Aging & Knitting & Chatting. Oh My!

In Which I Review a Book

2008-08-23T15:41:00.003-05:00

OK, there will be a post about everything that's been going on in the last month or so, but first I need to fulfill an obligation.

I signed up to review books. And I've been putting off the first one. But, here it is. Thanks for reading it!

There are three things I really don’t like in a review – a statement of the reviewer’s philosophy, giving away the plot of a book or movie, and reviews that only state “good” or “bad” without why. I hope to only break one of those guidelines. (Obviously, the first one.)

I received a copy of I, robot by Howard S. Smith as an Advance Reading Copy by requesting it from an ad in Shelf Awareness. I was intrigued by the title and the idea of updating the Isaac Asimov books. It came with some advertising material.

I’m sorry to say that I believe Dr. Smith made a strategical error by setting himself up to be compared with Dr. Asimov. Whether or not he is a better scientist is I don’t know, but he is not as good a writer.

I would like to say that the book would have seemed better if he had not set up the comparison, but in truth I cannot. I’m sorry to say I couldn’t finish it. As a new reviewer, I really wanted to do the best possible job. But I could not force my way through it.

I find it’s generally a bad sign when a book is made up mostly a lot of short chapters. This book has 369 pages and 160 chapters. That is not a good ratio. I know that deciding where to break chapters is much like deciding where to begin and end paragraphs. A lot of it is according to the taste of the writer. The problem I have with short chapters is not just the waste of paper, but the fact that very little thought or work seems to go into short chapters. I’m having this problem with Robert B. Parker’s new books. I love his characters, but he almost never gives me the details that I used to love. That’s true in this book. The first 11 chapters, covering 29 pages, are devoid of interest and of animation. There was no explaining what was going on – yes, I picked up a lot of it in context, but there are good ways of giving background details without distracting the reader from the plot. I can make all kinds of guesses as to how the world got into the straits depicted, but I need to know what the author says lead up to what he’s writing about. If I don’t know where he’s coming from, how can I truly appreciate where he’s going?

This is not to say that there is no merit in the book. With better editing and some instruction, it might have been a much better fiction book. In fact, the book comes alive when details and minutia of the science is being described. Clearly Dr. Smith is interested in the science and technology that go and will go into making robots. One chapter, in which one of the robots is turned on and put to work and interacts with the protagonist, is especially good and well-written. It kept me reading for a good bit, hoping for more. But the characters went back to being cardboard and the writing went flat again.

One other mostly good thing that I noticed was that it became clear gradually that the protagonist has Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. At first it was not subtle. In what seemed like three consecutive chapters the protagonist was called by a nickname we’re told is Japanese for “artificial human”. We’re told that in Japanese science fiction it is used to refer to androids and robots. When that’s just about the only thing you’re told about a character, it begins to feel like you’re being hit over the head with it.

But later in the book the protagonist displays OCD ritual behavior. It’s subtle at first; I wondered what that behavior was about. Eventually it became clear that this was his way of dealing with anxiety and helped explain his anxiety about everyone following the rules. He believes that when rules are followed, bad things won’t happen, even if the rule is nonsensical. That was well done.

There’s been a discussion in my house about what science fiction should be about. It’s my contention that all literature should be about people. Science fiction is especially good at illuminating the human condition by creating characters who are not human – robots, aliens, Vulcans, Time Lords, Cylons, and the like, help us understand ourselves. (Mysteries are also good at this, by showing up people placed in extreme circumstances and how they behave in those situations.) My husband, on the other hand, thinks science fiction should be about the science, not the people. If you agree with me, I don’t think you’ll appreciate I, robot. If you are more interested in the science than plot and characters and good writing, then you might enjoy it very much. Dr. Smith does make the science interesting. There are charts and graphs (as well as maps) to help him explain the technology behind his robots. Like most of us, he is more interesting when he is interested.

In Which I Give Myself a Reminder and a Suggestion of a Blog and Post to Read

2008-07-22T00:20:00.001-05:00

http://www.funnytheworld.com/2008/Jul/21.htm

From my friend Bev. This nearly brought me to tears, which is very difficult indeed.

In Which I Recommend Funny Websites and Give a Kitten Update

2008-07-09T13:18:00.002-05:00

So, here’s the thing. For reasons that elude me (but probably have to do with serious personal flaws or some childhood trauma or something), I find certain snarky things highly hilarious. (Yes, that’s more than ordinarily hilarious.) Not truly mean stuff or anything, but when something deserves laughing at, I really like it. Below I list two websites with snark that has left me wiping tears from my eyes or even literally choking with laughter. And one that I think will follow suit.

First, due to a small dust-up on Ravelry, someone mentioned that if people thought anyone on Ravelry was unpleasant or mean, those people should spend time on baby naming websites. This was a surprise to me. Since I am out of the reproductive business, I was not even aware that there were baby naming websites. And I would have thought (erroneously, it turns out) that such a site was a place where prospective parents could go to get kind advice and sympathy from fellow prospective parents. Evidently this is not the case. Without having actually ventured into the websites, I gather that basically people go to these sites to have their possible baby names made fun of and to have themselves called unfit parents, illiterate, cruel, and lacking in sense of humor and understanding of phonics. Or something. Anyway, I have no intention of perusing those sites themselves. I’ve lived through more than my fair share of flame wars already, thanks. However, someone has gone through these sites, chosen some of the worst ideas and trends in baby names, and put together her own website complete with wonderful snarky comments. Baby’s Named a Bad, Bad Thing: A Primer on Parent Cruelty. (Note: The owner of the website is named Diana. She is not me. I am not worthy to kiss her mouse.) There are 15 parts to the list, plus a forum and other things. I am reading a part a day, just to make it last longer. Lovers of snarky humor, enjoy!

Second, this one came to me via my friend Pat, who was directed there by her daughter. We owe them a huge debt of gratitude! This is a blog, so there are presumably going to be many more entries. Cake Wrecks. This blog features professionally made and decorated cakes that are just very, very wrong. Two of my personal favorites are the bride clone cake and the fireman cake. None of these are amateur productions, so I think it’s perfectly fine to laugh at them. I laughed harder at this site than I have since I read the chapter on apostrophes in Eats, Shoots and Leaves.

Finally, one I just found that I haven’t yet waded into: Etiquette Hell. From looking at the site, I’m pretty sure this is not a Miss Manners thinks you should never call co-workers by their first name kind of thing. (Cause if I spend eight or nine hours a day with someone, you can bet I know them well enough to be on a first name basis.) There is a big section on wedding etiquette, as well as more everyday sorts of things, and an area on business etiquette. I strongly suspect this will also be quite hilarious. I’m saving it till I finish the Baby Name list, and will probably go through it slowly as well.

On a completely different note: All of our foster babies are now two pounds or over, so they’re nearly ready to go back to the shelter. They will finish their antibiotic treatment on Thursday morning, so I’m just waiting for an appointment on Thursday afternoon. There is already another new singleton girl I’ll probably pick up. The little disabled baby won’t be ready until at least Friday – she’s so scared (and who can blame her?) that they’re having trouble giving her a thorough examination. I do hope I won’t just have a singleton to bring home – they do better if they have friends close to their age and/or size. Willow and Xander, while they are excellent Auntie and Uncle and co-parents, are too big to be really good playmates for a little one. But we’ve had singletons before and can do it again!

In Which I Have Good Days and Bad Days

2008-07-07T23:01:00.002-05:00

To wit:

Saturday was a Good Day. The mailman delivered “stuff” to me! One was one of my guilty pleasures, a soap opera magazine. Then there was a package, containing my new CPAP mask. And, finally, the first of my ARC books to review.

The book was the one I couldn’t remember much about. It’s called I, Robot, but it not by Isaac Asimov. Someone, a scientist, has decided he can somehow “fix” what Asimov wrote by updating the science. And, I guess, the storyline and I don’t know what all. I am skeptical and it doesn’t help that I’ve never heard of the publishing house. However, I’m willing to be pleasantly surprised! I haven’t started it yet; I’m about two-thirds through Elizabeth George’s newest, Careless in Red and I want to finish it. And I’m loaning it to a friend when I do. So, the ARC will wait till I finish it.

Sunday was Not a good day. I had a lot of trouble sleeping Saturday night. The new mask didn’t fit well. It’s a very different design than anything I’ve used previously (which I believe I’ve mentioned before). The ones I used before were all variations on this theme. A triangular, cushioned thing to completely cover the nose (which delivers the airflow), headgear to go over the head to hold it on, and something on the forehead or the bridge of the nose to hold it all steady. That design almost always eventually leaks air around the nose and eyes, but I’m used to that and have developed strategies to deal with it. The new mask looks like this. It doesn’t probably look all that different to someone who hasn’t had to deal with these things before, but it is. And I probably spent 30 minutes Saturday night adjusting the headgear and the pads that go over the cheeks. Still it wasn’t just leaking air; it could have cooled the room with the air flower. Not only was it probably not doing the job properly, but it was very uncomfortable.

I didn’t sleep well at all and when I got up Sunday morning I had no get up and go. About the best I could do was get up and go back to bed and get another couple of hours sleep. At that point I could sort of vaguely think and through the fog I thought of something.

On the new mask, the middle area where the nose goes (nasal cushion) comes in three sizes, small, medium, and large. On the other masks I’ve always used a small, so I just opened the package for the small and clicked it on. After the nap, it occurred to me that having too small a “nasal cushion” might very well lead to air leakage. So I tried to remove the thing, but I couldn’t get it off! Fortunately, DH had no trouble getting it off. I popped the medium sized cushion on last night. I probably spent 5 minutes readjusting the cheek pads and the headgear and then it just sort of went into place and the vacuum seal all the masks are supposed to create was suddenly there! Very little air leakage and an extremely comfortable night’s sleep was the result. I think this is by far the best CPAP mask I’ve ever had and I am extremely happy. In fact, when I sort of woke up this morning, I just lay there with my eyes closed, enjoying the whole thing and dozing. I decided to get up just a few minutes before a friend called me. Very happy, am I.

Today was also a Good Day. First, the good night’s sleep. Then the phone call, which was about a super secret project that she had finished her part on and needed to get it to me. Then the doorbell rang. More good mail! Today I got the first of the donated yarn for the friend of my friend. Some lovely alpaca and some mohair, in brownish red, white, and a lovely blue. And the person who sent it to me also sent me some homemade, wonderfully smelling soap! That wasn’t necessary at all, but it was very nice. Really, I enjoyed petting the yarn!

I don’t think I introduced our newest foster kitten. We still have Winthrop and Marion, but probably not for much longer. Humphrey, the very active and loving kitten, went back to the shelter a couple of weeks ago, but we kept his sister Minerva, as she was still underweight. This morning Humphrey was still on the shelter’s website, which surprises me, but I can’t imagine he’ll be there long! And I suspect Minerva will be going there soon, too. When I took Humphrey back, I picked up a poor, sad little girl. They named her Goldie Hawn, for no discernable reason. She’s another dilute tortoiseshell, looking a lot like Willow and other dilute torties we’ve had. The sad thing was that she had stopped eating. She (and I think some siblings) had been taken from their feral mom and were doing just fine. They had their operations and the rest were fine, but Goldie stopped eating. They had to force feed her, in fact. And she lost a lot of weight (for a being that size). They thought perhaps she was depressed and lonely and would be better for being fostered. So I brought her home.

She in fact is very social and loving. For the first few days all she wanted was to sleep on a person. And she wasn’t shy about asking for that! She integrated in with the other fosters pretty well and is getting along well with Willow and Xander. She and Minerva especially seem like friends, albeit friends who growl and snap at each other (mostly in play. I think.). Goldie refuses to eat wet food at all; in fact, she doesn’t like to be in the same room with it! I’m sure that’s because of the forced feeding. Then she began sneezing and was diagnosed with an upper respiratory infection, so everybody’s been being treated for that since last week. Goldie has perked right up and eats plenty of the dry kitten food and dry adult food, too. Someone on Ravelry (the stuff I learn on Ravelry is simply amazing) suggested something called Healthy Indulgence by Wellness, so I’ll be looking for that tomorrow. It is not absolutely necessary for her well-being that she eat the wet food, but she’ll gain weight more rapidly and be ready for adoption that much quicker.

I was going to go today to pick up another new girl. She was brought to the shelter on Friday by a good Samaritan. She is evidently about four weeks old and small for her age. But on Sunday they thought she was walking funny and might have a problem with her leg or hip. If so, it’s possible she was abandoned by her mother; they do that. But even if there’s something wrong, it doesn’t mean we won’t get to foster her. The shelter is already caring for a cat with hip problems, who has had several operations to fix the problem. So that might be an option, but in the meantime she’ll probably need some fostering and some loving care and we’d be happy to do that. I hope to be able to pick her up tomorrow.

I just realized that I’m actually looking forward to going to sleep tonight. I always like *being* asleep, but going to bed and going to sleep, not so much. How cool is that?

In Which I Answer Comments

2008-07-04T00:17:00.002-05:00

From Suna:

Sounds like a great day, all right. Good for you--the progressive book sounds like one I would be interested in reading the review for.

Lee does library thing. You can get to his off his blog, which is linked from mine. Not sure if you "friend" each other on that or not.

Lee and I have already “friended” each other! I forget how we got on the subject, but we figured out a couple of months ago we were both on there. But thanks for mentioning it! I’m always happy to have new friends!

And the Progressive book? I have the feeling a lot of people I know might find it interesting. I have been watching the mailman when he drives up to my mailbox for the last few days, but so far, no rain of books. Soon, though, I hope.

From Tuppence:

One day I looked around and realized that the SABLE thing can happen with books as well as yarn. At least some of my kids enjoy reading, so maybe the book stash won't be such a bad thing for them to have to deal with after I'm gone. The yarn stash is another story, though, since none of them knit or crochet.

Oh, I SABLEd out on books years ago. There are bookcases in nearly room in this house, all overflowing with books. And by overflowing, I mean stacked on top to the toppling point and onto the floor. (I have trouble getting rid of books. It just seems so wrong!) DH and/or DS will just have to handle the books and the yarn and the knitting needles and the crochet hooks and the counted cross stitch supplies (that I haven’t used in at least 10 years) and the CDs and DVDs. Well, that last one won’t be too bad. Most of the DVDs aren’t mine!

By the way, I love Tuppence as a name. It makes me think of Agatha Christie. I know a lot of people don’t care for her Tommy and Tuppence books, but I really did, so the name has a very pleasant feel for me.

From Carol:

Maybe the reason you have been feeling down is the CPAP mask going recently? Is the part that went part that helps keep the pressure where it should be? Cause if it's less than functional (even if it wasn't outright broken yet), it may have contributed to your feeling down...

I am afraid to catalogue my books. I have so many...and the hubby has just as many. Pretty soon I'm going to have to buy a new house where we can convert a room to just books. Maybe 2 rooms....

It doesn’t help, I know. The part that broke is where the clip attaches to the mask. With the mask I’ve been using it is evidently very fragile. The mask I’m getting (early next week, I hope!) is completely different. They’ve started making nasal masks. The last time I looked, those all seemed to either get inserted into the nostrils or I couldn’t figure how they’d stay on your face. (Mine is set fairly high.) But this one fits on the face somewhat like the earlier masks, but it really just held below the nose. Generally the comfort isn’t a problem. I can make myself comfortable. But I’m hoping this one will be less fragile and will be even more comfortable. They say you can even read with it on, which you can’t with the old ones. Not that I likely will. But still, that sounds good.

I am sadly very aware of the problems sleep deprivation causes. I had it bad before I was diagnosed. But nowadays if I haven’t gotten enough sleep, my body makes it very clear to me and I go lie down for a bit.

As for cataloging books, I’m really not even trying to catalog the ones I already have. I’m at least half serious when I say I doubt I’ll live that long and I’d still have to give up reading and knitting to attempt to round them all up. I’m just cataloging them as I buy or download or read them. This probably doesn’t help when I go to request an ARC, as what’s on librarything is more skewed towards mystery than my entire collection, but it will have to do!

From SeaStar:

Great about the yarn project. I'm excited. And I absolutely want to read the progressive book. Too bad about shoes and mask.

I think I’ve sent my address to four or five people. It’s not a lot, but it will still be a surprise for her. I hope it will be helpful.

The good news: I did find the shoes online, in the color I wanted! Yea, me! And yea, Google! I had to look through six or seven online stores before I found them and it was a place I’d never heard of. But UPS has already emailed me that they’re handling the package and I see it’s scheduled to arrive next Wednesday. That’s probably the last of my shoe buying till the next Tapestry concert (which is currently scheduled for November 15, should anyone want to mark their calendars now). Our last artistic director wanted black closed toe, closed back shoes, which is something I wear every ... concert. I bought a pair last year, but they are not so much with the comfort, so when we discuss concert dress with the new director, I will make sure what she wants and go get a pair that it will not be torture to wear for a couple of hours. The local store where I bought the shoes before told me that the company (Dankso; I think I told people EarthShoes, but they’re Dansko) will be making winter shoes with the same sole/platform as the ones I like, so I hope there’ll be something in that line that’ll work.

And so to bed!

In Which I Hit the Happy Jackpot!

2008-07-01T22:15:00.002-05:00

Yeah, it’s been nearly a month. I know. My bad.

I’m just having a wonderfully awesome day today.

A while back I signed up for the Early Reviewers program on librarything. This is a program in which librarything members are chosen to receive Advance Reading Copies (ARCs) in exchange for a review. Free books? Generally before anyone else can get them? What’s not to like? But the pool of available reviewers is fairly large and the pool of available books, while it’s probably expanding, is not as large. Chances of getting a good book seemed slim. While reading the various discussions it became clear to me that there were other ways to get ARCs. So I signed up for the main one mentioned. I should be getting one book from them, maybe two. I’ve asked for more, but haven’t heard anything back. And this evening I signed up for HarperCollins First Look. I really don’t pay a lot of attention to who publishes which author, but from the list, it looks like HarperCollins publishes a goodly number of my favorites. Unfortunately, most of my favorites are writing long-term series and there probably aren’t a lot of ARCs from them. But I do know that one author that I like did have some ARCs go out through librarything, so maybe.

Oh, the book I’m for sure expecting is nonfiction, called The Practical Progressive. I anticipate enjoying it very much. The other one I might get I’ll post about if I get it. It’s fiction, though, and I think maybe in the science fiction/mystery genres, which is right up my alley. (I should know what it’s about, but I was so excited that I didn’t pay close attention.)

This afternoon notices went out on librarything for the June ARCs and I snagged one! It’s about dealing with the cognitive challenges of multiple sclerosis. I realize it doesn’t sound like much of a page-turner, but my brother has MS and has definitely had cognitive challenges, so I expect it to be quite useful. And I suspect that it being not high on anybody’s list helped me get it. I suspect getting my foot in the door, however it happens, is good.

Eventually, as soon as the books come in, which frequently takes a while, I’ll be posting the reviews here.

The other way I hit the jackpot today is this: I had an appointment with my counselor today and one of the things I talked about is continuing acquisition of yarn stash, even though I am clearly a member of the Stash Acquisition Beyond Life Expectancy club. My counselor said she has a client who is a knitter (besides me, obviously) who is struggling with depression. She can’t work and has started to feel a bit hopeless. And one thing that’s a problem is that she can’t afford any nice yarn to knit with. My counselor wondered if I could spare some of my stash. Oh, yeah. But most of mine is sock yarn, since that’s mostly what I knit. She’s wanting to knit scarves and baby things, evidently. But sock yarn can make nice scarves and even baby things.

But then I had a brainstorm. On Ravelry I joined a group, yet another one, that really doesn’t have much to do with knitting. In fact, the aim is to be pointless. But there’s a lot of support there for the members and it reminds me a lot of my old CompuServe group. Anyway, I got online and mentioned this to them, and have already had several requests for my address and offers of nice yarn. One mentioned handspun! Very cool!

Oh, and yesterday when I took a couple of kittens to the shelter clinic, one of the staff members gave me a tent sort of thing that you can put outside and let cats be outside without being able to escape or get into much trouble. I had seen it before, but it’s expensive and we generally don’t let our cats outside. Still, I’m thinking that tomorrow, if I can get up before it gets up to oven temperatures outside, I’ll set it up and put the babies out there. I think it would be good for our newest girl.

One of my favorite things, other than being given things, is to give things to people who need them. It’s why I love Christmas, I think. I get to buy presents for everybody. It’s such fun! And so is this.

So, I really feel like I’ve hit the jackpot today!

Except that, I saved up enough money to buy a completely frivolous pair of shoes, and they are no longer available. I know the model name and my size and the color, so I’ll do a little looking around online, but I’m not hopeful Oh, and my second this year CPAP mask broke, in exactly the same way the last couple did (grrr), so I need a new one. Rather than get one from the place the insurance company uses, I think I’ll buy my own online. A different model. I found a new model that looks more comfortable and might have fewer fragile parts. Which means a few nights of less comfortable sleep, till the new mask can get here. Probably by some time next week. But I can manage; I’ve done it before.

Just this morning I was sensing some low level depression, undoubtedly because Mother Nature hates me and has turned on the oven outside. Feeling much better now!

In the meantime, I wonder if I ought to go out and buy a lottery ticket or ten.

????!!!!

2008-06-07T15:18:00.003-05:00

Elvis Presley as a detective? And there were four books? OK, not as bad as Lee Harvey Oswald (which I think shall ever remain my standard of the worst idea in publishing history), but still plenty bad.

And it fits right into the whole "why do detectives have to be alcoholics?" (or drug abusers)?

What were they *thinking*?

In Which I Answer Another Comment

2008-06-07T12:21:00.003-05:00

We have the same issues here in Fl. I'm thankful that we go to a good elementary school, but they fall victim to the same things, those standardized tests. I think it puts too much pressure on the kids because they are told that if they don't pass, they could be held back. Honestly, they have to be doing very poorly in school to be held back, its just another decision maker to see if they should be promoted, but most of the time the kids are. And the ones that aren't promoted usually have behavior issues that aren't always addressed.

Some of it here I think is due to our ex-Governor (soon to be our ex-President) and his partner-in-educational-crime, Ross Perot. They "reformed" our schools a while back and really screwed up a lot. Of course, a lot of this problem is nation-wide, the whole "No Child Left Behind" scam. I knew it was a total crock from the get-go, but it's really been brought home to me this week.

Fortunately, my son will be 25 later this month, so school for him is not an issue. But he did spend five years in a non-religious private school, from 4th through 8th grades. I wish I'd kept in private schools through high school, but we didn't. In theory, I'm a big believer in public schools, but these days I'm not sure how often it's the best choice.

It's scary sending your kid to school these days, which explains why I'm such an active parent. It's not fair, but if they know who you are, they know your kids and they tend to watch out for them more. If I gotta work the system for my kids, I will.

I have a friend who has a son in high school, in a public school. She feels the same way, though she's doing it as much to keep an eye on him as to keep an eye on the schools. But I wouldn't be a bit surprised to learn there's a note attached to his records warning teachers to cooperate with her. She can be hell on wheels when she feels the need!

and on a lighter note, thanks for listing the mystery web site. LOVE it and saved it for later. also your library thing had a link to Ravelry. Can I have the real one?

(blush) Sorry. HTML is so not my thing! The front door is www.librarything.com. My catalog is http://www.librarything.com/catalog/DianeS. librarything is almost as wonderful as Ravelry!

In Which I Answer Comments

2008-06-06T11:24:00.000-05:00

Kristine: Thanks for the recommendation! I admit I’m not sure I would have added her to my list otherwise, though she does meet one of my main requirements: a series still being written and published with several (in this case 12) books, all still in print. I will certainly check her out! And it’s Laura Joh Rowland. What was wrong with her book on Charlotte Brontë? Not that I’d likely read it. For someone as fond of Jane Austen as I am, I’ve never gotten into the Brontës. Too melodramatic or something, I guess. Shrug.

But better a Brontë than Lee Harvey Oswald as a protagonist!

Suna: Yeah, it’s one of the odder ideas I’ve heard about education over the years. It reminds me of the cable/satellite company commercial. Our customers are terrible, they keep calling with complaints, and they’re always angry. Solution: raise prices and get new customers! I suppose, if your only goal is to make money, there’s some logic to that. But that’s not supposed to be even close to the goal of education. I love my state, I really do. But Texas historically was settled (by non-Native Americans, I mean) by folks who were not as concerned about education as they should have been and we don’t seem to have recovered from that.

Musings

2008-06-05T23:04:00.000-05:00

Finished the Hs on SYKM. And I’ve had a couple of thoughts.

There seems to have been a fad in the last couple of decades for people to write mysteries featuring real historical figures. Now, I can’t complain about this too much. Among my favorite series is one featuring Jane Austen. But ... Queen Elizabeth I? Really? Shakespeare? (In more than one series, in fact.) I’ve put very few of these on my list of authors and series to check out. However, the one that really took the cake was (drum roll please) Lee Harvey Oswald. Yep. *That* Lee Harvey Oswald. Working as a Private Investigator in Dallas. Not surprisingly, it was a short-lived series. I hope whoever approved publishing it was fired.

My other thought – why are so many detectives in mysteries alcoholic or otherwise drug addicted? It’s like a cliché. Not just cops, either, which is a serious cliché. The Hs authors seemed particularly fond of that particular vice. Is there something about being a fictional detective that requires self-medication? And women are almost always divorced or widowed. Why? Happily married women are too busy caring for their family or something? Or their husbands would prevent them from doing that? Pfui, as Wolfe would say.

And, finally, a word to any mystery authors that stumble across my blog. (I’ll bet that’s a short list!) It is NOT NECESSARY to have the protagonist put in danger at the end of every book. Especially the amateur detectives. Miss Marple, Hercule Poirot, Sherlock Holmes, and Nero Wolfe were excellent detectives who almost never had a gun pointed at them. Oh, sure, Holmes went over the Falls with Moriarty. And Wolfe was threatened by Zeck a few times. But mostly they were most in danger of being slapped or sued. Or not paid. It becomes a cliché and an easy out when it happens in EVERY BOOK. All too often it seems that the author has painted him/herself into a corner; all the clues are there, the protagonist knows who the culprit is, but they can’t prove it. So the idiot murdered kidnaps them or something and gives themselves away. They can’t all be that stupid!

Now, I know these books are not realistic. Most normal people never investigate any crime, much less numerous murders. In fact, in my very unscientific poll of a few people, most people in real life don’t personally know anyone who was murdered! Unlike Jessica Fletcher’s Cabot Cove, most small towns do not have their population kept under control by murderers. If that happened, you can bet the police would be investigating things, the FBI would likely be called in, and the press would probably mob the place. (However, that wouldn’t be too bad. The FBI and press would likely be able to live in all the houses left abandoned by the populace who fled.)

Still, I suspect that even a police officer or private investigator would rethink their career choice if they were kidnapped and threatened with the frequency that happens in mystery series.

I’m just saying. Creativity would be appreciated.

In Which I Just Don't Get It

2008-06-05T18:10:00.002-05:00

I really don’t.

A high school here in town has been deemed “academically unacceptable” for five years in a row, so it has been ordered closed. That seems odd enough, but the plans for the building reveal how the people in charge of our kids’ educations think.

They plan to open a “new” school at that same campus, probably in the fall. There will be a new name, a new mascot, new staff, and new students. So, if a school is not working – get rid of the kids?

What do they think the purpose of a school is? I know the answer: To pass standardized tests. Not to educate kids, obviously.

So far no one has said where the “old” kids will be going. They have said that “only half” of the school’s current kids will be allowed to go there, but they haven’t said what’s going to happen to the rest. Amazingly enough, the kids feel like the school system has thrown them away as having no value.

I’m all for results-based education. I just don’t think that standardized test scores are the results we should be aiming for. And I sure don’t think that throwing kids out of school in order to get good test scores is a good result!

To add insult to injury, the school (not surprisingly) is in a primarily minority area of town. It has been there for 48 years. There are three, four, maybe even five generations in families that have attended that school. (In the interest of full disclosure, DS attended that school in his freshman year of high school. He was in the Liberal Arts magnet school, but they refused to even pretend to accommodate his learning disabilities, so we moved him.)

How is this helping, again?

In other news, I finished with the G authors on Stop, You’re Killing Me! this afternoon. So it’s going faster than I expected. No, I don’t know how many authors I’ve got listed now, nor how many pages this would be if I printed them out. I don’t want to know!

And, finally, I dropped something off this afternoon at the home now run by our ex foster kittens Emma and Dusty. I would not have recognized them! They’re five months old know and HUGE! Especially Dusty; his paws are ginormous. I'm a bit surprised, as their adorable mom Arabella, still languishing at the shelter, is on the small side. They both seemed to recognize me and demanded petting and attention. Emma bit my hand and Dusty went for my bare toes! His eyes still look odd, perhaps crossed. They are clearly happy and healthy and running the show and it was a pleasure to see them. They make Xander and Willow look tiny!

