Cats redux

     We could not find an owner of the little gray tabby that Dave rescued from certain death by winter.  Dave, who is NOT a cat fancier, has taken a fancy to the little fella, and seemed downright pleased when I announced I was keeping him (the cat, people, the cat…. Jeez!)  He has named him Hobbes.  (Does that make David Calvin???)
     I took Hobbes to the vet right after Christmas, where he was pronounced a keeper and given all of his shots, was de-wormed, and treated for ear mites.  Are cats BORN with ear mites?  Does anyone know?  Because every cat I have been owned by- and Hobbes makes #15- has had them.
     Hobbes fits right in.  He easily learned to use the cat-door and the litter box, he knows where the food is, and he knows how to torment the living hell out of Patches.  He chases her relentlessly, and she is too dumb to realize that she is three times his size and could defeat him just by sitting on him.  Squashed kitten.  He’d be a grease mark on her butt.  Butt no, she tears through the house, wailing, howling, hissing, with Hobbes hot on her heels, the both of them knocking things over and making a mess.  It’s good to have a kitten in the house.
     Hobbes seems genuinely fond of David.  He curls up at his side while he is working at his desk, or wraps himself around Dave’s shoulders and purrs in his ears.  David, for his part, seems equally enamored of Hobbes.  Maybe you just can’t help but bond with something you have rescued and is grateful for it.  
     Hobbes loves Mama and I as well, but for different reasons.  He seems to love the way I taste, and he seems to love the wonderful, loud and piercing noises Mama makes when he rakes her feet with his claws- which, by the way, he can kiss good-bye (as well as his kitty balls) on January 23.  All responsible pet owners should neuter their pets, so no lamenting his lost reproductive potential, please.  And for those of you who are philosophically opposed to de-clawing, I will only remind you that I recently buried a beloved cat friend who died at the age of 18.5 years- and lived to be that age because she was de-clawed and was an indoor cat.  May Hobbes (and Patches) both exceed that record.  Amen.
     Must go now, and retrieve my great toe.  Kitty teeth are brutal.

Cats I have known and loved

I have been owned by a succession of cats since 1987.
It began when someone gave my daughter, who was 15 at the time, a beautiful little kitten she named Chevy. I balked at letting her keep Chevy because I was (and am) massively allergic to cats. But what can you do when your little girl is in love with a ball of fur? We took Chevy to the vet and got her her shots, and made arrangements for neutering, etc., when she was old enough. Two weeks later, however, she began having seizures, so one day while the kids were in school, I took her to the vet. She had distemper. The shots had come too late for her. I could have taken her home and let my daughter watch her slowly die, or have her put gently to sleep. Since, to this day, my daughter is bitter over my killing her cat, you know the choice I made. But on the advice of a friend, I did not go home empty handed. I took a little black tabby home with me so Kelly could have something small and soft to cuddle while she mourned poor Chevy. The black tabby was Shadow.

People may choose to bring cats into their homes, but cats decide with whom they will bond. Shadow had ear mites and worms and needed dosing and care that I had to provide since Kelly was in school all day and she decided to bond with me. Now I had killed Kelly’s first cat and stolen the affections of the second. That’s why, about a year later, Samantha, a seal point Siamese, came into our lives. Samantha was completely Kelly’s creature.

Shadow mothered Samantha and they developed a close relationship. About a year later, Roxie, an orange tabby, joined the zoo, and Shadow mothered her as well. Gemini, Tugger, MacGyver, Bubba, Lillian, Vivian, Sinbad, Rusty, Rosabelle and Patches succeeded Roxie. Poor Shadow. Each new addition after Roxie was greeted with a combination of irritability and dismay. Shadow, though the oldest, was not the alpha female, and the younger cats bullied her unless I protected her.

We never had more that five cats at a time, and after living with five cats for a couple of years, we found good homes for Gemini and Tugger and declared a three-cat maximum from that point on. Roxie died young of kidney failure. Fool that I am, I paid for dialysis trying to save that sweet cat. She greeted me every time I came in the door. We had a buffet by the front door, and as I came through it, she would be on the buffet, waiting to love on me and help me shake off the stresses of the day. I still miss her.
We were down to two cats, Shadow and Samantha. Then Kelly rescued a kitty from a dumpster (Gemini, so named because she looked like Shadow’s twin). THEN Kelly was given a gorgeous gray kitten as a tip on a Domino’s run that I named Tugger and we were back up to four cats. Gemini and Tugger really bonded with each other- they were kind of like feline, female Fred and George Weasleys. I really enjoyed them, but Dave was adamant about the three-cat rule. A friend of mine in graduate school had just lost her 18-year old cat- she had had the cat since she was five- and she was heart-broken. I offered her one of my cats, either Gemini or Tugger, but told her it was a wrench to separate them because they were so close to each other. She took them both, God bless her.
It’s funny. Of the two, I favored Tugger. My friend favored Gemini. People react to cats like they react to people. Some personalities just jibe with your own. Gemini was sweet and affectionate and a bit of a follower. Tugger was crazy, and wild, and fearless, and silly and a natural born leader. The two of them made life very interesting. Both Shadow and Samantha cried for days when they left, just like mama cats who have been separated from their kittens. It made me feel terrible. I missed them, too. But we were back to being a two-cat family again.
Then my son showed up with a huge, glorious black male who was clearly part Maine Coon, and my son expected to keep him. We had never had a male cat before, so I was a little leery, but it worked out that he was a terrific cat. What a character! I told Jake he could keep the cat if I could name him MacGyver- I was really into MacGyver at the time. The cat was well named as he seemed to live for adventure. Shortly on the heels of his joining the ladies, Bubba turned up. Bubba was another absolutely beautiful male, and as sweet a cat as I have ever met, but I don’t remember how it is he came to live with us.
The four cats got along well, but when my second granddaughter Haley was born, we found she was highly allergic to cats. (Jake’s family and Dave and I were sharing a house at the time.) Okay, the cats had to go. Kelly took in Shadow and Samantha and I found a good home for MacGyver and Bubba and for a while my house was catless.
[I must state here that I was able to find homes for these cats because they were healthy, neutered, and de-clawed. To those of you who have problems with the idea of de-clawing cats, I’ll just say deal with it. No cat with claws will ever live in my home. I value my belongings. Beyond that, the average life span of outdoor cats with their claws is 5 years. The average age for indoor cats who have been de-clawed is twice that. If you could ask the cats, I’d bet they say it was a fair trade-off. ]
Jake and his family moved out on Normandy Lake and during the moving-in process, found that two little kittens had been abandoned in their house. They were an awfully cute pair that Jake named Lillian and Vivian, and I have pictures of them nestled in Jake’s shirt pocket. Since they couldn’t live with Jake, they lived with me until I could find homes for them. In the meantime, since Jake wasn’t living with me anymore, I retrieved Shadow and Samantha from Kelly.
Then Jake bought a boat, and found that an adorable male kitten had been part of the package deal. We named him Sinbad. I can’t remember who adopted Sinbad, but do remember being sad to see him go.
Dave, Shadow, Samantha and I moved into the house we live in now in 1997. Shortly thereafter, my adorable next-door neighbor showed up with an orange tabby orphan that I instantly fell in love with. I named him Rusty. He used to be in the garage waiting for me when I got home from work every day and talked to me- mostly “feed me”, “water me”, “change the litter”, and “scratch me” but he was really good company while I did all those things. By now, Shadow was 10 and Samantha was 9 and they were too old and too jaundiced to be much amused or enamored of an active young male but I was. I only had Rusty a year. He had a bad habit of rushing the door to get outside, and he must have sneaked past us, probably while we were bringing in groceries, because dinnertime came, and there was no sign of him. We searched the neighborhood, handed out leaflets, but we never found a trace of him. A year later, the same thing happened with Samantha. She was almost 11 when she slipped out the door, something she NEVER did until we moved to this house, but was now making a habit, to my chagrin . I was getting ready for bed when I realized I hadn’t seen her in awhile, and searched the house for her. I searched the yard, the lot next door- no luck. I called. I whistled. (I have trained each of my cats to come to a whistle, believe it or not). A terrible thunderstorm came up, so severe it drove me back into the house. I kept expecting to see her run up onto the porch to get out of the weather but it didn’t happen. I don’t know if she went off to die like some animals do, or if the severe weather killed her, but she was gone, and I mourned her for weeks.
About this time, my son’s marriage broke up. Kendall and Haley’s mother, in an attempt, I think, to ingratiate herself to the girls, gave them each a kitten. Of course they couldn’t keep them, so I got a tearful call from Kendall, asking if the cats could come here to live so that the girls could at least visit them from time to time. Who says “no” to heartbroken child? So Rosabelle and Patches came to live with me. That was five years ago. Shadow just rolled her eyes, glared at me, and went into my bedroom to grumble under the bed. More damn kittens. Jeez.
Rosabelle was Haley’s cat, and she reminded me very much of Roxie. Last year, while Dave and I were in San Diego, Jake and the kids came over to swim and apparently let her out without knowing it. Normally, that would not have been a problem. The yard is now fenced, none of the cats could get out of the yard, and I often let them out in yard with me. Jake was coming back the next day to mow the grass for us and would have put her back in the house. Except that the moron pool guy- who really deserves a blog of his own in the future- came in the interim and left the gate open when he left. Jake found Rosabelle the next day. She had been mauled by dogs and did not survive.
Which brings us now to Shadow and Patches. Patches is Kendall’s cat, and is really a pig with fur. She eats constantly and is fat, fat, fat, even though I monitor her food and have her on a weight control cat food. She eats her food and then eats Shadow’s. She’s a bit of a knucklehead, but I really love her.
And Shadow… my dear old lady cat, whom I have had since 1987, died this afternoon of kidney failure. She has been failing for the past couple of years, and this year the decline has seemed to accelerate. She had lost her appetite and so lost a lot of weight, she was losing her fur in clumps, she had arthritis in her hips, and she was going blind. She had a bad tooth, so I had been treating her with antibiotics and today she was to have the tooth extracted. In preparation for surgery, the vet did blood work and found she was in acute kidney failure. Needless to say, he did not attempt to extract the tooth. She died at 2:30 pm. I went to get her with an air-tight plastic bin that contained a soft baby blanket she loved and her favorite toy. Terry was very sensitive and laid my dear girl out so that she looked like a kitten sleeping. Dave and I buried her in the backyard and will plant flowers in the spring. She would have been 19 in April. Nineteen. I had had her for fully half my marriage.

