Category: 500WordaDayChallenge

Pfffftttt! – Spit! – Ouch!

Day 9 – This is being some kind of transparent here. I wouldn’t normally be talking about this because this is something I don’t talk about, but I have to set the scene. If I don’t tell you what I was doing, this won’t go right. So please don’t think that I’m being self-righteous or zealous or anything like that. What I was doing I take very seriously and is very private to me. There was only one other purrson in the room with me and she is the culprit. You will see what I mean in a minute. But I just wanted to get that out on the table here. Thank you.

So last night I was praying on the floor in my bedroom. I had a candle lit a little ways in front of me and Morgan The Maine Coon, The Most Curious of All The Cats We Have Ever Had, was laying on the floor about three feet away from it, totally mesmerized by it’s flame. I can’t blame her there. Fire totally captivates me as well. Scares me to death on a grand scale, but is one of the most beautiful of nature’s elements. The flame had burned down quite a bit – the candle was a little finicky as it was and I figured it was going to sputter out pretty soon on its own.

Suddenly, I felt a movement in front of me. Oh, I guess I should tell you I was pretty deep in prayer (this is the part where you aren’t supposed to do any judging) and my eyes were closed, so I wasn’t aware of anything going on around me. Hence the feeling of movement in front of me. It was sufficient enough for me to open my eyes and see Morgan receding back to where she had been laying but now she was sitting. I heard a sizzling “pfffffft” and then a “ssssssss” Maoooooow” and put two and two together rather quickly when her head reared back from her paw. Apparently, Miss Inquisitive had decided to put out the candle herself. As she did that, her paw had also swiped up the hot candle liquid and that burned the hair and possibly the pad of her foot as it began to form around her shape. She bit back as she had been bitten and made contact with her mouf and that created yet another pain source. All in the span of about five seconds. Poor baby! I knew better than to approach her because she is so danged independent with her owies, so I let her tug and pull at the cooling wax and figure out how best to get that beast off of her. I eventually bent my way over towards her to see what I could see, but she had done a pretty good job, plus, her paw is white, so there wasn’t much I could see at best.

In the meantime, I had slowly moved the candle over to my left side, out of sight. Once she had licked her wounds, she came over in great stealth, creeping up on the Burn Monster, seeking a way to find out how she could Kill It. She extended the Burned Paw, almost as though she wanted It to see what It had Done To Her. Then she swatted the side of the candle a couple of times and walked off. Take that YOU.

I checked her paw later and she didn’t seem any worse for wear. As for praying on the floor with a candle with Morgan near by, I don’t think that will happen again. At least not in that combination. Amen.

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What to do about Zeke?

Day 8 – We have housed more cats than I can count now after more than 30 years of marriage and living almost 30 years in our house on Kansas. We started with two kitties when we moved here and it wasn’t a year until the cycle began when we were to begin either fostering or adopting the strays who were to come our way. One time, we had as many as eight  fur babies living with us, because we had adopted a mama and her three baby boys. That was an exciting time for our house!

We are quite comfortable right now with our two. We recently laid to rest our Lacey, so two is where we are. Until a few days ago. Dang it! An adorable black and white kitten somewhere between nine and ten months of age came squabbling at our door looking for love and food. My oh my did this fellow have some vocal chords on him! We really had hoped he belonged to the new neighbors who were just moving in catty-corner to us across the street. I had seen the little girl just loving on the little guy like they were long lost friends. But no, after speaking with Mom, Dad hates cats, so that wasn’t the case. Yeowler kept coming back to our house desperately wanting in. After seeing him standing in the street while traffic whizzed by, I talked with my husband and we decided the little fellow would be much safer in our back yard than risking it out “there.” it was clear he had belonged to someone and knew absolutely no fear. Which was terribly disturbing to us. Someone had to have dumped him. Or he had just somehow gotten lost. he was SUCH a loving little guy, and of course, he was…a LAP CAT. Wouldn’t you know it. Rarely had we had a lap cat in all of ours, and the two we have now aren’t much of such. But THIS one, OMG!!!! But I get ahead of myself.