Just a Little Something Interesting, to Me

2008-06-04T14:04:00.003-05:00

One of the things I've long known about the women in my maternal line is that we tend to become obsessive about something. My mother was obsessive about her students, when she was a teacher's aide. Her sister was obsessive about the library she worked at. When they talked to (at, really) each other, within 5 exchanges, Mom was talking about her school and my aunt about the library. I honestly don't think they listened to each other.

My obsessions tend to be serial. Many years ago it was growing roses. For a while I collected vinyl records of Perry Como; I also briefly collected miniature teacups. There's been counted cross-stitching and crocheting, playing the piano, and so on. Now there's knitting and kittens, singing, watching TV, Ravelry, librarything, and, mostly recently, making a list of books I want to check out at the bookstore.

My new and much beloved already PDA includes a program that transports and even edits Microscoft Word, among other programs. This means that I can type up a file in Word on my desktop and transfer it to the PDA, when then goes wherever I do. In my old PDA I had in the notes area a sort of list of authors I wanted to check out, but making any sort of extensive list was more frustrating than I could manage. I transferred the list to a Word file and felt all successful. Then it occurred to me to include in the list any books I hadn't read, which meant I needed to figure out all the books published by an author and which ones I had read.

librarything was a big help with that -- they list the published books in various series and recommend new books and/or authors depending on your library. My library on librarything is far from representative of what I've read, but it's a good start. And for most of the books there are descriptions and/or reviews. But not all. Which lead me back, inevitably, to Amazon, which I've long used as a sort of free Books in Print. I discovered that librarything doesn't include books scheduled but not yet published, unless Advanced Reading Copies are out there. So I went through my expanded author's list on Amazon, adding upcoming titles.

At first, for new authors, I only listed the first couple of books. I have been known to buy a whole series at once, but with so many more to check, I figured that checking out the first couple of books and then deciding on the rest would be smart. Then I figured that it would be labor saving to put in all the books in the series, so that if I liked it I wouldn't have to look them up again. And I added the number of the book in each series. So far, so good. I did actually, eventually come to an end to this process. Really. I did.

Then someone on Ravelry (I'm getting a lot of my news on Ravelry these days, and I don't mean just knitting news, either) mentioned the website Stop, You're Killing Me! (A website to die for ... if you love mysteries). OMG.OMG, omg, omg. They list every mystery author, alphabetically, and all the books they've published, with links to Amazon for books in print, as well as author websites, where available and include announced and upcoming books.

I've already emailed one favorite author to ask if there are going to be more in her series, which has a couple of years gap since the last one. I've explored the website and life of an author who lives near me that I had heard of but not read, but at least one of whose series I know I'll love. My list of authors to look for, which had probably been somewhere between 25 and 50 when I thought I was done, is now over 150. And I'm nearly at the end of the Cs. Obsessed? Who, me? (Is there a similar website for sci-fi lovers? Fantasy lovers? Please, tell me. No, don't! Yes, tell me! ... )

However, that's not what this is about. Over the last 30 years it has been noted that it's almost impossible for a writer to support him/herself only with the income from writing. Except for the J.K. Rowling, John Grisham, and (I think) Dan Brown, and probably a few others, writers need a day job or a spouse with a good income or something. Even though books seem more popular than ever, it's just not a way to get rich. But writers did use to support themselves by writing. Writers in the early decades of the last century could make a reasonable living with writing, as did writers in the century before. (See, for example, Mark Twain, who made and lost more than one fortune during his life.)

For the mystery writers, though, I think I may have figured it out. Stop, You're Killing Me! lists *all* the books an author published, including those published under other names. Take, for example, the page for Michael Collins (real name: Dennis Lynds), who died in 2005. I count 8 pen names, including his real name, and I am not taking the time to count all the books. Some others just have really, really long lists under only one or two names, like Manning Coles, the main pen name of Cyril Henry Coles and Adelaide Frances Oke Manning. The list for them is not as long and there are only 2 pen names, but still. We talking about a lot of books. I read most, if not all, of the Manning Coles books when I was a teenager, prowling the mystery aisles of the Texarkana Public Library. And I think A Toast to Tomorrow is a classic which I recommend. In fact, somehow my mom scrounged up an old library copy (possibly from the library-obsessed aunt) that I still have somewhere. (Probably the spare bathroom. No, I don't have bookcases in every room of the house. There are none in our bathroom (no place to put them) or in the hall. So there!)

Clearly, though, these writers worked full-time, if not more so, churning out books. It looks like some of them had the output volume of Nora Roberts! (Who, I'm convinced, is at least three people. One of whom writes stuff I actually like!) As has so often been the case, hard work is the key.

And now you'll have to excuse me. I want to finish the Cs.

Comment Answering

2008-05-31T12:29:00.002-05:00

Hey, Bev!

I know that iPods are very popular and everybody except me wants one. Even DH has succumbed, at least partially -- he went out and bought a tiny MP3 player recently when his work moved to a smaller and evidently louder space. I like the versatility of my PDA. It plays games, it is my only functioning memory, it reads to me. And this new one I think would play MP3s, although I haven't checked out that function. This one also does email, bluetooth, and wireless web stuff, which I won't be asking it to do. I prefer my email on the computer, so the other stuff is not useful to me. I do like being able to carry Word files and I'll probably use it the next time someone in the church emails out information locked in an XLS file -- I don't have and don't want Excel on my computer. (I still don't understand why anyone would put something in an Excel file besides accounting stuff. It's possible my brain is getting old.(g)) So, for me, the PDA is the way to go for now.

I don't have anything against iPods, though, I just don't want one for myself!

Update

2008-05-30T23:58:00.000-05:00

OK, I’ve been lazing off entirely too long. Sorry

Kitten Update: We’ve had a changing of the guard, plus a gender reassignment. The whole kit ‘n kaboodle (of the fosters) went up to the shelter on Monday. The Gone with the Wind group got their shots and such; the Tiny Guys got weighed. And they all topped 2 pounds! So they stayed at the shelter and we offered to take some more back with the GWtW group. They offered us a choice between three litters. One larger litter, all healthy and social. One smaller litter called “semi-social”. And one small litter that were “absolutely feral”. We went for the middle group.

So we brought home, in addition to the GWtW group, two five week old babies. They were named Licorice (a black girl) and Peaches (an extremely orange tabby boy). They have been rechristened Marion and Winthrop. Both long-ish hair, both with unusually round heads. Very cute.

Semi-social evidently means that if you can catch them, they’ll let you hold them. We set them up the spare bathroom, since there is almost no place to hide in there. I bought some more of the Feliway pheromone and plugged the diffuser in there, and I think it’s been helping. Just now I went in there to pick them up to put them in the kitten room with the GWtW group, and Marion purred at me! And the last couple of days she’s meowed at me when I open the door. Winthrop is a bit more skittish, still, but he didn’t try to get away from me this evening. Progress! I’m hoping they’ll be far enough along that we can leave them with the other guys overnight. I think it helps the socialization process. OTOH, I can’t leave the Scooby Gang in there with them. They’ve decided the GWtW group is OK and possibly occasionally fun to play with, but the new guys need subduing or something. The big guys keep hissing at them and I don’t think that helps the socialization at all!

Gender Reassignment: DH was giving Melanie a tummy rub the other night and said, “Uh. I think this is a boy.” So I picked him up and looked, and sure enough! He and Rhett have the same equipment. So he is now Ashley. I changed out his pink collar for one in a brown and blue plaid, to help me remember to call him Ashley. I don’t think he much cares, but I do.

The other day I was sitting in here in the computer room when suddenly a TV commercial began beeping. Right over the voice over, it said, “Beep! Beep! Beep!” I hit the mute button on the TV, but it kept beeping. Oh, not the commercial. I was about to go hunt for the beeping when it stopped. OK. Then I heard, “If you would like to make a call...” OK, somebody managed to get a phone off the hook. One problem: the only phone with an actual hook is sitting by my elbow. All the others, all of them, are cordless and on the same system. I’m not sure any of the cats could turn them on like that. So I wandered down the hall, listening for the voice. It was coming from the living room. Oh. The base unit! They hadn’t knocked anything off, but someone, in running over the top of all the furniture, had stepped on the speakerphone button on the base unit. When I fixed it I looked around and saw Xander sitting and watching me calmly. I therefore figure the actual culprit was Willow, who was nowhere to be found. Yep. That’s what having a new kitten in the house is like. Lots of napping, punctuated with occasional chaos.

So at the end of last week my new PDA arrived. It took a couple of days to get my audiobooks stuff to begin working on it, but it’s all set up and ready now. I’ve always loaded the audiobooks onto the memory card. The old PDA has a 256mb card; it generally holds a couple of books. I’ve loaded three onto the 1gb card in the new one, and you can barely see the difference on the pie chart. I’m good with that. Even though I can really only listen to one book at a time.

I also got a card with several games on it. A pinball, not terribly interesting. (I like real pinball.) Something called Atum, which seems to be some sort of puzzle thing. Possibly meant for kids. A billiards game, which I like very much, indeed. Checkers, chess, and backgammon. None of them very interesting. I’ve got a better backgammon already. Shanghai, a solitaire mah jong. Not bad, but I’ve got a better one already. A casino program with blackjack, video poker, and slots. I’m already making (fake) money on that one. And my two favorites, the original Sim City (DianeSTown is going strong!) and Ricochet, which is a very nice version of Breakout, one of my favorite computer games. It makes me smile a lot!

One of the programs on the new PDA is (sort of) Word, Excel, and three similar programs. You can transfer files between the PDA and the desktop and can also edit files on the PDA. (I wouldn’t recommend attempting to do heavy editing, though.) I took a note file I’ve had on the old PDA and created a new one on for the new PDA. It lists authors whose books I want to buy or try. I’ve been editing the file in Word on my desktop. I’ve been using librarything and Amazon to get recommendations and to see what books might interest me, then I put them in the file, which I’ll transfer over to the PDA before my next bookstore raid. I’ve been working very hard on this for the last couple of days. Cause goodness knows I wouldn’t want to miss an OK book!(snort) I’ve been having a great time, though.

I haven’t been doing a lot of knitting, but I did pick up a couple of socks and work on them. And enjoyed them, so I need to get back to that. I signed up for some sort of contest for making socks over the summer. I don’t figure to win anything – I’m too slow and distractible. But some designers are donating sock designs and there’s one in particular I have my eyes on, so I signed up. The woman running the contest has a cat that looks a great deal like our Simba – named Simba! Only hers is a girl. We both found that funny. There was another pattern involved in a contest that I’d really like to have, but it sounds like a pretty serious contest, which is more pressure than I’m interested in. So I’ve emailed the designer and asked to be notified when the pattern is released. My head buzzed a bit with ideas for that pattern, which has an attached lace cuff. Lots of the socks in that pattern have different colors for the cuff. I like playing with colors.

I also need to wind up some yarn I bought to make a cat bed for the Scooby Gang. I’m going to attempt felting. I’ve never felted, not even by accident, so I’m not completely comfortable about it. But the yarn wasn’t expensive, so if the whole thing felts into a small wool ball, it won’t be a bit deal. The pattern comes from a newish book called Kitty Knits. (It’s the fourth picture in the first frame when you click the “for more images” button.) The pattern in the book uses green and blue yarn; I’m going with two different greens. And it includes a cute needled felted mouse, which I’m not feeling anywhere near brave enough to try! But I hope the Scooby Gang will enjoy the bed. I haven’t wound up the yarn yet as I’ve been having some back pain and the only place, really, where I can set up the swift and winder is the card table in the living room. There is no comfortable seating there. But I’m making a resolution to get on that tomorrow, while DH is out teaching windsurfing. I’ll have to figure out how to work his TV. The cable box is the same as mine, but the TV is different and it’s set up different, and it often refuses to work for me.

I was talking to someone today about that – DH and I are incompatible electronically. Neither of us finds the other’s cell phone easy to use, our PDAs are totally different, and we have almost completely different TV/DVR/cable set ups! The cable boxes are the same, but that’s it. And we’ve never been compatible on the computer. And I can’t figure his camera out and he doesn’t like mine. I presume that sometime in the future all these gadgets will be similar enough that this sort of problem won’t occur. In fact, they’ll probably all be the same gadget, possibly implanted in one’s brain at birth. Or something.

Up on the Soapbox

2008-05-18T00:31:00.000-05:00

I consider myself a reasonable intelligent person. And a reasonably reasonable person. And I cannot figure out what the fuss is about.

I have had some gay and lesbian and bisexual and transgendered friends and acquaintances. Other than occasionally startling me (as when someone looks mostly female but has subtle left-over masculine traits), I find them to be remarkably like everybody else. Some are flamboyantly extroverted; others are pretty introverted and quiet. Some are awfully neurotic and others seem rather remarkably stable and secure. They raise children, they fight, they make up, they fall in love and out of love. Their relationships are generally complex and occasionally baffling, but no more than other people’s. (12 years after my mother’s death and 22 after my dad’s, and I’m still trying to figure out *their* relationship.)

So all the fuss about gay marriage just has me scratching my head. It’s not that I haven’t heard the arguments. I have. Ad nauseum. But they don’t help. So what if there’s an odd, probably weirdly translated Bible verse that seems to suggest the Judeo-Christian-Islamic god thinks less of gays. It doesn’t affect me in any way. I belong to none of those three related belief systems, so I don’t feel bound by their sacred text. (Including the part about not eating shellfish or wearing cotton and wool together.) I figure, if someone else chooses to accept one of those belief systems and wants to interpret that verse in that particular way (which I find to be a bit of a stretch, logic-wise), fine. They should not be gay or lesbian or, I guess, not admit that they are.

But why should that affect government policy? I mean, we haven’t made it government policy that one can’t wear different kinds of fiber at the same time. (Which is just as well for us sock knitters, as a lot of the best sock yarn is a combination of two or more different kinds of fiber. That would wipe out more than half of my stash, I think!) If someone else wishes to enforce that rule for themselves, fine. (I’ll take all your mixed fiber sock yarn and give it a good home, OK?) But even the extreme Fundies of the Judeo-Christian-Islamic would probably find it silly to insist that everyone in the country follow that rule.

It seems to me to be very different when we get to deciding who benefits from some of our social prejudices. Different as in, it’s even more important that the religion of a few, or even of many, does not decide on government policy.

Our society has decided that the structure of “family” is a good basis for our way of life. I suspect that’s arguable, but I’m actually fairly comfortable, for myself, with that. We base our society on that. We attempt to reinforce the strength of that structure by according those who live within in special rights and privileges. (There are many places online with lists of those rights and privileges, but let’s mention up front the ability to combine financial status and to make decisions about other family members when they can’t make the decisions themselves.) If we’re going to continue to make this sort of relationship the basis of our society and to accord it special privileges, shouldn’t those rights and privileges be, theoretically, available to all?

Yes, I’ve heard Fundies say that gays and lesbians are as free as the rest of us to marry one person of the opposite sex. But they themselves don’t marry for the sake of acquiring those rights and privileges, generally speaking. (Or they wouldn’t admit that they do.) Instead they, like most of the rest of us, choose this form of relationship with a person for whom we hold great affection. And we marry and hold our relationships together on the basis of that affection. Why should a gay or lesbian person marry someone of the opposite sex when they don’t feel that affection for them? Is that really what we’re suggesting?

But. Even if a religion chooses to deny the sacrament of marriage on the basis of the genders of the people involved, I don’t see what that has to do with government policy. My religion, for example, holds nature sacred and believes that every person has inherent worth and dignity. I may believe that our country would be better off if we governed ourselves on that basis (in fact, I *do* believe that), but I don’t get to demand it. Suggest it, yes, but not demand it.

Oh, I’m probably being as clear as mud, here. One of my online friends has a lesbian couple as friends who have been together for many, many years. They’ve been through the wars, on the front lines, even, on the topic of whether they should have the same rights as their heterosexual friends. They evidently made the front pages of a lot of newspapers after the recent ruling in California. I don’t think that they are really all that different from the couple in my church who are celebrating their 50^th wedding anniversary this weekend. And I don’t think our government should treat them differently.

I’d like the government to get the hell out of our bedrooms and back into the business of policing big corporations, where they actually belong. Boardrooms, not bedrooms.

(picture of me, climbing down off the soapbox and heading for bed)

In Which I Am a Bad Liberal, But a Happy Shopper

2008-05-17T03:07:00.002-05:00

I am a liberal. I’m proud of that. But I don’t seem to be being a very good liberal at the moment.

The subject: That bizarre “economic stimulus” check. I know, because I have friends who are professional tax preparers, that the whole thing is close to being a sham. Just this side of useless. It’s actually a sort of pre-active (as opposed to retroactive) tax refund on NEXT YEAR’S taxes. The government is not giving us extra money. It’s just giving it to us early. And it’s not that much, individually.

So, I think the proper response of a Good Liberal would be to put the whole thing in to savings. Generally speaking, most of us don’t save enough money for a rainy afternoon, much less as much as we should. Even though it’s not that much money, it would still be good to save it. A more self-less Liberal would donate it to a charity, to the poor or something.

The proper response of a Good Liberal is probably *not* “Yee-Haw!” Or “Argh! I spy a PDA!”

The latter was my response on learning that the S family has received our money. DH and I very sensibly discussed what to do with the money. Half of it is going into savings for a trip we’re contemplating in August. The other half we’re dividing between us.

I barely got my butt into my computer chair after this decision was made before I had ordered myself a new PDA and various accouterments. Because, of course, the old one is working perfectly well. Isn’t that the best time to get a new one? (Hush!)

We researched prices at Fry’s (where, I’m occasionally surprised to discover, they often *don’t* have the best price around). And I further researched on the Palm website. And bought the stuff off of Amazon, for nearly $75 worth of savings from the price on Palm. I am having to do without a few things. A special USB drive for the Palm. (I already have a perfectly good USB drive.) A folding keyboard. (Which I would probably hate, as it is probably too small to be comfortable to type on. And it’s not like I’m going to be writing a book on my Palm!) A sync/charging cradle. (It comes with a charging adapter and a sync cable.) A few games that I might have played once or twice. Yeah, I’m gonna be really deprived, there.

I did order a new carrying case, despite the fact that the case for my current Palm would evidently work for the new one. And a new larger memory card, cause the one in the old one only holds two audible.com books at once. (I can really only listen to one at a time, anyway!)

DH wants to know what I’m planning on doing with the old one. Like I’ve even thought about that part! The last time I replaced my Palm, I gave the old one to a friend. I suppose I could do that with this one, or even give it to DS. Giving it to DS would be like a death sentence for it, though. He either kills or loses them. So I’ll probably just keep it around as a backup.

The rest of the money left will not buy me the pair of shoes I want, though it would get me closer. That’s next up on my list. Bad, bad liberal!

I had another recorder lesson today. I spent most of yesterday afternoon going through the entire book of the lessons. And another book, which was half coloring book and half music and clearly not aimed at my demographic. While I’m still not all that good and I have serious problems getting the fingering working between some of the notes, I am more advanced than the early class, which is all that’s meeting right now. But I still had a good time and was able to help a bit. When the later, more advanced class starts back up, probably next month, I think I might do both. I can help with the earlier class and try to keep up with the later one. Our choir director (teaching the class) suggested I go buy a book of recorder music, so I did. It’s a big book and it makes it clear to me that I am, indeed, a beginner still, even if occasionally I can go through a whole song without screeching. I now have a range of just over an octave, with one sharp and one flat. Well, *that* opens up a whole world of music, doesn’t it?

But I’ve been bopping about online and have found some free sheet music for recorder. Most of what I saw was clearly beyond me, involving notes way above my range. But there were several that I printed out. My favorite score of the search, though, was an arrangement of the South African national anthem. My choir did an arrangement of that, which I totally loved, and it’s also a part of the African Celebration piece we just did in my women’s chorus. It’s quite, quite beautiful, so I’m glad to have it.

I practiced a good deal (well, not so much practiced as played through some of the new book) this afternoon when I got home. Willow and Xander did not seem to appreciate the music much, but after a while they decided it probably wasn’t dangerous and settled in for naps. I’ll take that over the yowling I got when I was a kid practicing the violin!

Spring in Texas

2008-05-15T01:29:00.003-05:00

Yep, it's definitely spring in Central Texas. I can tell because the local news outlets are breathlessly watching and informing us about a series of about three thunder/wind storms washing over us. So far as I can tell, no tornadoes actually touched down, though supposedly some were sighted. There has been heavy rain and rather large hail. I actually got a tad worried there for a bit -- the area that was most likely to have a tornado in it was going by just a mile (maybe less) north of us. Mostly I look at what's forecasted and stop paying attention, cause there's never been a touch down closer than 10 miles away from us.

However, having 11 cats in the house will give one pause, when considering having to hunker down in an interior room. Our only truly interior room is the spare bathroom/Isolation Ward, currently occupied by the Gone With the Wind Group. I was pretty sure we could get all 9 kittens in there. I even thought it likely we could keep any of them from killing any of the others. (Most of the little ones will play together nicely, really.) And, if we could find him, Simba would most likely behave himself. Angel, though. Just getting a hold of him would be challenging. Picking him up and taking him into the spare bathroom would probably result in bloodshed (not his). Keeping him in there with 9 kittens and Simba -- dangerous for everyone involved.

Fortunately, that didn't become necessary. At one point, though, Angel was heard in the bedroom, making his mournful sounding meow. I went in after him, closing all the kittens out of the room (much to their surprise and dismay). It took some doing, but I did catch him and pick him up. I tried to comfort him -- he was clearly frightened -- and got a couple of dandy scratches for my trouble. For most of the time he moaned in a way I've not heard before while hiding his face in the crook of my elbow. Poor baby! Eventually DH came in and attempted to comfort him, after which we let him go back under the desk or behind the bed or wherever it was he went to hide. DH assured me that he didn't think we were going to have to round him up for the fun hunkering down stuff.

The alert among my few readers will notice that I am up late. Not that this is terribly unusual, but I wish to state for the record that I'm mostly keeping an eye on the weather, in case of needing to hunker down. I'm a bit pissed at the local cable company (not an uncommon happening), as they recently took the NOAA weather radar out of the regular lineup of channels and I have no clue where it went, so I was dependent on their news channel (which was doing a lot of the breathless reporting) and the Weather Bug I have on my computer. I'm gonna have to find out where they moved the thing to. I think it was somewhere in the 2000s. (Grumble, grumble, curse.) As far as I can tell, the point of moving it was so that anyone that wants to see it will have to go with the most expensive cable package. I've already got that, so it's not a huge big deal to me (once I find the darned thing), but the principle of it makes me mad.

Also, for the record, I wasn't at my morning meeting or choir practice this evening as I was feeling a bit unwell. In case anyone was wondering.

More email this evening from the shelter with six more litters of kittens (one with a mom) that need fostering. Most of the babies were long-hairs, which I guess is the theme for this year. I couldn't count the number for sure, as the number in each litter wasn't always listed, but there were at least 20 and one mom. I am not having to exert any self-control about these -- we have 7 fosters and 2 new family members, and I really think that's plenty! (Or possibly more than plenty!) I'm wondering if the number of tiny kittens is related to the length and/or heat of the summer about to begin. (I would like to think it means a shorter and cooler summer, but somehow I doubt it.) We'll just have to see!

Just a Quick Note ...

2008-05-14T00:06:00.002-05:00

... to say

Living in a house with 9 kittens can be quite exciting. About the only thing more exciting is living in a house with 9 kittens when there's a storm comin' in! As the Weather Service was announcing thunderstorms coming and tornado watches, the tornadoes inside the house started up. First Xander began running around like someone had lit fire to his tail. Pretty soon they were all running around, expending energy as fast as they possibly could.

Once the storm finally arrived, things calmed down, but for a while it was fairly dangerous to try walking around here!

It's Raining Kittens!

2008-05-11T14:20:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the long break between posts. I will attempt to catch up on various things soon.

First, kittens. The former Itsy and Gizmo are now officially ours! They are behaving as if they know the difference, as is Simba. After I brought them home from their operations, we decided to name them Buffy (Itsy) and Willow (Gizmo). That was working really well till we went to their first vet appointment the next Monday. Buffy is now Xander – he *is* a boy, after all!

But they are fitting right in. Simba has decided that they’re *his* kittens. Xander loves Simba, too, and he’ll walk up to Simba and rub his whole body against the side of Simba’s face. Simba grabs in by the neck, just as Fleur used to do, pins him down and proceeds to clean. He’s done the same with Willow, though not as often. Both babies come to bed with me and when I wake up, they coming bounding into the room! “Hey, Mommy! We love you!” It always makes me think of Edelweiss. “Every morning you greet me.” Oh, and while we’re on the subject of musicals – Simba’s reaction to Xander reminds me of a couple of lines from a song from Les Mis: “He’s like the son I would have known/If God had granted me a son.” They look enough alike to be parent and child.

I had been calling the new family members The Girls. Now they’re the Scooby Gang.

We also still have the Tiny Guys, Buddy, Fred, Little Nell, and Spencer. They are still quite small for their age. They’re due to go back to the shelter tomorrow, but they won’t be staying. They’re well under 2 pounds – in fact, just over one pound. And it’s not for lack of eating!

When the Scooby Gang and I were at the vet, they diagnosed a mild case of coccidia with them. Since they’d been sharing litter boxes with the Tiny Guys, I called the shelter and took them in on Wednesday. They didn’t see any coccidia in the test, but did give us medicine in case. And I learned that the shelter was *swamped* with puppies and kittens. They are taking the overflow from the other official shelter and the babies are flowing over. When I got home, I found an email from them listing 35 – yes, that’s thirty-five, not three to five – kittens and two mommies that needed fostering. They were even willing to do a quick training for regular cat volunteers to take some. I’ve never seen the like.

I *really* didn’t plan to take any more till the Tiny Guys were gone. But I discussed the situation with DH and we agreed that we needed to. So I offered to take a small litter, not with a mom, as long as they were friendly (not feral) and healthy. So Thursday I picked up three more adorable, long haired babies.

Yes, the picture in the dictionary next to the term Crazy Cat Lady? That’s me.

The new ones are supposed to be 4 weeks old and they are light-weight, like many long-hairs. There are two girls and one boy. One girl is a very dark tortoiseshell, looking remarkably like Willow. (Willow, in the meantime, is getting less and less dark.) The other girl looks a lot like Mocha from last year. Pretty such a solid dark, dark brown. The boy is a very dark gray tabby.

We were keeping the three different groups separated, at least till we figured The Scooby Gang and the Tiny Guys were not contagious. This has lead to a very lengthy getting-the-kittens-ready-for-bed ritual. First we medicate the Scooby Gang. (Medicating kittens, like clipping their claws or bathing, requires the full cooperation of two adults.) They are not liking the medicine, which the vet assured me tastes good to cats. Yeah. Well. Then we medicate the Tiny Guys. They don’t react as much to the medicating and tend to hang around the kitchen, where this part of the ritual takes place, so they’re easy. Except for poor Buddy, who’s rear was a bit raw. With him we’ve had to clean the bottom and then apply some ointment. He doesn’t object to the ointment, but the cleaning is painful. (However, it was better last night and the rawness is mostly gone.) Then we begin the feeding process. The Tiny Guys only eat one particular canned food. It is, of course, a fairly expensive brand. So I prepare their food (plop, onto two plates or in two bowls) and take them to the Kitten Room. Fred and Little Nell usually get punted, sometimes more than once, during that process! The two litter boxes in there are cleaned and water refreshed. Then we remove Willow and Xander, who most understandably feel that this is *their* room, too. After refilling the dry food bowls for everybody – we now have a large economy sized bag of the dry food – the Tiny Guys are declared through for the night (by us, not them) and the door is closed.

Then the new guys. They have been named – Scarlet (wearing a red collar to distinguish her from Willow and her sister), Melanie (in the pink collar), and Rhett (in purple). The Gone With the Wind Group is currently housed in the spare bathroom/Isolation Ward. They are eating the dry food pretty well and seem fond of two of the three flavors of Science Diet canned kitten food. Not, of course, the liver and chicken, of which I have a goodly supply. They get their litter box cleaned, more dry food, the wet food (one plate or bowl, as there are only three of them), and fresh water. At first they were less likely to attempt escape. But they spent a good deal of time yesterday outside of the room and have now decided that they shouldn’t be cooped up. Scarlet, not surprisingly, is most likely to do a stately march (at a run) into the hall. In fact, these guys are almost the same size (slightly less weight, but much more fur) as the Tiny Guys and can find their way across much of the house. I don’t think they’ve made it into our bedroom yet, but they have been to the kitchen and back.

Today we’ve let all three groups mix and mingle. Xander and Willow have told the GWtW Group to GO AWAY. They are being ignored. The Scooby Gang has mostly accepted the Tiny Guys, though. Some cross playing has occurred. Currently the Scoobies are asleep together on Simba’s Tree, the GWtW Group is asleep on my knitting bag, and the Tiny Guys have spread out all over (as my mom used to say) hell and breakfast. This could be a problem. Soon I need to get ready for and then leave for choir practice for our big service at church this afternoon. We are ordaining our former ministerial intern. This is our second ordination. Some churches, older than us, have never done one. So I think it’s cool, though it’s a bit more formal than we’re used to. As DH is out, I may have to round up the two foster litters by myself!

