Tag Archives: Millie

More Cats

Philosophical Meanderings, Too Posted on by

No, not more cats for the house, but we seem to have an “infestation” under the house.  We’re on a major pathway between two possible “problem” houses for cats.  One is our next door neighbor to the back who has a sort of a pet cat he lets live in his garage.  He’s allergic to cats but has taken a fancy to this cat.  The cat’s a male, and I doubt he’s been neutered.  He’s marked similarly to our Roxy, so when Roxy showed up, I thought she was him.  Nope.  I figure there’s a good chance he’s Roxy’s brother or father.

Then there’s Derrick’s (the “stray” cat we found at the end of May) house across the school parking lot from us.  There are lots and lots of cats there.  The neighbor’s cat wanders over there to “visit,” and the cats at Derrick’s house traverse our yard — either along the fence or underneath the house — to visit the buffet at our neighbor’s garage.

I’ve sensed there was something going on for a couple of days.  Millie has been particularly interested in the back steps on our evening walks before the dogs get tucked into the garage.  I’ve seen more cats than usual in the yard.  Tonight, hubby happened upon a young cat marked similarly to Roxy (but much smaller and with more gray) on the back porch.  He tried the lure the cat to him.  The cat was interested but not trusting enough.  We walked around the house and saw two more on the front steps.  So, it appears we have a young litter of kittens who look not too many weeks removed from mama cat that are hanging out under the house.  The local gray tabby had kittens around early July.  I learned she belongs at Derrick’s house, and her name is Stripper (maybe because of her stripes?).   These kittens are probably from that litter.

One of the things on our to do list (there are hundreds) is to enclose the area under the house.  When the previous owners were doing the central heating and air conditioning work (and probably the plumbing and electrical work, too), they pulled out a lot of the bricks that comprised the skirting around the house.  Unfortunately, they never put them back, and the good bricks managed to disappear when they moved out (they weren’t supposed to).  This leaves several access points to get under the house, and local strays use it regularly.

When we first moved in, a stray dog was under the house.  Eventually, she had puppies.  Nobody could get near this dog, and it threatened a few kids.  We asked the animal control officer and gave him permission to remove the dog and the puppies.  I had visions of packs of dogs breeding and living under there and eventually, because we’d allowed them to stay, people would presume they were our dogs that we weren’t taking care of.  Thankfully, the dog and puppies have been gone for about two years now.  But the cat problem is increasing.

Unfortunately, as long as the neighbors don’t get their cats spayed and neutered, we can see this going on for a long time.

Been Wondering Where I Am?

Philosophical Meanderings, Too Posted on by

Me, too.  Well, I know where I am.  I’m in the Central Texas location.  I guess the question should have been, “Whatcha doin?”  That’s was we always say Ajax is asking Natasha when he approaches her.  I know what I haven’t been doing.

I haven’t been writing.

I haven’t been cleaning over at the shop.

I haven’t been decluttering here at the house.

I haven’t been exercising (much).

I haven’t been spending time with hubby.

Those are my priorities (not listed in any particular order).  And I haven’t been catering to them.  I have spent way too much time cruising the internet.  I have spent time writing on 750words.com and have a pretty good streak going on my main account.  My alternate account where I think through writing ideas is not maintaining a streak, but I didn’t plan that it would.  I’m treating the main account like morning pages, so it’s more a diarrhea of the fingers kind of thing.

I have been doing a little yard work.  I did take Millie on an extended walk one night.  I did ride my new recumbent bike one day over at the shop after spending a little time unboxing and displaying items for our garage sale in August.  I did de-clutter one corner of the upstairs hallway.  I did reorganize the one room of the house I hadn’t looked at since moving in three years ago.  It’s not the way it needs to be, but it’s much neater now.

I have been reading.  Both paper and ebooks.  More Kindle app books than paper, but I have two paper books I’m very interested in that are in progress.

A friend and neighbor has invited me to play cards with some friends of hers, and I did that two nights in a row (yes, we’re having a wild time here).  I enjoyed that, and I like meeting some new people.  I do that very slowly and very poorly, but in time, I do meet them.  I dusted off my Spades playing skills.  I hadn’t played in probably 25-30 years.  I’m doing ok with meeting my bid, but I’ll know I’m doing better when I’m able to add in the strategies for causing other people not to meet their bids (I think the term is “causing them to go set”).