The ironic thing is that two nights ago, when the temperature dipped below freezing, Dave told me to bring in a kitten that has been hanging around on the front porch for days. He’s not fond a kittens but had no desire to see one freeze to death. The kitty obviously belongs to someone as she is wearing a very expensive collar. She seems to think she lives here now and has been tormenting Patches for two days, which may actually be a good thing as it may run some of the fat off of her. But tomorrow, I am going to take Baby Kitty’s picture and make flyers to hand out in the neighborhood. Somebody thought enough of her to give her that fancy collar. Someone may love her and be missing her. I know how that feels.

Grocery Diva

I hate grocery shopping. Maybe if I did it every day instead of every week, I would hate it a little less, because I would have fewer bags to wrestle with. Nah. I hate the stores; they are too bright, too cold, and too damn boring. I hate check-out, I hate loading the car, unloading the car, putting away the groceries, breaking down bulk purchases into smaller portions, recycling plastic bags … need I go on?

So… out here in California, you can actually grocery shop ON-LINE! How cool is that? You make your list on line, choose the brand names you want (or don’t), permit substitutions (or not), pick a day and time and voila! Groceries come to your door like magic. You still have to put them away, but somehow it’s not so onerous when a nice man has done all the aisle surfing and heavy lifting for you. Kinda like a provender Christmas- “OOOH, what’s in THIS bag?”

I have only shopped online for groceries twice, and I am 1 for two. I didn’t screw up the first time I did it, when I didn’t know what I was doing, but made up for it big time yesterday, when, theoretically, I did know what I was doing.

The first time the groceries came, a very nice man named Luis gave me some very helpful hints on how to maximize my shopping experience and refused a tip. “Give it to your church,” he said, and I will when I get home. Five dollars from Luis. God bless him.

Yesterday, after using all of the helpful tips Luis gave me, I was awaiting the delivery of the last groceries we will need for this trip. A knock at the door, and there stands another nice young man with a crate of food. I sign for it, and hand him a 100 dollar bill to pay for it. He
looks startled. “Can’t you change a 100 bill?” I ask, slightly panicked because that’s all the money I have, and the groceries are $92. He shakes his head, so I figure, what the hell, it’s Christmas and tell him to keep the change. He is gob-smacked. Thanks me innumerable times. I wave him out with a smile and a “Merry Christmas”. I am feeling pretty darn pleased with myself, and a little humbled that an $8 dollar tip could mean that much to someone.

Until I remember that I prepaid the groceries with my credit card.

That child walked off with a $100 tip.

Well, what the hell, it’s Christmas.

Except now I have to tell Dave what I have done. I stress all day. I’m not stressing about the money, I am stressing about the sheer absent-mindedness of the act. My brain is absent way too frequently these days. I think I may have Alzheimer’s because I keep forge… Sometimes I really fear I may have Alzheimer’s, because…

Anyway, the man gets home, and I tell him about my day. You have got to love a man who reacts this way: “What a great day you gave that kid! Who gets a $100 tip? He will remember that his whole life. And in time for Christmas, too. How cool is that?” To which he added, “Don’t make this a habit.”

So, God bless the young man and may his Christmas be bright. And God bless my husband for his generous heart. And God help me, because I am obviously losing it.

I really fear I may have the beginnings of….. what was I saying?

Dinner with the Nige

Dave and I had dinner tonight with Nigel Bryant, native of Beaulieau (pronounced Be-oo-ly), England. The Nige works for CTS-UK so we get to see him from time to time while we are in San Diego; he comes over for corporate meetings. Nigel is married and has two kids, all of whom I met when I traveled to England with Dave in 2001 (?) Jackie, Rachel and Hannah are lovely people, and I had the pleasure of dinner in their home and a tour of the New Forest area around Beaulieu which is delightful. It was my only visit to the Bryant household, but Dave has been many times. Dave used to make several prolonged visits to England every year and has come to love England as a second home. Whenever he is there, Nigel invites him to dinner, and whenever Nigel is here, vice versa.

Usually, I cook for Nigel, and spoil him with an elaborate dessert. I love having him sit at my table, and listening to him and Dave discuss business, books, family, and history. They discuss cricket, soccer and wine, too, but those topics don’t interest me much. Nigel is always good company, though he sometimes turns his sharp wit on people we all know, and says the most outrageous things. He makes me laugh. Tonight, we took him out to dinner to a restaurant called The Butcher Shop. Sounds yummy, doesn’t it? Not quite as bad a name for a restaurant as the Camel’s Breath Inn but still unfortunate. As it turns out, it is a very good restaurant, very good ambience, food, and service, and, happily for Nigel, a decent wine cellar. They make a hell of a dessert there as well. I can recommend it highly, but make reservations before you go or the wait will be wearing.

We had a lovely meal and a lovely time, marred only somewhat by talk of retirement plans. It’s not that I don’t want these men to retire; they have both worked hard and long and deserve comfortable retirements; it’s just that whenever retirement does come, our dinners together will become a thing of the past. People always say they are going to keep in touch and get together from time to time, but it doesn’t often happen that way. When our friend Bill Hooper retired, he moved to Florida and disappeared from our lives forever; no attempts at contact by us have been reciprocated by him. Nigel will be retiring to England, which is considerably further away than Florida. He won’t be retiring soon, but it is on the horizon, and it makes me sad. I’ve grown very fond of Nigel.

It’s hard to fathom that we have come to that time of life when we are planning to retire. I say “we” because I have a mouse in my pocket; I am already sans employment if not retired, having resigned my associate professorship in April to become a gypsy. But, as Dave said to our son about two weeks ago, in four years we will be 60. That doesn’t seem possible. Dave’s been working for Cubic for 25 years, and that doesn’t seem possible either. I know we are older. I can see it looking at us. And I know we are slowing down, losing strength, beginning to creak and ache but our SPIRITS don’t seem any older. We both still have the same joie de vie that we have always had; we still have enthusiasms and hobbies, skills and pastimes; we still dance to rock ‘n roll, look forward to movies, eat popsicles after dinner until the box is empty and rub each other’s feet. We are youngsters trapped in fading bodies. And we are still in love. I think we are too young to retire. Maybe we should start our own business. Maybe a restaurant? I'm sure we could think of a really horrible name for one.

Happy birthday to my baby sister Susan, born on this day in 1950. You do the math. Love you, Sis.

A Christmas Mish Mash

First, a rant.
You know, I love to shop, and I do a lot of shopping by catalog and on-line.  Every year about this time, I start getting unsolicited catalogs in the mail.   Actually, the deluge usually begins around Halloween, and the first few hundred are actually kinda neat; fun to look at, fun to share, fun to see the innumerable things that are available for purchase, fun to laugh at the pretentious, inflated prices of most of them.  Until this year, no one else I knew seemed to get many catalogs, so it was easy to hand them off.  Even so, by Thanksgiving, I was usually more annoyed than amused at the sheer volume.  This year, however, annoyed does not begin to encompass my feelings.  How about HARASSED?  Or PISSED OFF?  Not only am I being swamped by catalogs, but so are my friends- most getting catalogs for the first time.  They are a bit bemused about it, but I am PISSED OFF!  WHY is it possible for Land’s End, for example, to spend next to nothing  inundating me with catalogs- the SAME catalog, multiple times- while it costs me 37¢ to mail a one-ounce letter?   I jokingly threatened to save all the catalogs that came between Thanksgiving and Christmas and then take a picture of the stack, but within less than two weeks, the stack was already knee-high.  I am sick of merchants, people!  I am sick of Christmas carols before Halloween, I am sick of lugging tons of catalogs out to the street to be recycled, and sick at the thought of how many hundreds of thousands must be ending up in landfills.  I want to amend the Constitution: the Christmas season does NOT begin until the day after Thanksgiving; no merchant can send out more than one catalog a season- and it has to COST THEM to do it.  