Oh, if I read the email correctly, the shelter fostered out about 60 kittens this last week. That’s an absolutely amazing number! I’m glad we’re contributing, even if only by three. And I’m rapidly coming to the conclusion that nine kittens at once is just a bit over the top. OK, more than a bit. But I have gotten a *lot* of Mother’s Day greetings today!

Now I’ve got to go get ready, but I thought I’d take this nap lull to begin catching up here.

RIP, Birkenstock Sandals

2008-04-30T02:08:00.001-05:00

So, it was a fairly busy weekend, as I knew it would be. Friday afternoon I had my recorder lesson. That went better than I expected. I am now much less squeaky than I was at the beginning, though I’m still having trouble with the fingering with my right hand. And the low D wants to be a high D. Still, progress.

Then I worked on the Order of Service for Sunday. (I should mention, the recorder lesson is with the choir director at church.) Since I had to be in the area in the evening, I just worked on it in the office. I discovered that I *really* like the keyboard up there. Don’t know what it is, but I intend to find out. I was much faster and more accurate with it. It just felt good to the touch.

After I finished that, it was time to head for the “dress” rehearsal for my women’s chorus. I put it in quotes, as it doesn’t involve wearing concert clothes or even just running through the program in order. I think they call it “dress” in this case to mean “extra” and “important”. It was a bit odd. I think my brain shut down after I finished the newsletter on Thursday. This happens sometimes. I would look at a piece of music that I knew perfectly well and couldn’t remember how it went. I hate when that happens. But that was far from the worst thing.

As we pulled out our encore piece, a simple but lovely thing called Where the Music Comes From, the outgoing Artistic Director made note that there was thunder and lightning and a lot of rain. A *lot* of rain. And reminded us that the last time we sang that song in concert, the concert was nearly rained out. The size of the audience that evening was quite small! Clearly, the song is a rainmaker.

After the rehearsal was over, the rain was still going strong. Really strong. The sort of storm that the term “gullywasher” was coined for. Did most of us have our umbrellas? No, we did not. And the nearest parking to the sanctuary we were in is about a block away. After waiting for probably 30 minutes, people began going through a box in the foyer in which people were donating school supplies. There were several plastic bags. We figured they didn’t need the plastic shopping bags as much as we did, so we took them. I wrapped my music and my knitting in it, but that was all I could do. I took off my glasses – I hate getting rain on my glasses – and ran from shelter to shelter. When I got under a shelter I put on the glasses to make sure I was remembering the next bit correctly, then put them back in my pocket. The last bit from the last shelter to the parking lot is most of the block. I used my car alarm remote to make sure I was heading for the correct car. (You’d think you could easily see a white car even in the dark, if there was any light. Not so much.) I started across a grassy area towards the car and nearly fell into the slippery mud. Sigh. Eventually I got through what felt like a swimming pool into my car. I keep a towel in my car and used it on my hair, which was dripping something that burned into my eyes. I was soaked to the skin. Actually, I was soaked to the skin about two seconds after first stepping out of the sanctuary building. By the time I got to the car I was whatever is worse than soaked to the skin. I turned on the air conditioner in the car, to wring out the humidity, but turned it to some heat. I was definitely getting chilled! And I went to my favorite drive-through Starbucks for a nice warm drink! By the time I got home I was, at least, no longer actively dripping. (If any of this sounds like fun, I’m not telling it right!)

The worst part was that the swim to the car killed my much loved and worn Birkenstock sandals. Not the bottom; that’s fairly dirty, but otherwise fine. But the top of the shoe, which is leather, was not ever meant for swimming. The leather is pretty dead.

The next day I managed to miss the final dress rehearsal in the afternoon, but I did get to the church on time for the sound check/rehearsal. Oddly, DH, who I had volunteered to help out, ended up running the sound board, for which he doesn’t really have any training. However, he seemed to do fine, especially after he figured out the correct switch! DS also showed up for the concert, although I admit that I paid for his ticket and had to call him to remind him. But he was there and professed to have enjoyed it.

Also there were one of the ministers from my church (the other one is *in* the chorus and how I learned about the chorus in the first place!) with his new girlfriend. And there were several others from the church, though I don’t know who exactly. And, at the reception, a woman came to talk to me who at first I didn’t recognize till she mentioned the Knitting Guild. Oh! Of course. She’s the lady who does the really complicated sweaters and things designed by Kaffe Fassett! I hope to make the next Guild meeting, but it’s this coming Saturday and there will be a choir rehearsal for our spring concert on Sunday. Since the topic seems to be about finishing sweaters and things, stuff I just don’t make, I won’t feel that bad about missing it.

Anyway, the concert was great. I thought we sounded good, though it is hard to tell when you’re in the chorus. I heard a few bobbles, but there are always going to be bobbles and there weren’t that many. I was a bit nervous as we walked into the sanctuary, but not too bad. I’m getting rather used to singing on stage as long as I’m in a group!

It was a bit sad, as our Artistic Director is leaving us after three years. She has excellent reasons, but I’ve really enjoyed her way of directing. We will be having rehearsal interviews of the three final candidates for the job starting next Monday, so we’ll see how that goes. I have my fingers crossed!

The hardest part of the evening was the reception afterwards. I was tired – standing up there and singing is harder than it looks and involves enough adrenaline to cause a reaction afterwards – and there were just too many people and it was too loud. For my introverted self, it was not comfortable, and we left soon after talking to the few people there I knew.

I took Sunday off. The Sunday service was the annual Poetry Service, which is just not to my taste. Although there were two poems I actually like, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening and Casey at the Bat, I was happier staying home and playing with kittens and such.

I also starting to think about replacing my dead sandals. Turns out the folks who sell Birkies don’t sell them on Sundays. (???) But I found the new location of the store I’d bought the last ones at. I was going to go yesterday, but ran out of time.

On Monday I had two errands. The first was an appointment with the Chair of the Staff Liaison Committee, which was actually fun. (Despite the voice of the Inner Child in the back of my head that wondered why we were being called into the Principal’s Office. Sigh.) We had a nice chat about all sorts of things, including the Order of Service for the upcoming ordination of the young man who has been our Ministerial Intern this year.

Then in the afternoon it was time to take kittens to the shelter. DH and I decided to keep Itsy and Gizmo, so Jaspurr and Hedwig went back to the shelter. But first I had to pack up the little babies, as they went in for shots and stuff. They did not approve of that. They immediately began to attempt to take the cat carrier apart and/or to climb out of it somehow. They were quite frantic to get out and be held! I tried to put the bigger guys in with them, but both Jaspurr and Hedwig hissed at the little guys, so I took our personal carrier with them. It was sad to tell those two goodbye! I could easily see them fitting into our family, too, and I am a bit worried about Hedwig’s shyness and skittishness. But getting to keep two of them seems almost miraculous to me and there’s no way we could keep all four! But they’ll get good homes. I doubt they’ll be there past the weekend. (Oh, and their mom, Fleur, got adopted over the weekend! Yet Arabella, who was much more affectionate and very sweet, is still there.)

We are considering new names for Gizmo and Itsy. The current top runners are Latte (Itsy) and Cappuccino (Gizmo). But I’m not crazy about Cappuccino. It’s rather a long name for a small cat. And Itsy recognizes her name already. (Sorry, Sec16 guys, you may end up stuck with an Itsy kitten after all!)

The fun part of the shelter visit was the little guys. If they were frantic to get out of the carrier before, they were practically hysterical to get out with all the people at the shelter! It was difficult to get them all back in the carrier. When you try to put them back into the carrier or the kitten room, there are suddenly a good 20 of them and they seem to multiply even beyond that.

But they got their shots and flea treatment and lived to tell the tale. (Loudly and with great enthusiasm. Those babies do everything with great enthusiasm!) Then we all went to the pet grocery store for more food, where probably five people were ready to take them home on the spot, and many more chatted with them. I did *not* take them out of the carrier, though. First off, the 20 that were already in there are really enough, and second, they still have immature immune systems. But it was fun.

Today I finally had the chance to go shoe shopping. I first stopped into one store that is geographically between my noon appointment and my 2 o’clock one. It took me five minutes to get someone to talk to me enough to tell me they did indeed carry Birkenstocks. A very limited number, hidden in a corner. Then I sat for 15 minutes and wondered if I’d suddenly become invisible. I looked around and decided I was a good 20 years too young for them to be interested in helping (and I’m in my 50s!). Plus, if I’d waited to be spoken to, much less actually try on shoes, I’d definitely miss my 2 o’clock appointment. And possibly choir practice tomorrow night. So I went and found the new location of the store where the Birkies had come from originally, and went to my next appointment.

I went back to the store and was able to find a pair of sandals that, while they are not a one-for-one replacement of the old pair (which are long out of production, I suspect), have basically the same footpad and are a denim color. (In fact, the leather tops are shiny and have a sparkily buckle.) Since that store (In Step, for those interested) carries many other brands, I also bought a pair of green shoes. A sort of lime green (but not lime enough to make me look dead) with slight heels. Any of my shoe loving friends will be shocked to hear that! I was looking for a second pair to replace the red sandals I had that got left in a motel several years ago, but evidently red sandals are currently out of fashion. And I never wear heels. But these were quite comfortable and will go with both of my new green shirts, so I got them. At some point soon I hope to go back and get a similar pair of shoes in the same brand in a nice light denim color. But since all these shoes tend to start at $100, it will certainly not be *this* week! (My shoe loving friends will also be shocked to hear that I have more than two pairs of shoes. In fact, I have my old but still wearable Birkenstock clogs, a pair of denim colored boots, a pair of red sandals (not as comfortable as the Birkies), plus the two new pair. I think this may be a record. Oh, and the very uncomfortable black closed toe shoes required by the women’s chorus. Though before the next one, there were several appropriate shoes in In Step than I might decide to try. My current plan is to wear my other new green shirt tomorrow with the new green sandals. One particular shoe loving friend (and you know who you are, SAK!) may faint.

However, the shoe shopping trip was not completely happy. I had a serious hot flash in the store. It had been literally years since the last one, till a few weeks ago, and I was especially unhappy to have it happen in the store. The lovely very young, Irish looking red head that waited on me was very helpful and nice about it and brought me water and they let me sit on the very comfortable couch to rest and cool down. But it doesn’t usually happen in public and it’s a bit embarrassing.

In fact, it was a serious enough hot flash that when I got home, I had to lie down and take a nap. Which is the main reason I’m up this late, as I slept about three hours. I woke up to hear the little guys meowing with great enthusiasm, looking for me. Evidently just finding DH was not good enough. They wanted Mommy! A couple of them figured out how to climb the footstool at the side of the bed, put there to aid kittens and Cranky Old Cats in getting up on the bed. They may be tiny and very, very busy, but they’re pretty smart.

I began a new audiobook today on my PDA. I’m beginning to wonder if I’m really going to like it as much as I thought. It’s a biography of someone I’d never heard of before, named William Wilberforce who, according to his biographer, was the very first person to advocate the abolition of the slave trade in England and, by extension (again, according to the author) ever social justice movement in the world. I can discount the hyperbole OK, but the assertion that this was only possible because he was an Evangelical Christian is bothering me. I’m also not at all convinced that the England of 1776 through about 1840 was not truly a religious (meaning Christian) nation. I think the members of the Church of England, which is pretty much described as not truly religious and/or Christian, would beg to differ. That plus the hyperbole is making me doubt the truthfulness of the biography all together and also it makes me uncomfortable. But I’ll give it a bit more time. I am actually interested in the English abolitionist movement and I know very little about it, so I hope things improve!

Friendship. Oh, and Kittens.

2008-04-24T02:12:00.003-05:00

I am not the best person in the world at being a friend. I’m so introverted and introspective that, at least according to my mother, I seem to not care about anyone other than me. (When remembering this, I do remember to consider the source. My mother was very selfish herself and I think mostly meant that I wasn’t thinking only of her.)

So I hadn’t noticed that I there were blogs that I am really trying to read every day (or even more), by people I consider friends, that I hadn’t heard from in several days.

In my defense, these are all blogs who either have email notify lists or which arrive in my inbox, rather than something I have to seek out. Furthermore, I’m in the middle of procrastinating about doing the newsletter this week and that takes up a lot of time and energy. And I seem to be going through a bad spell of hermit crabness, which has begun to express itself in my electronic contacts.

Still, I was surprised to learn that the author of one blog, which I do want to read as often as possible as she is fostering a mom cat and brand new kittens, had had a computer meltdown. She was offline for several days, which I blithely didn’t notice. Another friend got caught up in new grandmotherness and ranting about politics and stuff and forgot to send out her daily blog announcements. She was blogging. Just mostly in private, sorta.(g) And another friend is having job stress, which I had suspected from some comments, and she didn’t know quite what to say about it. So, to all three of you, I apologize for being completely clueless. I do care. I just don’t notice sometimes.

Moving on, as Colbert would say.

Thanks to Kristine for your comment. I agree with Robb about his feelings about yesterday’s primary, except I would avoid the word I suspect you left out. I am afraid if I become too negative about HRC (as my new friends on Ravelry call her), Karma will reach out and bop my nose and make her the nominee. Since I am increasingly uncomfortable with things like her stance on Iran (which I think can be best described using this quote from McCain: “Bomb, bomb, bomb. Bomb, bomb Iran”), I would prefer that she become Secretary of Education or Attorney General or something. Back in the day, say 1968 (when I was 14), I somehow got the idea that voters should, and therefore would, elect the person we most needed in any political office. I don’t think I fully learned my lesson about that till 1980. I can be a slow learner. But now, even when I’m trying to be cautiously optimistic, deep down I fear that we’re going to elect another Reagan or a Bush or, goddess help us, a Hoover. I do not wish to give Karma any more reason to do that to us. (If we do decide to elect another Reagan, I'm in favor of his son Ron. Not only is he cute in a nerdy sort of way, but every time I've seen him on TV or heard an interview, I'm impressed. Very impressed.)

Boy, will I be glad when the worst of this is over!

As for the kittens, I’m glad you like the stories and such. Before I started doing this, I assumed I’d have trouble giving the kittens back to the shelter. As it turns out, DH has more trouble with it than I do. He worries most about them being closed up in the cages when they’ve generally had a whole house to romp in. I’ve tried to get him to spend more time at the shelter when the cattery is full of kittens, so he could see that they tend to adapt to the new surroundings pretty quickly, but he doesn’t want to do that, either. What does help is that our babies don’t stay in the shelter long. Even during Kitten Season (which is in full swing at the moment), they aren’t usually there for a whole week.

As for me, I seem to think of them as beautiful, adorable, loving little library books. I check ‘em out and when they’re due, I return them. And it’s possible, maybe even probable, that I don’t give my whole heart to the fosters in the way I do to our permanent owners, since I know they’re temporary. I love ‘em, there’s no doubt, But it’s probably different.

One of the many reasons I keep DH around is that he has a firm rule about the number of cats it is OK to own. His limit is usually three. When Wilma first came to us, 18 years ago, we broke the rule to keep her from going to the kill shelter. And we’re breaking it now to keep both Itsy and Gizmo. I have not asked him why, as I’m afraid it would make him reconsider the question. Do not look sleeping husbands in the mouth, I say! If it was just up to me or to me and DS, they shelter would be raiding us as hoarders! (I don’t know what the definition of a hoarder is, exactly, but the at least one kitten a year I’d likely get would no doubt put me over the edge.) This way I have kittens pretty much constantly, without the legal entanglements.

The new, widdle babies seem to be on a mission to remind me that I am *not* an expert kitten fosterer. My attempts to get them to eat chicken or salmon *kitten* food by mixing it with KMR was not a resounding success. (In their defense, the combination of salmon and milk didn’t appeal to me much, either.) But they’re chunkier today than yesterday and even more active. And they didn’t seem to be nuzzling me in an effort to find a nipple. Instead, they each want my undivided attention. Until they get distracted and get down. When Spencer, at least, is liable to immediately want back up.(sigh) This evening, DH was putting down food for the bigger babies in the spare bathroom. I had unwisely left the door to the kitten room open. When DH entered the spare bathroom, the little babies were right behind him, like white on rice, and set upon the food as if they hadn’t eaten in days. Sigh. They even ran off the bigger babies! So I took them back in their room, put out some more KMR and added a bowl of extremely smelly pouched fish. At least two of them headed back into the spare bathroom. So we took that bowl and gave it to them, by which time the other two were investigating the fish. Since they seem less likely to eat when there’s a human to pay attention to them, we left them alone. Before I head to bed here in a minute, I’ll check and see what the level of food is. That could get interesting. When you open the door, you generally have to put 15 or 20 kittens back into the room before you can get the door closed again.

But, other than having an extreme attention deficit, they are quite happy babies. Every time we open the door, three or four of them go running out into the hall, tails up as high as they’ll go, purring like tiny motor boats. If I pick them up and go sit in the chair in the kitten room, they’ll spend several minutes jockeying for position on my chest, wanting me to pet them and look them in the eye. Well, except for Fred. He likes to sit on my shoulders or on the back of the chair behind my head. But he’s still purring and seems pretty happy.

They are also quite noisy. The last two litters have been very quiet. Arabella’s litter hardly ever said anything, and I was quite surprised when my friend told me how talkative Dusty is. He never seemed to have that much to say here! And the bigger babies we have now don’t make a lot of noise. They know *how* to meow. They just don’t seem to feel the need. They do, however, coo a lot. Wilma used to do that and it’s a pleasure to hear it again. It’s amazing how much can be said in a series of coos! But the new group is quite, quite noisy. Any time I’m in the kitten room, demands for my attention are loud and continuous. Especially from Buddy, who must have been a momma’s boy! (But an adorable one.)

It is not possible for me to interact with babies without thinking which one I’d keep if I were going to (which I’m not!). Right now I’m torn. Buddy is very affectionate and quite cute, for a brown/gray tabby. I feel quite sorry for Spencer, as he’s had it even harder than the others, but he seems to be handling it all pretty well. And Fred is just the most gorgeous little tuxedo kitty I’ve ever seen! And Little Nell (cue words to Christmas song in my head, sigh) is also very loving. But we won’t be keeping any of these.

The integration of Itsy into the family is going very well. Last night she came into the bedroom and up on the bed after I went to bed. At one point I looked down and she was lying near Simba’s tail, which he was obligingly flicking around for her to play with. Later in the night DH said she was bouncing around all over him and the bed for a bit, then he noticed that she had quieted down and Simba seemed to be licking her, probably to help her get to sleep.

Gizmo has been less attentive but more busy. I think she’ll do fine in the family, anyway. Really, we have never adopted a kitten that we couldn’t find a niche in the family for. Although Maddie really challenged me. I remember saying (this was in my early 30s, mind) that I thought maybe I was too old for kittens. (One can only giggle.) She bit too hard, climbed curtains, shredded furniture, and completely hated me and DH. She calmed down as she matured. And eventually, when she entered her second kittenhood, she even forgot she hated everyone but DS. Oh, she still hated Wilma, and Angel, too. But she not only accepted me as a reasonable companion for the half hour she was awake every day, she actually started greeting repair people who came to the house. It was actually funny. Gizmo is no Maddie!

Tomorrow I’ll be going to the vet’s office and getting the paw print they made of Wilma. I *think* it’ll be something that can be hung on the wall. I think I’ll probably hang it in the hall. And now to bed.

Update

2008-04-23T01:34:00.001-05:00

This evening DH and I attended a meeting concerning the upcoming (as in coming up way too fast) spring choir concert at church. It was a good meeting. DH called it productive. I have a new task to perform and am feeling only very slightly less overwhelmed by the task I was volunteered for in the first place. (Really, I would have been perfectly happy to just sing!)

When we got home I got back to work on my newsletter. I am behind. (Yeah, I know you’re all just shocked.) I worked on it a bit, and then DH called me into the kitten room, where he was checking email. The new babies were rather frantically nuzzling him, looking for a nipple to nurse on.

Poor little things! They are perfectly capable of eating solid food, both the wet and dry kinds. But they were taken away from their mom at least a week, really more like three, too soon. DH could not get them interested in the food in the room. He was concerned that we might need to bottle feed them.

My preference, at this age, is to not bottle feed if possible. They can get plenty of nutrition from the solid food and at this age even the mom is backing off the nursing. But they were just completely pitiful.

So I found the last unopened can of KMR (Kitten Milk Replacement) and some more chicken baby food and mixed them together and put it in a bowl. They were ecstatic and just about cleaned the bowl. After a bit DH said they seemed to still be hungry, so I mixed up the rest of the chicken baby food with some more KMR and then mixed some canned kitten food (salmon flavored) with KMR and took that into the room. They ate some of that then naps attacked and they all went down. They had, unfortunately, “messed” in a corner of the room. DH cleaned it up and put the small litter box on top of the area. We keep losing the stuff I keep buying to get the urine smell out, so when I’m at the kitty grocery store tomorrow, I’ll get some more. We actually have plenty of food, but most of these “we need KMR” emergencies seem to happen after the pet store is closed, so I want to get a couple more cans of it. I should probably get some more chicken baby food, too.

My plan with the wee ones is to continue to mix KMR with kitten food, but taper it down. I don’t mind giving it to them if they want/need it, but it’s not good for their bowels at this age. Also I hope to not have to use the chicken baby food. It, too, tends to loosen the stools. When I check on them tomorrow I hope to see that they salmon baby food mixture is as popular as the chicken baby food.

The little ones are most anxious to be allowed out of the kitten room! Every time the door is opened, there are escapes or at least attempts. They mingled briefly this evening with the bigger guys and that mostly went OK. Someone (probably Gizmo) did hiss at the little ones, but nothing came of it. But as long as they’re still getting KMR and especially mixed with chicken baby food, they won’t be going that far from the litter box! Another reason to get them weaned off the KMR.

On the way home from the meeting DH and I briefly talked about the bigger babies. I think we’re going to keep Itsy and Gizmo. Next I’ll need to discuss whether we want to keep those names or not. I’m thinking not, but I don’t want to confuse DH too much!

We also touched briefly on politics. Not briefly enough. But when things start getting unpleasant, I find that if I simply stop responding he will eventually stop. I will be so glad when the nomination is decided and we can be on the same side again!

Well, another busy day tomorrow, so I need to head on to bed.

The Crazy Cat Lady

2008-04-22T01:39:00.003-05:00

That would be me.

There are at this moment 10 felines in my house. We have our two grown kitties, Angel and Simba. Fleur went back to the shelter today, but her four babies are still here, free range in the house. And there are four new babies in the Kitten Room (much against their better judgment, I might add). The new babies are about five weeks old. There are three boys and one girl. The girl and two of the boys are actual siblings, who were found abandoned on the front porch of the shelter this morning. The third boy was unceremoniously dumped in the shelter parking lot just before I got there this afternoon with Fleur, without so much as a box to protect him from the cars.

Insert standard grrrr here.

The girl is a black and white bicolor, not quite a tuxedo cat I think, as I can see some tabby markings in her black and more white than normal on a tuxedo. One of her brothers is a gorgeous, very dapper looking tuxedo. The other brother is a flat-out brown/gray tabby. I think he’s probably a mackerel tabby but it’s a bit early to tell. The other boy, their new brother, is a much lighter gray tabby and white with a mostly white chin.

I was pleased that the three siblings adopted the new guy immediately into the family.

The bigger babies have been set up in the spare bathroom for now while the new guys settle in. No one seems particularly happy about this arrangement but me. Fleur’s babies are feeling a bit berefit, which is only reasonable. They want back into the Kitten Room, which had been home base for them till now. The new tabby boy has already decided that the rest of the house is the place to be and is attempting escape at every opportunity.

The little babies are very much used to people and to receiving comfort from people. In fact, the aforementioned tabby seems to want to spend every single moment, 24/7, being held. He purrs, too, quite a lot. The little girl is also especially interested in human attention.

I believe I have all the new ones named. First, the girl. One of the founding members of my women’s chorus goes by the name Nell Manycats. Someone in the chorus this evening suggested calling the new girl Nell, and I like that. The tabby boy came with the name Buddy and that’s sticking. The tuxedo boy is Fred. As in Astaire. Cause he’s so well dressed. The other boy, the singleton, was named Spencer by the shelter. That makes me think of a boy in my church who has survived leukemia and has finished all his chemotherapy. This little guy must be a bit of a fighter, too, to be handling everything he’s had to handle today, so he’ll be Spencer.

Yes, I’m clearly not going on with the alphabetical stuff. I knew it probably wouldn’t last.

Poor little ones got dumped fairly quickly into the Kitten Room when I got home, as I had to fly out for rehearsal. Then, after I got home, DH informed me that he’d found – Oh, The Horrors! – fleas. So all four new babies have been bathed. They were, not surprisingly, not happy with that. But, as usual, it didn’t kill any of them. DH only found fleas on Spencer and they were moving mighty slowly, so I think we’ve got them all. Tomorrow can only be an easier day for the little guys!

The bigger babies at first greeted the new ones with enthusiasm. Later Itsy hissed at one and Gizmo seemed to be pretending they didn’t exist, but given Buddy’s attempts to escape the Kitten Room, I suspect that as soon as the little ones seem to feel secure in their new home, we might try mingling the groups and see what happens. Of course, the little ones will have to be declared Flea Free by the Great Flea Hunter.

The bigger babies will be staying another week. The new ones will be staying three weeks. Next Monday any of the bigger ones that aren’t going to become permanent residents will go back to the shelter, and the new guys will go in for their first shots. (Always a fun experience!)

I need to head on to bed. Busy day tomorrow. DS needs new clothes, so I have to go along and write a check, plus my nail appointment, and somewhere in there working on the newsletter. Plus comforting and playing with the new guys and with the bigger babies. Much to do for a Crazy Cat Lady!

Gender Confusion

2008-04-17T01:07:00.002-05:00

We are doing OK here. I think that Monday night Simba was looking for Wilma. He sounded a bit upset, which is unusual for him. And I think I’m struggling just a bit with depression. Of course, it *is* that time of year for me. But I think we’re doing OK.

I do thank everyone for your support and condolences. It helps. I will even take hugs!

There is some confusion now about the gender of our kittens. I have always said that sexing kittens is more of an art than a science, but the shelter folks usually get it right. They were wrong about one of our first litter – Dodger was a girl, it turned out – but otherwise they’ve been right. But last night as Itsy was brushing up on her lap kitty skills, DH was looking at her rear end and thought he saw balls. (She likes lying on her back and getting tummy rubs.) I looked at several other kittens and they all pretty much looked the same, which is my general impression of kitten behinds.

So I went on the Internet and looked at many diagrams of kitten backsides. There didn’t seem to be any photographs, which is too bad as I think that would actually be helpful. But eventually I think I realized what they were trying to tell me. I’ve now examined the derrières of three of the four we have now. I’m not bothering with Gizmo, as she’s a tortie and tortoiseshells and calicos are almost always female. As best I could tell, the area below the anus is where kittens keep their … equipment. If the area has a vertical slit, the kitten is a girl. If there is a second round hole, that’s a boy. (DH just now learned that boy kitties keep their penises tucked up inside. We’ve looked at enough kitten rear ends in the last two years, many of them male, that you’d think that would have come up before.)

The result of the examination of current kittens is: kittens don’t particularly care for being held still and having their tails lifted so that Mom can look at their backsides. (I have pointed out that it's not my idea of a party, either.) Fortunately, as has been mentioned, these babies are quite laid back, so while there has been complaining, it’s not gone farther than that. Second result is that Itsy and Hedwig are definitely both girls. Jaspurr may be, too. I *think*. I will check again, but that was my impression, so that’s what we’re going with for now.

We’re beginning to wonder if Fleur has gone into heat. She’s been much friendlier with me and DH and has also seemed to want to make friends with Simba. I read up that mommy kitties *can* go into heat while still nursing. And it is that time of year. Fortunately, neither Angel nor Simba have the equipment to respond to her. But I’m not sure – there has been no yowling or anything terribly overt. Last time I knew a cat who went into heat – which was Misty, many, many years ago, there was a great deal of yowling and trying to get outside and all sorts of stuff. Misty was a mighty unhappy cat at that point, and Fleur seems quite happy. Either way, though, she goes back to the shelter on Monday for her operation. As long as she’s not unhappy or loud, it’s not a problem.

We have not really discussed the “which kitten and how many might be staying" question. It’s there in the air, but neither of us is ready to make a decision. All four babies are such sweeties and so happy that it’s quite a pleasure to have them around. We’ve certainly had some that were not happy and were not such a pleasure. Our two families this year so far have been practically a vacation for us as foster parents.

There was a bit on the news tonight about how people losing their homes in the current economy are sometimes also having to give up their pets. There are evidently some animals in my shelter that are there for just that reason. I did know about one of the cats, as he’d been discussed on the email list for cat volunteers. According to the tape I saw, it’s not currently a big problem around here, but it becoming more of one around the country. I have no words.

Please pardon me being political here, but if you’re enjoying the current economy, our wars, and our reputation around the world, be sure and vote for John McCain. If you think maybe we could do better, vote for Obama or Clinton, whoever we end up nominating. I am becoming concerned about the possibility of a long-term Depression if we don’t change our course. Frankly, I’m not interested in living through that.

