Cats

In the spring of 2000, son Greg brought home his 2 young cats, 4 month old Jude and Oliver. They were litter mates, born on New Year's Day. He had bought them for a girlfriend who, when they broke up, gave them back. Greg was planning to move to NYC in the fall to attend grad school at NYU, and wanted to take the cats with him. As he was living in a dorm at the time, he couldn't keep them with him so brought them home to live with me until he finished school and joined them, and they all moved to NYC Labor Day weekend. I had 2 cats - Pistol and Precious, and my dog Jackson, at the time - but had never had YOUNG kittens before. The following is an email I sent to him about the events of one morning - and is completely true.


Sent: Friday, May 05, 2000 9:13 AM
To: 'Greg'
Subject: Cats

Hey, thought I would share with you the events of my morning.

Awake at 6:30, get up and into the shower at 6:45, leaving my bedroom door open. That was my FIRST mistake. While in the shower I notice that the little cover thingy is not on the drain in the tub. Wonder WHO is responsible for that?

Back to my room by about 7, wet and wrapped in a towel and find the two DEMON CATS frolicking on my bed. Jude sees me and jumps from my bed to night stand to the window sill, getting caught in the mini blinds in the process. I go and untangle her, and turn to find Oliver on my night stand, finishing off the glass of milk that I had left there the night before. I pick both of them up, dump them in the hall and close the door. Second mistake of the day - I didn't close it completely. By the way, I am clutching my towel around me while doing all this.

I then go into MY bathroom to brush my teeth. When I return to my room, I find they have opened the door and are chasing each other around my room. I pick up my bra out of the laundry basket on the floor and am attacked by Jude, who thinks its a toy. After wresting it away from her, I manage to get it on plus my underwear before Oliver starts climbing up my bathrobe on the back of my bathroom door. (I have given up on having a belt with the bathrobe, by the way - I am keeping it in my sock drawer). I go untangle Oliver and shut the bathroom door to keep him out of there.

I then actually manage to get my jeans and shirt on without any more problems, until I start looking into my closet for the vest I want to wear. Seeing the closet door open sends BOTH kittens into the closet, where they are climbing on clothes and playing with shoes. I find my vest, and turn on my iron to warm up so I can give it a quick pressing. I turn my back for JUST a second, and Jude has left the closet, jumped onto the desk beside my sewing machine and is poised ready to jump onto the bookcase. As I am reaching for her, she leaps onto the bottom shelf, sending a plastic ruler and several other items crashing to the floor. She's about to fall off the edge of the shelf (she doesn't understand space requirements) so I grab her and lift her off the shelf. Her claws are firmly embedded in a pile of interfacing that was on the shelf and it goes with her onto the bed where I drop her. So I pick up all the debris and return it to its proper place, and turn to iron my vest.

The hissing of the iron has attracted attention and both kittens are now sitting ON MY CLEAN VEST looking at the iron. I scoot them out of the way and start to press (using the little ironing board I lay on the bed). Of course, the cord of the iron looks like a fun thing to play with, so they both start chasing it. I iron with one hand and guard with the other and manage to finish that project after about 10 minutes, and put the vest on, turn of the iron and return it to the desk.

I then go back into my bathroom to comb my hair and do makeup, and am, of course, accompanied by the two demons. They have now decided that they want to look out the bathroom window, so they jump onto the top of my hamper, sending a magazine crashing to the floor and poke their noses under the blind to look outside. That seems to keep them entertained for all of 20 seconds, and they resume the bathrobe climbing competition. Or at least I THINK that's what they were doing. As I am finishing my makeup, I reach down to the sink top without looking and touch fur. Jude is sniffing my blush. Lovely addition to her nose. I give her a quick wipe off with one hand and throw her out of the bathroom. I lift Oliver off my bathrobe and throw him out as well, turn off the light and close the door TIGHTLY.

Ok now all I have to do is put on my socks and shoes and I'm home free. Simple, right? Not quite. I have bought a new pair of tennis shoes and they need lacing up, so I set them on the bed and start to do that. That was mistake number three. Within an instant, both kittens are on the bed playing with the laces. It takes quite a while to get the shoes laced without including kitten paws, but I finally finish, grab my shoes and socks and head for the living room to sit on the couch and put them on. Hoping the kittens will follow me, of course, to get them out of my room. I get my socks and shoes on, strangely without any assistance. Returning to my room to make my bed, I learn why. They are both up on the windowsill looking out the window, having knocked everything off the night stand in the process except the lamp. I let them stay there just long enough to make my bed and return items to the nightstand, and as I put up all the pretty pillows am immediately attacked in the process. They LOVE to play in the pillows on my bed. Sounds cute, but I'm having a lot of sneezing and wheezing problems and suspect that's why. Plus they unmake the bed in the process. So I grab a kitten in each hand, leave my bedroom and drop them in the hallway and close the door FIRMLY behind me.

Then I go to the kitchen, clean up a bit and fix my glass of instant breakfast. Ah, I've made it, or so I think, as I pick up my purse and head for the door. WRONG. I hear a curious scratching noise, and its coming from my room. Opening the door, I see Pistol on the other side of the door. I have NO IDEA when he had entered the room in all the confusion. He gives me a dirty look and saunters down the hall, only to be chased by the two hellions. Taking advantage of the diversion, I grab my things and get out the door. As I am starting my car, I look towards the house and see two little heads looking out the window at me. Goodbye, I gleefully wave to them.

Now that I am work, life is so quiet and simple. All I have to deal with here are humans, and that is easier, at least most of the time.