And now, for no apparent reason except these things just popped into my mind, Compare and Contrast… or something like it.

Living with one old lady and two cats rather than with two kids and a dog.
I have done both.  Believe it or not, there are some similarities, at least in comparing the old lady to two kids.  There is no comparison between dogs and cats, however, except that they both shed.  Cats have fur balls.  Dog lick their balls.  Enough said.  

• When my kids were living at home, they bickered all the time.  Mama bickers with the cats all the time.  Verbally, it makes the exchange one-sided… but not quieter.  


• Kelly bossed Jake (and vice versa), and Mama bosses Patches.  


• With two kids, there was always some debate about who made the mess (unless I saw it being made with my own eyes).  With Mama and the cats, it is always a given… given a particular mess, I know exactly who made it.  


• My kids didn’t pick up after themselves, and neither does Mama or the cats.


• My kids played with their imaginations, and verbalized their play.  Mama does the same thing, except that she is always pissed off at her imaginary friends and shouts at them a lot.


• Before the kids could drive, I ran Kate’s Taxi Service.  Now, I run Kate’s Taxi Service for Mama.


• I used to live in fear of losing my kids whenever we went shopping.  I have no fear of losing Mama when we shop.  I am inured to it now.  She disappears every time.

One Christmas, Two Locales:
Christmas in San Diego is slightly different than Christmas is Tennessee.  It’s not just the warmer weather; we have lots of green Christmases in Tennessee.  It’s the trees that get decorated.  There is something so wrong and yet so wonderful about lighted palm and eucalyptus trees.  They don’t really look Christmasy, unless it’s in a “Nightmare before Christmas” kind of way, but they are strikingly beautiful.  We got in last night and so were driven through San Diego in the dark and got to see San Diego in all its Christmas glory.  There were fireworks as well, as the Chargers won a game in Qualcomm stadium which is just down the road from our apartment.  We don’t usually get to see fireworks in winter in Tennessee.  There is not as much Christmas carol playing here as there is in Tennessee, and what there is did NOT start before Halloween.  

The apartment in CA and the house in TN
     The apartment is clean, uncluttered and totally lacking in cat hair.  It’s nice to give my clothing a two-week respite from feline shedding every month.  It is noisy here, mostly traffic and car alarms going off, though on the weekends the air is alive with the sound of inebriated twenty-somethings who haven’t yet learned how to drink without getting drunk.  At least they walk home, but they walk under my window, and they usually sing, swear, fight, or screech while they are doing it.  Males tend to fight, vomit and go to sleep.  Females tend to scream, cry, and beat on the sleeping males.  Not much of that going on in my house. My house in Tullahoma is filled with collectibles and furniture and is decorated to the nines for Christmas.  We have a 12 foot tree that is spectacular and decorations in all the main rooms and on the porch.  The apartment has a metal tabletop “tree” from IKEA and two metallic reindeer.  HOHOHO!  All we need is a lighted eucalyptus and we are ready for the holidays.

Holidays... one down, one to go

Thanksgiving has come and gone, and so has a very stressful but wonderful week. We got back in town on Saturday and were both either sick or jet-lagged on Sunday… do you get jet-lagged going west to east? Mama was very glad to see us, as she always is, and has been quite the sweetie this past week, which has been hectic.

Monday, my best buds Marcia, Yvonne, Sandie and I went to the matinee premiere of “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire”, which was wonderful. Yvonne had to leave after the flick, but Marcia, Sandie and I shared a late lunch of appetizers and onion soup at Applebee’s. Marcia then peeled off and Sandie and I ran a few errands and had a great time together, like we always do. Monday night the kids came over and we had a nice visit with two of our four granddaughters- Kendall and Haley were with their mama - so Delaney and Emily had to be twice as amusing, and were. Terrific day.

Tuesday I spent the day cleaning house and preparing for the GFWC Centennial Woman’s Club meeting, which was held at my house, and was our craft meeting. Low attendance- too close to Thanksgiving – but great fun and the craft, a Thanksgiving cornucopia, was a goodie.

Wednesday, Stephanie and I had a big mess to clean up so we got the house in shape, and then I started the cooking. Kelly came in and found the iPod her dad got her in exchange for access to her 600+ CDs. She took off with her long-time best friend Kenny Warwick.

Thursday was table setting, dinner cooking, kitchen slavey hell for me, and iPod heaven for Dave and Kel. They were both in headsets most of the day, so being with them was like being alone. Silent head-banging, two different tempos, a feast for the eyes. Taffy arrived at 4, Jake shortly thereafter, but Becca and the girls got held up in traffic and were about 20 minutes late, which made me a trifle nervy. But all went well. We feasted on turkey, herb stuffing (bread, onions, celery, walnuts, pecans, and lots of butter), green bean casserole made with Italian beans, corn pudding, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, gravy, cranberry sauce, with pumpkin pie and By Cracky Bars for dessert. The By Cracky Bars were a hit! I made them for my club meeting and the ladies raved about them, and the family seemed to really love them too.

Friday, Dave and I were exhausted but Saturday, we put up the tree, decorated the house, and decorated the porch. Sunday (today) we cleaned all the empty storage boxes out of the house and did some rudimentary house cleaning.

We head to California this weekend, and won’t be back for two weeks, so this week will be a flurry of activity, getting as much Christmas shopping and wrapping as possible done before we leave. After a three-month hiatus, I am back to the life two-week deadlines. Try it sometime. You’ll hate it.

This is normal?

Dave got back from Minneapolis safe, sound but exhausted, leaving eight inches of snow in Minnesota for the Santa Ana eighties here in San Diego.  We are already beginning to prepare for the trip home.  Looks like I may need to ship some stuff home, or buy a suitcase.  Think I will ship it, I hate dealing with luggage.  It’s mostly books and games and little things for the goonies, getting ready for Christmas.

I have been doing a lot of shopping online getting ready for the holiday, but sadly, my shipping timing has been a little off.  Normally, when a merchant says that shipping will take 5-10 business days, it really means 10-15 business days.  And when you order something really big that needs to be delivered as freight, the delivery company contacts you to arrange a time and place for drop-off.  Normally.

Nothing about my life is normal.  

You may remember my waxing poetic about my office here in California.  After much discussion, Dave and I decided to replace our beautiful, ornate, but not terribly functional desk in Tullahoma with one exactly like the one we have here.  I ordered the desk from Pottery Barn- I LOVE Pottery Barn, by the way- and was told to expect it in 5-10 business days.  Cool.  I’d be home before it showed up… normally.  Then I got an email telling me that the desk had shipped and I would get a call about delivery!  I called my housekeeper Stephanie ASAP to inform her so that she could tell them, when they called, to bring it next Monday.

She was so relieved to hear from me.  Seems UPS had just delivered three huge heavy boxes and left them in the driveway… yes, my dears, the desk had already arrived and there had been no call about delivery.  I ordered them on Monday and they arrived on Wednesday of the same week.  Now, that’s service, dammit.  

Steph is always on the ball.  She had already called Jake and he was coming after work to bring the boxes into the house.  Cool.  While she had me on the phone, she told me the latest Mamaism.  Friday Stephanie saw we were out of canned cat food and so bought a box of 24 cans.  When she returned on Monday, they were gone.  Apparently Mama fed all 24 cans to the cats over the week end.  They must have been thrilled; they usually only get one can a day each.  Maybe Mama thought she was supposed to feed them breakfast, lunch and dinner.  Why she would think that, since she has been feeding them one can a day since she moved in with us, no one can possibly fathom.  Patches ate herself sick… all over the house, of course.  Ah, well, at least Mama wasn’t trying to assassinate the big screen TV anymore.  Now she’s just trying to kill my cats.

Back to the boxes.  I asked Stephanie to make sure Mama knew Jake was coming to bring them in.  I didn’t want him to frighten her by showing up unannounced.  Steph said Mama already knew Jake was coming, but when I talked to Mama, I took it upon myself to tell her again.  We had a nice, short talk and just before she gave the phone back to Stephanie, I told her yet again to expect Jake.  I then went about the rest of my day, semi-secure that all would be well.