RIP, Wilma, 3-1990 to 4-14-2008

2008-04-14T22:59:00.002-05:00

In the end, it became clear that the humane thing to do was to let Wilma go. She was badly dehydrated and one of her kidneys was evidently not functioning at all. It would have been possible to rehydrate her, but not to fix the problems. There still wouldn’t have been much quality of life, and that’s my criteria.

I knew this morning that this was how it would go. When I woke up Wilma was asleep on the bed. I reached down to tell her good morning and when I touched her, I knew her time was over. So this afternoon I loaded her into the cat carrier, which she strongly and loudly resented, and took her to the vet’s office. DH met us there and we discussed her condition with the vet. There was no real argument, though. It was clear.

Years ago when we had DH’s much adored Misty put to sleep, DH was unable to stay with her for that. And that was OK. It was his choice. Today, though, he and I both stayed with Wilma and petted and comforted her while she left. It was very peaceful, as it was with Maddie three years ago. I think that’s a sign that she knew it was time.

We will be getting a ceramic paw print, but we are not going to bury her in the backyard nor are we going to get her ashes. (Burying a pet around here is fairly difficult – we have a few inches of soil on top of bedrock, as we’re right on top of a mostly inactive fault line.) Neither of us cried. We’re not really criers. I did get a bit teary, but I needed to drive home. I would rather have stayed home this evening and indulged being a bit depressed, but I had rehearsal for my women’s chorus. But our concert is the end of this month and there are still a couple of songs that I not only haven’t rehearsed, I’ve never *heard* them. So I went and it was fine. (On a side note, I was glad that, while I’ll be standing in front of the Non-Singer, I couldn’t hear her and she didn’t throw me off.)

When I got home, Fleur demanded to be picked up and stayed in my lap for a long time, purring. I believe she was comforting me, and it did. It was sweet of her.

It is also comforting to me to know that Wilma was met on the other side of the Rainbow Bridge by Leo and Misty, with whom she was friendly. Maddie and she pretty much agreed to disagree about everything (including whether Wilma should exist at all in Maddie’s world), but she and Leo and Misty got along OK. DH and I will miss her and DS is sad, but Angel and Simba will not really care that she’s gone. And that’s OK, too. That’s just how cats are!

Wilma was a very sweet girl. She arrived in my life via a co-worker. She had been dumped on the co-worker’s doorstep early one morning at about 8 to 10 weeks old and was brought to work to be a companion to a kitten a couple of us were raising who had been abandoned by her mom. (Ninja had a hip problem, but it only slowed her down a little.) The co-worker named her Wilma for Wilma Rudolph, as she was an all-black kitten and she ran very, very quickly. It became clear early that she was extra bright. She was also our first Skimbleshanks. In T.S. Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, Skimbleshanks is the Railway Cat. The train is not allowed to go until Skimbleshanks has declared everything is in order. Wilma was that way. The ED where I was working then decreed that the kittens must be fed outside, so of course their food was eaten by all the neighborhood cats. When it got low, Wilma would come find me. She’d bug me till I got the message and put out more food.

After I left that job, the ED decided that No Animals Were Allowed. (Because they would freeze to death in a Texas winter. Yeah, right.) She threatened to have the kittens taken to the local kill shelter. Several co-workers argued over who would get Ninja, but nobody but me wanted Wilma. So she came to live with us.

When she was younger we would occasionally let the cats wander around the backyard. Wilma loved that. She would occasionally wander outside the fence, but always came home. Unlike a lot of cats, she tried to make friends with all the neighborhood cats, and some of them seemed to like her, too. Particularly the cat next door, Fuzzy, a Maine Coon that claimed our yard as part of his domain, since our cats rarely went outside, even then. It confused Wilma that we wouldn’t let Fuzzy in the house. It confused Fuzzy, too. Fuzzy was easily confused, though.

The conversation about getting a new kitten has already begun, of course. DH wishes we could get Garth, from the litter we had at Christmas. (Me, not so much, but since that’s not possible, I don’t feel the need to say that to him.) Of the current litter, I’ve had my eye on Gizmo and Itsy. I’d kinda like to keep both girls. DH admits he’s quite fond of Gizmo and Itsy is an excellent lap kitten. We mentioned the cat at the nearby PetSmart that reminds us very much of Simba, but I don’t think Simba would welcome an adult cat. We also mentioned Arabella, who has not been adopted out of the shelter yet, but I have the same feeling about her. Even if she and Simba didn’t remember that they hated each other, I just don’t think they’d accept each other. I do think Simba will accept a kitten (or kittens), as he has before, and considering how much I like kittens, that’s the best way to go. And, of course, we don’t have to take any of the current litter. We don’t have to make a decision right now, either. This family is scheduled to go back to the shelter in a week. I’m hoping they’ll take Fleur and let us have the babies for another week. That would give us a little more time to see who’ll fit into the family.

I got a call this weekend from the woman who adopted Dusty and Emma. They have, as expected, taken over the household. Their new older brother is getting along with them fine, except it annoys him to find them in their mom’s lap when it wants it for himself.(g) She had to get some spray bottles to teach them some discipline (I swear, we never gave them any people food!), but she’s thrilled with them. It’s good to know they’re doing so well and are already pretty much spoiled. Such sweet little ones!

Well, I’m off to list Wilma on the webpage for the Rainbow Bridge.

Here's to Us! Who's Like Us? Damn Few!

2008-04-12T11:39:00.002-05:00

Years ago I took Wilma to the vet because she seemed ill. As they did blood tests to see what was up, I became convinced that they were going to say there was something terminal and she should be put to sleep. (Clearly I was wrong, but I do that sort of thing occasionally.) I held her in my lap as I waited and remembered her life with us and a song came to me. Anyway, the song has come to me again this morning and I thought I’d put them here. It does sometimes seem like my whole life is set to music. It’d be a hell of a soundtrack album!

On my favorite Barry Manilow album, he sings Broadway tunes, including Old Friends from Merrily We Roll Along, by Sondheim. The lyrics go:

Hey, old friend,
Are you okay, old friend?
What do you say, old friend,
Are we or are we unique?
Time goes by,
Everything else keeps changing.
You and I,
We get continued next week.

Most friends fade
Or they don’t make the grade.
New ones are quickly made.
And in a pinch,
Sure, they’ll do.
But us, old friend,
What’s to discuss, old friend?
Here’s to us!
Who’s like us?
Damn few!

While trolling the web to make sure I got the words right, these were the lyrics listed. But one website had more verses, and I like them, too. I think I’ve heard them before. They don’t necessarily all apply to Wilma, but here they are:

So, old friends,
Fill me in slow, old friends.
Start from hello, old friends.
I want the when, where, and how.
Old friends do
Tend to become old habits.
Never knew
How much I missed you, till now.

Most friends fade
Or they don’t make the grade.
New ones are quickly made,
Some of them worth something, too.
But us, old friends,
What’s to discuss, old friends?

Tell you something:
Good friends point out your lies,
Whereas old friends live and let live.
Good friends like and advise,
Whereas old friends love and forgive.
And old friends let you go your own way,
Help you find your own way.

Hey, old friends,
How do we stay old friends?
Who is to say, old friends,
How an old friendship survives?
One day chums,
Having a laugh a minute,
One day comes
And they’re a part of your lives.

New friends pour
Through the revolving door.
Maybe there’s one that’s more.
If you find one, that’ll do.
But us, old friends,
What’s to discuss, old friends?
Here’s to us!
Who’s like us?

Most friends fade
Or they don’t make the grade.
New ones are quickly made.
Perfect as long as they’re new.
But us, old friends,
What’s to discuss, old friends?
Here’s to us!
Who’s like us?
Damn few!

Wilma

2008-04-12T00:11:00.002-05:00

Looks like we may be having a difficult weekend here at Chez S. Our Cranky Old Lady, Wilma, may have just about reached her time to cross the Rainbow Bridge.

For the last several years she’s been doing poorly. She has trouble keeping weight on and right now she looks basically like skin and bones and her fur is in really rough shape. She has started eating very poorly indeed, but keeps loudly demanding food whenever anyone goes into the kitchen. And the last couple of nights she’s messed on our bed, which is decidedly not OK. The problem is that she does not seem to be in any pain. When there’s pain it is easier to make the decision.

So the question becomes whether she has enough quality of life to make it reasonable to take any sort of steps to prolong her life. I’m not sure that she does, but I’m also not sure what measures might help. I would not be willing, for example, to have any dental work done. Last time we did that, we nearly lost her. I see no point to making her end any more stressful or painful than necessary. But if it were possible to stimulate her appetite so that she ate better, that might be OK. I’m not sure it that would be enough or how she might take to daily pills.

As I seem to have said to several people this week, not meaning Wilma, this is the hardest part of pet ownership. We owe it to our beloved pets who, if they were wild animals, would crawl off somewhere and go to sleep and not wake up, to keep them alive as long as they have a reasonable quality of life and then to take care of them when they don’t. We have to be able to tell when they’ve reached that point. I tend to err on the side of keeping them alive and I’m not sure that’s the right side to err on.

I’ll have to spend some time with her this weekend and see if I can understand what she wants me to do. I will probably also ask DS to come over and help. I helped him to know when it was time for his first owner/cat to cross the Bridge, so maybe he can help me with Wilma.

Friday Five

2008-04-11T01:29:00.003-05:00

Friday Five -- April 11, 2008

By apologiesqueen

1. If you had the ability to legally change your name, would you? To what?
When I was a kid, I didn’t want to be Diane. I thought of Di (this was before Princess Diana; I thought I was being original) or Tina or Michelle. I’m fairly comfortable with Diane, now. Being a woman, I thought about whether to change my last name when I got married, and I decided that DH’s name was easier to pronounce and spell than my maiden name, so I went with that. I have a friend who made a bargain with her husband that any sons they had would have his last name and daughters would have hers. They had three girls. So, unusually, he’s the odd one out with the last name! I did drop my original middle name when I married, as I’d never liked it. (And, no, don’t bother asking, as I won’t tell you.) When I absolutely have to have a middle name, I use my maiden name.

2. What do you with change that you receive from banks/purchases/find on the ground?
I don’t often get change from banks, but that and any from purchases goes in the coin purse part of my wallet. If I find change on the ground, I usually put it in my left pocket and consider it lucky.

3. If you could travel back in time to change the course of one historical event, what event would it be?
Being a science fiction fan, particularly of Dr. Who, this is actually something I’ve thought about. I have at least two I’d like to change. The first would be the burning and looting of the Great Library at Alexandria. I think that recently I heard that they now think that that wasn’t one event, but something that happened over the years, which might be a problem. But still. The burning and looting of a library offends my librarian genes and I think about the knowledge that was lost there and it makes me sad.
The second thing would be Cassandra Austen burning as many of her sister Jane’s letters as she could, per Jane’s orders as she was ill and dying. Not only does the destruction of those letters offend my librarian and historian sensibilities, but I would *love* to know more about Jane Austen!
I’m sure there could be others along the same line. I seem to recall hearing that Samuel Clemens wife destroyed much of his writing that she considered unsuitable, profane, blasphemous, or insufficiently serious. Sounds like the sort of thing I’d love to read!

4. Would you rather live a safe, stable, moderately interesting life or one where every day was dangerous, volatile, and different?
I must laugh! As most people who know me have heard me say, my strongest desire is for a boring existence. Moderately interesting is just about my speed. Right now my life is pretty much boring to moderately interesting, depending on your interest in knitting and/or kittens. I’m happy about that.

5. What do you think you'll be remembered for when you die and, if you could, would you change it to something else?
What I might be remembered for I have no clue. I’d like to be remembered for being compassionate, for caring about people and animals and wanting to leave the world in better shape than I found it. My biggest ambition in life, other than to be boring, is to enjoy and appreciate my life and learn whatever lessons I’m here to learn, and then move on to what’s next.

Mem and Kitten Update

2008-04-07T16:18:00.002-05:00

From Monday’s a Bitch – A Weekly Meme

The Show Must Go On

1. What's the most annoying experience you've ever had at a concert?
2. Have you ever crowd surfed or experienced being in a mosh pit?
3. Do you own any concert t-shirts? Which is your favourite?
4. What's the loudest concert you've ever been to?
5. Of any performers who are now deceased, which do you wish you'd had the chance to have seen play live the most?

1. I remember being very annoyed at a Neil Diamond concert when he brought a young woman up on stage to sing to and was getting fairly risqué with and all I could think was that he was old enough to be her grandfather. I believe it was a Billy Joel concert where DH and I were sitting next to a very young couple and the young man got more and more intoxicated and thus more and more annoying. But, being old, I don’t remember any more what it was he was doing that was so annoying.

2. Clearly this question is for a much younger person. I’d have broken something if I tried acrobatics like that. Plus, none of the concerts I’ve ever attended involved crowds doing that sort of thing. Somehow this stuff just doesn’t happen at concerts with Peter, Paul, and Mary, or Asleep at the Wheel. Fortunately!

3. I’ve had a few. I’m not sure I have any any more. I do remember buying something like that when DH, DS, and I were at DisneyWorld for New Year’s Eve one year. The MGM Studio area had a New Year’s Eve concert with Davy Jones, Bobby Sherman, and someone else. I don’t think David Cassidy, but somebody like that. I was in teeny-bopper heaven. My inner adolescent did a lot of squealing.

4. Probably Billy Joel. My ears rang for days.

5. Perry Como. Frank Sinatra. I’d love to be able to go to another John Denver concert. I would say the Beatles (though, of course, only half of them area dead), but probably 20 years ago DH and I went to a Paul McCartney concert in San Antonio. Sir Paul had just gotten permission from Michael Jackson to perform out of the Beatles playbook, and he did a *lot* of those songs. There was a good deal of squealing and screaming from the audience, including me (evidently screaming is the natural reaction to listening to any Beatle live), and it occurred to me in the middle of the thing that I was attending a BEATLES CONCERT! I grew up in a smallish town in East Texas where there was never any question that top-name acts might show up. They didn’t. So I never expected to be in attendance at a Beatles concert. It was a lovely moment and a most enjoyable concert.

Kitten Update: I took the babies and Fleur up to the shelter this morning for brief checkups and shots. They were all very well behaved, even Fleur. The babies all got shots and flea control and Fleur got shots. Not surprisingly, I have had no visits from any of them since we got home. I suspect they feel they’ve had enough attention from me for one day! I’ll make a closer check on them to see if they’re having reactions to the shots before I leave for rehearsal this evening.

I am still amazed at how compliant and laid back these babies are. I believe they’re getting a bit more energetic in their play, but they are still pretty quiet and accepting of everything.

While I was gone, the shelter sent out an email that they had *2* moms with 5 four-week-old babies each who needed fostering! (I, for a fraction of a second, entertained the notion of adding another six cats to the current roster, figured I’d have to hire a divorce lawyer, and gave it no further thought. Not to mention that the two moms probably wouldn’t approve.) I’m wondering where all the moms with babies are coming from! I seem to recall seeing one or two like this last year, and this is already four in about four months.

Especially after being in the shelter clinic this morning. My shelter began last year a program to spay and neuter feral cats, and they had a couple of charts on the wall with numbers, as of last week, that they’d dealt with this year. There was one cat who died, a double-digit number that had had to be euthanized, a few that were already pregnant, and a few that were already spayed or neutered. The number of animals they’ve worked with this year was over 1200. There was one number, in the high triple digits, that was listed as “Feti”. I couldn’t figure out what that was, so I finally had to ask. That was the number of fetuses that had been aborted during the operations. That makes me sad. I know that all those babies would probably also have been feral and would not likely have much of a quality of life, nor length of one. I know it’s best for everyone that this happen. But I look at our little bundles of fur and it makes me sad.

Oh, and a bit of political follow-up. I’ve been doing pretty well at not getting into political discussions with DH, despite periodic provocation from him. This is harder when DS is around. Yesterday DS started in on something, I forget what, while we were having dinner. DH said something about how, after Hillary’s “sleep deprived” “mis-statement” about sniper fire, he, DH, was having trouble believing anything she said. I am somewhat amazed – I would have expected, from past experience, for him to attempt to excuse or explain away the whole thing. I am under no illusion that he’s changed his mind about supporting her, but I figure this is a nice beginning to re-opening his mind on the subject. Baby steps!

Not much else to report!

New Feline Family!

2008-04-04T01:32:00.001-05:00

I’ve been remiss about updating. Sorry.

The new babies have been here a while and they’re quite something. The mom, Fleur, is a pretty calico with medium-length fur. She’s not as friendly with us as Arabella was, but she’s not feral. She allows us to pet her some and likes to be brushed. She doesn’t particularly like to be held, but I think she’s getting better about that. We don’t have quite the close partnership that I felt I had with Arabella, but we’re doing OK. The shelter thinks it best that the mom and babies stay together till the babies are eight weeks old, which is just fine with us.

The kittens are three girls and a boy, named Gizmo, Hedwig, Itsy, and Jaspurr.

Gizmo is a very dark tortoiseshell. There doesn’t seem to be any white on her and even the orange (which is more of a buff color) is pretty sparse. Her left back foot is buff, which is just cute. She is clearly part Persian, with a Persian’s round face and round eyes and flat face. Her eyes are so round that she looks like a permanently startled owl! She’s growing on us. She is quite round around the middle and walks with a waddle that’s adorable.

Hedwig is mostly white. She has a buff colored patch on her head and her tail is buff. She has the shortest fur of all of them and not a Persian-shaped face. She’s the most skittish of the bunch and still runs when loud noises are made.

Itsy is a buff-colored round ball of fur. She has the longest hair and the flatest face. She was the first one out of the carrier and for the first week was little Miss Adventure. Gizmo has taken that spot now, but Itsy still gets around.

Jaspurr is an adorable orange and white boy. His fur is about the same length as Gizmo, though his face is not as flat and round. He’s very sweet. He’s also the smallest of the four, because he’s been sick.

DH weighed them all this evening and the girls are all about on track weight-wise, at 1.3 pounds. Jaspurr is only 13 ounces. He was diagnosed on Sunday with coccidia, a parasite that affects dogs and cats. It’s generally not dangerous, but it is very contagious to animals without robust immune systems – like babies or FeLV+ cats. (We made sure DS didn’t touch Jaspurr after he was diagnosed. My guess is that the parasite wouldn’t have lived on him long enough to get home to Ray, but it would be silly to take a chance.) Healthy grown cats generally kill off the parasite before becoming ill.

Jaspurr also had a cold. His eyes were runny and his breathing sounded congested. He stopped eating the wet food and then the dry food, only nursing, which is not enough nourishment at his age. Because the parasite is so contagious, the shelter said he needed to be isolated from his sisters. So we set him up in DS’s former bathroom, which had previously been the isolation ward for his FeLV+ kittens. There was medicine for him to suppress the parasite so that his immune system could fight it off, but nothing for the cold or upper respiratory infection or whatever it was, as they kept saying he’s too young for the antibiotics they normally give for that. (I could swear we’ve given that to younger kittens.) So on Sunday Jaspurr was a pretty miserable boy, feeling sick and missing his sisters. We shuttled Fleur between him and his sisters off and on all day and put her in with him overnight. (She, in the strongest possible feline words and actions, strongly resented being locked up in that small room. She made that abundantly clear!)

I put wet food in there with Jaspurr, specifically the smelliest, nastiest fish-flavored cat food we use. But I presume because he couldn’t smell it, he just sat at the bowl like he wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do. Fleur ate it, though.

But Tuesday he was definitely better, bouncing and playing some, including climbing the purple covered cat bed DH put in there for him. Yesterday (that would be Wednesday) I emailed the clinic folks at the shelter and was told it sounded like he could come out of isolation. Everybody was very happy about that! He was still congested, though, and still not eating. I supplemented him a bit with KMR mixed with chicken baby food. He seemed to like the taste of that, but had no clue about latching on to the nipple of the bottle and sucking. A goodly portion of the food was applied to the outside of the kitten (and me), but he got it down.

This evening when I picked him up, there was no sound of congestion. There were a couple of sneezes, but nothing alarming. At one point DH and I walked into the kitten room. Fleur was nursing Jaspurr, but got up and walked over to the dry food and began eating. Jaspurr followed her, and began eating the dry kitten food, too! We had a little celebration! That lifted a big weight off me!

Itsy also has been feeling poorly. I noticed on Monday that one, and only one, of her eyes was very runny. By Tuesday it was pretty much shut and she was much subdued. (It can be difficult to tell if these kittens are subdued or listless – their normal behavior would be severely subdued in other litters!) I remembered we had some eye ointment left over from another litter. I checked it and it was still good, so we’ve been doctoring both eyes, though the other eye seems fine. The eye is getting better. Today it looked like it had pus in it, but it seemed less swollen. DH thinks she might have pink eye, but I can’t imagine that that would affect only one eye. I suspect she got a claw caught in it and it got infected. The eye ointment does contain an antibiotic. Medicating her and Jaspurr is pretty easy. DH can medicate Jaspurr without assistance. I generally hold Itsy against my chest while he applies the ointment, and rarely does she complain. She did this evening, as he was trying to wipe the pus out, but I’ve dealt with much more difficult kittens. In fact, we gave her a bit of a bath yesterday, as her face below that eye look terribly matted and icky (and we didn’t get it all off), and poor little Kit Kat, on her sickest day, fought harder. Don’t get me wrong. She wasn’t *happy* about the bath, but she’s just not a complainer.

In fact, these babies all have what I’ve come to think of as the Persian personality. If I am translating from the Persian correctly, it goes like this. Persians are beautiful and their function in life is to decorate. Most kittens play hard because they have to learn to hunt their own food. Persians, however, don’t hunt their own food. Food should be caught by their servants (that would be me), properly prepared, and served on the good plates. They do play. It’s just slowly. There is no need to be frantic about it, as they are doing it for the fun. I have to say, it’s quite entertaining to watch a kitten fight that lasts for five minutes when the same fight would have been over in 30 seconds with other kittens. Itsy, befitting her “most Persian” status, has the biggest entitlement attitude, but they’re all that way. I have to say, watching these little round balls of fur bounce is also quite entertaining.

Simba has hissed and growled at a couple of the kittens, which is mostly unimpressive to them. He had one contact with Fleur, who told him where to go in no uncertain terms, and he wisely went there. He’s avoiding this end of the hall. We’ve been leaving the door of the kitten room open as long as we’re awake and home, and there have been no incidents. The babies have ventured into the living room a bit, but generally they stay around here. Jaspurr did spend several evenings on DH’s lap in the living room (my lap is evidently not quite right), but he didn’t get down much. Fleur is, I think, exploring the house some, but a deal seems to have been worked out with Simba that divides the house. We haven’t attempted the sleeping with the people lesson as they’re still too small and I don’t think having Fleur on the bed would work.(g) We may not get to do that with this group, unless they stay past their eighth week. That’s possible, considering Jaspurr’s weight, but we won’t know for a bit yet.

DS gave me a picture yesterday that he took of Ray. In it, Ray is wearing a black leather jacket. And not with the threatening look one usually sees in cats that have been put in clothes. In fact, he looks happy and might actually be asleep. DS tells me the jacket came from a stuff bunny (something like that) and that Ray fought off the dressing, but once it was done he decided not to worry about it. I’ll have to scan it – it’s an actual photograph on actual photo paper – and post it. It’s cute. If we tried that with Simba, he’d kill us in our sleep!

Glad and Sad News

2008-03-21T21:24:00.001-05:00

Good news and sad news tonight. While I’ve been pretty much hibernating at home, with a cold or something, things have been happening out in the real world to people I care about and I didn’t know.

So, a very dear friend of mine lost a dog recently. It was a large dog, and I understand those have shorter lives than the little ones, and an older dog, but they were separated from the dog by several thousand miles and that just makes it harder for everyone. The dog had, evidently, injured his back and it was causing him pain and affecting his mobility. So it was undoubtedly the right decision. His “sisters” – the two young women who are the daughters of my friend – are of course very sad. Frankly, they’ve had enough death and separation and sometimes just shear bad luck in their lives. This sort of thing happens and life goes on, but they (and their parents and grandparents, who were caring for the dog) have my sympathy.

Even more difficult, the daughter of another dear friend lost a pregnancy earlier this month. I’ve not been reading blogs much and hadn’t seen my friend this week as I usually do, so I hadn’t heard. It makes me very sad. The parents of the baby are clearly going to be wonderful parents (already are, really) and were really longing for a baby. It just makes me very sad.

Now, the good news. The shelter called this afternoon to say that the other shelter in town has a mom and four four-week-old kittens that need a home. Would I be interested? (Like anybody had to ask??) I won’t be able to get them till Sunday afternoon (no, I don’t know why), but I’m really excited about it. There are not many details yet. The mom is said to be small and shy but not feral and really very sweet, and a short-haired calico. The kittens are all healthy, all look very different from each other (helpful in naming and keeping track!), and are all long-haired. I seem to have an affinity at the moment for the long-haired fuzzy ones, so that could just be dangerous(g). I was really missing all the babies this morning and this made my day.

When I took the babies in yesterday I asked about Arabella and was sorry to hear that she is *still* in Isolation with an upper respiratory infection. Let’s everybody who can spare them think healing thoughts in her direction. Such a sweet, loving girl; she deserves a good home soon!

Dusty and Emma should now be busily taking over their new home. I know their new Mom was doing a lot of shopping today to get ready for them (like they didn’t have enough cat supplies already!) and I suspect they’re well on the way to running the entire show. And I suspect Buster and Camilla will not be in the shelter long, as kittens are still fairly scarce. If they’re still there Monday I’ll be surprised!

DH was asking me how long we’ll have this family. I don’t know exactly, of course, but I’m guessing four weeks, depending on how quickly they gain weight. And I’m going to make a suggestion at the shelter. They generally separate mom and babies at about six weeks of age. But Arabella’s litter were still nursing and both boys developed a bit of an oral fixation. Most other shelters, at least with stuff on the web, don’t separate them till eight weeks. So, if these guys are still nursing at six weeks, I’ll suggest keeping her till eight weeks. More info to come later, of course!

We Are Without Kittens Again

2008-03-20T20:41:00.002-05:00

We’re kitten-less again. Sob!

Buster, Camilla, Dusty, and Emma went back to the shelter this afternoon. This was firmly not their idea and they didn’t think it was a good idea, but it was time. It was hard to give these babies up! Not only are they incredibly sweet and loving, but we’d raised them since they were four days old! But I know for sure that Dusty and Emma are going to an excellent home, and together, and that helps.

There was a slightly larger version of Dusty in the shelter waiting to be looked at. Seriously, he was pretty much the same color, maybe two or three weeks older, with the same sort of fur, and a ready and loud purr. And, he was also cross-eyed! This particular baby had evidently been thrown out of a car or something (grrrr) and taken to the shelter. Luckily the only physical problem seemed to be a sort of road rash on his forehead. Makes me wonder if they might be half-brothers or something! Busy, busy tomcat!

I told Receiving to just call me with the next bunch of kittens, so I hope we won’t be kitten-less for too long.

She told me that they’ve been discussing a way to handle the kittens of feral mothers. Right now the policy is to separate a mom from the babies at six to eight weeks. The problem is that it is difficult to socialize the kittens with a feral mom around (mom just doesn’t appreciate it!) and six to eight weeks is almost too old to begin socialization. So they’re thinking of separating them at three or four weeks, when they’re eating some solid food and using the litter box, and start getting the socialization begun. She told me the first person she thought of with that in mind was me! It makes me almost giddy to think that they think that much of my abilities. But I’m quite willing to give it a try. We did OK with the tortoiseshell girls last year, although they couldn’t have been completely feral. And we failed miserably with Mocha, but I think she was more than feral, she had been abused. So, like I said, I’m willing to give it a try. It will certainly be an adventure and a challenge! (she said, gulping)

In the meantime I’m able to knit without having my needles attacked or chewed on, which is certainly easier. And getting to sleep will be easier for DH without four active, busy kittens bouncing around on the bed (and him, and Simba, and me, then each other, then him again, then my pillow, then BONZAI on a sibling).

I have been getting a kick out of watching them play. They are so present in the moment and in their bodies. They see something, they want to investigate it, so they run or spring or something. They’re not terribly cautious about where they’re going to end up. I am always amazed at how much personality and intelligence and sheer joy is packed into those two little pounds of fluff. You'd think all that would need more room.

Another Quiz

2008-03-16T15:03:00.003-05:00

Which Austen Heroine are You?

http://www.strangegirl.com/emma/quiz.php

You Are...Elinor Dashwood!

You are Elinor Dashwood of Sense & Sensibility! You are practical, circumspect, and discreet. Though you are tremendously sensible and allow your head to rule, you have a deep, emotional side that few people often see.

Yeah. I *wish* I were Emma Thompson! Still, she did get Hugh Grant in the end.