I’ve done a few more conflict cards for PBOTL.  I’m working Dot and Line for Fooling Mother Nature.  I’ve picked up a few tidbits that might fit into a story idea — either a new one or one already in progress.  I’m very pleased that new writing ideas are coming to me, and I’m able to recognize them.  For the longest time, that was a huge struggle for me.

Don’t worry about hubby and me.  He had to stay in San Antonio to oversee getting the new roof put on the house and continue supporting new grass in the back yard.  I’ll be heading his way next week, and we’ll be spending time together again.

Reflecting on 2009

Philosophical Meanderings, Too Posted on by

2009 has been an interesting year.  It’s my first full year of retirement.  There’s still no time for boredom.

We experienced some sadness.  My paternal grandmother died in February — complications of old age.  She was my favorite grandmother when I was younger — she was a kid’s grandmother.  She lived a full and complete life, and I believe she was ready to go.  Grandma had maintained a huge garden until shortly after my grandfather died in 1992.  Before retiring, my grandfather had owned and operated his own masonry company, and he worked on many of the buildings in and around the Madison, Wisconsin, area.  He built many of the shopping malls, a building or two on the University of Wisconsin campus, as well as a church or two.  It’s always a treat to be driving somewhere with my dad and to have him mention that grandpa built one of the buildings we’re driving by.  In addition to being a great cook and needlework pro, Grandma kept the books for the business.

I’m blessed with one remaining grandmother — maternal, of course.  She is of more an adult’s grandmother, and I’ve had many pleasant times with her since I’ve become an adult.  She plays a MEAN, MEAN game of Scrabble.  She just celebrated her 92nd birthday, and she still lives independently (with help from on-line grocery orders and delivery and family and friends who assist her a couple of days a week with transportation and company).  Don’t misunderstand me, I have good memories of both grandmothers from when I was a child, but my mom’s mom was more comfortable with older kids than with younger ones.  Grandma retired from the University of Wisconsin thirty years ago and has been an excellent example of a retirement lived well.  She traveled, learned to cross country ski, and began painting and sewing more.  I have several beautiful original paintings of hers, and I’m very proud of them.  My mom just told me grandma’s thinking about buying a new computer so we can play Lexulous on Facebook.

I also lost my first uncle in March.  I’d seen him at my grandmother’s funeral the month before , and he seemed to be doing well, but he’d had several strokes, and he had more in March that he just couldn’t recover from.  He was my dad’s older sister’s husband, and an Army veteran from the Korean War era.  He was a solid patriot who wasn’t afraid to tell you what he thought.  He was an electrician with his own business until he retired.  He and my aunt raised four fine children.

We lost two pets this year — Pericles to diabetes and Hershey to a driveway accident.  We still have four.  Dazzle is our oldest going on sixteen.  She has an allergy to something that causes her to lose hair in clumps.  We have her on a medication that allows much of it to grow back.   Since that problem has been mitigated, she’s a spry and nimble dog.  We thought she was on death’s doorstep, but since putting her on the medication and adding a daily vitamin and glucosamine to her diet, she’s been acting much younger.  Arthritis still limits her, but it’s not as noticeable.  That and Purina One seems to make a big difference for her.  We added a daily vitamin to Millie’s diet, too.  No reason not to keep her healthier longer.

Ajax and Natasha, the cats, are still getting acquainted (a year and a half after moving in together).  Ajax has adopted a more submissive role while still stalking Tasha.  I know that doesn’t make any sense, but I”m not sure how else to describe it.  Over the last month, Tasha’s range in the San Antonio house has expanded from the garden window in the kitchen augmented by quick trips to the next room for eating, drinking, and eliminating to her eluding the Ajax trap and making her way to the bed between us at night.  She’s been more relaxed.  Both of them enjoy fires in the fireplace — just not usually at the same time.

On the writing front, I’m moving neither forward nor back.  I spent a lot of time attempting a one pass revision on Twilight, but I failed miserably and put the book on the shelf to get some distance from it.  I participated and won NaNo this year, but my attempt at a category romance was pathetic.  About half way in, I knew I didn’t know enough about my characters and wound up doing character development to finish out the words — not a great result, but a result all the same.  Category romance is not, at this time, my genre.

Holly has been building a new course, How to Revise Your Novel, which teaches writers how to employ the One-Pass Revision she advocates.  I am taking the Early Bird version of this class and using it to revise Polar Bear on the Loose — my first novel that’s been on the shelf for four years.  I love my Inuit character, and I hope I can do her justice with the revision.  Several weeks into the class, I’m still actively working on the Week 1 lesson.