About 7 PM, I got a call from Jake wanting me to do a web search for him and in the course of our conversation, I asked him if he’d had any trouble with the boxes.  The answer was yes and no.  The boxes weren’t all that heavy, but Mama had locked all the doors and windows and wouldn’t let him into the house.  He banged on the door, rang the door bell, tapped on her bedroom window, all to no avail.  He finally just put all the boxes in the garage.

I just hope Mama doesn’t notice the boxes aren’t in the driveway, decide we’ve been robbed, and call the police.

In the meantime, I will be shipping boxes from here before we leave.  Hope we get home before they do.  

Getting lost and loving it!

It is a common misconception that because I travel with Dave, I actually spend all my time with him. The truth is I travel with Dave so that I can at least spend SOME time with him. He is leaving tomorrow for Minneapolis and will not be back until Wednesday night. I will spend three days and two nights without human contact save by phone or email in a city where I have no friends or family. I don’t really care for that. Especially since it comes hard on the heels of his spending three days in Washington last week.

At least I wasn’t lonely last week, because my dear friend Yvonne dropped by for a visit. She had to fly halfway across the country and then hop a bus to do it, but it was so sweet of her to stop by. No, she didn’t travel all the way from Tennessee just to see me. She was out here visiting her brother and his father, and hopped a Greyhound to spend a day or two with me. She must really love me. I have ridden on Greyhounds. And the buses are even worse.

We had a great time. We spent a day at the zoo, which is one of the most wonderful places in the entire world. Yvonne is a world-class walker, so we saw pretty much the entire zoo in one day. We took a round trip skylift to see the zoo by air, and Yvonne, who doesn’t hesitate to jump onto a roller coaster, was holding on for dear life. She cracks me up. I found out she speaks fluent animal, as she was able to get every animal we encountered to turn and let us see its better side. We had a delicious lunch of lobster quesadillas, and a terrific dinner at the Stuart Anderson Black Angus just down the road from the apartment. I introduced her to mocha frappuccinos, which she loved, and crème brulee, to which she was indifferent. [Philistine :) ]

Yvonne and I always have a great time together, even when we are completely lost, as we were for a good part of her visit. We got lost getting to the zoo… but we got there. We got lost coming home from the zoo… but we got there. We got lost on the way to the bus station… but we got there, and timely, too. I think it was unnecessarily cruel of Yvonne to declare that I could get lost in a desert. The fact that it is true is immaterial. I’m glad she doesn’t know I got lost TWICE on the way home from the bus station after dropping her off. Missed a turn-off, back- tracked, got back on the route, missed a second turn –off, back-tracked, got back on route… and landed smack in the middle of the morning rush hour, which didn’t make me nervous at all.

There is something you must know about me. I get lost. A lot. Even in Tullahoma, where I have lived for 25 years. It’s one of my skills. I cannot read a map, I have no sense of direction, and if I deviate from the route laid out for me, I have a devil of a time finding my way back. It used to really stress me. And my children. Jake refused to get in the car without his teddy bear Ted for comfort when he was little. Then he just started refusing to get in the car. Neither of my children seem to have much fear of getting lost, and I don’t as much as I did anymore. I think it’s because of all the years I used to get lost for a living.

It’s not that someone paid me to get lost, though I can think of a couple of people who would like to. I got paid for going places, and since I always got lost, I made my living by getting lost. I worked for the TVA Energy Sourcebook program, conducting seminars for primary school teachers on how to use of the lesson plans in the Sourcebook as part of their science curriculum. This meant I would get a call telling me to be somewhere in my service area at such and such a time on such and such a date with several demonstrations prepared for so and so many teachers. I was a very good at every aspect of this job but getting places. And getting home again. I always factored in an hour “getting lost” time at both ends of the trip, and I always needed it.

So here I am, alone in San Diego, about to spend the next three days going places by myself and completely sure that I will get lost several times. Sure wish Vonnie was going to be here to keep me company. However, I have discovered two very comforting things about driving in San Diego. All roads lead either to the zoo or to Friars Road, and I live at one of those two places. Chances are, I will find it.

Day (spa) tripping

I indulged myself with a trip to the Spa Reflection Day Spa today. When I made the appointment, I said I wanted someone who really knew her stuff. When I got there, I put myself in the hands of Nicole. I told her she was making all the decisions about my hair because I obviously kept repeating the same bad ones. She had two mandates- make it stylish and make it feminine. I think she succeeded on both counts. She took her time, getting to know my hair- it’s thin, fine and frizzy- and then gave me a phase one haircut on the way to the style she thinks will suit me best. In six weeks, we do the phase two cut and possibly perm my crown. After that, we may play with highlights, who knows?

I can’t wait for Kel to get back out here, I think she will love the place, too.
The Spa Reflection is wonderful, very user friendly, and a full-service spa. Want a massage? A bikini wax? A facial? The full range of hair services? How about a manicure? I had my acrylic nails “filled” today by Kim, a lovely Vietnamese woman with excellent English skills and superlative manicure skills. Like Nicole, she took her time. What an artist! My nails have never looked so good… or so red! She gave them a gel coat, and they look like the paint job on a brand new car. Vroom!

I looked so good I took myself out to lunch at Coco’s, where I had crab cakes, cole slaw and iced tea. Yum. Now I am back at the apartment doodling with my blog rather than cleaning house and doing laundry. I don’t want to get mussed. :)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to two of my dearest friends in the world, Taffy and Marcia.
Taffy has been my friend and advisor since the late 60’s. Dave and I went to high school with her son Lucian and became fast friends with Taffy and her late husband Casey. What a great couple. Taffy is 81, still drives, still works, and has a sister MayBeth who, at 91, still teaches full time at a private high school. Long may they both sail.
I met Marcia in 1983 when I finally went back to college. She was my biology lab instructor. (No, she’s not that much older than me… remember, I was a late bloomer). She and I are both transplanted Michiganians and kindred spirits. She’s one of the smartest, kindest, most feminine people I know with only one glaring flaw… she is a sports nut. Go figure.

News from the home front: Mother has “killed” the receiver so she can’t watch her Westerns until Jake gets over there and finds out what she did to make the audio go away. I was able to walk her caregiver through troubleshooting-long distance- two times since I got here, but the third was the charm. Sigh.

Mocha Frappuccinos, and the joys of travel

The more I travel, the more I find that I am like a fine red wine.

• I am full-bodied… which means that most airplane seats are a bad fit.


• I turn to vinegar if mishandled.


• I need to be aerated to be at my best.


• I do not travel well.

I am slogging through the obligatory two days of unwellness that seems to accompany every trip. I dropped a three-hole punch (heavy) on my foot before we left, and my foot swelled to uncomfortable proportions, which has made walking fun. As expected, the beloved right knee has gone on strike, as it always does after a flight, so I will be limping for the next few days. My right shoulder is in a semi-permanent cramp, making me decidedly lopsided; all I need is a popped eye and a lisp, and I could be Igor. “Tell me, Dr. Frankenstein, do you find me repulsive?”

It’s not all bad, of course. I got out of the apartment yesterday, and got myself a Starbucks Mocha Frappuccino- oh, how I LOVE my Mocha Frappucino, that little slice of Heaven in a cup. Six million calories, thirty thousand grams of fat… what’s not to like? I limit myself to one a week, and give up breakfast and lunch to have it, so you know it’s love. I can hear you all shouting “You moron, you’re a diabetic!!”… to which I say “What’s your point?” A person is entitled to a destructive vice or two. I gave up smoking six years ago, I’m not a drinker, I don’t gamble except with my health… CHEERS! (Excuse me while I wipe the whipped cream off my face.)

It’s been pretty here, lovely breezes, moderate temps and since I am here without my daughter, whom I miss… or Mother… it is very quiet. Well, not TOO quiet. The phone rings a lot. It’s mostly Stephanie, my housekeeper and Mama’s caregiver, asking me how to work the big screen TV for Mama. It really should be a no-brainer, because before I left, I set the TV to the Encore Western channel, Mama’s favorite. I put away the extraneous remotes, and left out the two that control the TV and the receiver. I placed these on a piece of labeled paper, half designated “Silver remote- TV” and the other half designated “Black remote- sound”. Under these designations were the instructions: Push the green button (TV). Push the red button (sound). I demonstrated these instructions twice before I left. I felt pretty good about making it possible for my technologically challenged mother-in-law to watch her favorite shows while I am away. After all, how hard can it be to push two buttons?

Apparently, it is very hard. Yesterday, Mama couldn’t get a signal. Stephanie called and I walked her through troubleshooting. We found the problem. Mama had pushed a button on the TV remote she shouldn’t have, and more than once. Sigh. She was on video one when she needed to be on video three. Twenty minutes on the phone solved that problem. I had Stephanie take her through the instructions once again, and thought all was well.