Kittens, Reading, and Randomness

2008-03-15T13:54:00.003-05:00

So late yesterday afternoon I went and picked up Emma and Dusty. M said they’d been very well behaved and lovable and there had been no problems. She said Dusty was very talkative, which does surprise me. Other than the occasional, “Hey, bro, that hurts!” and both Dusty and Buster purring and crying at the same time while I’m petting them, these are actually pretty quiet kittens. But it didn’t bother her, so that’s OK. Her grown cat, Rudy, she said vacillated between “Oh my god! Kittens!” and being interested and wanting to play. So that went well.

As I suspected, they spent the evening and much of this morning busily winding each other up and playing with abandon. They have now worn each other out and have gone someplace to snooze.

Dusty still seems to be asking to be the Kitten Who Stayed, but I’m going to be strong and keep my commitment. He’s very good with the I Adore You look, I have to say.

Yesterday evening, after a nice dinner at our favorite local Mexican food place, DH accompanied me to my Borders raid. I had a list of authors and books I was looking for. (I love my Palm Pilot. It’s my only functioning memory!) I found some of the authors, none of the specific books. Sigh. Evidently most of the books of the dog mystery writer I found are out of print, or at least not available in Borders. And a couple of authors I had listed, the Borders computer had never heard of.

But I did find the tea shop and coffeehouse series that Amazon had recommended. And a new book by a sci-fi/mystery author that I’ve come to really enjoy. She (Kelley Armstrong) writes the Women of the Otherworld series, which features witches and wizards, werewolves and ghosts, and necromancers and vampires. Among other things. And most of those are the good guys! But they are set in modern America, where we are living with these supernatural creatures walking hidden among us. If you can stand that sort of thing, I highly recommend her. The first book I read was Dime Store Magic, but the first book in the series is Bitten, which features the werewolf clan. Be warned that there are some sex scenes, but nothing really bad. (Of course, I read (well, listen to) Laurel K. Hamilton’s Merry Gentry series, in which she seems to be attempting to write ever more fantastic sex scenes, surrounded by an actual plot and characterization. My tolerance of sex scenes is clearly high.) Anyway, I hadn’t realized that there was a new Women of the Otherworld series out, so I consider that my find of the night. I have already started it!

I think I’m about to sign up on another way to suck up all my leisure time. It’s called librarything. I was thinking this was the place my friend Bev was using to keep track of her books, but evidently not. Oh, well. librarything reminds me of the newish knitting community, Ravelry, which is an amazingly connected database sort of thing with forums and groups, lists of things you want to knit, lists of things you have knit, a place to list your stash and your needles, and so on. I will *not* be listing my stash on Ravelry and I will not be listing all my owned books on librarything. There is no one I will ever live that long. But I think I’ll try it for a while and see if I like it. Somehow it seems to me to be a way of recording a part of my identity – Ravelry for my knitting part, librarything for my reading part, Flickr for my pictures, especially of kittens, and so on. Another form of blog, I guess.

But before I sign up I need to find my Post-It notes. I’ve been making notes of all my log-in IDs and passwords on small Post-It notes that I keep near my computer. I started doing that when I was still using Netscape, which kept rebooting itself and forgetting everything it ever knew. My tendency to forget everything but my name and the words to 60s and 70s songs I hated means that I need my electronic gadgets to remember things for me. Anyway, the kittens have managed to completely hide the Post-It notes, so I may have to buy a new stack. Poor me, huh? I haven’t bought any new ones in several years and there may be a problem. I’m not quite as bad with Post-Its as I am with pens, but it’s close. And, of course, one finds those things in the same stores. Almost as dangerous as yarn stores or bookstores. Only less dangerous because Post-Its and pens are cheaper, individually, than yarn or books.

And now some Randomness.

Sunday, March 09, 2008

March 9: The Internet

Do you remember time before the internet? Before you had an email address, online banking, websites, memes, blogs, message boards?

Uh, yeah. I am rapidly aging. Since I was born in 1954, I also remember a time before color TV, home computers, cordless phones, cell phones, unleaded gas, microwave ovens, CDs, 8-track tapes, hard drives, DVRs, DVDs, etc. I am doing my best to keep up, but I seem to be stuck at iPods and cell phones that play music. I don’t have or want an iPod. And while my cell phone does having the capability to play music, I’ve never activated that and I doubt I will.

When did you first "log on"?

Originally in 1983, when DS was born. A good friend of ours (whom I still miss badly) moved away to Florida and allowed us to log on to his Arapnet account so that we could communicate via computer. Back then we had (you younglings will have to look this up) a Texas Instruments 99/4A. But after a bit we stopped doing that, so the real time was probably in the mid-90s. DH set it up and the computer we had came with a free CompuServe trial. I found the Women’s Issues section of the Issues Forum, and thus began an epic tale of friendships with people I rarely set eyes on but love deeply. (Hi, Bev, Mary, Tricia, Bill, diane, Sian, Pat, Cathy, Mindy, Stephanie, anybody I’ve forgotten!) They’ve seen me through several bouts of depression, the death of my mother, the treachery of someone I thought was a good friend, the troubles in my church community, 9/11, the election of the Republicans, etc. Not to mention shared the joy of a trip to Alaska, DS’s graduation, his moving out on his own (sort of), finding a church community, the arrival of many foster kittens, in fact the adoption of both Angel and Simba. And so on. They couldn’t mean any more to me if I saw them everyday IRL. In my own mind, I *do* see them everyday. We have an extremely active private email list and several of us have blogs. And some of their family members also have blogs that I read, so I hear from and think of them often.

I love email. How else would I have met women (and one man) of such disparate ages, lifestyles, and geographic places (from Seattle to a small Orkney island)?

OK, I’m done waxing poetic and gooey.

A New Entry

2008-03-14T00:39:00.003-05:00

It’s very quiet in the house tonight. Two of the babies are making an overnight visit with a church friend (we’ll just call her M) who is liable to be their new mommy. And, while I can’t say I’m heartbroken, I find myself a bit sad. In part to just let them go at all. But mostly cause one of the two babies M wants is Dusty. And Dusty has been busily filling out an application to become part of *our* family permanently. Of course, the more important thing is that he have a loving forever home. And I’m quite sure that with M, both my babies will be loved and cared for and probably spoiled rotten. So I can’t really complain.

The whole crew had visited with M twice before. She had a Cranky Old Lady who died sometime in the last few months and her surviving cat needs a playmate, she thought. I tried to suggest Arabella, but she had her heart set on a kitten, I think (or, I guess, two). And I understand that, since I obviously love kittens very much also. Her other cat, Rudy, is an absolutely gorgeous flame-point Siamese. I hadn’t seen a flame-point in person before; they’re quite rare. And I don’t think they’d be my favorite coloring, but I have to admit he’s beautiful.

So M called yesterday to arrange a sleepover and she requested both Camilla and Dusty. Then she called back and said she’d decided on Emma and Dusty, as she thought Camilla would have less trouble finding a family. (I didn’t tell her about my friend who adores Emma. I really think Emma is the one she’s supposed to have.) I took the babies over there this afternoon and I noticed that they and Rudy behaved differently than they did on the previous visits. Rudy was less hostile and more interested in the little ones and they, in turn, made themselves more at home.

So Camilla and Buster are here this evening by themselves. I think Buster noticed the absence of the siblings at first, but this evening they seem fine. But quieter, with fewer siblings to wind each other up.

My babies are growing up. Sniff.

Comment answering:

Kristine: Apparently, when Obama was campaigning in Wyoming this week, he was making fun of the ad. The Times quoted him as saying something about "What do people think I'm going to do? I'm going to pick up the phone and find out what's going on."

Does seem like a fairly obvious thing to do, doesn’t it? As a first step, anyhow.

Thank you for liking my socks. :) One is an STR pattern and already has a mate, the other is Friday Harbor and is out of Fixation, and has been languishing for almost two years. (shame)

No shame. I have a fairly short attention span for patterns. Once I’ve done one sock, the chances are I won’t do it again. I’ve had to trick myself into doing a pair by doing them both at the same time. Not on the same needles. I use two sets of circulars. Generally I cast on and begin a sock and cast on the second one shortly thereafter. I work each one to the same point. That way it feels like I’m only doing one sock. It’s just a really big one.(g) It’s the only way for me!

I like Socks that Rock – beautiful yarn. I’ve got several skeins waiting around to be knit up. We won’t discuss how many. I’ve got Fixation around, too, but haven’t tried it yet. Some lifetime or other I will, though. (My excuse for all the yarn is that, should the pandemic bird flu hit suddenly and we all get quarantined into our houses, I’ll have enough yarn to continue to knit. Uh, yeah. DH doesn’t buy that one, either.) My friend Suna was working on a new pair the other night in a new-to-me brand, Perchance to Knit. I love that name! I looked them up online and found them at Etsy. The yarn was relatively expensive and there wasn’t a whole lot of it, so I was able to resist it. But she evidently does some sock yarn that’s part cashmere. Fortunately that yarn was in a colorway that didn’t interest me.(g)

Today I finished the cozies for my new water bottles. My husband looked at the first one, for the smaller bottle, and asked if it was a sock.(g) I think that’s because I did the tops in 2x2 rib to hug the bottle better. But I decided to call them water bottle socks. They could also be called sweaters, I suppose, though they’re just stockinette and rib, so they’d be pretty boring sweaters. If I was going to do much of these, which I’m not, I’d probably have to start working in some interesting patterns with cables or something. But I only need the two. They worked up fairly quickly. I’m such a slow knitter than I’m always surprised when something works up fast. Oh, and the yarn is interesting. It’s 100% corn, a South West Trading Company yarn called aMAIZing. (Look! They made a pun!) The darker color, a medium blue, bled a bit onto my hands as I knit, so if someone was making something to wear, it would need washing. But it’s nice and stretchy and soft and it does what I wanted, which is to insulate my hands from the cold of the water bottle and especially the condensation. And I *think* it’s keeping the water colder, too, which is a nice bonus.

Anyway, I’m back to socks now and made a small bit of progress on my Red Wood Forest socks. More tomorrow!

2008-03-07T12:42:00.003-06:00

Isn’t this another gorgeous picture? I must remember to do this meme more often.

Saturday, March 01, 2008

week of March 2: Soul Searching

week of March 2: Soul Searching

name 3 of each:

-people you love

DH
DS
my brother
I could go on

-things you dislike about yourself

my weight
my dislike of confrontation of any sort
my phone phobia

-things you like about yourself

my sense of humor
my love of knitting
my love of reading

-goals you have set for yourself

oh, my. umm. get better about taking my medicine every day
improve my ability to sing
knit many, many socks. and then some more socks

-obstacles you have overcome

depression and lack of self-esteem (mostly)
an emotionally abusive childhood (mostly)
taking an active part in handling a problem in my church and then surviving it. having a dislike of confrontation, even being somewhat involved was difficult and unusual for me

Friday Comment Answering Fest

2008-03-07T12:20:00.002-06:00

Wow! I think that’s more comments on two pieces than I’ve ever gotten all together! Cool!

One of my favorite blogs to read, bitchypoo, does a Friday responding to comments post. She has a much, much wider readership than I do (of course, she posts regularly, which would probably help me, too), but I thought I’d do that just for fun today!

Saranda: I'm dishcloth cotton. It mentions words like "thrifty", "born to clean", "Plain Jane", and "practical".... do you have any extra purple I can borrow? ;)

I can certainly see you as thrifty, and practical. The Plain Jane doesn’t seem like a good description to me. What sort of purple do you want? If you want purple dishcloth cotton, I definitely have some. (I should probably put my water bottle cozy down and do a fast dishcloth in purple for you. I’ll have to look at my patterns. Hmmmm.)

Mary Z: Hi Diane, Bill sent me. I'm going to enjoy getting caught up with your entries.

Bill’s one of my oldest (in time, not years) online friends. But I’ve seen your name in Bev’s blog for some time and, as I’m trying to regain my nightly blog crawl habit, I’ve got yours bookmarked too.

I turned out to be "dishcloth cotton, too. But I must've given a wrong answer here or there. I'm definitely NOT "born to clean"!

(giggle) Yeah, if I’d gotten dishcloth cotton, I’d have had to figure the quiz was seriously flawed. I can’t speak to the Plain Jane, and I do practical sometimes, but the rest of it is *so* not me!

John and I voted for Edwards in our primary (the day before he withdrew, of course). At this point, all I care about is getting a Democrat elected - and will happily support Hilary, Barack, or whoever.

I would have voted for John Edwards, too, and I suspect DH would have also, if he hadn’t dropped out. I still might have if DH hadn’t plainly been going to vote for Hillary. I felt the need to cancel out his vote.(g) But I agree with you about the need to get a Democrat elected. At this point, I’d almost be willing to vote for a Republican if I thought he’d bring “little d” democracy back to our country. That’s one of my reasons for supporting Barack – I think he has a better chance of being elected and being allowed to actually serve as President than Hillary. However, if she gets the nomination, I will absolutely happily vote for her and will not have to hold my nose. I think she’d be a perfectly fine President if she was allowed to be. (And in comparison to the current Resident, almost anyone would look good.)

Kristine: Bah! Acrylic. :(

Agreed. That’s quite rude. But I love your socks picture! Lovely socks.

When I only crocheted, I happily used Red Heart and I still sometimes envy their colors. But knitting with Red Heart is punishment. I did do one baby blanket in old acrylic baby yarn and it was OK. I never thought I’d be a yarn snob and I do not always care for the most expensive yarn, but I do like a good merino wool, maybe superwash, sock yarn.

Mary Z: Good morning. I read on Small Island that you're in Central Texas - may I ask where? My family is scattered all over TX, and I grew up Houston.

You certainly may. I’m in Austin. DH grew up mostly in the Tomball area and I grew up in Texarkana after my dad retired from the Navy, so from the third grade on till I could escape. We go to Houston at least once a year, to go to a Texans football game, but I haven’t set foot in Texarkana since a few months after my mom died and one of my life goals is to never set foot in it again. (But I’m not bitter.)

Kristine: Oy. I went and looked at that ad, which I hadn't seen (obviously) and it made my blood boil. Thankfully, my fiance and I both support Obama, and our cute little state voted for him in a big way. Yay!

Yeah, that was my reaction. DH is just looking for ways to excuse it, which is the sort of thing he does when he’s identified too much with an underdog. (I’m still having trouble seeing Clinton as an underdog, but whatever.) And good for your state for going Obama! I think the final delegate count here may slightly favor Obama when the precinct convention totals are added in.

I have a good online friend who lives in Vermont. I envy y’all your mountains and cool weather! But DH starts wearing sweaters when the temperatures go below 75 and he likes to windsurf, so I have to make do with the small amount of cold weather we get here. This year we’ve actually had some winter, which is nice. There’s an old quote from General Sheridan, a general in the Mexican and Civil Wars, who said, “If I owned Texas and hell, I’d rent out Texas and live in hell.” I love my state, in spite of everything, but I wish it was farther north.

And, to answer a question I sometimes get in person but not in comments, I figured out the other day how I’m able to foster kittens and then give them back. It’s because I’m the daughter and granddaughter of librarians. I also love books (not as much as kittens) but my whole childhood we used the library extensively. I love all the kittens dearly and there are two right now competing to be The Kitten Who Stayed (Camilla and Dusty, for those keeping track), but in my heart I think I’m checking them out from the shelter and returning them when we’re done with them (and they’re big enough for their operations). Yes, this is quite odd, but it helps me have an almost continual stream of kittens and give them up with only small pangs. It helps that the shelter screens potential adopters (though not extensively) and that there is a fee for adopting them that should discourage most of the potentially abusive people. (Why pay when there are so many free cats being given away all the time?) But still, it’s harder on my tender-hearted DH to give them back than it is for me.

Politics. Oh, and Arabella

2008-03-07T00:09:00.002-06:00

Tonight I hate politics.

Normally I enjoy politics, to an extent. But there is, besides the reality of what happens when Republicans are selected (as opposed to elected, you understand), a fly in the ointment. DH.

He’s very idealistic (not to say naive) about politics. He has this funny idea that people should just discuss ideas and policies and such. I’m not. I’ve been watching politics (much like one watches football or basketball) since 1964, or 1960 if you count my thinking JFK was “pretty”. I believe I had my idealism burned out when Hubert Humphrey wasn’t elected. (Go look it up, kids. Learn some history.(g))

And here’s the problem. DH has decided to support Hillary and I am for Obama. And that’s fine. I’m not one of those people who expects my spouse to believe everything I do. But the problem is that he gets *very* partisan when he’s picked a “side”. He sees slights and wrongs everywhere and takes them very personally, as if he himself were being attacked. And he simply won’t listen to reason. Whereas I, of course, am the soul of reason and reasonableness.

Take the now-infamous “3 in the morning phone call” ad. DH thought it was a perfectly reasonable ad and wasn’t even scare tactics, as it didn’t show bombs going off, terrorists outside the house, and so on. I find that incredible. To me, all other things being equal, that ad would be a deal-breaker. Maybe I’m just supersensitive, having spent the last seven years with the Bush Administration attempting to scare us into giving up our rights. But to me, the ad seems to suggest that if we don’t elect Hillary, our children will be in danger. How that is different from Karl Rove’s tactics is not clear to me.

Of course, when I said that, DH got mad. His voice got louder. Expressing my opinion is somehow keeping him from expressing his and he doesn’t have this kind of trouble when he talks politics to friends at work. (I suspect he doesn’t leap down their throats when they disagree and try to explain why, either.) Sigh.

My strong suggestion that it would be better if we don’t talk politics until after the nomination is decided was somehow also Very Bad. I am also suggesting that he not watch Keith Olbermann till then, either, as that will just lead to more arguments.

I mean, it’s not like we’re getting really ugly or anything. It’s not in DH’s nature (thank the goddess) and I have learned to curb my tendency to go for the jugular since my mother’s death. That would not be in my nature, either, except it’s the way my mother fought and the only way to survive was to use her own tactics. I don’t like seeing myself as comfortable doing that. My preference is to not have arguments at all, and mostly we don’t. Mostly we’ve learned to let each other have different opinions without getting bent out of shape about it. We’ve even been known to have civilized conversations where we discussed our differing opinions. I call it disagreeing agreeably.

I suspect the difference is when DH identifies in some way with whatever his side of the disagreement is. Usually he identifies with the underdog and he’s attempting to convince me that Hillary is the underdog here and is somehow the victim of “dirty politics”. Why dirty? Cause Obama is outspending her.

Sigh.

So I explained (reasonably and without too much of a martyred tone in my voice) that that’s the way politics works, at least in the Democratic party. The more popular candidate gets more money in donations and eventually the candidates who are not getting enough money drop out of the race. That’s not dirty politics, it’s just politics. Dirty politics is refusing to let all the ballots be correctly counted (Florida in 2000) or somehow having voting machines that count more votes than there are voters to cast them (Ohio in 2004). Or telling voters in South Carolina that McCain has a mixed race child or in East Texas that Ann Richards is a lesbian. Or fear-mongering.

But anyway, I believe we’ve gotten past all that and it is my intention to not discuss politics with him until at least after the Pennsylvania primaries. It’s just healthier.

Arabella update: I believe our sweet, loving momma kitty has been adopted! I went on the AHS website this evening to check and she’s not there any more. So either she’s been moved out of the adoption areas for some reason (which is normally medical or behavioral, which I don’t think is likely) or she’s found her forever family! That makes me very happy indeed. She deserves a good loving home with people who will appreciate her.

The babies go back to the shelter on Saturday, but I seriously doubt they’ll be staying. I put dainty little Camilla on our new scale (which is actually a food scale) and she seemed to be weighing somewhere between a pound and, maybe, a pound and a quarter. She’s just a tiny, dainty little sweetheart, my Camilla.

What Kind of Yarn Am I?

2008-03-06T19:47:00.004-06:00

What kind of yarn are you?

You are Merino Wool.You are very easygoing and sweet. People like to keep you close because you are so softhearted. You love to be comfortable and warm from your head to your toes.
Take this quiz!

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I so like this! Not only do I love merino wool -- it's so soft and it's a wonderful yarn for socks -- but the swatch shown is *purple*! Purple merino wool. I'll answer to that.

Books, Kittens, and Socks

2008-03-01T12:40:00.003-06:00

I love Amazon. I think the very first non-Compu$erve website I ever visited, recommended by my friend Bev, I believe, was Amazon.com.

I use it for so many things. It’s an excellent substitute for Books in Print, an old librarians’ tool which does exist on the web, except you have to pay for it. (I think that’s a mistake. After extensively using the League of Women Voters Voter’s Guide, I went and joined the group yesterday.) Amazon is a perfectly fine substitute. I’ve used them to look through CDs, to see what TV shows are available on DVD, and too look for various video games for DS. I look there when I want to find something a new-to-me author has written. I don’t always buy from them, but I certainly do sometimes.

Then there was when I was determined to find water bottles to suit me. I searched through Amazon to see what might be available. I didn’t buy through them, as I wanted to see them in the polycarbon, but I could have.

But today I love them because they recommend new authors to me. They sent me an email this morning recommending a new book (the author isn’t really new, she’s just new to me) by an author I’d never heard of. The series is clearly of the “cozy” mystery type, one I generally like, which means it’s not terribly hard boiled, nor does it try to be terribly literary, and it’s not a police procedural. I read all those types, too, except hard boiled (I like hard boiled only in eggs), but cozies are what I read most. Then, after recommending the new book, there are three more at the bottom of the email. One by the same author, one very similar but a different author I didn’t know, and a third by an author I’m already quite fond of. That’s not published yet, but it’ll be in hardback. I have sometimes bought that author in hardback, but I think this time I’ll hold out. So I have added them to my list of books and authors to look for in my PDA and the next time I make a daring daylight raid on Borders, I’ll look for them.

That’ll probably be next week. I finished up a set of books (not all of the series, by a long shot) by another new-to-me author, Susan Conant. They were a new-to-me subgenre of cozy – the dog mystery. I’ve read a number of cat mysteries and will continue to, but since I’m not a dog person, I had never dipped my toe in those waters. But the protagonist owns a cat – she and the cat only tolerate each other, but she clearly doesn’t *hate* cats – and the books had clever titles, like The Dogfather. There was even a cat mystery, but I’m not sure I liked it. I liked the cats and the mystery was fine, but something about the protagonist rubbed me the wrong way. I’m not sure she’s done another of those books. But the dog mysteries feature Alaskan malamutes, a breed which I am vaguely aware of. Great big dogs bred to survive in the Artic, but pretty, at least from a reasonable distance. The books did not make me want to run out and buy one.(g) The author clearly believes that the way to solve any problem in life is to apply dogs, but I prefer to apply kittens, instead.

Anyway, I finished those up. Now I will attempt to finish the His Dark Materials triology. I started them on the recommendation of the same friends who recommended Harry Potter, but I'm having to slog through this set. Part of the problem, I’m sure, is that I bought all three books in one volume. (Note to self: don’t do that.) It’s big and heavy and since I generally read in bed, this is a problem. But also, I’m just not connecting with the characters. I’m near the end of the last book, which I started around Christmas, but I found that it’s longer than it should be. I kept reading what seemed like the climax, only to discover many, many more pages to go. And then another faux climbas. I finally put it down to read other things, but I have promised myself that I’ll try it again tonight and if I still want to put it down, I will. This will leave me almost out of books, a condition that causes mild panic, but I do have the latest Sue Grafton, which my nephew bought me for Christmas on my explicit request. He works at Target and wanted to buy me something there that wasn’t a gift card, and I was pretty sure the SuperTarget he works at would have it. And they did. (Having that waiting in the wings may not encourage me to finish the other tome, though. I do love Sue Grafton’s sense of humor.) When I’m finished with the His Dark Materials, I’m gonna donate it to my church library. I don’t believe I’ll ever want to re-read it.

So, thanks in part of Amazon, I have a nice list of books and authors to look for.

So far today has been a day of Hs. First, Hunting. DH lost his glasses somewhere. Normally I don’t help look for things unless I helped lose them (a rule I made when DS still lived here and he lost three or four things daily), but I am familiar with the problem of finding glasses when you can’t see well. So I helped. He eventually found them, but we were both wandering the house with flashlights aimed at the floor for a bit. (And they were on the floor, but were not likely knocked off by the kittens.) While he was hunting he found a pair of earrings I had considered gone, which I appreciated. (Note to self: don’t leave earrings on the wing of the bed; they fall off.) Then we hunted briefly for his flashdrive. I helped with that because he gives me pictures of kittens and for the newsletter on it and it was more than likely I had put it somewhere. I had. Then other things on top of it. My bad.

We’ve also had Hissing. Even after Arabella has been gone for a week and the kittens were bathed so they couldn’t have smelled like her any more, he’s still refusing to accept them. We had thought he was getting better and we hoped to begin the Sleeping With the People lessons, one of my favorite times, but they scared him. He clearly wants to play with them. They’re being free-range kittens today and playing all over the house and he even tried to get Emma to play chase with him, but when they startled him, he began hissing and is now settled into hissing whenever he sees them. Sigh. We really can’t let them sleep with us until he will accept them. Just not hissing would be enough; that’s the state he’s been in often when a litter was old enough to make it back to the litter box in the middle of the night. That’s the other necessary requirement for sleeping with us. We can’t be completely sure about that one till we try it, but these guys seem to be at that point.

Knitting: I’ve got all my four sock toes started and all but one 30 rows into the foot. The Red Wood Forest socks are a 2x2 rib on the top of the foot and will be that all the way up. Very mindless knitting. The only possible fly in that ointment is if I need to increase the number of stitches. I’ve done that in a rib before and don’t care for the appearance. But that will happen far enough up the leg that it won’t likely be seen by anyone likely to make remarks, so I can live with it. The Simple Stripes Wedgewood socks will be all stockinette. It’s easier to increase stitches in stockinette without screaming “I INCREASED THE NUMBER OF STITCHES HERE”. I’ve been debating how to finish those socks. The traditional way is with a 1x1 or 2x2 rib, and that’s probably what I’ll do. But. I did a pair of top down socks that began with sort of hemmed top and I liked it. You knit a certain number of rows in stockinette with an even number of stitches, say 10 rows. Then you do a row of knit 2 together, yarn over, all the way across, which makes a picot-edged fold line. Then you do (I think) 9 rows of stockinette and on the next row you knit both those stitches and the cast on row together. It’s a bit fiddly on that last row so I don’t think it’ll replace ribs in my heart, but I have been toying with the idea of doing in on toe up socks. It *should* be exactly the same. But I’m a ways away from having to decide that.

I think I’ll take some time off from the hissing fest and go to the Knitting Guild meeting this afternoon. I haven’t been in several months and I do want to go!

OMG! Early Voting

2008-02-29T15:35:00.002-06:00

We have a thing called Early Voting here in Texas. It replaced absentee voting and it means that something like 10 days before any election and for about a week, you can go to any of several designated places and vote. When they first started it, I was a bit of a traditionalist and wanted to vote *on* Election Day. And often I still do that. (On the other hand, DS went and voted on the first day of early voting.) However, with the Texas primary this year, it became obvious that voting early would be a good idea.

So last night DH and I sat down at our own computers, in our own “offices”, and made our lists of who we wanted to vote for (or against) in the Democratic primary. Today we met at the nearest early voting place. And waited in line. It actually took about an hour to get to the voting machines. I think it’s the first time I’ve waited in line for early voting. Normally we have to wake the election judges up in order to vote.

But we finally got in. On comparing notes, we’ve split on most of the races where I wasn’t sure. And we split on the Presidential nominees. The main ones I was most not sure about were our county District Attorney and our Tax Assessor-Collector. We’re electing a new DA for the first time in 31 or 32 years (I’ve seen both numbers). I have never been a big fan of the incumbent, so his choice had a strike against her from the beginning. Nothing I read convinced me otherwise. Another woman running has raised a great deal of money and is saying all the right things, but it turns out a lot of her money comes from lobbyists. Normally that wouldn’t matter, but we are the capitol city and our local DA’s office is responsible for investigating corruption at the state level (and the Tom Delay level, too) and I’m not excited about her being funded by lobbyists. However, DH liked what she had to say.

The Tax Assessor-Collector is an odd race for there to be a controversy in. Normally I couldn’t even tell you who held the office, though she’s held it for some years now. Personally, I had no problem with her. But then some ads began appearing on TV for a man, Glen Maxey, who used to be a state representative. He was our first (and only) openly gay legislator and I was pissed when our Republican legislature gerrymandered him out of office. And for reasons that were not clear to me, he seemed to be seriously angry with the Tax Assessor-Collector. Upon looking things up, he seems to be saying that the TAC (cause how many times do I want to type that out?) can refuse vehicle registration to “deadbeat dads” (and presumably moms as well) as part of an attempt to collect child support, and she hasn't done that. (The state agency that’s supposed to help collect child support in this state has been seriously overwhelmed for decades and the good Republicans running the legislature don’t seem to want to do anything about it.) And he says that the current TAC supported the recent attempt by those same good Republicans to suppress voting rights in our state, which, since she’s a black woman, seems curious. He says she didn’t understand the ramifications, which I suppose is possible, except that there were a *lot* of discussions about it that she should have heard. Anyway, I went with my impression of Maxey as being a fundamentally fair, honest, and honorable politician, at least as much as is possible for a politician. DH was disturbed by the angry tone of the TV ads, felt that he hadn’t made a good case against her, so voted for her.

