leaf litter that clung to his fur. "That's because I am not from around here. I was just coming into the forest from that road out there, and I saw your dilemma. You boys don't know how to climb a tree very well, do you?" He glanced up at Diesel and Mott, still clinging for life at the top of the tree. "My name is Wahdee. What's yours?"

Scrungy blurted out their names. "I'm Scrungy, this is Sarlin, and his brothers who are still up in the tree are Diesel and Mott. Can you help them get down?"

Wahdee's booming laugh nearly toppled the pair. "I'm not going after them. I've already fallen once today. Besides, you seem to have made it down all right, Scrungy. Last I saw before I hit the ground, you were just as far out on your limb as they are on theirs. Why don't you go back up and show them how it's done?" Wahdee continued to laugh.

Scrungy frowned at the large cat that had just saved them from certain death. "I—I don't remember how I did it. I was just so scared that you were dead, and the next thing I remember I was on the ground beside you."

Wahdee laughed even harder. "Well, you best be remembering soon because that mother raccoon is bound to come back and seek out her youngins. Go on," he urged, "you did it once, you can do it again. Besides, how good of a tom are you going to make if you can't climb a tree proper?"

"I'm going to be a big strong cat," Scrungy insisted. "I've been taking lessons." Scrungy streaked up the tree trunk to a safe place in the crook of a branch nearest Diesel and Mott.

"You've seen me do this once already," he shouted out to them. "Just watch me do it again. That cat who saved our lives down there, said that the mother raccoon will be coming back looking for her babies soon. So you better learn real quick how to back down out of a tree. Besides, what good are all our lessons if we don't know how to get in and out of a dumb old tree?"

Scrungy slowly backed down a few feet and waited for Diesel and Mott to follow his example. Soon, shaky and scared stiff, Diesel turned his tail towards the trunk and carefully backed off the branch that he'd been clinging to until he got to the main trunk then scrambled down it to the ground and safety. "Come on, Mott, you can do it, too." Scrungy called to him. "It won't look good for Asanka and Arjuna if we can't get ourselves out of a tree. You've seen us do it, now I'm going down to the ground and wait for you."

Mott shut his eyes and timidly backed down the tree the way that Diesel had just done. When he hit the ground he turned to his brothers and Scrungy and groaned. "I'm too young for this."

This is copyrighted material and only for the purpose of this blog, please respect it as so and just enjoy reading it here. DBB

Thursday Thirteen #14

2007-09-05T21:23:00.000-07:00

Thirteen actors that I have a crush on…and the movies that made me fall in love with them, all of which I would watch over and over and over again. These are my favorite movie men and even though I've listed only one or two of their movies….I like everything they've ever made.
Some are long gone from the silver screen and others have only gotten better with age.

In no particular order:

1. Harrison Ford – Indiana Jones

2. Richard Gere – Pretty Woman and Chicago

3. Pierce Brosnan – Bond, James Bond, of course

4. Kevin Costner – Message in a Bottle and Dragonfly

5. Tom Selleck – High Road to China

6. Cary Grant – Father Goose and Operation Petticoat

7. John Wayne – The Quiet Man

8. Rock Hudson – Man's Favorite Sport

9. Patrick Stewart – Jean-luc Picard, Captain of the Starship Enterprise

10. Mel Gibbson - Braveheart

11. Sean Connery – Medicine Man

12. James Garner – Notebook

13. Sam Elliot - Conager

Wordless ~ Full of Love ~ Wednesday

2007-09-04T22:24:00.000-07:00

Photo in an emal - author unknown