At 10:30 this morning, Steph called again. Apparently, Mother got frustrated when the TV didn’t come on instantaneously, opened the cabinet door and began turning knobs on all the electronic equipment inside. Mama told Stephanie that David had told her to do that if the TV didn’t work. Since David blanches when even I touch his sanctified system, it seems highly unlikely. All the knob turning made today’s troubleshooting a little more complicated but we got there. Stephanie told Mama just to leave the TV on all the time, which will solve the problem if Mama will do it. What are the odds?

I anticipate yet another call tomorrow. Mother is fully capable of pushing two buttons but where’s the fun in that? She’ll think of something to screw up, I am sure. In the meantime, I am going to do a load of dishes, a load of laundry, vacuum, dust and make the bed, which is what I pay Stephanie to do for me in Tullahoma… Does it seem to you that my life is a little screwy?

Mrs. Rosa Parks

I’ve been watching the coverage of the funeral for Mrs. Rosa Parks, and have been surprised again at the power of one simple act of courage. It was such a simple thing; she refused to give up her seat on the bus to a white man. It was a deliberate act, and any number of really awful things could have happened to her in consequence- more awful than being arrested, I mean, which was pretty damn awful for a black person in Alabama in 1955.
Her refusal to move is said to have triggered the civil rights movement. It may have done. What it certainly did was show the economic clout of a segment of the population no one seemed to know had any. The 381-day bus strike in Montgomery HURT, and a new, powerful weapon joined the fight for equality- the dollar.
I don’t think Ms. Parks knew she was triggering an economic revolution when she refused to give up that seat, but she surely knew it was a political act. She was a smart, dignified woman, and she had a lot of courage. I don’t know that I could have done what she did if our roles and lives had been reversed.
It would be nice if courage were as contagious as fear.

Ah, San Diego!

Y’know, San Diego is a strange sort of place. It looks so lush and so green that you forget it is sitting in a desert. It looks green and lush because of watering systems providing the water Nature generally does not. Scoot two feet out of watered spaces and you see what San Diego must have looked like to the indigenous peoples and Catholic priests of its distant past. The operative word here is brown.

It is interesting to hear about a city while you are in it. The big San Diego news this week has been the two earthquakes, and the incredible three day storm.

Theoretically, there were two earthquakes this week. You couldn’t tell by me. I only found out about them listening to the news. Not that I cherish BEING in an earthquake, mind you- I have been here for two that were noticeable, and I noticed I didn’t like them- but there is something both disappointing and anachronistic about earthquakes you have to hear about on the news. If they haven’t really quaked anything, are they really earthquakes?

The other big news was the storm, and I did notice that. I noticed it wasn’t a storm, at least not by Tennessee water volume and pyrotechnic standards. What we had for the last three days were dynamically cloudy skies and semi-continuous soft, gentle rain. Perfect rain, really. Steady but not so heavy that it drenched you from car to house. Just the right size droplets; not so tiny that they felt like little needles hitting your skin but not big ploppers, either. The sound of the falling water was gentle and seductive. My daughter Kelly, who is a rain connoisseur, would have been in paroxysms of joy over it.

This was a prolonged rain shower, not a storm, and dropped less than an inch of water in three days. It had little impact on the well watered places, but the neglected remnants of the desert that really is San Diego wallowed in the rain, drank in the rain, bathed in the rain, used rain to make chlorophyll and chlorophyll to make green.

Maybe San Diego is a metaphor. No matter how lush things may appear, we are all living on the edge of a desert. Or maybe not. One thing is certain; there is nothing more beautiful than the desert after a three day rain shower. And that could be a metaphor as well. Ah, San Diego.

Mama in the Golden State

Of all the things I forgot on this trip… how did I remember Mama?

     We have been in San Diego for one day short of a week, and except for the gorgeous weather and scenery, we might as well be home.  Stand by for the second edition of “The Same Thing Happens Every Time.”

     Mama did very well on the flight out.  She refused a wheelchair, though, and Dave finally got a full-blown taste of Mother in action.  Or, to be completely accurate, inaction.  If her elbows could propel her body forward, she’d be sprinting but her feet only move about half their length with each stride, and she has size 6 feet!  We looked like a Chinese family on parade- Papa in the distant lead, wife ten paces behind, mother 130 paces behind her.  Wife periodically stops for Mama, but Dave stops for no one.  As soon as he has outdistanced us by half a mile, he notices he is alone and slows down… and so does Mama.  Somehow the gaps never seem to close.

     Before we left home, Mama and I both had our eyes examined.  I am now wearing SOFT contacts and I love them.  Instead of wearing glasses all the time and taking them off to read, I wear contacts all the time and only need glasses to read- and simple, cheap-o magnifying glasses at that, the kind you can get for $15 at any drugstore, so if I lose them, no whoop!  On the other hand, Mama’s vision has not changed one jot since her last exam, so she did not need new glasses.  The doctor did inform her, in my presence, that she has macular degeneration but that it had not worsened in the last year.  
Mama asked me to explain what macular degeneration meant.  I explained.  She immediately went into a deep depression and began obsessing about going blind.  It was heart-breaking.  I spent the weeks before we came out here trying to comfort her and reassure her, listening to all the various scenarios of blindness she came up with and feeling genuinely sorry for her.  
I started to get a little suspicious when all of a sudden she could no longer read, she could not see to cut her meat or recognize the food on her plate.  She was walking into walls and bumping into furniture… when it suddenly occurred to me that the doctor had said that her vision HAD NOT CHANGED SINCE HER LAST EXAM.  That was two years ago!  I spoke to the doctor and found out that Mama was first diagnosed with macular degeneration in… wait for it…1994!   Here I was thinking this was news, and bad news, for her and she’s known about the condition for 11 years.  Guess she just forgot.  She may go blind, if she lives to be 90, which I am sure she will, but for the record, she’s no blinder now than she was two years ago.

     Along with going blind, Mama has now decided that she is going deaf as well.  Example:  We get out of the elevator on the parking garage level to go to the car.  As we exit the elevator, I tell her “Go left”.  She goes straight and walks into the wall.  I ask her “What are you doing?”  She says “I can’t see.”  I say, “You can hear, can’t you?  I told you to go left!”  She says “What?  I can’t hear you.”

     Bear in mind that Mama is fighting a nasty cold and so is not feeling 100%.  With that caveat, this is what we have done in San Diego so far.

• We have watched the Western channel.  Every day.  Every hour.  If she falls asleep and I change the channel, she wakes up. Once I turn it back to the Western channel, she falls asleep.  It’s more effective than Sominex.


• We have gone to the grocery store twice.  


• We have gone to K-Mart.  She bought a nightie.  She forgot to pack one.


• We have done one small mall crawl which wore her out completely and had lunch at Ruby’s Diner.  Mama LOVED the strawberry shake, but I am throwing out her doggie bag- which contained her entire lunch from Ruby’s-today.


• We took her out to dinner last night.  I will throw her doggie bag from Black Angus out in a few days.

I ask, ”Mama, want to go to the zoo?  Old Town? The Del? Balboa Park? The beach?  Want to sit on the balcony?”  No, thank you very much.  She spends her days in her room, just like she does at home.  She squirrels treats and junk food in her room just like she does at home.  She sneaks into the kitchen to raid the refrigerator when she thinks we are asleep, and so has no appetite when we are awake.  She sleeps all day and then roams the apartment like a ghost all night.  Maybe this will change when she feels better.  At least she has enjoyed the palms and citrus trees in the complex.  Sigh.
     Dave can entertain her this weekend.
     I’ll stay 10 paces behind… going in the other direction.