I have a shrug for both races.

When I finished voting, I took pictures with my PDA of the line outside the grocery store, which was even longer than when we got there, but they were all blue. So I won’t post them. But there was someone, a photojournalist of some sort, I suspect for the newspaper since it didn’t look like a video camera, that was taking pictures of the line, too.

I’m really glad we did vote early, since if the lines are this long today, I can only imagine how long they’ll be on Tuesday! And I think I’m going to skip the precinct convention. I’ve done it a couple of times, and gone to the county convention a couple of times, and I’ve never found it to be a good use of my time. (Besides, as DH says, we’d just be canceling out each other’s vote for the Presidential delegates.(g)) The precinct gathering is supposed to start at 7:15 pm or after the last voter has voted. Since anyone in line at 7:00 pm is allowed to vote and the line at that time is liable to be a record, there’s no telling when the thing would actually start! We’re getting a record turn-out in early voting here in our county and I think the entire state, so Tuesday night will be a zoo. And I think they ought to declare the day a school holiday. A lot of the polling places are schools (ours is) and with that many people roaming the halls, I doubt a lot of work will get done, anyway.

But it was after we voted that the excitement began.

The grocery store we went to has a Starbucks attached, so I brought my Starbucks/credit card with me. DH went and bought us both coffee, which we enjoyed. Then, when I got home, I went to take the card out of my pocket, only to discover it wasn’t there.

Panic!

I immediately drove back to the store and looked all over and asked all over for it. But there was no sign of it. More panic! I called DH to see if he’d start the process of canceling it and getting a new one. He said he thought maybe he’d put it in his jacket pocket and forgotten to give it to me. The jacket was in his car. He’d go check. Meanwhile, I drove home to await results and prepare to cancel the card and all that. And I waited. And waited. Finally I called his office, but there was no answer. I waited some more. Then I tried his cell phone, but they’d requested those be turned off at the polls and his was clearly still off. Waited some more. I began to wonder if he’d parked his car in an unusual spot, say, Houston. Or New Orleans. Maybe Waco. Finally I called and started to leave a message on his voice mail to say that if he didn’t call soon, he would have to pay to have me treated for the nervous breakdown I was having. (I panic real good. It’s one of my better skills.) He immediately picked up the phone and said that indeed the card had been in his pocket and he’d gotten distracted before he got back to his desk.

Whew!

My mother would have (verbally) killed him and wondered, in loud and strong and slightly hysterical tones, why he didn’t take his cell phone with him to the car and call from there, didn’t he know how worried she was, and how inconsiderate he was to leave her hanging like that?!? However, I recognize that I should have asked for my card back and kept good track of it, so I’m partially responsible for the nervous breakdown. I’m hoping that by tomorrow, my heart rate will have returned to normal. For now I think I’ll knit and play my computer game. That should help.

Speak of which, I haven't worked on my water bottle cozies yet. I got four sock toes started and am working on them for the time being. I'm pretty happy with how they're turning out so far.

Happy Birthday to Me!

2008-02-23T00:47:00.001-06:00

Happy Birthday to Me! Today I’m 54. It’s odd to me. I’m old. I went shopping for clothes today and tried on a nice shirt, but I can’t wear it. My bra straps show and although I know girls and young women don’t care about that, I do. I also caught sight of the back of a very pretty, lacy thong on a mannequin and my first thought was, why even put anything on at all, if that’s what you’re going to wear? I guess soon I’ll be yelling at neighborhood kids to get off my lawn and grumbling about how kids don’t have no respect for their elders.

However, the shopping was successful. I got three pairs of jeans that fit better than normal and several shirts. Five or six, I think, but I didn’t count. Pink and green seem to be the colors of the season, which is fine. I can do pink and green.

I also made a pilgrimage to the yarn store. I’m planning on making cozies for my new water bottles and I went to look at bamboo yarn. I ended up, however, with yarn that’s 100% corn fiber. No, that’s not a misspelling or something. It’s made from corn fiber. It feels pretty soft and looks a bit like tape yarn. The plan is to start those tomorrow, after we get home from the shelter. I also bought some more sock yarn (Suna is such an enabler!(g)), one Austermann Step, which has jojoba oil and aloe vera in the yarn, and the other is a new yarn called On Your Toes, which has aloe vera. The first is variegated in blue, brown, and gray and the other is pinks and a little gray, a little orange. Cause my computer room is not already overflowing with sock yarn.

Arabella goes back to the shelter in the morning. The kittens will go, too, for shots and microchipping and such, but they will come back with me. The kittens and I and DH will miss her. Simba will not. For the last several days he’s attempted to make friends with her. The best response he got was being ignored. A couple of times she attacked or threatened to. Poor boy! He really just wants to be friends with her and the kittens. I’m hoping after she’s gone that he’ll be able to help us nurture them. He’s certainly done it before.

A woman from church called this evening, looking for a kitten to keep one of her very active cats company. I tried to get her interested in Arabella, but she has her heart set on a kitten. The plan is to take the babies over to visit her next week, to see if any of them will suit. I’m rather hoping she’ll take to Emma, as she wants a female and Emma is the more active of the girls. But even if they don’t suit, it’s another bit of socialization for the babies, and they can use it.

This evening DH and I went out to eat at the last location of an Austin institution. For many years there were several restaurants here called Night Hawk. They were nice, not overly fancy, excellent steak houses. The very last one, called The Frisco (cause it’s a bit more downscale and was supposed to sell burgers, mostly), is one of the few restaurants in town that are older than I am. (By one year, but that’s still older.) But it’s sad, as that location is moving. I’m pretty sure they’ve been in that same location since 1953. The land has been sold and they have to move. They’re just moving up the street a bit, to a building that’s much newer, bigger, has a better kitchen, and probably the parking lot doesn’t have more potholes than asphalt. I’m glad they’re not going out of business and I’ll certainly still go there, but I still think it’s sad.

It got me to thinking about the Austin my parents knew when they were dating and were first married. Among the many family stories about Austin are several restaurants that they favored when they were dating. I don’t recall The Frisco or Night Hawk as being among them, but they almost certainly were. One of my favorite restaurants for many years was a Mexican food restaurant in east Austin called Carmen’s La Tapitia. My parents evidently ate there frequently when they were dating. It was still there, in an additional building but the same location, 22 years later when they brought me to Austin for college. It closed when DS was a kid, because Carmen died. I loved that place. There was also, I believe, a Chinese restaurant, I think on Burnet Road, but not being a big fan of Chinese food, I don’t know which one and don’t know if it’s still there. The other one I do remember was a steak house in far south Austin. It served big, juicy steaks on those sizzling plates (before there was a Sizzler, I might add). I heard recently that it’s still there. I’m glad. I know they loved it.

I’m often one of the first to try a new chain restaurant. Although I’m a picky eater, I’m always willing to find a new place that has something I like. But I’m sorry to see these mom-and-pop places close. La Tapitia was especially special, to my parents and to us. We ate there once every time they came to visit, and often at other times, too. It was the restaurant they took my mom’s parents to, when her parents came to Austin to meet the man she was suddenly engaged to. And I found out, after Carmen died, that it was one of the restaurants in town that was desegregated, at a time when that was pretty unusual. (I think The Frisco was, too.) A man wrote into the paper, after Carmen’s death, to say that Air Force personnel (we used to have an Air Force base here; it’s now our municipal airport) were required to frequent desegregated establishments when they went into town, so the places that they could go were limited, but popular and loved. Also, the food was good. That’s always a plus!

New Experiences

2008-02-20T00:44:00.002-06:00

We had a couple of new experiences today. This morning I packed the babies up into a cat carrier. They did *not* approve of that. (They are free kittens! They shouldn’t be in a cage!) And I don’t think Arabella was thrilled, either. But I took them with me to my appointment with my friend Victoria. They didn’t care for riding in the car. But once we got up to the office and they got out of the carrier, they were happier. Emma curled up in Victoria’s lap and napped for about the whole hour. The other three explored some, but Camilla quickly climbed up onto my chest and settled in for a snooze. Dusty spent most of the time ensconced on my knee. Buster explored the most, but he did finally decide that sleeping sounded like a good idea. They were very cute and very well behaved. These babies are so gentle and quiet, especially when I compare them to other litters we’ve had. The contrast between them and our last litter, the Tabby Trio, is quite striking! These babies are playful but not rambunctious or out of control.

The original plan was to take them with me to my nail appointment in the afternoon, but I did worry about keeping them away from food, water, and litter box (not to mention Mom) for that length of time, so I took them home instead. I had some trouble getting them all corralled back into the kitten room – especially Arabella – but I finally got them all in there at once with the door closed and me on the other side of it!

The other interesting event was this evening. Arabella has been making a bit more noise in the last couple of days – she speaks in full sentences, sometimes, mostly to the babies. Buster has gotten at least one lecture that I’ve heard! But these were different noises, sounding somewhat unhappy. Even when she talks, she’s very quiet and hard to hear over the other noise in the house. But, except when I was eating dinner – I draw the line at cat fur in my food – I would pick her up whenever she made those noises and that seemed to help, but then she’d be back. Eventually I found her wandering in the computer room, carting around a cat toy, a ball with a bell in it. (It looks sorta like this, but not exactly.) At first I thought she was trying to teach Emma to play with it, but that didn’t seem to be the case. Finally DH got it and threw it down the hall. *That* seemed to make her happier. She ran down to get it, picked it up, and carted it back into the kitten room to covet it a bit. Not quite fetching, but closer than most cats. DH got it and threw it again, and that was approved of, too. We’re guessing this was something she used to do with her previous owners. That kind of nearly fetching is rare in cats, but we’ve seen it before. It just underscores how young Arabella really is. She’s full grown, but just barely, I think. And now that the kittens require much less of her attention, she’s going back to being the young adult that she was before. (I was glad to discover that she just wanted to chase the ball. It is possible for a momma cat to go into heat even while she’s still nursing, and it is getting to be spring around here. I really don’t want the hassle of dealing with a young female cat in heat, even though we don’t have any intact males in this house. Well, except Buster and Dusty, but I think they’re too young to count.)

Yesterday I threw up my hands, literally, and tore out the socks I’d been working on. The yarn had clearly been worked over by a previous litter of kittens and it wasn’t working out with the pattern I’d chosen at all. I probably should have rewound it and tried a different pattern, but I was so unhappy about the experience that I just threw it out. I don’t do that often, but this time I did. So I’m working on starting a pair from some KnitPicks yarn (that they no longer sell) that I’d been swatching for a while. I’m at the point of final swatching, where I’m checking for the optimum number of stitches. It’s nice yarn, 100% merino, in a color called Red Wood Forest. My current plan, after the fiasco of the last aborted pair and the tight braided cable socks before than, is to just do a simple 2x2 rib and have some good mindless socks to carry around with me. I’ll do them toe up, so I can just go as far as I have yarn. Easy peasy. I’m also starting swatching on some other KnitPicks yarn that they no longer sell, Simple Stripes in blues and white. That might be a 2x2 rib, too, or maybe what I call a traveling rib, which is fun but easy. Or I haven't done a blueberry waffle in a long time.

I’m also planning on making a couple of cozies for my new water bottles and the plan is to go to the yarn store after I finish the newsletter and get some bamboo yarn for that. Right now I’m thinking I’ll crochet a circle for the bottom, then pick up stitches and knit up. I’m hoping that will be easy and quick.

I got my first birthday present today! My friend Victoria let me pick some stitch markers she’d made, as I’m running low on the smaller ones. They tend to pop off the needles sometimes and get lost in the carpet. So now I’ve got some new ones, some in different colors than the ones I already have, and they’re all beaded. (Beading seems to keep them from popping off the needles so much and also makes them easier to find.) Cool!

Now, to bed, as I have to get up early (for me) for my women’s group tomorrow.

When Did I Move to Iowa?

2008-02-19T00:48:00.002-06:00

Even if the weather doesn’t fit, it *feels* like we’ve moved to Iowa. Or maybe New Hampshire.

Normally the Texas primaries are boring. Occasionally a Governor’s race or even a Senate race will have some interest. There was the year we seemed to having a “fry off” in the Governor’s race. Each candidate was boasting about how many people they’d been responsible for having executed. *That* was fun. And the lovely one when Clayton Williams made a joke about rape and then refused to shake Ann Richards’ hand. Although, come to think of it, that wasn’t the primary, that was the election. Still. The interesting primaries are generally only state-wide, because our legislature has never scheduled them early in the nominating process. This doesn’t bother me so much as our state tends to vote conservative and I’d just as soon we didn’t have a big effect on the nomination of a President. The local primaries and elections are plenty exciting, irritating, and boring (all at the same time) enough.

But this year the Texas primaries next month matter to the nomination in both parties. Sigh. I wrote about how I’m already irritated at the TV commercials. I still am. Same commercials, mostly. I don’t think I’ve seen a John McCain commercial yet, which is just fine with me.

The problem now is that we’re being stalked by Hillary Clinton. She called us six times over the weekend and once today. And there was a doorbell I didn’t bother to answer. We’re also getting calls from other candidates for various things. My email box is overflowing with messages from people running for everything from dog catcher to President, plus their friends, like John Kerry and John Edwards.

It’s a little odd when your phone rings and you look at the Caller ID to see if it’s someone you would talk to and what you see is “Hillary Clintn”. I believe DH actually answered one of those calls, to tell the people that, no, we’re not going to volunteer at Hillary Headquarters. Not only is headquarters in south Austin, but one of us is definitely not voting for her and the other hasn’t decided. (I just keep repeating, Hillary can’t get elected. The conservatives, other than Ann Coulter, would rather vote for McCain than allow Hillary to be elected. And Ann Coulter doesn’t count. She shouldn’t be allowed to vote, anyway, as she’s clearly an illegal alien from Pluto.) It’s almost enough to make me wish we’d never registered as Democrats.

Everyone’s probably heard that there will be a Democratic debate here in town on Thursday. I’d be excited, but there’s no way we could get in. The local party is giving out 100 tickets, all that there are, by random drawing, which we were invited to enter. However, it sounds like no fun at all to me, and we couldn’t enter as a couple, meaning one of us would likely end up going alone, even if we got a ticket, which is unlikely. And I haven’t watched any of the debates so far, so I don’t know why I’d start now.

I can’t imagine how the folks in Iowa and New Hampshire put up with all this, especially since they start running as soon as the last election is over. I’ll be hard pressed to keep my sanity for the next four weeks!

Kitten update: The barricade in the hall has been rendered completely useless. This evening Arabella and the babies were getting restless and I realized it was time to feed them and put them away for the night. So I walked down the hall, dodging kittens attempting to get punted, and stepped over the barricade. I didn’t get any farther at first as I kept plucking boy kittens from the top of the barricade and returning them to the correct side. DH finally came to my rescue, but by the time I got back with the food bowls, all four kittens had figured out the secret.

Earlier in the evening Buster spent some time in the living room, mostly sleeping on DH’s lap. These babies are already in advanced Lap Napping class. Buster was in the same chair as Grumpy Old Wilma. He eventually figured out that she wasn’t going to eat him (she doesn’t have enough teeth, for one thing), so he settled in to, as DH said, “watch the inside of his eyelids”. They are getting big and smart, our babies! They still seem very small to me, but at least three of them are probably over a pound. I’m not sure about Camilla. By this age they really ought to be about 1.5 pounds and I suspect Dusty is. But they’ve been small all along and are perfectly healthy.

I guess that’s about it for today!

Why I Love History

2008-02-18T13:11:00.002-06:00

One of the reasons, anyway.

I was looking this morning at a local community newspaper for our area of Austin. I had not looked at it before, but this issue had an article on the next phase of our local version of Rodeo Drive. I am somewhat interested in it, because besides having very overpriced stores featuring nothing I’m interested in (and nothing my size, either), it includes my bookstore, a Starbucks, a tea shop, and an interesting sort of communal area with statues for kids to play on and a huge fireplace. There are also some overpriced and snooty restaurants, but the California Pizza Kitchen is not bad for the price. But I digress.

After reading that article, I was leafing through the rest of the issue and came across a short article that absolutely delighted me. (I’ll link to it in a bit.) One of the big streets near my house that I use a lot (there are three drive-through Starbucks on it) has what I’ve always considered a fairly odd name: Parmer Lane. We have a Palmer Auditorium near downtown, but this definitely has an R in it. I’d always figured it was named after someone that I’d never heard of. It wouldn’t be the first street around here with a name I couldn’t explain. (My personal favorite is West Cow Path, which is a small residential street. There is no East Cow Path.)

But, it turns out, Parmer used to be Palmer and no one is sure when or why it got misspelled or exactly which Palmer family it might have been named for. There were several candidates for that honor, including a couple of families who had farms in the area. But as recently as 1960, official maps very clearly show Palmer Lane. (You can see a picture of one, as well as read the whole article, here.) You know, 1960 isn’t *that* long ago. I remember 1960. I was very, very young, but I do remember it. And we had all sorts of written records and things; surely we could figure out when and where and by whom the misspelling occurred. Although, I suppose there are better things we could spend our city and county money on. (Which brings to mind: what was our City Planning Department doing creating a map on *linen*? That sounds relatively expensive to me. And what purpose does a map on linen serve?)

Anyway, I found this article very informative and quite entertaining.

Kitten Update: The barricade in the hall has been breached. The temporary one, which blocked off the door to my computer room, is still working, but I’m mostly not putting it up. Camilla is becoming fond of coming into the computer room and demanding attention. Of course, I’m simply hating that. (Yeah, right.) But it’s the closet door barricade, designed to keep the babies from the Dangerous Part of the house, that is only partly effective now. Saturday night Buster wanted desperately to be on the other side of the barricade where the people were. He sat and screamed at it and examined it and lept up. He managed to get his front paws in the crack between the doors where the hinges are and pulled himself up and over. Dusty has also figured it out. The girls, being smaller, have not yet done it, but I’m sure they will soon. Given the animosity between Simba and Arabella, I was hoping to keep them behind the barricade till next Saturday when Arabella goes back to the shelter. She and Simba have worked out an uneasy truce, but I doubt it would hold if her kittens were near Simba. So we’re going to have to be pretty vigilant about watching them when the kitten room door is open. I’m glad they want to be with us so much! But I would have been willing to wait for this particular developmental milestone.

Speaking of wanting to be with us, Dusty has become very attached it me. After his horrible, scary experience on Friday, going to the shelter, when he could have been killed Any Second by Who Knows What Horrible Thing, and when he was protected by me, he comes running to me every time he sees me or hears my voice. This is despite the fact that I was responsible for him being there in the first place and that he was not hurt or harmed in any way. In fact, the vet and vet tech were very gentle and he really has no reason to complain. I think I need to start getting them socialized to other people and places, so I’m planning on taking them, without Arabella, to at least one of my regular Tuesday appointments tomorrow. Arabella won’t appreciate having them removed, but it needs to get done.

Dusty Update, Friday Five, and Belicove.com

2008-02-15T17:13:00.002-06:00

Dusty and I went up to the shelter today. We had to wait a bit for the vet to be available, but that gave me a chance to talk to people and to show off Dusty. His other foster mom was especially happy to see him and hear how well he and his siblings are fairing. I was able to reassure her that Arabella is still a very excellent mom and that the babies are happy and healthy.

Dusty did not appreciate being in the shelter. (There’s a shock, huh?) He trembled most of the time we were waiting. Eventually he crawled into my lap and began a nap, which of course was when the vet became available.

He weighed in at about 1.2 pounds, which is good for his age. The vet said he seemed otherwise healthy, but that definitely *something* is going on with his eyes. They do contract and dilate and he can see, though his close-up sight is much worse than the far off sight. I had told them that he was the biggest of the babies and that he seems a bit slow in his development compared to his siblings. She seems to think that there might be some sort of neurological problem, but that he’s too young to tell yet. His other reflexes and everything are just fine. She was speculating that, since he was the biggest kitten, perhaps his birth had been difficult and he was briefly deprived of oxygen. Since they were born at the other shelter, there’s no way to know. But we think his eyes are looking somewhat better, so his sight might continue to improve. Either way, he’ll likely adjust to whatever eyesight he has, over time, and while his prospects of immediate adoption might be less rosy than the others, there are certainly people willing to adopt cats whose eyesight is not normal. And she wants to see him again in two weeks, when she’ll be better able to diagnose his neurological status. So, we will probably stay a bit worried about him, but I’m glad that he seems otherwise perfectly OK.

And I’ve been told I should call him “blue” rather than gray. I’m sorry. I’m good with color and that’s GRAY fur. However, the color does somewhat resemble the Russian Blue color, without the shiny tips and such. I shall continue to maintain that he is GRAY. And Dusty colored.

A Friday Meme (from The Friday Five):

1. Do you ever wonder if the way you see things visually aren't how other people see them?

Actually, I have wondered that. I believe that the different colors can be defined and measured by whatever light waves they absorb and reflect, but I do wonder if the blue I see is the same blue you see. Also, I know there are people who can see auras and such things, and I don’t, so that’s different.

2. What kind of sounds are the most annoying?

Repetitive. Especially the high whining sound sometimes emitted by machinery. Generally, though, my brain filters out any sounds I’m not actually paying attention to, so they don’t bother me much. Oh, and when someone is singing off key or in a monotone or perhaps a quarter of a tone below or above the actual note. I don’t, however, mind the sounds of a crying baby. DH and I usually look at each other and say something like, “This is not what I ordered! I am unhappy! Somebody fix it! Now!”

3. When walking through a store, do you shop with your hands by touching/feeling the texture of things?

Depends on the thing. I often pet yarn. If I’m in a fabric area, sometimes I’ll feel that. I’m probably less kinesthetically inclined than I am towards color. My eye will be drawn to bright colors, especially if it’s purple.

4. If you could only smell three scents for the rest of your life, what would they be?

I wouldn’t like that at all. While I am not as sensitive to scent as some, such as DS, I do like a variety of scents. Also, I become scent-insensitive pretty quickly, so that would get old quickly. However, my three favorite essential oils are jasmine, rose, and lavender. I’d probably be willing to give up the lavender for chocolate.

5. What sorts of things do you savor when eating them?

Chocolate! A Starbucks white chocolate mocha. Anything cherry flavored. Good brewed iced tea, properly sweetened and with a slice of lemon. Sour cream and butter on a good actual baked potato. (I mean as opposed to a microwaved potato, which doesn’t taste the same. Some cheeses. Salt. I’m very fond of salt. As you can tell, many things!

And another one (from Belicove.com):

Q1 - Prescription Drugs: Unless you've been living under a rock these past few weeks, you know that actor Heath Ledger tragically died earlier this month of an accidental prescription drug overdose. Despite the fact that doctors and pharmacists are drilled in the art of explaining to their patients and customers exactly how to take prescription drugs, far too many people – a lot of them actors – still get it wrong and accidentally over or wrongly medicate themselves. Have you ever become sick because of drugs you were prescribed by a doctor, or have you ever accidentally over medicated yourself?

No to both, to the best of my recollection. My mother had a problem with decongestants and my brother can’t take narcotic painkillers (and I think he’s sensitive to penicillin), but so far that hasn’t happened to me. Of course I don’t doctor-shop for people to prescribe different drugs that don’t do well together.

Q2 - Advice: What advice would you give to a young boy or girl who expresses a sincere interest in becoming President of the United States?

Counseling!

Q3 - The Sky Is Falling: Taking a page from Hollywood science fiction, the U.S. government said yesterday it will try its darnedest to shoot down a broken down, bus-size U.S. spy satellite that's on a collision course with Earth. The Pentagon hopes to smash the satellite as soon as next week – just before it enters Earth's atmosphere – with a single missile fired from a Navy boat in the Pacific Ocean. Do you have faith that the Navy will succeed in hitting the satellite, which will be about 150 to 175 miles above the Earth's surface when the shot is fired?

This is a joke, right? From the people who accidentally bombed a Chinese embassy? I recall once reading that Isaac Asimov was going to participate in a panel discussion of Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative in which some of the panelists were attending by satellites. As I recall, it took an extra long amount of time for them to get the satellite link working properly. When they asked Asimov why he was against SDI, he asked if he really should trust technology that still couldn’t reliably bounce signals off satellites. As I often do, I agree with Asimov. (My favorite Asimov quote?: “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” Yeah. What he said. Even if he was a hundred times more qualified to say it.)

Q4 - Spam: Which do you find more annoying... email spam or snail mail junk mail?

Neither annoys me much. I rarely see the snail mail junk mail. DH discards it and only gives me things that I need or want to see. And I have the best spam filter that Thunderbird offers. I still see occasional spam, but not nearly as much. And the stuff that repeatedly finds its way through the spam checker will likely end up with a message filter created for it so that it just goes straight to the trash file. I love being able to do that.

Ah, I see the bad weather promised to arrive right around rush hour today is here. Hard rain, possibly thunderstorms, and a possibility of hail. Spring has arrived in central Texas. Wildflowers should not be far behind.

An Open Letter to the Cheesecake Factory

2008-02-14T22:13:00.002-06:00

My Darling Husband and I decided to celebrate Valentine’s Day by having dinner together at your establishment in my city. We hadn't been there in several years and were looking for something nice and celebratory. There are several things I’d just like to mention to you.

First the good things. The wait for a table was not bad, considering it was Valentine’s Day. In fact, the estimate of the wait was twice what the wait actually was. And the waitstaff were uniformly friendly, without getting too personal, very helpful, and not intrusive. Just what I’d expect in a medium-priced nice restaurant. And the food was good. It could have come a little quicker, but I doubt the local management realized that half of the city was coming over for dinner. It was not unreasonable, given the occasion.

And the wine I had was very good, if a bit overpriced for half a glass. And the dessert, though big enough to feed a family of four, was also good. We rebelled against custom and had the Warm Apple Crisp, which I justify because it has apples in it, and apples are good for you. I just didn’t look at the ice cream, caramel sauce, whipped cream, and brown sugar that accompanied the apples and which were quite yummy.

But.

It clearly has never occurred to you, but some of us, when we go to a nice restaurant for a meal with our Significant Other, would like to be able to converse with them, without having to shout and without being interrupted by the couple at the next table who are trying to have a conversation, too. While I do sometimes find listening to other people’s conversations entertaining, I’d like to be able to choose *not* to do that. By the time one has factored in the noise generated by several hundred people, music that no one can hear anyway, and the clanking of cutlery and plates, having a nice conversation that’s not at the top of your voice is difficult and requires an ability to lip read. Something to dampen the noise so that the waiters can hear the customers and the customers can hear each other would be helpful. And I know this is not just a problem with the local establishment; the first time we ate in a Cheesecake Factory was in Chicago and we noticed the same problem.

Also, I haven’t been to a Cheesecake Factory at any time that didn’t have a wait for a table. Obviously, you are a popular restaurant chain. Would it hurt to have some place other than around the front desk for people to wait for a table? Even a comfortable place to *stand* would be good. More benches or chairs or something would be nice for those of us who don’t like to stand for half an hour waiting for a table.

Then there’s the menus. Y’all have a fine menu, with many choices. But ads? Really? I mean, if we’re paying almost $60 for dinner (including tip), I’m having a hard time imagining that you need ad revenue. I am confronted with advertisements wherever I look – email, the Internet, other people’s blogs, the movies. Well, I’m sure you’ve seen them, too. I would prefer not to see them in the MENU at a nice restaurant. (In the ladies’ room? I’ve seen tasteful posters and can cope with that.)

Oh, and the lighting. I know that lower lights are supposed to be more romantic. But some of us who are no longer in our 20s find that reading the menu would be easier if the lighting was a bit brighter. Even candles on the table might help. I realize, from looking around and from overhearing several different conversations, that most of the customers are not in my age range. Still, we eat out, too, and would like to read the menus.

Another suggestion: the outdoor eating area would be more appealing to me if there wasn’t an abundance of car exhaust less than 10 feet from the tables. I don’t know that that’s fixable in the location we went to, but I thought I’d mention it.

And, finally, the main reason I probably won’t be back soon. Well, that and the $60. Iced tea. Now, I realize that y’all began in Los Angeles and that the founders were from Detroit, so the Texas tradition of iced tea may not be familiar to you. But here in Texas, we drink iced tea with any meal (although less often with breakfast) and at the nicest restaurants. If y’all want to serve fruit flavored iced tea, fine. I realize that there are people who like fruit in their tea, though I’ve never understood it. The only fruit I want in there is a slice of lemon. Sometimes, if I’m feeling exotic, maybe a slice of lime. I don’t want green tea. Yes, many people prefer it. To me it tastes like the dirt wasn’t washed off the tea leaves. And I don’t want mine sweetened with sugar, especially presweetened. How can y’all possibly know how sweet I want my tea? And anyway, I prefer artificial sweetener in my iced tea. I have trouble wrapping my head around a nice, medium expensive restaurant, that doesn’t have normal, plain iced tea. And, if it is impossible to serve brewed iced tea, please be sure that when someone orders iced tea that you make sure that they know that it will be fruit flavored, green, or presweetened. I personally loved good iced tea. Please, this seems easily fixable. Restaurants in Texas (anywhere, really, but especially anywhere in the south) must serve regular, normal iced tea.