See you Sunday. Your little darlings will be waiting for you.

Mom

All sorts of stuff!

I haven't been as good as little sister Lisa, who's been blogging just about every day. So I've got bits of this and that, rather random, to write about, but here goes.

I got the approval from my insurance company to have the Shockwave treatment on my left foot and it is scheduled for Feb. 22. Halleluia - I am miserable with this darn foot, so I'll be glad to get it over with. The bad thing is that I will be in the damn boot thing day and night during our trip to the beach - THE GREAT ESCAPE! But it won't exactly be "hanging out on the beach" weather, so I'll have to be content with sitting in the screened porch looking at the ocean. I can't wait - gonna be fun fun fun!

My romantic life is pretty non-existant these days. R that I mentioned previously, from Yahoo Personals has disappeared, so is obviously not interested. I've been emailed by another fellow from there, P, who seems interesting (and interested) but busy so not a lot of contact very often. And another fellow has emailed me but something seems off about him - can't quite put my finger on it. He's only44 (a bit young for me I think) and I suspect is looking just for a "good time", which of course is not what I would want. I HAVE, however, had several great phone conversations with B - the most recent one was for over 2 hours. He seems like a really nice guy, intelligent, loves music - especially contemporary Christian as I do, and he plays in a group. Problem is that he's about 3 hours or so away in South Carolina. But I really enjoy talking with him and plan to continue that. Will it ever come to anything more? Who knows at this point. (Sister Lisa, if you are reading this - this is the fellow who was visiting in the area at Christmas.)

I finished my income taxes last night and sent them in this morning and I'M GETTING MONEY BACK! Will wonders ever cease! I haven't had any kind of refund in years - so this is all because of becoming a homeowner last year and having all that mortgage interest. I badly need new living room furniture so that will be purchase #1. I would love to get a laptop so that is under consideration but I'll have to see what the furniture costs first. Of course, I should pay on my credit card but, gees, that's no fun! I've probably got a couple weeks to dream about what I'm going to do with the money but I'm going to start shopping (looking I mean).

Gonna do another post with a funny story from the past. Check it out.

Nothing Much New

I haven't blogged for a week, due to time and, to be honest, not much going on. But I should anyway - I know it's a good thing. I've had a couple of really profitable shopping trips, taking advantage of the winter clearance sales. At my new favorite store, C J Banks, I scored a beatiful blue sweater, rust-colored knit shirt with neat button trim, a dark green embroidered corduroy jacket, and a denim jumper with Christmas embroidered design featuring penguins I'd been watching. Original prices were over $175 - my cost was $53. SWEET. Then on Friday night I ducked into Kohl's after dinner at a nearby restaurant, and got a dark olive green knit shirt for $2.40 and a peach springy knit shirt for $5. THEN on Saturday I went with a couple of friends and got a beautiful lime green cardigan sweater and a fleece top on clearence at Coldwater Creek for $10 each! I had stashed away $100 that I got at work (a gift from the company at the Christmas luncheon, recognizing my efforts to get employees involved in organized volunteer activities). So it was great having that to spend on ME for a change! I enjoyed it so much.


After reading Sister Lisa's blog recently, in particular the blog about how fortunate she is to have such good friends, I have to add my two cents. I too have wonderful friends, and I consider them as additional sisters. The shopping trip I had on Saturday was with two of them, and it was fabulous. Not only did we all find some good bargains, but we did so much talking and laughing about nothing (or silly stuff). That is so good with the soul. Honestly, without these women I would be lost. I cherish their friendship so much.

We've gotten into a pattern of meeting for dinner on Tuesday nights so that we stay connected during the week - tonite was at a small place called IPD Eatery and it was great - lasagna for $3.95! We almost always meet at Panera Bread on Friday evening, because we can sit and talk for a while and no one cares. Then we generally do something on Saturday but that changes every week. There are moments of drama from time-to-time, but most of the time it's just fun.

I'm still waiting on insurance approval so I can get my foot surgery scheduled. I sure hope it happens soon - I've got a couple of trips that I need to plan around. I'm heading up to VA for Brother Ron's birthday in a couple weeks, and then in March, my Florida cousins and some siblings are meeting at a beach house they've rented on Edisto Island (south of Charleston SC) for a long weekend. We're going to celebrate my youngest cousin's 50th birthday, and it should be really fun. But I would rather NOT be still wearing the "boot" while I'm there. I'll deal with it, if that's the way it works out but it would be so nice to have that behind me. I may call the doctor's office tomorrow to see if there's any update.

Ok this has been pretty boring! I guess I'm tired and my sense of humor has disappeared. I'm still struggling with the emotional stuff - I know I have to go thru the grieving process because of the end of the relationship with S, and this is all part of it. I talked to my friends tonight and we are planning on having a pot luck dinner at my house on Valentine's Day - my suggestion. I want to avoid being home alone and feeling sorry for myself that day and this should help. Time is helping, but.... This afternoon I saw a missed call on my cell phone and didn't recognize the number. My first thought - S was calling me to say he was sorry. Of course it wasn't him - it was a wrong number - but why did my brain go there. I KNOW he's not going to call, and I KNOW that I don't want him back even if he did - not after how things ended between us. I am still really angry about everything and I'm still working thru that anger. I was an idiot for falling for him as fast as I did, and for letting him know how I felt. And for continuing in a relationship that was obviously not progressing after several months. I suspect that I am repressing a lot of this (I'm good at that), and that's the cause of the hives I've recently been experiencing. Life goes on.

And so it goes!