The Day of Incredible Brain Farts

It is beautiful in San Diego today, if a bit warm.  It feels weird being here after such a long absence.  Coming into the apartment again after almost three months away was surprisingly pleasant- though my absence has emphasized the difference between tidy and clean.  (  Well, it was clean enough; Dave did a pretty good job keeping on top of things, other than dusting, scrubbing tubs and toilets…  We make a good team in a home; he is Mr. Tidy and I am Mrs. Clean.  Between us, we keep a very nice house/apartment.
As nice as it is to be here, I realized quite quickly that all I had really missed in San Diego was my home office.  I have a great office here, perfect in size, situation, and economically and functionally equipped.  I have the perfect desk from Pottery Barn with a matching credenza- fabuloso! I have my easel and paints set up in the corner, a crafting table sitting perpendicular to the desk and still have ample space to dance and cavort.  A wonderful abstract by my niece Melissa is on one wall, my diplomas on another, and pictures of my goonie girls on a third.  The fourth wall is a bank of windows which are letting in a cool breeze as I type.  A glorious citrus scent is on the air.  I could live in this office and be happy.
We brought Mama with us this trip, and despite a terrible cold, she was quite the trooper on the flight out.  She has been sick in bed since we got here, but I took her out for a little outing yesterday and she did very well.  We went to Michael’s for craft supplies and then the Ruby’s Diner for lunch.  Best shakes and club sandwiches on the planet!  Seriously.  Mama finished her shake, but her lunch, minus one bite, came home with us in a box.  About a week from now, I will throw it into the trash.  Sigh.  
I am assiduously working on Christmas already, via the Internet.  Two years ago, I did my entire Christmas shopping online.  I loved it.  I will do the majority of my shopping online again this year.  I figure the shipping and handling can’t be worse than the cost of gas spent going from shop to shop.   I am also working on birthday scrapbooks for Haley, who will be NINE on October 24th, and Emily, who will be two on November 3rd.  God, they grow up fast.  
I am enjoying being here, but I miss my dollhouse. (See previous posts).  My good friend Yvonne is house-sitting for me while I am gone, and informs me that packages have arrived in my absence.  I love packages.  Several came just as we were leaving on Saturday, and it was all I could do to keep from opening them right then and there.  Dave was impatiently tapping his foot… hell, he was stomping with impatience… so I passed on the pleasure of opening treasures.  
Which, as it turns out, was a good thing. One more delay and we might never have gotten to San Diego.  Why?  Because I had a bad case of absent mind.  Last Saturday will go down in the annals of my life as the DAY OF THE CONTINUAL BRAIN FARTS!
Yes, my brain farts.  I am the queen of farts.  
It started with my discovery, just as we were about to merge onto the Interstate, that I did not have my purse with me.  Imagine Dave’s delight!  We turned around, drove back home, and I went in to retrieve my purse, only to find that I had failed to lock the door when we’d left the first time.  Once inside, I realized I had forgotten to pack my insulin, so I grabbed that and ran, because there was a good chance we were now going to miss our flight, and Dave was literally vibrating with frustration.
I did make sure the door was locked when I exited this time, but while driving to the airport in silence, I found myself wondering if I had left my bedroom window open.  I wondered about it while sitting in the airport waiting for our plane (we made it- Dave set a new land speed record).  I wondered about it on the cramped flight to Dallas.  I wondered as we sat in DFW, the world’s most hateful airport, during our four hour flight delay.  I wondered about it on the cab ride to the apartment.  I emailed Yvonne to check it out for me, and sure enough, the window was wide open.  Locked doors, open window- now that’s security!  I wonder how I manage to survive sometimes.  I am going to sit here quietly for a few days until the cerebral indigestion passes. Talk amongst yourselves until then.

News from Lake Soonbegone

Off we go to San Diego again, this time taking David’s mother with us. Hope she handles the traveling all right. Should be interesting getting there- and being there.

It’s been interesting here in the couple of weeks or so since my last posting.
In that time-

• My good friend Sandie barely survived a triple by-pass surgery with innumerable complications. Knees all over Middle Tennessee have been rubbed raw from praying, but I saw her today, and she looks as good as anyone can after an ordeal like that. Thanks be to God! And what a trouper she is! I don’t mind telling you, I was really scared we were going to lose her. She’s not out of the woods yet- two of the three bypasses have collapsed and they had to put a stent in the major coronary artery- so she may have further surgery in her future, but for now, she is home, she is clear-headed, and she’s alive. And where there’s life, there’s hope.

• A few blogs ago I wrote about the “By Cracky Bars” my mom used to make, and my delight in finding the 1953 Pillsbury Bake-Off Cookbook that contains the recipe through Barnes and Noble’s out-of-print book service. http://www.bn.com/ (By the way, the cookbook originally cost 25 cents; it cost me $21.29 to replace it. Well, it is technically an antique now.) The little book has arrived, and I almost cried when I saw the cover showcasing the $25,000 winning recipe for Snappy Turtle Cookies. Mama made those a couple of times, too. Anyway, I turned to page 48 and there, one of the few cookies photographed in color, were the By Cracky Bars, just as I remember them. Their recipe won second place in the junior contest for Miss Yvonne M. Whyte of New Bedford, Massachusetts. There is a picture of her holding a check for $2,000. In 1953, Miss Whyte was an attractive, young- possibly teen-aged- black woman with tortoise shell glasses and a shy smile. I wonder if she is still alive? How old would she be now? She appears so young in the picture, I imagine she was majoring in home ec when she developed this most wonderful of cookie recipes. She really understands chocolate, by the way. And, at the insistence of my daughter, I am posting her recipe. Enjoy!

By Cracky Bars
(Bowl One: Dry ingredients)
Sift together…. 1¾ cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
¼teasoon soda

(Bowl Two: Creamed Mixture)
Blend together…. ¾ cup shortening
1 cup sugar, creaming well
Add,,,, 2 eggs, beating well


(Bowl Three: Liquids)
Combine… 1/3 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla.
Add the liquid alternately with the dry ingredients to the creamed mixture.

Divide the batter. Place 1/3 of the batter in a bowl with 1 oz. melted chocolate and ¾ cup chopped walnuts. Spread in two well-greased 8x8x2 pans or one 13x9x2 pan.

Arrange…. 9 double graham crackers over the batter in the pan(s).

To the remaining 2/3 of the batter, add ¾ cup chocolate chips. Drop by spoonfuls over graham crackers and spread to cover.

Bake in 375 degrees oven 20-25 minutes. Cool on rack. Cut into bars when cool.

Damn! I can taste them already. One hint- do NOT over cook or they will be dry.
Thanks, Miss Whyte, wherever you are.

• Today I got a belated birthday present from my baby sister Susie. In it was my mother’s old Home Companion Cook Book, a manila envelope full of hand written recipes as well as recipes cut from newspapers and magazines, and…. THE 1953 PILLSBURY BAKE-OFF COOKBOOK! Susie read my blog, went digging around, found Mama’s copy and sent it to me. The first thing I did was smell it to see if it still smelled like vanilla, but sadly it does not. Its cover is missing and its pages are loose, but it was Mama’s and now it’s mine. What a sweet sister I have, and what a great birthday present.

• My hubby bought our daughter a new car this week. It is sitting in my driveway, a gleaming, sleek temptation, waiting for Kel to come get it, and singing a siren song to me. I sooo want to take it on a road trip, but know how I would feel if someone else was tooling around in my new car before I got a chance to play with it, so am restraining myself. This may not last. Kel better get here quick!

• Hard on the heels of knee surgery that took her out of play comes my housekeeper Stephanie’s two-week vacation, which means I have been left to my own devices in my house for almost a month. It shows. I am going to make a serious attempt at housekeeping tomorrow, but I ask you- if I was any good at this, would I have needed a housekeeper in the first place? Due to post-polio effects and the after-effects of four herniated vertebral discs, there are a lot of things I am not supposed to do- like vacuuming, for example- that I am having to do, but I am being careful. A little at a time, a little each day… oh, who am I kidding? I make messes at twice the rate I can clean them. I need HELP!!! I am a cleaner, not a tidier!

• My ancient (18.5 years old) black tabby Shadow has had what I took to be an eye infection. Her right eye was swollen and weeping, so I stopped by the vet’s, described her symptoms and brought home some antibiotic eye cream, which I assiduously applied to her eye twice a day for about 5 days. When I saw no improvement, I took her in to the vet. Guess what? Not a thing wrong with her eye. She has an abscessed tooth! Poor thing, in terrible pain from a bad tooth, and her “mama” is putting cream in her eye. Good thing she has a bad tooth, or she would have bitten me. Now I am feeling both like a damn fool and a cat torturer. How has she survived this long in my care?

Well, that’s all the news that fits. I am still having a wonderful time with my doll house, and add little touches almost daily. One good shrinking potion for me, and I’ll be ready to move in. Don’t laugh… but I tuck the children into their beds every night.
On that note, I will close, because I can hear you laughing.

My Victorian Dream House

Dining room to left, study to right.
Diningroom. Real china. The art is a copy of a picture on my diningroom wall; it's by Tissot and I made the miniature myself.

Young Peter's room. Still a work in progress. Since I took this picture, I have placed a butterfly collection over his desk.

The Parlor, where a soiree is in progress. I am still awaiting the delivery of Alice and Marcia, who will complete the tableau. Again, the artworks are copies of art in my home, and I made half of them myself.

In this picture, you see the diningroom and another view of the study above, and have a glimpse of the kitchen and the truck garden below. The picture is a copy of "The Captain and His Mate" by Tissot, and I made the miniature.

Here is a view of my work in progress. In a later posting, I will show you the girls room, the music room, the garden and the kitchen. How do you like it so far?