Thank you for your time and attention.

Toys!

2008-02-14T00:38:00.001-06:00

Did you know that there are cat toys in the world? The kittens seem to have just truly discovered this interesting fact today. Oh, sure, they’d batted at a toy or two before, but today no kitten toy (or anything else in the kitten room) was safe. We were also bouncing around like Tigger, pouncing on siblings and Mom’s tail with abandon.

This afternoon I went and sat on the floor in the hall, trying to encourage them to venture forth from the kitten room. It worked, a bit. We all had a good time. I did some tracking exercise with Dusty, who got better at hitting the finger he was aiming at. He seems to be left-pawed. I don’t know if that indicates which eye is having problems, but he only batted at me with his left paw. (And with claws extended, which began to *hurt*.) Camilla seemed to just want me to hold her, though I was allowed to give tummy rubs, which are almost always accompanied by biting. Nothing hard, though.

One of the things I noticed was that the fabric cubes I bought a week or so ago are suddenly in frequent, active use. They look like this, except with a different fabric. The sides of the holes are high enough up that the babies still need jump into the cubes. And what you can’t see in the picture is the dangling ribbons hanging from the top of each cube, which were just discovered today. At one point I saw Emma run out of the closet and do a running broad jump into one end of the cubes. She tangled briefly with her brothers, who were evidently fighting for ownership of the cube, and then ran out the other end, to pounce on Mom’s tail. (Mom’s tail is still currently the most favored toy.)

So I had a brainstorm and took the cubes and set them up so that one end is in the kitten room and the other end is in the hall. They have spent a bit more time in the hall this evening. I figure tomorrow I’ll sit at the other barricade and see if I can coax them out that far. The beauty of sitting by the closet door barricade is that I can use it to help lever myself off the floor. Getting old. It’s occasionally frustrating.

Camilla spent a good deal of the afternoon just wanting to be with me. (And I so don’t mind that!) These babies are all quiet and gentle, but Camilla’s the quietest and gentlest of the lot. And she adores me. This evening she climbed up into DH’s lap and settled down for a long winter’s nap, presumably making a bid to be The Kitten Who Stayed. She’s pretty much got me convinced, but I’m easy. DH will be more of a challenge. Also Simba, who has officially registered as the president of the I Hate Arabella and Her Kids Club. Sigh. And Arabella returns his feeling. I sure hope that once Arabella is out of the house he’ll give the babies a chance to be friends.

Just now Arabella came into the computer room to remind me to put down fresh canned food, so I did that. Then, as I brought the plates into the kitten room, I discovered we have begun the Punting of the Kittens. This happens when kittens, especially tiny guys like these, want to be close to somebody and that somebody is trying to walk. It’s not really that they get kicked – they just get scooted forward by your foot. Some kittens, not quick learners, have been known to get stepped on. The best time for punting kittens is when they’ve been roaming in the house and we’ve gotten out food and are taking it to the distribution point. They want to follow us into the kitten room, but they’re quite eager and tend to follow from in front. Then, without warning, they stop in your path to let you catch up. Punt! I think I punted three out of the four, just trying to get from the first barricade into the feeding area of the kitten room. (It’s been my experience that grown kitties learn to stay farther away from feet. We have also noticed that most black or dark cats learn fairly quickly that people don’t see well in the dark, so they learn to give us a wide berth when the lights are low. Mostly.

Change of subject.

As we all know, I watch a lot of TV, which means I watch a lot of commercials. I wish I had a wide enough readership that I could start a campaign against stupid commercials. By which I mean not only the commercials being stupid, but also ones that seem to imply that anyone buying the product is also stupid. Take, for example, the Sonic commercials. There’s always a slap at the end of the little skit which I wish could be applied to whoever wrote the stupid commercial and whoever approved it. I know that there are some people who think that the two guys in one set of the ads are gay partners. Frankly, if I were gay I’d resent the comparison. And the husband of the hetero couple is probably the brother of the idiot guy in the other set. The *idiot* brother of the idiot guy. They all need serious slapping.

This evening I looked at the TV to see an ad featuring a bright, chirpy couple who are so taste challenged that they can’t pick out the furniture they want and so must buy a whole roomful at a time. This particular couple was chirping that at *other* furniture stores you need to be sure to read the fine print or bad, expensive things can happen. (I believe “bad, expensive things” is a direct quote.) If you look at the bottom of the screen, what do you see? You guessed it. Fine print. Slap.

Here in Texas the political ads have finally started. By finally I don’t mean that I *wanted* them, just that that money was being spent elsewhere till yesterday. And already I’m tired of them and have been feeling cynical about them. I find myself especially objecting to the Obama one where he begins by saying that his mom died of cancer at the age of 53. The commercial is supposed to be about his health care plan (with no specifics), but it feels more like, “Vote for me because my mom died at a relatively young age of cancer.” I probably will vote for him, but it won’t be because I feel sorry for him. We’re getting Clinton ads, too, but they have evidently not yet annoyed me. I’m sure it won’t be long. A bit surprisingly, I haven’t yet seen any McCain or Huckabee ads. I know my area of Texas is, in the words of the late, lamented Molly Ivins, “the commie-pinko area of Texas” and that we are somewhat low on Republicans (except the ones that come from elsewhere to fill elective office). But we do have some Republicans, and the local stations broadcast into counties which are much less progressive. Not that I’m wanting the Republican ads. They will annoy me more than the Democratic ones. Yes, that *is* possible.

On the topic of the water bottle I was looking for. I looked around online and found some bottles that come closer to what I want. They are nonbreakable (a nice bonus since the last one committed suicide), have a wide mouth so I can put in ice, have a straw, and an easy way to sip that doesn’t require me to tilt my head all the way back to get a drink. I will admit that the straw was the deal breaker with the ones I looked at yesterday; they didn’t have straws. I would have liked to have some way of insulating the bottle to retain cold and handle condensation, but these are as close as I could get. I took myself over to REI today and bought a small one for bedside water and a 32-ouncer for taking with me to rehearsals and such. The smaller one is purple (surprise!) and the big one is blue, as it doesn’t come in purple. I suppose I could knit something, but I’m not sure what fiber would be good to handle the condensation. Suggestions?

Happiness

2008-02-12T18:16:00.000-06:00

Sometimes it just doesn’t take much to make me happy. Right now I’m very pleased because my excursions today were ¾ successful.

First I had a nice session with my counselor. Always a good thing. I got to wear my newest completed socks, the tight braided cable socks in Atmosphere in KnitPicks Felici yarn. They fit nicely (of course) and I’m pretty please with how they came out. I did them toe up so I could make the leg as long as I wanted and that was a good decision.

Next I went to get my nails done. That’s always pleasant. We talk and gossip and laugh and watch General Hospital. Especially nice today was that she had in the new polish colors from OPI. She and I agreed on which colors we like – several of them – and which we didn’t. But I was especially happy with the Yoga-ta Get This Blue! (OPI always has amusing names for their colors. My long-time favorite, a gorgeous deep red, is named I’m Not Really a Waitress, from their Hollywood collection.) One of the very first nail polishes I bought, when I was in college, was a deep blue which I adored. My mother, when she saw it, said, “You look like you dipped your fingers in ink!” She was not paying a compliment. Of course, that did it for me. I loved that color! I would have liked it anyway, but if it annoyed my mom, it was a winner. But I lost the bottle decades ago and have been searching for a similar deep blue ever since. This is it! Nearly 12 years after her death, I still get a kick out of annoying my mother.(g) Who says I’m getting old? (My memory, but let’s not get into that now.)

My next stop was the only failure. I want a new water bottle. I had bought one that was close to what I wanted, but it committed suicide last night. It fell off the roof of my car and broke. Sigh. I looked up water bottles online at The Container Store and found something that I thought would do, and it would do, but it’s not quite what I’d really like, so I’m going to look farther. For the kind of money that kit (there would be three pieces of it) costs, I want to make sure it’s the best I can do.

Next I went to PetSm@rt for food for our little family. It was not hard to be successful there, of course. Lots of kitten food. The kittens (and Mom) have recently expressed a desire for something other than the Science Diet chicken & liver kitten food. They did that by scarfing up anything else they’re given, but leaving plenty of the Science Diet on the plates. I mean, after all, they’ve been eating that same flavor for a whole week and a half! What’s a kitten got to do to get something different? I was only doing what all the websites about raising kittens say, which is to not vary their food. The problem with that is that the kittens, most of them, that we’ve had were not consulted when that recommendation was made. So I picked up a variety of different foods. As I was finishing up, a nice young employee stopped and asked if I had found everything. In fact, I had found everything I was mainly looking for, but there was something I’ve been trying to find to several years now: lids for the small cans of kitten food. A lot of the kitten food and some of what we buy for Cranky Old Lady Wilma comes in small cans. With this group of kittens I use the whole small can at a time and we have lids for the big cans. Wilma never eats the whole small can at a time, though, and with a smaller number of kittens, occasionally I only put out a half or a quarter of a can at a time. The rest needs to be refrigerated and I prefer that the people food not begin to smell like cat food. We have lids that sort of fit the small cans, but they’ve split down the middle, which seems to me to defeat the purpose. So I’ve been looking for lids for some time – and today the young employee found them for me! I really don’t think they’d been there all along. I have spent, over the years, quite a bit of time looking at every single thing hanging from those hanging racks where they put things they hope you’ll buy on impulse, and they were never there. But today they were! I got four. I was so excited, anyone would think I’d found a thousand dollars lying around. Or a stash of yummy sock yarn. Like I said, it doesn’t take much to make me happy.

On the Dusty front, the shelter wants me to take him in on Friday so that their vet can look at him. The vet has been on maternity leave, so we need to catch her when she can come! But Friday is a good day for me. It will be the first time any of the babies have been separated from Mom for more than a few minutes, which should be interesting. And Dusty is definitely the most attached to his mom of all of them. I had wanted to take them with me to see my counselor and my nail tech today – they let me bring in kittens for some socialization, which these guys are starting to need – but I was not comfortable taking them away from Mom for that long yet. Friday will give me a chance to see how Arabella and Dusty do separated. Heaven knows what I’ll carry him in! The carrier the shelter leant us for the little family is big enough for a small dog – he’d be lost in there! Our personal carrier is smaller, but still big. Somewhere I used to have one of those cardboard carriers you sometimes get at shelters or pet stores, but it may have been discarded when the garage was slightly decluttered. If I can’t find that, I’ll compromise with our personal carrier – at least it won’t swallow him whole and it will fit in the front seat, which the big one won’t!

The babies are still not comfortable venturing out into the hall unless I’m there. We need to get them to be a bit less skittish!

Just now I had to get up and go police the kitten room. Cranky Old Lady Wilma has discovered that there is *food* in there! That’s the second time I’ve heard low level unhappiness noises from the kitten room and gone in there to discover that Wilma is eating the food. The low level noises are from Arabella, who doesn’t hesitate to charge Simba and run him out of the hall, but for some reason doesn’t take Wilma on. She just warns her. With other kittens, we haven’t worried about her eating some of their food – they frequently help clean up her plates – but we don’t want Arabella upset like that. Arabella doesn’t need the stress and it scares the babies.

Remodeling!

2008-02-10T00:11:00.000-06:00

Well, not really. What we’ve done is set up what was supposed to be a bigger play area for the babies.

We took the folding closet door (one side) that DS somehow broke off of his closet and set it sideways across the hall where the doorway into the living room is. Then I took a box and a white board and made a similar (if more mobile) barrier at the door to the computer room. (Because it would be way too easy for one of the babies to get totally lost in here!)

There were too points to this. One was to give Arabella a chance to get some time without kittens. That part has worked fine. Mostly fine. She and Simba have said very ugly things to each other. She has also warned Wilma about existing in what is clearly now Arabella’s house. Wilma handled it better than Simba – I couldn’t tell that Wilma even heard it! The other idea was to get the kittens used to playing in the hall, with the idea that eventually (in a few days) they’d be ready to learn the whole house. That hasn’t worked at all.

The hall is scary. The only time they’re willing to be out there is if I’m in the hall, too. And even then they gather at my feet and want up. I’ve put toys out there, but they’re too busy being hyper vigilant to notice. I’ve been leaving the door to the kitten room open when we’re home, but it hasn’t changed in a couple of days. Eventually they’re going to *have* to leave the kitten room!

But at least Arabella is getting a chance to leave the kittens for a few minutes. This evening she wandered into the Big Kitties’ Room and was eating the food in there. This is fine with us. Not sure what Simba will think.(g) But it’s clear that even if we wanted to keep her, which we really don’t, getting her and Simba to live together amicably would be a problem. If she were here without babies to protect it might be different, I don’t know, but as it is her forever home will need to be elsewhere.

But that shouldn’t be a problem. She’s a gorgeous girl and also very sweet and loving. She lets me pick her up and cuddle her fairly frequently (more than Simba, anyway) and usually purrs with her lovely deep chesty purr. She has even a couple of times jumped up into my lap to ask for attention. She also seems fairly bright (not as smart as Simba, but few cats are). I think she won’t stay long in the shelter.

The babies are growing apace. Last weekend they started eating solid food, both wet and dry, took to using the litter box very quickly, and began playing and running. Great strides in maturity! Arabella is still nursing them several times a day, though they’ll leave her for fresh wet food.(g) But then, she’ll leave *them* for fresh canned food! She doesn’t nurse them every time they ask, though. And I’ve seen at least two of them trying the water bowl. The level seems to be going down faster, but I don’t know for sure that they’re drinking it.

We’re a bit concerned about Dusty. His umbilical hernia seems completely gone, but now we’re worried about his eyes. We think maybe he has strabismus (lazy eye). His depth perception is lousy – he was batting at something the other day that was at least a body length away. We don’t think he’s getting good focus. And it may be affecting his personality. He is more aggressive than the others and more aggressive than the other kittens his age that we’ve raised. He bites, sometimes hard, and yesterday I had to discipline him. I answered the door (it was DS) holding him and Camilla, and evidently DS scared him. He began hissing and seriously growling, scaring Camilla and causing me to be a tad worried at how close he was to my face! I did what I’ve learned to do to discipline small kittens – grab them by the scruff, hold them so they can clearly see my face, and either growl or say “No!” firmly, or both. Then petting, to show he’s still loved. Supposedly this is similar to what a momma cat would do, though I personally have never seen it. It has worked to varying degrees on foster kittens. Dusty was one on whom it worked perfectly. He calmed right down.

So that’s the update. Aside from worries about Dusty’s eyes and wanting them to begin exploring outside the kitten room, everything is great. They’re all happy and healthy and busy. As well as the cutest kittens currently on the planet!

KItten Update!

2008-01-24T17:39:00.000-06:00

Victoria rightly reminds me to do an update on the babies. (I apologize; what with the newsletter to do and the very cold weather, I seem to be moving slowly.)

Babies and momma are doing fine. I figured out to put some of the Kitten Milk Replacement *in* the canned food for Arabella and I believe it is helping her milk supply. I’m also planning on supplementing the babies a bit. I did some of that with syringes, but frankly that’s a slow and inefficient delivery method. My plan is to try them on bottles, but I haven’t really had a chance. The syringes deliver only a ml at one time and after one syringe they become less cooperative. According to a chart I saw, kittens their age need 56 ml delivered in four feedings a day. When I’m giving them one or two ml when 14 are needed, I’m not sure I’m doing anyone much good. So, we’ll try a bottle, when I’m feeling a bit better. (I am feeling achy and cold and I think I’ve got an ear infection. Or two ear infections. How does one write that to be grammatically correct?) Maybe this evening.

Anyway, Arabella’s current canned food, which she gets at least three times a day, is a quarter of a can of the prescription diet and a quarter can of Science Diet kitten food, plus as much KMR as I think I can get away with. I’ve added the kitten food as we’ve got one and a half cans of the prescription food left and I wanted to transition her over rather than changing abruptly. She seems to love it, though I think I put too much KMR in the last batch. But she’ll eat it eventually. And it is helping her milk supply. The kittens, in general, feel like they should be latched on at all times, I’m guessing because they don’t often feel completely full. But when I went in the kitten room last night I found the babies curled up into a kitten ball and Momma watching them from my chair. They were awake and not demanding her attention, so I suspect she got them filled up. Of course, if she can keep them satisfyingly full without my supplementing, that would be better. So she gets as much Mommy Mixture as she wants!

This afternoon when I took in a bowl of the Mixture, the babies complained because she got out of the box. I like to stay and co-parent when she eats, so I was trying to calm them down. However, being held by Momma Grande (that’s what I’m calling myself) was not at all satisfying. So I did what I’ve done the last couple of days – I put them on the floor outside of the box.

That’s a great distraction. Suddenly their curiosity is stronger than the hunger pains. They are still toddling, but they’re working on that skill. Emma, who is normally the Fuss-Budget, is almost actually walking, though she does tump over sideways occasionally without any warning.(g) She’s gotten pretty fast in her toddling/almost walking adventures and I really have to keep an eye on her. Last night she scooted under the table that is functioning as DH’s desk. Then she realized that she was totally lost in the great big world with no idea how to get home, so she began screaming for help, which came from both Arabella and DH. Her preference, though, is to try to find Mom when she (Emma) is cruising. At one point yesterday Mom was sitting at the water bowl and Emma was getting as close as possible and stepped into the water bowl. I removed her and dried her paw. This afternoon I put them all on the floor and Dusty went to stand by Mom, who was eating. He stepped into the food bowl and again I removed him and told him he needs to wait another week before he’s likely to be ready to make that kind of mess. I got the impression, though, that he thought he smelled food, which is encouraging for when the weaning process starts.

I’m giving them nicknames. Buster has become Bustopher Jones, who is a character in the musical Cats and in T.S. Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats. Bustopher Jones is actually a plump older tuxedo cat, so he and Buster have nothing particularly in common except similar sounding names. Dusty is Roly Poly. Not only is he a similar gray to a pillbug, but he *is* roly-poly! (There’s an Asleep at the Wheel song with that name, which of course is running wildly through my poor brain. Fortunately I love Asleep at the Wheel.) I often find Dusty rolled over on his back, happily waving his tiny paws in the air. Emma is mostly Fussy Emma. (Though DH is calling her Emily.(g)) Camilla, though, is Beautiful Camilla. She has a completely lovely, tiny little face that I just adore.

All of their eyes are open and their ears are raising up. (Dusty reminds me of a gray baby seal.(g)) Buster has tried to bite me and his mom (no damage was inflicted). There seem to have been some attempts at playing, though that may be wandering around the box and climbing over one another. Both boys purr, and I think I caught Camilla purring, too. Emma’s presumably not into purring because she is only happy when latched onto Momma, and then she doesn’t want to waste any energy making a noise that Mom makes much better.(g)

Arabella has pretty much stopped trying to escape the kitten room and explore the house, which is fine. Last night when I was in the kitten room, I left the door open. She got a bit hypervigilant about noise in the hall, but no one came within sight of the door.

So, things are going pretty well.

On the newsletter front, I’ve got it out to my proofreaders and will finish it up tonight. It’s actually shorter than normal.

I’ve decided not to make it to church on Sunday. I’m planning on having a previous engagement. There are a couple of people (no one who reads this, though!) who strongly need to be seriously slapped and I figure it’d be better for me to not encounter them at the moment.

This is something I just don’t get. We’re a pretty damned active group, with a number of different programs, projects, and committees. Anyone with spare energy can find something either fun, education, or worthwhile to spend it on. What I don’t get is when someone gets so involved in what most interests them that they lose sight of the fact that we have MANY programs, etc. At least two people this week are mad at me because I’ve already made them special cases and changed the guidlines for them for either the newsletter or the Order of Service. One person, asked to send me no more than 600 words, sent 1,500+! That’s two and a half pages and *nobody* gets that much space! I agreed years ago to give this program a full page twice a year, because there is a lot of information to disseminate, but really! When there are many very good webpages with that information, as well as a dedicated bulletin board. This happens every-effing-time this program happens. Suddenly being given twice as much space as just about any other program isn't enough and it is unreasonable for me to ask that they work with me and they're completely surprised to be asked to follow there special guidelines. Why? Because this particular program is THE MOST IMPORTANT THING THE CHURCH DOES. By far. Nothing else comes close.

Which would come as a real surprise to another person, who is so annoyed with me that every newsletter or Order of Service submission comes with the word count in the title of the email. This person is also annoyed with me because we have asked this person to use the email list that is dedicated to announcements for the purpose for which it was intended. We have a perfectly good chat list and have offered to help set up a separate email list for the discussions this person wants on the announce list, but still we are horrible uncaring people because we won’t make a special case for this committee which is (you guessed it) THE MOST IMPORTANT THING THE CHURCH DOES. By far. Nothing else comes close.

Sigh.

I’m trying to balance the needs and desires of the whole community. No good deed goes unpunished! Fortunately, most of the people that I work with to get information in the newsletter are reasonable, kind, and considerate people and do understand what the newsletter’s purpose is. It is them I mostly think about when my most sincere desire is to knock some people off their various blocks.(g) Even the people who are completely unaware what the definition of “deadline” is are at least apologetic and worth within the rest of the guidelines. (And y’all know who I mean!)

So I think DH and I will go out somewhere and have a really nice Sunday brunch and enjoy each other’s company.

So around here everything is bumping around well.

The Babies are Back!

2008-01-22T00:46:00.000-06:00

Yes, most people reading this don’t know the babies were ever gone. I seem to not want to dignify bad news by writing it down. (Or typing it up. Why is writing down and typing up?)

Last Wednesday Arabella began to neglect the babies. She wasn’t keeping them clean any more. She also wasn’t eating the canned food, not much of the dry food, and not drinking enough water.

By Thursday evening it was plain there was a problem. She had eaten hardly anything and not had much water and the babies were crying pitifully while she sat in another part of the room. DH got some formula down them and eventually Arabella went back in the box and fed them. I sat up most of the night, checking in on them frequently, and she did seem to be keeping them fed. So Friday morning I packed up the whole family and took them down the shelter.

I came back with only Arabella. She had what looks like a bite (and not kitten-sized teeth, either) that was swollen and infected and developing an abscess. The clinic folks cleaned it out and gave her some subcutaneous fluid, but they also said she had no milk. And, of course, the kittens were not clean and were hungry. It was decided that the babies should go to another foster mom who loves taking the little ones and Arabella would come home to us.

Evidently one of the things that happens when a mommy kitty starts feeling bad is that she spends very little time with the babies. In part I suspect it’s because she doesn’t feel well and doesn’t have the energy, but of course if she has something contagious she won’t want to pass it on.

Friday evening she was really mad at me. I could hardly blame her. I was the one that was there when the clinic staff hurt her took her babies away. She resented strongly the medication we gave her and was just a very unhappy little girl. She had had some prescription canned food at the shelter, but ate none of it the rest of the evening. After the icky medicine, though, she did drink a lot of the fresh water, so that was a beginning.

Saturday morning she was better. Still didn’t like the medicine, but she didn’t try to kill us. (It definitely takes two full-grown adults to medicate that cat.) She still wasn’t eating the canned food, but she was allowing us to give her love and attention. She was also trying to get out of the kitten room whenever possible and we suspected she was looking for the babies. I had taken the box/nest out of the room, thinking that asking her to have it there without the babies was unkind.

By Saturday evening, though, we noticed that her milk had come back in. She was getting a bit worried about looking for the babies and we thought she was becoming uncomfortable. So I fired off an email to the shelter, wondering if we could try reuniting them.

On Sunday she had clearly bounced back. She was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and *really* wanted the kittens. She was eating the prescription food at a quick clip, along with the dry food, and drinking a lot of water. And I suspect the amount of milk she had accumulated was very uncomfortable. And her wound had healed so well that when some ointment was put on it, she didn’t even flinch.

So this afternoon I was thrilled to take her back up to the shelter to see if the family could be reunited. She was not excited about getting back in the cat carrier – after all, the last time I put her in there, she was hurt and the babies were taken away. However, I eventually got her in there with all the doors closed, and off we went.

The other foster mom works at the shelter, so the babies were up there with her. She said that although she’d loved having them and they were both adorable and sweet, that the girls had developed some diarrhea because of the change in their diet and she had been concerned about them. She gave us some medication they can have if they need it – I figure I’ll see how they’re doing on momma’s milk tomorrow before deciding to give it to them or not – and also pointed out that Dusty has an umbilical hernia. The receiving staff were not concerned about either of those things. Generally speaking, the diarrhea should clear up. And the umbilical hernia, I found after a bit of Googling, is not uncommon in tiny kittens and puppies. It’s not dangerous unless one of the internal organs slips into it, and then of course there would be pain. Dusty doesn’t seem to be in any pain. In fact, he’s the largest and happiest of the four! Generally such a hernia is repaired when the kitten is spayed or neutered. So I’ll watch him for signs of pain, but otherwise I suspect he’ll be OK.

I wanted to reunite them at the shelter, just in case there was a problem. But there wasn’t. She was happy to have babies to feed and they were thrilled to have a mommy to nurse them. As of late this evening, all four babies looked like they could use a good bath but were otherwise thrilled and happy to be home. I’m interpreting that from all the full tummies and naps that were being taken.(g) We caught Arabella between nursing sessions and medicated her – she’s still not convinced that’s a good idea, but we’re ignoring that. Then I gave her fresh water – she likes having really fresh water to take the taste of the medicine out of her mouth -- and delivered some prescription canned food and a bit of kitten formula which could give her needed nourishment if she wants it. She gobbled up all but a couple of bites of the canned food, drank a lot of water, sniffed at but rejected the formula, then requested attention. So I picked her up and we spent some time communing mother to mother on the difficulties of raising babies and still meeting our own needs. She is again doing a *lot* of loud purring and I’m quite enjoying that. Then Emma and Dusty noticed that they were only sleeping with their siblings and that mom was out of the box. She gave them a bit of time to see if perhaps they’d just go back to sleep, but then she decided that it was time to feed the babies again. I left her happily purring in the nest and I think I heard a second soft purr, probably from one of the boys.

As usual, we are learning a lot about caring for a lactating mom and her kittens. First rule – when she slows down eating or seems to be neglecting tiny ones, there’s a problem! We’re all really happy to have the babies back. (Well, not *all*. Wilma and Angel don’t care. I think Simba senses that there’s something fascinating going on in the kitten room again and he’d like to be able to be involved, but we don’t think that’s wise.(g))

Updates

2008-01-14T23:51:00.000-06:00

So, updates.

After my ~~whine~~, uh, venting, last week about sitting next to those who cannot sing, things went better. NS#1 was not at choir practice, so I didn’t have to worry about not sitting next to her or trying to move or whatever. I would feel really bad if I learned I’d hurt her feelings; it’s not what I want. What I want is that by this week’s practice she will have magically learned to read music, developed an excellent sense of rhythm, and a good ear for notes. I am not holding my breath.

Tonight’s chorus rehearsal went well, too. As I started to sit down, NS#2 walked up behind me and was taking the seat to my right. I quickly found an empty chair down at the end of the Alto 2 section and moved. I sat next to two really strong singers, although one didn’t have much voice as she’s been sick. One of the things I noticed (not that it was a surprise) is that I am *not* a perfect singer. (Don’t fall over from shock.) Even in the song I know well, African Celebration, there were spots where I messed up. (Fortunately for my ego, the strong singer to my right also made mistakes and not the same ones.) The director made a bit point of looking right at NS#2 where there were small differences in notes (as mentioned last week) and worked really hard with us. I think we sounded better.

Of course, there was the other piece we worked on. I won’t name it, and it won’t be hard to figure out why. Supposedly it was written in celebration of another women’s chorus. I say supposedly, because I think it was written or at least arranged by someone who hates singers and directors. It’s supposed to be arranged for four sections, but our director was having to be very creative to make sure all the notes will be sung. There are places where two of the sections are divided into two sets of notes, making for six sections in reality. However, some of those places were easy to assign to other sections as at the same spot the other section had long stretches of rest. (Even I know that’s just stupid.) The other thing about this piece that makes me suspect the arranger hates singers is the fact that every time a particular lyric (I guess it’s meant to be the chorus) is sung, the rhythm, which is pretty tricky to begin with, and the notes are slightly different. I was having trouble with it all and was very thankful not to be sitting next to NS#2!

Update on our little foster family: Everyone is doing well. Arabella continues to be just an excellent mom and also very sweet and loving with us. She just purrs up a storm whenever one of us is around! Yesterday she met DS and that went well. The babies are definitely growing and maturing. They’re one week old today. Camilla has both eyes open. Dusty and Emma each have one open (which must be really odd), and Buster’s eyes are still closed. However, he’s the one who purred a couple of weeks early, so I still rate him as advanced for his age.(g) Personalities are being developed. Emma is very, very fussy. Any time I pick her up, she fusses, which generally upsets her mom. But she also fusses at Arabella a lot, so it’s not me. It’s Emma. Buster is very curious. When I picked him this evening, he was perfectly happy to be lying on my chest and was sniffing around with interest, wondering (presumably) where he was. Dusty is occasionally fussy with me. Camilla’s very easy-going, even when her mom accidentally rolls her around.