Ron opened the side gate and told him to come in. He walked through as though he owned the placed and had only been waiting for such an invitation. I had gotten him a bowl of dry cat food and clean water and that boy chowed down like he hadn’t eaten in a week. And well he may not not. The poor little boy, he was shaking all over purring so hard and gobbling up the food, hitting his mouth on the bowl. I took it away at once point, thinking he should rest his stomach a bit, but he found where I had put the bowl and ate the rest. So much for that idea. He drank some water and then started yeowing at me. I couldn’t think he wanted more, so I sat down in one of the patio chairs, as that was where we decided to camp him for the time being. He jumped up in my lap and the rest was history. He was ALL over me, loving on me, giving me kisses, crawling around my neck, turning and turning around in my lap, the motor in his throat going so loud I thought the cats in the house could certainly hear him. They were certainly captivated with every move he made, especially Morgan, my Maine Coone. She is ‘my’ girl and I am ‘hers’ so I didn’t think this was going to go very well. He finally settled down in my lap and fell asleep. I petted him awhile but I couldn’t stay there forever, well, I could but not really, you know what I mean. So I picked him up and he settled back down in my chair and cuddled down in the warmth I had left. I had arranged pillows and a blanket on the porch swing, thinking he would find comfort in that little cave, but at the moment he just needed to sleep right where he was. And sleep he did. For hours and hours.

Skip ahead about four days. Zeke, yes, Zeke, had adapted to quite a little routine, most of which included a very loud yeowing when he wanted something – either food or me. I always name the cats a human name and why this one was Zeke, I’ll never know, but it seemed to fit for the time. We had arranged a couple of patio chairs around with pillows and towels and a blanket to make a little fortress because there had been a hefty storm and we wanted him protected. He seemed to appreciate it. He slept through it without a problem. He seemed to go out and about during the night and come back for breakfast, and then sleep til about 1:00. Toby didn’t seem to be bother by him at all, but as Zeke was well “in tact” he would soon be spraying Toby’s domain. We were going to have to do something about Zeke pretty soon. Morgan, on the other hand, was not at all happy with his presence. No surprise there.

Ron called the local rescue organization and they were great. They instructed us to take Zeke to the local shelter and the organization would pick him up and find him a home. It might be local, but it also might be a case of shipping him out to another state where kitties where in need of adoption. So, last Saturday morning, we gathered Zeke up, with tears in our eyes (how to people foster animals and not get attached to them?????) we took him out to the shelter. NOT without a huge conniption fit from Zeke. Holy cow! For as much of a love as he was OUTSIDE the carrier, he turned into the cat from hell INSIDE the carrier. Boy was he mad.

I placed him on a counter when we got inside and had gone into another room because I couldn’t calm him and I was crying like a baby anyway. When I came back, he was really quiet. I asked one of the people there what had happened and she said that he must have seen the dog pass through. Ha! Yes, that would do it. From then on, he was himself, although not happy to be in the carrier. For all I knew, the last time he had been in one was when someone had taken him to dump him on our street. Who knew.

After Ron had filled out the paperwork, the shelter worker came out and asked if he was sweet, and I told her that he definitely was. I took him out of the carrier and he glommed onto me, arms around my neck. I hugged him and kissed him and handed him over to the lady. He took to her right away, so I knew she really liked animals. She said that he was going to go up front, so I thought “wow, maybe he will be adopted right away before he ever goes to New Beginnings!” There wasn’t much use hanging around, so we thanked her profusely and said good bye to Zeke. We got out to the car and I just broke down.

I just fall in love with these guys and saying good bye just kills me. And not just me, I come to find out. My dear husband called out to the shelter today to find out how Zeke was doing! New Beginnings already picked Zeke up, so he is on his way to some new home somewhere!

Word

Day 7 – It is now the last day of the first month of 2016 and the word that can describe me is INCOMPLETE. My writers’ group on Facebook was asked last week what one word would describe us for the month and then challenged us to write about it. Well, there it is. Incomplete.