Lady Kathleen, Parva Domus Manor House, the Shire :)

The Same Thing Happens Every Time

I’ve been having a recurring nightmare lately. In it, I am 77 years old, barely mobile, half-blind…and I am still dragging Dave’s mother around everywhere I go. It could happen; some people live to be 98 years old, and if anyone will, Mother will.
I wish you could meet Dave’s mother. She really needs to be experienced, she cannot be described. Having said that, I am going to try to describe her. She is short, scrawny, with bird-like legs, salt and pepper hair that is still mostly pepper, and glasses that magnify her eyes so that she looks like an owl. She stares and blinks like an owl as well. She likes clothes that are too big for her, and tends to wear shorts most of the time, so she looks like a cartoon character with her stick legs dangling out of shorts that three of her could wear at one time. She walks bent over, elbows working, taking four steps to my one- and I slow down for her, so my one step is very leisurely- but she can never keep up, so I slow down even further… and when I come to a complete stop, I realize that she has zigged with uncanny speed either to the left or right, and is gone.
Which brings me to this segment of “The Same Thing Happens Every Time.”
Examples:
Dave and I take her to Lowe’s because she says she wants to come. We don’t have much shopping to do, but even so, when we get there, she decides to stay in the car. Not up to all that walking. We dash in, dash out, gone 15 minutes tops, get back to the car… and of course, she is gone. 30 minutes later, we find her. She went for a walk.

We head out to visit our son and his family. Mother wants to come with us. We travel to Manchester, spend a little time, eat a little dinner… and notice Mother is gone. Where is she? Sitting in the car. No pressure to go home, huh?

She likes to go out to eat. She won’t tell me where she wants to go or what she wants to eat, and is usually disappointed with whatever choice I make. When we get to the restaurant, she refuses to order anything to drink, heads straight for the bathroom, and comes back expecting me to have ordered for her. When the waitress asks what she wants to eat, she stares and blinks. When she finally speaks, 7 times out of 10 she uses what I lovingly call her “stroke” voice - swollen tongued, halting, over-exaggerated pronunciations- which is so patently phony that waitresses have been known to laugh out loud. I’ll tell you about her phony faint some other time, but will mention here that it is hilarious.
Anyway, back to the same thing happens every time… she orders her meal and the minute the food comes, she asks for a doggie bag. She eats about six mouthfuls and is “full”. I have learned to inhale my food rather than eat with her sitting with her doggie bag on her lap, blinking at me. The waitress offers her something to drink several times during the meal, but she doesn’t ask for anything until the bill comes. We wait for the drink, wait for the bill to be re-tabulated… and she leaves without drinking the drink and forgets her doggie bag. (Which is just as well, because when she remembers to bring it home, it just rots in the fridge- she doesn’t like left-overs.)

She’s always spoken with a barely comprehensible Polish-American accent but as she has aged- and survived a couple of mild strokes- her speech has become more disjointed and harder to follow. I am her interpreter because I understand what she is saying, though there are times when I misinterpret her deliberately. Well, unless she walks up to 600 pound men at Tractor Supply, and says things like “Oh, you are so fat!” It’s kind of hard to misinterpret that. I just follow her around and mouth “stroke victim” to whomever she is currently talking to.

Mother loves talking to strangers. She loves inflicting her personality on people. She has been calling herself an “old lady” since she became a grandmother at 41; now she tells anyone who will listen that she is 77 years old as if expecting them to say “NO! Surely not! That’s older than the world!” and is always disappointed when they don’t. She tells perfect strangers that she is homeless (she's not -she lives with Dave and I and has a whole wing of the house to herself); she tells them that we don’t feed her (we do), or that we make her stay in her room all the time (we don't); and, my personal favorite, that she has no one to care for her. As you may have surmised, Mother is not the most truthful person on the planet. She will tell her tale of woe to someone one day, and Social Services will show up the next. Thank God we live in a small town where people know us- and Mother.

Whenever Mother is bored- which, sadly, is most of the time because she won’t do anything for herself anymore- she tends to make long, prolonged, and very irritating sounds. Barking like a dog. Cackling like a hen. Repeating a phrase over and over, LOUDLY! If we are watching something on TV she doesn’t want to watch, she sings. LOUDLY! If that doesn’t work, she interacts with the cat. LOUDLY! (By the way, she has decided my cat Patches is a dog, because she doesn’t like cats, but she does like Patches, so Patches must be a dog.)

There are other little things. My housekeeper Stephanie is also her caretaker when I am away, and is as good and gentle and sweet with her as one human being can be with another. Mother calls her Sadie. She calls her Sadie because my last housekeeper was named Sadie. Apparently Mother thinks all housekeepers are named Sadie. The only problem with this premise is that my last housekeeper was named Sandy, not Sadie.

Don’t get me wrong. Mother can be and is cute, she can be sweet, and she is incredibly generous. When I was sick with the flu, she took care of me the best she could and I appreciated it. She is willing to scratch my back, an admirable quality in any person. It’s not that she doesn’t have an upside. There are lots of times when we crack each other up and for the most part, we live and work well together. I love her. I even like her.

It’s just that I keep having this recurring nightmare.

All it takes to be happy is a fully furnished Victorian home

Unlike my dear husband, I did not have a happy childhood. My family was large, chaotic, and dysfunctional; there was altogether too much alcohol, violence and neglect and too little nurturing and calm. Add chronic health problems and a well-founded sense of being unloved to the mix, and happiness just doesn’t fit. I have spent a disproportionate part of my adult life overcoming the effects of my childhood, but now, in my middle fifties, I believe I have found the solution.

I have a glitzy little thing-a-ma-bob dangling from one of the lamps in my living room that reads “It’s never too late to have a happy childhood.” So, with Dave’s help, I have been giving myself one. Naturally, this process involves toys. Lots of toys. And, in my case, lots and lots of little tiny perfect toys. Miniatures. Yes, yes, I am providing my second childhood with its own house… a “dollhouse”. I have converted a lovely five shelf curio cabinet into a vignette display case for all the dollhouse furniture I have coveted my whole life.

The top shelf is the master bedroom and the bath. The master bedroom is in mahogany, as is most of the wood in the “house”. The bed has real sheets and pillowcases and a satin brocade comforter and throw pillows. There are two nightstands, a dressing table, an armoire, floral carpets on the floor… When complete, Barbara the nanny will be reading to the baby in its crib in the bedroom, while Peter, the eldest son, dries off after his bath in the sumptuous bathroom, complete with blue floral carpet and filled linen case. (Peter is here. Barbara and the baby are here, but we are waiting for the crib and the rocking chair, so they are sitting together uncomfortably on the brocade bench. I sometimes I think I see Barbara tapping her dainty foot impatiently. In fact, I fear Barbara may be a problem if not watched- she’s much prettier than a nanny has a right to be, and the man of the house is sure to notice that.)

The second shelf is the nursery floor. Peter’s bedroom, and that of his two sisters, are here. Peter’s room is rather spartan, as the rooms of Victorian era boys usually were, but he does have a comfy trundle bed, a dresser and a table and chair- and will soon have a shadow box butterfly collection to hang on his wall, being, as he is, a young naturalist. His sisters’ room is furnished in white and pink, of course. Mama, when she gets here, will be sitting on a chair, cuddling younger sister Beth while big sister Christy (who is here, being a timely child) sits on her bed reading a miniature copy of “A Child’s Garden of Verses”- one of my childhood favs, of course.

Mama has come to say good night because she has a houseful of people in the (third shelf) parlor. It is a well-appointed Victorian room, with rich carpets on the floor. Many of the pictures on the wall are miniature replicas of pictures I have chosen for my own home, most of which are works by James Jacques Tissot. The parlor boasts two conversation areas and a music room. In the small corner conversation area, Alice, who is shy, is sitting listening to Eric, who is also shy and has yet to put down his hat. In the main part of the room, Mr. Michael O’Toole has captured the rapt attention of Katherine, (Eric’s older sister), Rhett (the man of the house), and George (Katherine’s husband, who is enjoying a pre-dinner drink). Marcia (when she gets here) will admire the grand piano, which she will play for the assembled guests later in the evening.

In the (fourth shelf) dining room, Hazel the maid is waiting to put the finishing touches on the table. This is pretty tough right now, because the china hasn’t come yet, so dinner will be delayed until it gets here. It’s coming from England, so it may take some time. But there is a fire in the handsome fireplace that makes all the beautiful serving dishes in the hutch gleam, a beautiful oriental carpet on the floor, and a Japanese screen that separates the dining room from the library, to which the men will repair after dinner for cigars, brandy and a game of chess.

The (fifth shelf) kitchen is a beehive of activity as Ruth the cook, with Susan the ladies’ maid’s help, prepares the evening feast. I am having a ball outfitting this kitchen. I have a porcelain sink, an icebox, and an AGA stove (okay, AGA stoves are NOT Victorian, but I have been in love with them since my trip to England, and this was the only way I was ever going to get one). I have two kitchen dressers, and a pantry on the way. To the right of the kitchen is the truck garden, already “planted” with lettuce, cabbage, cauliflower and strawberry beds, and with a green man overlooking it all.
I am having SO MUCH FUN!