Yesterday I promised Arabella a guided tour of the house, but every time I went into the kitten room, she was nursing. This evening she got her guided tour. It was short. She was *very* interested in everything, but didn’t ask to get down. Then I introduced her to Wilma. Wilma was totally unimpressed and uninterested. Arabella hissed at her. So I took her into the bedroom where Simba was slowly waking from his middle-evening nap. She not only hissed at him, she also growled, rather seriously. We went back into the kitten room fairly quickly at that point and I hope we’ve cured the immediate curiosity about what goes on outside the kitten room. There are Dangerous Other Cats out there! (Oh, Simba was also unimpressed. He’s still trying to figure out why my hands smell funny after petting the babies. He does not care about Arabella.)

I think Arabella still looks a bit too thin, but the babies are all clearly well fed and doing well, so I’m not worrying about it.

A New Adventure!

2008-01-12T13:02:00.000-06:00

We’ve started on a new adventure here at the S household. Living in our kitten room at the moment are a mommy cat and her four babies. The babies are five days old today.

DH wasn’t at all sure about this “experiment”, but the mom and babies were at the local shelter that does euthanize, so they were in grave danger and my shelter (Humane Society) was anxious to get them out of there. Normally I don’t take babies this young, but that’s because they need feeding every couple of hours and need to be stimulated to excrete. I can’t get up in the night like that and the stimulating thing is just icky to me. But the mommy cat does all of that, so we took them.

They got here yesterday. The mom, whom I’m thinking of calling Arabella, is a pretty gray and white patched cat with a tabby tail. She’s probably about a year old. I was worried that she might be feral – the other shelter is supposed to get all the strays in town, so you never know what’s going to be there – but she’s very sweet and loving and not at all feral. That’s good for us, but it makes me angry that someone had evidently been caring for her and interacting with her and then took her to the shelter, presumably when they realized she was pregnant, even though they had to know that she and the babies might be euthanized.

But she’s very much not feral. She loves getting attention from us and purrs very loudly indeed. I’ve been giving her a lot of attention and petting, especially when she’s nursing, and telling her how pretty she is and what a good mommy she is.

And she is. The babies are quite healthy, clean, and warm. Arabella doesn’t mind us picking them up and cuddling them, so I’m doing that several times a day to begin the socialization process. They seem to like that. If they do start sounding upset, mom gets a bit upset and looks for them, which is completely natural and normal and reassuring for me.

Arabella is a bit thin, I guess partly from stress and because of childbirth and nursing, so we’re offering dry adult and kitten food and canned kitten food two or three times a day. I offered cat milk, too, but she didn’t seem interested. And, of course, lots of fresh water. Generally we use metal bowls for the water, and that seemed to confuse her yesterday. She had trouble finding the level of the water. I don’t know if that’s because the bowl is reflective or if she’s not used to getting her water out of a bowl at all. Probably the former.

The babies are two girls and two boys, and they’re all different enough from each other that we can tell them apart. One boy is solid black. The shelter named him Buster and I think we’ll stay with that. Both boys are just a bit bigger than the girls. Buster is very advanced for his age. Yesterday, at four days old, he was rolling over and taking a tummy rub and even purring. They’re not supposed to purr for another couple of weeks, but of course he’s heard his mommy doing it a lot. The other boy is a nice solid gray. I’m calling him Dusty.

The two girls are Emma and Camilla. Emma is mostly white, with a gray patch on her head and her tail and a tiny bit on one back leg. Camilla is basically black but with a tabby face, to distinguish her from her brother Buster.

All four are very good at cuddling with mom or letting her know when they’re hungry or distressed, and she’s very attentive.

Simba, of course, was very agitated when I brought them home yesterday. I did not put the carrier down on the kitchen floor to let him sniff, which is the routine he’s used to, even though his normal reaction to new kittens is “Hiss”. But I didn’t think mom or babies needed that stress. And he is, of course, closed out of the kitten room for the time being and I think this has put his nose out of joint a bit. He was still mourning the loss of the last litter of kittens, so this is just adding insult to injury, as far as he’s concerned. When Arabella will be comfortable with it, which I anticipate will be at least a couple of weeks from now, we’ll let him sniff and examine the babies with very close supervision. I hope by then he’ll be used to the smell of them in the house, so will be less likely to hiss.

We took pictures yesterday and I’m hoping to get pictures daily for a bit, but those pictures are still in DH’s camera. I’ll post ‘em when I’ve got ‘em.

All five of them will be going back to the shelter in six weeks. Arabella will stay there to get spayed and adopted. The babies will be examined and get their first kitten shots, then they’ll be coming back here for another couple of weeks to be old enough for spaying and neutering and adoption. We’re enjoying having them here!

Why Me?

2008-01-09T00:05:00.000-06:00

Why me?

I’ve come to expect that there are things about me that perfect strangers see. For example, there’s a bright neon INFORMATION sign across my forehead. I can be in a store or someplace (once I was just walking across a parking lot!) and strangers will approach me and ask me questions. Frequently I know the answers, which may be even spookier.(g) It’s been happening to me all my life. It’s just odd.

However, recently I’ve been giving off a vibe that could be worded, I think, “if you don’t sing well and can’t read music, come sit by me and sing in my ear”.

If I was a stronger singer and was more sure that I generally hit the right note, this would bother me less. But I’m not. I’m not sure about my vocal abilities. I tend to follow the people singing around me, especially when I’m learning a song, so I try to sit in the middle of the section so as not to be thrown off by the other sections. I may have to change this strategy.

Take last night, for instance. I went to the first of the year rehearsal of my women’s chorus. I sat in the middle of the Alto 2 area, as usual, and to the right of one of the longer-serving members who *is* a strong singer. We just lost our accompanist (again), so I knew I’d need to be able to listen to someone with more ability than me. Unfortunately, the seat to my right was empty until Non-Singer #2 came in and sat there. (Why she’s #2 will come along in a bit.)

She seems like a perfectly nice woman. Unfortunately she has several handicaps. She clearly doesn’t read music. She has little sense of rhythm. English is not her first language, though she manages mostly. She also sings fairly loud and was clearly aiming at my right ear.

The first piece we practiced has the Alto 2s singing a half a beat off from everybody else. The other three sections notes are mostly on the upbeat, where the Alto 2s are mostly on the downbeat. Except for Non-Singer #2, who was following the majority of the group. Sigh. I admit it can be hard to be the section that’s off a half a beat, but it clearly can be done if one is paying attention. Eventually she got a bit better, except for the last note of each phrase, when she came in a half a beat early. Consistently. At that point it got to me and I was forced to point it out.

Of course, about the time she was catching on, we changed pieces. As fate would have it, we changed to one of my favorites I’ve done with the group. I’ve done it in concert twice, I think. It’s called African Celebration, arranged by Stephen Hatfield. (Check this page; scroll down past the first picture and click on the speaker icon to hear an excerpt of the piece.) It’s a combination of three (or more) African songs. I really seem to like Hatfield as an arranger, especially of African music. I’ve done at least a couple others of his and they feel and sound really good to me. African Celebration contains a lot of African words and sounds. My choir director would be astonished to learn I love it so, but there’s a lot of repetition and I know it fairly well now. I *love* that we’re doing it again. It can be tricky, but it’s gorgeous and showy and lots of fun.

NS#2 did not disappoint my expectations. She found the pronunciations difficult, which I cannot fault her for, and the rhythms often completely escaped her. Eventually she got into the feel of the rhythm. (Of course, there are several places in that piece where the Alto 2s are off in a rhythm and sometimes a language and song of our own. But the difference was more than half a beat, which helped.)

But the notes. NS#2 can’t, evidently, read music. At several places in the piece various sections sing “Ja-bu-la” with the notes generally being D-G-D. Then there’s the place where, for the Alto 2s, it’s D-G-D then D-F-D and back and forth. The director pointed this out to us (I could swear she was looking straight at NS#2) carefully and we practiced it. NS#2 never got the D-F-D one correct and she sang it particularly loudly in my ear. I attempted to ignore her and to also sing somewhat loudly (it’s a piece where one can be loud a lot), and I know the song well enough that I wasn’t thrown off. But I was quite annoyed.

One of the fun bits of this song is a place near the middle of the end (there are 21 pages and not because there are pages with only a couple of measures on them) there’s a complete break. Then all four sections sing in unison, “Freedom is coming”. After a couple of repetitions, the sopranos break off, then a bit later they split and the Alto 1s start in on their own thing and we’re all singing something a bit different. It sounds quite showy, really. The tricky part is that as we go along (and I think it’s about 6 pages or so) we get both progressively louder and faster. That part starts at 88 beats per minute; by the end of that part it’s at 120. Then it gets *really* loud and tricky, but we didn’t work on that part.(g) That’s the part where first time singers often just stop with their mouths open or, as I said to the woman on my left, who is also a veteran of this song, “this is where folks pull off to the side of the road and stop and watch the parade go by.”

I’m gonna have to figure out a way to not sit next to this woman.

But Non-Singer #1 is more of a problem. A perfectly nice woman who joined the church choir in September. Like me, she has no vocal training and has never sung in a choir or chorus before. She is singing in the Altos. I’ve been thinking of suggesting she get moved back to the Tenors, but that would not be fair to the other Tenors, or to her really, since the main person in the Tenors tends to run the section and is not known for his tolerance of the musically illiterate. So I’ve been attempting to help her and to cut her a break. But she likes me and likes to sit next to me. She can’t read music. She doesn’t know a half note from a sixteenth. She doesn’t know how to go up or down a full note or a half note or how to tell on the sheet music where that happens. (At least English is her first language!) And her sense of rhythm is deficient.

In our choir we rarely get to practice any piece as thoroughly as we do in the women’s chorus. The chorus does about 2 concerts a year, with anywhere between 10 and 20 pieces. We get a *lot* of time to practice. The choir sings, generally, three Sundays of every month. There’s just not as much rehearsal time. So NS#1 throws me off a *lot*. And when she’s especially unsure, she leans in my direction and sings directly in my ear.

A couple of Wednesdays ago I leaned over to my friend Suna, who is responsible for my joining the choir in the first place, and begged her to tell me that I wasn’t that bad when I first joined the choir. She complied and I believe her, mostly. I’ve been reading music since at least the fifth grade. And I have an excellent ear for when tones are matching (tuning).

When I was in the fifth grade (back in the Stone Age, when sheet music was printed on papyrus) everyone in my school district spent a year torturing our families with an instrument called a flutophone. Descriptions of this instrument of torture say it resembles a recorder or a clarinet, which may be technically true but which in fact is slander against recorders and clarinets. They’re cheap ($3.98 on one website) and seemingly unbreakable (as I’m sure many, many parents have attempted to destroy them) and are supposedly among the easiest of instruments to learn to play. I suspect the idea was to teach us music appreciation, in which case they were sadly mistaken as there was nothing that seemed musical coming from those things, and how to read music.

But I *think* I may have learned to read music before that. With my poor memory of my childhood I don’t know which happened first, the flutophone or the violin. My maternal grandfather had taken violin lessons at some point and still had the violin. (I come by my pack rat tendencies honestly!) He asked me if I’d like to learn to play it and I said yes, as I loved my grandfather and thought we’d be sharing something. Instead they found me a woman who mostly taught piano but whose first instrument was the violin. I think I took two years of lessons, until my second recital when my mother inadvisedly told me that someone in the audience compared me to Jack Benny. I have since learned that Jack Benny could, in fact, play the violin very well indeed, but I didn’t know that at the time and I’m pretty sure that that was not the comparison that was being made.(g) A few years later my grandfather bought my family a piano and my mother found a friend to teach me piano. By that time I was also playing the clarinet. I was in the school band from the sixth grade till I graduated from high school, mostly because if you took band you didn’t have to take PE and I hated PE with a sincere and honest passion.

I never played the flutophone, the clarinet, the violin, or the piano all that well, but I did learn how to move from one note to another and I can certainly read sheet music. And, really, I’ve been singing all my life. I inherited my love of music from my father. Dad was not exactly Johnny-One-Note – he had two and generally neither of them was correct. And he couldn’t read music at all. When he was growing up they were more concerned about keeping the kids from starving to death in the Depression than about their musical education. (Of course, some of that might be because both his parents were deaf mutes.) But Dad was a great appreciator of popular music and both my brother and I inherited that talent. So I’ve been singing along to the radio and records and CDs since I could talk (if not before).

So I think Suna is probably right that I was never as hard to listen to as either NS#1 or NS#2. And I’m not sure what in my musical life I ever did that was so bad that I deserve to be punished in this way. I wish I could turn off the neon sign that invites non-singers to come sit by me.

2008-01-07T15:14:00.000-06:00

Another site with a meme demands answering (Meme - The Friday Foofah!):

Getting There

1. Do you own a car? What make and model? Do you consider cars a boring point A to B appliance or does talk of V8's and turbo-charging make your eyes light up.

I do. I live in Texas. Everybody owns cars. We have no public transportation to speak of.

Everyone that knows me, let's all answer together: a white Chrysler PT Cruiser, named Archie. Named for Archie Goodwin -- let's see if anyone recognizes that literary reference!

I am somewhere between the two extremes listed. V8s and turbo-charging mean nothing to me and generally discussions of the internal combustion engine cause my eyes to glaze over. But I do like cars.

For years and years I'd wanted a PT Cruiser. I fell in love with them the first time I saw one. Then a few years ago an accident demolished my much-beloved Toyota Previa. DH was especially sympathetic and insisted we find a used PT Cruiser. It took some looking -- in those days it was unusual to see more than one in a parking lot or on the street at a time -- but we found one. I adore Archie. I wish he were some color other than white (some purple would be good), but otherwise he's wonderful

2. SUVs : practical and roomy or gas-guzzling monstrosities?

I'd have trouble describing them as practical, unless you have the income of Bill Gates. But they are certainly roomy. They are also gas-guzzling monstrosities, especially the various incarnations of Hummer. Those things always startle me and cause me to look around to see if there are other tanks on the road nearby; is an invasion in progress or something? Unless they're that particularly hideous school-bus shade of yellow. (A perfectly nice shade of yellow, I hasten to add for my yellow-loving friends, for many things, but not for tanks.) The yellow ones cause both paranoia and hearty laughter.

3. Your dream car is...?

A brand-new PT Cruiser, painted a custom color (some nice shade of purple, or maybe metallic gold or metallic blue or Longhorn burnt orange, all colors I've seen at least one in), with all the various bells and whistles. And one special bell -- some sort of forcefield that would cause me to always get good parking places. I sometimes get good parking places that I know are because my dad is watching over me (he *always* got excellent parking spaces somehow), but I wouldn't mind having that guaranteed. Oh, and I wouldn't mind if it was a bit bigger on the inside than on the outside. Not a lot. Just enough to hold my chorus/choir notebooks, my Tarot kits and several other decks, my wonderful rainbow-colored umbrella that I believe was originally intended to shade a patio table, and any number of shawls and wraps. Oh, wait. Archie already mostly does that. Nevermind.

Randomness: What is Your Favorite ... ?

2008-01-06T17:31:00.000-06:00

I’ve been looking for blog resources out on the net and have found several interesting ones. This one (see new thingie in sidebar about randomness) begged to be used immediately. (And don’t you just love the little purple pixie sitting on a purple crescent moon?)

Week of Jan 6.08: What is your favorite?...name one of each:

Week of Jan 6.08

What is your favorite?...name one of each:

1. food? Just one? Hmmm. Given a choice between chocolate and potato chips ... I’d eat both. (I’m so not good with being told what to do!)

2. book? Chocolate. That would be easier to answer. Sigh. I often recommend To Kill a Mockingbird. Tomorrow my answer could by “anything by Jane Austen, except Mansfield Park” or possibly “anything by J.K. Rowling”. Or any Nero Wolfe book.

3. item of clothing? Easier! My blue jeans. Oh, and my very own handmade socks made by my very own hands.

4. actor? Scott Bakula.

5. movie? Sigh again. 1776. Field of Dreams. Sleepless in Seattle. Harry Potter and the [fill in the blank]

6. color? This one I can do! Notice the cute little pixie above? What color did I mention? Purple!

7. time of day? Not the morning, that’s for damn sure! Probably evening, prime time for TV.

8. season? Winter! When the outside isn’t trying to boil me in my own juices.

9. holiday? Christmas. And my birthday. (Is too! I was born on George Washington’s birthday!)

10. animal? You’re kidding right? Is there anyone that doesn’t know? CATS!

The Month Meme

2008-01-06T16:06:00.000-06:00

OK. Let’s start with me. My birthday is in February, as is one nephew and one niece. I don’t know the niece very well, but we’ll try this out on The Nephew as well as on me.

FEBRUARY:
Abstract thoughts. Me: Yes. Sometimes. Nephew: Don’t know.
Loves reality and abstract. Me: I am very fond of reality, though a good fantasy is nice, too. I’m not otherwise clear on what this even means. Nephew: I’m not convinced his hold on reality is all I’d like it to be.
Intelligent and clever. Of course. Both of us!
Changing personality. Me: Not so much. I don’t feel like I’ve changed that much my whole life. Nephew: I’d say about the same.
Attractive. Me: Couldn’t be more wrong. Nephew: Hard to say. I prejudiced.
Sexy. Me: See previous answer. Nephew: See previous answer.
Temperamental. Me: Sadly, sometimes. Nephew: Not so I can tell.
Quiet, shy and humble. Me: Yes. Nephew: Not sure about humble, but yes on the other two.
Honest and loyal. Me: sometimes to a fault. My mother always said I was a terrible liar. Nephew: Loyalty I think he’s got in spades. Honesty, though, not so much. My younger brother could lie like a rug and his son seems to have inherited his talent.
Determined to reach goals. Me: Generally. Unless it gets too hard or uncomfortable. Nephew: He has goals?
Loves freedom. Me: Fiercely and determinedly. Nephew: In his late 20s he still lives with his parents. ‘Nough said?
Rebellious when restricted. Fiercely and determinedly. Nephew: Maybe. I think maybe not a lot, though.
Loves aggressiveness. Me: Other than watching football, not at all. I’m quite fond of assertiveness, though. Nephew: I really don’t know.
Too sensitive and easily hurt. Me: I try not to be, but I probably still am. Nephew: Not that I can tell.
Gets angry really easily but does not show it. Me: Actually, I’m pretty slow to anger, but when I am angry, it’s fairly clear, I think. Nephew: I rarely see him angry, so can’t answer.
Dislikes unnecessary things. Me: My definition of unnecessary might conflict with other’s. But, given the clutter I live in, I have to say not really. Nephew: Probably.
Loves making friends but rarely shows it. Me: I like friends but have never been skilled at making or keeping them. Nephew: I don’t think this is true of him at all.
Daring and stubborn. Me: Daring? Not so much. Stubborn. My picture is in the encyclopedia next to “hardheaded”. Nephew: Just about the same.
Ambitious. Me: Not at all. Nephew: Did I mention he lives with his parents?
Realizes dreams and hopes. Some of them. It always surprises me, though. Nephew: I have no idea.
Sharp. In what way? I don’t understand this one.
Loves entertainment and leisure. Me: Yes. To a fault. I *live* for entertainment. Nephew: Yeah. He’s related to me.
Romantic on the inside not outside. Me: I’m romantic on the inside and the outside. In all sorts of way. Nephew: I have no idea.
Superstitious and ludicrous. Me: Somewhat superstitious. I don’t believe I’m ludicrous at all, unless the definition of that has changed recently. Nephew: I believe he has some superstitions. I don’t think he’d ludicrous, either.
Spendthrift. Me: Sadly, yes. I inherited my money sense from my dad – I have none. Nephew: Just the same as me.
Tries to learn to show emotions. Me: This is complicated. I inherited depression from my mom’s family and in us it tends to suppress emotions. One gets neither highs nor serious lows. When I’m well medicated, I do have emotions, but I don’t believe I have any trouble expressing them. Nephew: This might be true. Although he blushes very easily, so sometimes his emotions are clear.

DH’s birthday is in January, so this is about him.

JANUARY:
Stubborn and hard-hearted. Stubborn, yes. Anything but hard-hearted!
Ambitious and serious. Not overly ambitious, but more so than I am. Quite serious about many things, but he does have a good sense of humor, too.
Loves to teach and be taught. He is an excellent teacher and it’s a shame he doesn’t get much chance to do that. I don’t know about “being taught”, but he does like to learn new things.
Always looking at people's flaws and weaknesses. Sometimes. He isn’t terribly judgmental, though he’s not blind to people’s flaws.
Likes to criticize. No. Not even a little.
Hardworking and productive. Yes.
Smart, neat and organized. Extremely smart. He’s not so neat, unless you compare him to me and our son. He’s pretty well organized, most of the time.
Sensitive and has deep thoughts. Yes.
Knows how to make others happy. One of his best qualities.
Quiet unless excited or tensed. Mostly. Not so much when he loses his temper. And he *is* easily angered.
Rather reserved. Depends on the people he’s with. Not with people he knows well.
Highly attentive. Yes. Again, one of his best qualities.
Resistant to illnesses but prone to colds. He’s pretty healthy. Not so much prone to colds as to seasonal allergies.
Romantic but has difficulties expressing love. Romantic, yes, but he does just fine at expressing love!
Loves children. Yes. Including young kittens and puppies and such.
Loyal. To a fault.
Has great social abilities yet easily jealous. Not easily jealous, I don’t think. But his social skills are pretty good.
Very stubborn and money cautious. Stubborn again? Yes. And very cautious about money, which is why he runs the checkbook around here.

My mom’s birthday was in May.

MAY:
Stubborn and hard-hearted. Probably both. She wouldn’t have described herself as hard-hearted, though.
Strong-willed and highly motivated. Yes. She gave us stubborn family members a run for our money.
Sharp thoughts. Again. Huh?
Easily angered. Yes. Sometimes for no reason at all.
Attracts others and loves attention. Sort of. She fooled a lot of people who didn’t know her well into thinking she was just a lovely person. I think she was actually somewhat shy, but with family she insisted on being the center of attention. It would never have occurred to her that there was anything wrong with that.
Deep feelings. Not necessarily in a good way.
Beautiful physically and mentally. No.
Firm standpoint. She stood her ground, no matter how wrong she was.
Needs no motivation. Huh?
Easily consoled. Exactly the opposite.
Systematic (left brain). Sometimes. But also not.
Loves to dream. No.
Strong clairvoyance. No.
Understanding. Of what? Of ideas and such, yes. Of other people, not.
Sickness usually in the ear and neck. No.
Good imagination. Not that I could tell.
Good physical. Good physical what? But, no.
Weak breathing. She suffered from pneumonia for probably her last 20 years, and that was what finally killed her.
Loves literature and the arts. Absolutely. She taught me my love of reading. I was dismayed after I left home to discover she read myriads of bad romance novels.
Loves traveling. Yes, depending on the company.
Dislike being at home. No.
Restless. Sometimes.
Not having many children. She had two. Given her problems, she should not have been raising children. However, from my perspective, two was the right number.(g)
Hardworking. Yes.
High spirited. No. Clinically depressed and the medications she was prescribed were not as helpful as we wished.
Spendthrift. Exactly the opposite. She could squeeze a penny till it squealed.

This will be DS:

JUNE:
Thinks far with vision. Hmm. Maybe. He’s very into science fiction, if that counts.(g)
Easily influenced by kindness. Yes.
Polite and soft-spoken. Generally.
Having ideas. Many, many
Sensitive. Sometimes more than is good for him
Active mind. ADD, if that counts. I often say that trying to carry on a conversation with him is like mental gymnastics. He’s definitely a thinker and an independent one.
Hesitating, tends to delay. Translation: Procrastinates. Uh, yeah. I think. Let me get back to you on this one. Someday. (He comes by it honestly.)
Choosy and always wants the best. Not really. He wants good quality in things that he buys, but otherwise he’s pretty tolerant.
Temperamental. Sometimes. Not generally.
Funny and humorous. He think so.(g)
Loves to joke. Yes. But I was raised in a family of teasers so he was raised that way, too.
Good debating skills. If being able to change the subject without the other party being aware that he’s deflected the discussion counts, then he’s been doing that since before he could talk. Otherwise, not so much. He gets frustrated and then angry.
Talkative. Yes. Frequently on topics that don’t interest me.
Daydreamer. Probably.
Friendly. Quite.
Knows how to make friends. Amazingly, considering his heritage (from me and my mom), yes. He has many friends.
Able to show character. I think so. What does this mean?
Easily hurt. Yes.
Prone to getting colds. No.
Loves to dress up. Yes. He loves Halloween and goes to one or more anime conventions every year at which he wears various costumes. He plans for that all year.
Easily bored. Yes. He’s ADD and doesn’t sit still well unless he watching TV or doing a video game.
Fussy. Not even a little bit.
Seldom shows emotions. Quite the opposite. He doesn’t hide his emotions well.
Takes time to recover when hurt. Hard to say. I think, on the whole, yes.
Brand conscious. Yes.
Executive. No.
Stubborn. Very. He’s my kid.

My dad and brother had/have July birthdays.

JULY:
Fun to be with. Yes. Both of them
Secretive. My dad, somewhat. My brother is less so.
Difficult to fathom and to be understood. Like this question? No, I think both were/are easily understood.
Quiet unless excited or tensed. Dad: Even then, really. He rarely raised his voice for any reason. Brother: More so now than he used to be. He has always gotten louder in arguments as it became more and more clear he was wrong. And he used to yell at football games on TV. We joked that Tom Landry could hear him in Dallas, a couple hundred miles away.(g)
Takes pride in oneself. Yes.
Has reputation. Doesn’t everyone?
Easily consoled. Dad: Probably. Brother: Not as much.
Honest. Dad: As the day is long, at least. Brother: As mentioned earlier, not so much. Generally he is, but if he decides not to be you can’t expect to be able to tell.
Concerned about people's feelings. Yes. My dad especially.
Tactful. Yes. Generally speaking
Friendly. Everybody loved my dad. And my brother is very friendly.
Approachable. My dad was. He loved small children and they were almost always fascinated by him. And he was very open and approachable. Brother: Mostly.
Emotional temperamental and unpredictable. Dad: Not at all. Very predictable, in fact. Very steady. Brother: Sometimes.
Moody and easily hurt. No, neither one.
Witty and sparkly. My dad was quietly witty and very funny. Brother: I wouldn’t necessarily describe him as witty and certainly not sparkly, but he is very smart and has a fine sense of humor.
Not revengeful. Dad: Definitely. Brother: It would depend on the offense.
Forgiving but never forgets. Dad: Forgave and forgot, to a fault. Brother: He can be forgiving about most things, but not all. But don’t try it on him twice.
Dislikes nonsensical and unnecessary things. Dad loved different kinds of nonsense. My brother and I learned our love of science fiction from him (which can be seen as nonsensical). Brother: probably true.
Guides others physically and mentally. Dad: Definitely. He was a natural leader. Brother: Sometimes.
Sensitive and forms impressions carefully. Dad: No. Oh, he could be sensitive about thing. But with people, he was like Will Rogers. He never met a [person] he didn’t like. (Well, one or two. Still.) Brother: He’s generally not terribly sensitive. Can’t say about forming impressions.
Caring and loving. Yes. Both of them.
Treats others equally. Yes. Both of them.
Strong sense of sympathy. Dad: Very strong. Brother: Mostly.
Wary and sharp. I don’t think my dad was wary at all. He always expected people to treat each other well, and they mostly did in his presence. Hard to say about brother.
Judges people through observations. Dad didn’t judge much. If he did, it would be through observation, not because of prejudice. Brother: Mostly. His prejudices, what few there are, can blind him.
Hardworking. Very much so.
No difficulties in studying. My dad loved to learn and although he never got a college degree, he took college classes often. He read widely and loved watching TV shows where you learned something. My brother had some trouble in school, particularly in reading, spelling, and grammar. But when he wants to learn something, don’t get between him and the information!
Loves to be alone. Dad: Hard to say. He loved people and loved being with them, but I think I inherited my hermit qualities from him. Brother: Yes, but he loves being with friends, too.
Always broods about the past and the old friends. No. Neither was/is a brooder, anyway.
Likes to be quiet. Yes.
Homely person. As in not pretty? OK.
Waits for friends. My dad, definitely. Brother: yes.
Never looks for friends. My dad didn’t have to look. They were all around them. My brother has gotten to be a bit of a hermit with fewer friends, but he does love having them.
Not aggressive unless provoked. Dad: He was in the Navy in WWII, so he has to have been aggressive in some way, but I never saw it. Brother: He can get at least verbally aggressive if provoked.
Prone to having stomach and dieting problems. My dad had ulcers so, yeah. Brother: A bit, I guess.
Loves to be loved. Dad loved it and expected it. Brother does, too, I think.
Easily hurt but takes long to recover. Dad: I don’t think so, on either count. Brother: Probably more so, both of them.

I think that’s everybody about whom I could answer and is probably quite long enough anyway!