In my personal reading efforts, it looks like I’ll complete just 36 books this year.  That’s far short of my goal of 52.  I could blame Ayn Rand and Atlas Shrugged.  I think it took me two months or more to read that one.

With the political climate of today, I’ve become fascinated with The Gilded Age and the beginning of the Progressive Era.  If you think today’s political climate is a recent development, you’re wrong.  The roots of it lie in the excesses of The Gilded Age (essentially post Civil War Reconstruction) and the resulting Progressive Era (around the beginning of the 20th Century) which bears a strong parallels to what we’re seeing happening today.  I’m not sure if that should be taken as a sign that there is hope or if what we’re seeing today is the culmination and possible realization of the goals of the Progressive Era.  I’m still studying and pondering.  I’m working my way through several non-fiction works on these eras, and I hope to add them to the 2010 completed reading list.

Hubby and I bought a building (yes, another one) in September.  This one began life in the lat 1920s as a Chevrolet dealership.  It was an Oldsmobile dealership in the 1960s.  In the early 1970s, it became a furniture store and remained so until the previous owner retired.  After that, I’m not sure what happened, except he used it as a place to store vehicles and other things until he died last June.  From what we can tell, he used it regularly until sometime in 2007 — that’s the newest calendar we found on the wall.  I suspect he moved to a nursing home near his daughter in Dallas around then.  From 2007 until this year, some friends of his were keeping an eye on the building.  We bought the building with all it’s contents (minus a few vehicles that had been stored there and some household items a friend of his claimed prior to us closing on the property).  We are finding a few treasures and a lot of trash.  We’ve sifted the first wave of approximately 30 contractor bags into our household trash.  That took a few months.  We have at least that many more bags of trash to collect.  Then we have to sort the usable furniture from that which is too damaged (there are some drainage problems which has resulted in water seeping into the building and damaging many items).  We’ll wind up gathering the bulk trash in one place and getting a dump permit from the city to haul it away.  We’re looking for homes for some of the things.  For instance, we know someone interested in the myriad of bedrails we’ve stacked in one corner.  There must be 100 sets of bed rails.  There are several Christmas trees as well as a nice selection of 70s era furniture, which hubby’s daughter in Austin assures us there is a market for.  Same for vintage vacuum cleaners, which we have several of now.  Supposedly the building’s roof had been redone about ten years ago, but it’s in bad shape, so we’ll wind up putting a new roof on it.  The rest of the building is very solid.  It needs some window glass and a new door in back (it’s current covered by plywood).  The back of the place has been neglected for decades.  We’re cleaning the overgrowth out (almost entirely poison ivy, oak, and sumac).  We’ll also wind up removing about a foot of dirt and debris to get the ground level appropriate for the back of the building.  That should assist with some of the drainage problems we’re experiencing.  Lots of work remains to be done.

In October, we embarked on The Great Northeast Adventure.  Last year, I swore I wouldn’t do this again, but we did.  And we’ll probably do it again next year.  Flying would be so much easier, but I detest flying since the implementation of post-2001 security measures.  As a result, if there’s any other alternative, I’ll take it instead of flying.  That’s too bad, because I used to enjoy flying.  The airlines are at the mercy of government regulations, and they are losing in this endeavor, but until the government loosens it stranglehold on the flying public, I won’t fly unless there’s no other way to travel.  I have no desire to spend good money to be publicly felt up and virtually strip searched by strangers (and, for the smart alecs reading this,, I wouldn’t pay good money to have either of those things done if I knew the other party either) because a few idiots choose to attempt to blow up an airplane.  And every time some idiot finds a way to circumvent the process (and, until we’re forced to fly buck naked, I don’t see that stopping, and then we’ll have to submit ourselves to cavity searches before flying, so you can see the madness never ends), they punish the victim in yet more inventive ways.

Just out of curiosity, we checked, and Amtrak is quite economical and reasonably quick from San Antonio to Chicago, so we just might Amtrak it to Wisconsin this summer.

Hubby and I celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary last October while we were on the road.  We have our ups and downs — I suspect like most couples.  We both have spent many years living alone and are accustomed to doing things our way.  When someone else is involved, they invariably do something a different way, and that can be grounds for disagreement.  We keep trucking along.

We still have a long, long to do list involving painting, paving, refurbishing, rebuilding, and de-cluttering.  That’s a little reflection on 2009.  Next, I’ll ponder what 2010 may hold in store for us.  We were in the credit union today, and someone offered me a business opportunity.  I told him, “No thank you, I have all I can handle right now.”