BUT… I am forcing myself to STOP buying anything more until after Christmas. I am giving everyone who has been complaining that I am impossible to buy for a Miniatures.com catalog with everything I want in it circled. I have purchased a lot of my stuff from Miniatures.com (http://www.miniatures.com/) and can recommend the site highly. Another site I use a great deal is the Dollhouse Emporium (http://www.dollshouse.com/) and it is also a wonderful source of yummy goodies.

My “people” are actually figurines, since I am creating vignettes rather than playing with them, but they bring a wonderful dimension to the scenes. Katherine is leaning in to hear Mr. O’Toole. Alice is glancing sideways at Eric. They are wonderful and, while not poseable, are much more realistic than even the priciest porcelain miniature dolls I have looked at.

If I can ever figure out how to post pictures to my blog, I will post pictures if you are interested. In the meantime, I am really am enjoying my second childhood.

It's true... you really CAN find everything on the internet

When I was a kid, my mom was a prodigious cookie maker.  She was a superb cook in all areas- well, okay, she made undrinkable coffee, but that was her only failing- and a remarkably versatile baker.  One of her favorite cookie recipes was that for By Cracky Bars.  She made them from time to time and the taste and smell of them particularly lingers in my memory.  She got the recipe from a publication of the Pillsbury Cook-Off entries, a slim, paperback 5X7 little book that bore the stains of frequent use.  

When my mom died, my sister inherited most of her effects.  This was entirely fair, since she had been Mama’s primary caregiver throughout the long illness that finally took her.  Among those effects was that little cookbook.

For the past couple of years, I have been obsessing about By Cracky Bars.  Even though I am diabetic and can’t eat them, I want to make them, to see and smell them again, and to feed them to my granddaughters to see if any of them love the cookie as much as I did as a child.  I asked my sister for the recipe- but after 15 years, and a couple of moves, she could not find the cookbook.  

Sigh.

And then I thought, what the hell?  I googled “By Cracky Bars” and up popped a partial recipe.  All the ingredients were there, but oven temperature and baking time were not.  What WAS there, however, was the source for the recipe.  The 1953 Pillsbury Bake Off Cookbook.  A title. A year.  A miracle.

So I immediately scurried to the online Barnes and Noble,  www.bn.com straight to the out of print book tab, and typed in 1953 Pillsbury Bake Off.  Voila!  There it was in all its glory- actually several copies were listed- and so it is now wending its way to my kitchen.  I will be so happy to have it, not just because I will get to taste By Cracky Bars for the first time in 40 years, but because I will have a little “memorabilia” of my mother’s days as a baker.   I wonder if her recipe for prune coffee cake is in there?

The collector

Eons and eons ago, when the world was still new, and virgins still lived on it, I had a unicorn. Actually, I had two; actually, I still have them. My sister-in-law Rita gave them to me, two beautiful cream porcelain unicorns. They sat on the piano for years. Then my daughter began the tradition of giving me a unicorn every Christmas. This tradition began in 1987, so you do the math. Unicorns are neither mythical or extinct- they have been transfigured into porcelain and ceramic and stone and glass, and they eventually end up here where they belong.

I guess those unicorns started my career as a collector. That, and the kindness of family and friends. A few years later my godson Ian started the tradition of giving me angels. I now have a shelf of angels in the same curio that contains my unicorns. My sister gave me our grandmother's teapot. Even though I don't like tea, I do like teapots, and before I knew it, my hubby and other lovely people deluged me with teapots.

I love anything miniature and so have a small collection of miniature furniture and a moderate collection of miniature tea sets. (Again with the tea! Have I mentioned I don't like tea?) I have a small collection of Boyd's little Victorian girls, simply because they charmed me. I have a collection of mannekins in my bathroom, and a collection of pitchers in the kitchen. I love PICTURES as well, and the walls of our house are graced with many beautiful works of art. We may have to move; I am running out of wall space.

My largest collection by far, however, is my faery collection. I have loved faeries since childhood, and for the longest time it was really hard to find them. I carried one faery all the way from England because he was, and is, so uniquely beautiful and so rare. Until fairly recently, it was a real coup to find two or three faeries a year. However, in the past few years they have become easier to find, and now friends and family are been buying them for me, too. Right now, as I look at a 16-foot expanse of bookcases in my living room, I can tell you that the top of it is completely inhabited by faeries. Faeries peek out of my plants, and dangle from my lamps. I have "hidden" at least one faery in every room of my house (except Dave's bathroom- he draws the line at faeries watching him bathe). There are faeries in the bedroom, the guest room, the kitchen, the dining room and they all bring me great joy.

My granddaughters were collectors for a little while. Kendall collected Boyd’s bears. She’s now, at 10, too old for them. Haley collected angels. She now disdains to collect anything so “girly girl”. Delaney collects faeries. She sometimes collects MY faeries. She is the only granddaughter still interested in her collection, and it touches me that she chose to collect something so dear to my own heart. (I have a four piece collection of granddaughters, by the way- but Emily is too little to collect anything except hugs just yet.)

I love all my collections, but the two that really obsess me are faeries and pictures. And pictures of faeries, for that matter. I have “Midsummer Night’s Dream” by Edward Robert Hughes hanging on the wall opposite me as I type this. And a watercolor of Fairy Land my mother painted when I was 5 or 6 hangs above the bookcases in the living room, an integral part of the faery population there. My best bud Marcia gave me a plaque with dancing faeries that reads “groweth young” and every time I look at my beloved faeries, I do.

Top Ten Really Obnoxious Things... in my opinion

I have spent the morning trying to get an obnoxious fly out of my PT Cruiser. I was doing this while I was running errands, and believe me, it was no fun negotiating the never-ending road construction, heavy traffic, and a pain-in-the-ass bug. I finally succeeded in shooing it out, but the battle got me to thinking about life’s little annoyances. Here are the top ten things I find most obnoxious, in no particular order.

1. A flying insect in the car. Any insect. Any car.

2. People who chew with their mouths open. Chomp, smack, slurp, YUCK.

3. Servers and/or clerks who seem to feel it is beneath their dignity to provide me with service… or courtesy, for that matter. Just TRY to get politely served in this service economy, I defy you.

4. Telemarketers. “Sign up for the don’t call list”, my ass. Thank God for caller ID; at least if you don’t recognize the name or number, you can refuse to answer the phone. Unless you are my husband, who seems to be pathologically incapable of letting a ringing phone go unanswered.

5. Obscene e-mails. This one really pisses me off. Can’t our service providers figure out a way to protect us from these things? I mean, look for the “F” word or something? It seems for every sender I block, three more show up with the exact same message, and frankly, I have never had much interest in “hot, young babes”. Call me weird, but there it is; I’m just not into naked women.

6. Junk snail mail. Why does it cost me 37¢ to mail a one-ounce letter when publishers can ship whole catalogs for the same price? Unsolicited catalogs, I might add, which I must then responsibly recycle or I am the one polluting the planet. PUH-LEEZE!

7. Companies that sell my information to other companies as part of their “Mailing List”. Which is why I get so many unsolicited catalogs. How did the information I provided to them become their property? And if they are going to sell my information, shouldn’t I get part of the profits? At least enough to cover the cost of recycling their crap?

8. Loud bass lines: I like music. I even like loud music. And I like a good bass line- I give it a ten, I can dance to it. However, I do not like it when I am in my pool, 250 feet from the road, and the bass line thumping from an adolescent boy’s car makes waves in the water. Or rattles my bric-a-brac in the house. Call me eccentric, but this annoys me.

9. Badly behaved and/or sassy kids: I have a hard time biting my tongue- and restraining my “swatting” hand- whenever I am subjected to the antics of a brat. All kids misbehave once in awhile, and have their bratty moments; I’m talking about a pattern of unacceptable behavior in a child that goes uncorrected by a responsible adult. I do not appreciate being talked to by a 5 year old like we are peers, or bossed or lectured by someone’s “precocious” little angel. Brats uncorrected do not make pleasant adults. But at least I can tell off an adult without its mother busting my chops. I can think of about a half a dozen brats I know right now that I will enjoy talking to once they are grown. As for now, they just need to be elsewhere.

10. Call waiting. I hate call waiting. I have never subscribed to that service and resent people who do. Why would anyone give people permission to interrupt their phone calls? Don’t they have answering machines? Can’t people call back? When I am talking to someone and they put me on hold to take another call in the midst of our conversation, I hang up on them. Obviously our conversation was not compelling enough to keep them engaged in it, and my time has value. A phone call is an unexpected interruption to begin with- you stop what you are doing to answer the phone. To have an interruption interrupted is just too much.

I’m sure I will think of more obnoxious things in the future. Any of these hit home with you?

Grumping my way to the pool. See ya.