It seemed that everything I touched in any way did not get finished. My sister’s Christmas gifts are still in the sewing room. Incomplete. As are several of the small projects I had cut out to sew while I was watching Christmas movies. Then I thought I could just whip those out during January while I was watching my favorite oldie reruns. Nope. Incomplete they are as well.

The challenge I took up to write 500 words everyday for 30 days has been a bust. This is supposed to be Day 7 if I am to stick with the number of days I have been involved in the plan. Not only have they not been 500 words, I haven’t written every day. So that assignment has been…Incomplete.

I would even settle for inconsistent, at least that meant I had been making some effort in some areas, but no, to be honest, I can’t even claim that word. My goals for the year – incomplete. I don’t even have a bucket list – my bucket has so many holes in it, whatever might be on a list wouldn’t last a minute in it.

So what gives, huh? The only thing I’ve been good at all month is sleeping. Morgan and I have been great nap-mates (she is my Maine Coon, for those of you who haven’t read other posts). I’ve managed to gain weight, gone gray, and acquire trigeminal neuralgia since the first weekend of January. It was a great New Year’s let me tell ya! I don’t know if it’s the medication or what, but my hands have begun to twitch intermittently, so doing anything that requires any kind of steadiness has been a challenge.

If I were a Fortran test sheet in high school, I would be incomplete. There wouldn’t even be erasure marks on me. My answers would have just been skipped. Test returned as incomplete. I’m hoping for a do-over, but February isn’t lining up to look any better. I worked on my personal calendar today and I’m already so booked, there are few white spaces left. And it’s not like I’m really that busy. I’m just going to have to give up sleep, I guess. How else can I fit in the things on my “to do” list that I haven’t gotten to yet? Even that is incomplete!

Morgan has just placed herself in front of me, actually between me and the keyboard. That means serious business. She has a few things to add here. She is quite the typist. Oh, you are actually in luck. She just jumped down and is searching out something to do. She wants us to go to bed. It is way over our time to be working in here.

The wind is howling outside. I love the wind as long as I don’t have to be in it. But that doesn’t help me here. I told my husband that I felt really empty from my incompleteness. January is an off month for me, but I don’t recall that I’ve ever been in this kind of rut before. Since I’m a glass half full kinda gal, I’m going to end this on a positive note with the thought that tomorrow is a new day in a new month and I can only pray that it will be a darn sight better than January was for me. I’m going to continue on with my 500 word a day  challenge. By the way, I’ve hit over 600 words here, just thought you should know. I’m going to see what I can do about my darned schedule to make it better. There are things I should be doing that I haven’t been and things I have been doing that I could put on the back burner, so that’s something. It’s a matter of priorities. Always.

I just don’t like this feeling or even the word so much. Incomplete. Where is my eraser?

 

 

 

Art Scene – Psalm 46:10

Day 5 – The oak framed print hanging in the office above our desk has been in our collection for many years. I don’t know who painted it, but it has always caught my eye wherever it has hung in the house. It’s about 18 x 24 framed and has a lovely pine green and cream double mat. The print itself is of a buck and doe standing near a rushing creek side in the early autumn. The doe has her head down and is snuffling through the leaf-scattered ground looking for what might be left of any food for the season. The buck stands very near, in close protection.

All around are large pine trees dwarfing them both. I can barely see the tip of a black tale on the doe and there is a full white throat on the male; his rack is a nice set, four pronged. The scene couldn’t be more peaceful – so much like the one in  Bambi, right before the fire broke out. Not a bird is present in any of the branches, but the rushing of the water can be heard even through the print of the paper. “Be still and know that I am God,” it swooshes, swirling off left and right as it hits the boulder it passes.

Twilight is coming. Only a swath of light is left making a feeble attempt to be the Glorious Sun it was earlier in the day. Shadows are cast, elongating the deer, huge buck horns, giraffe necks. “Be still and know that I am God,” says the creek. No one is there to disagree.

My Childhood Bedroom

I had several bedrooms as a child, but my very favorite was the one that overlooked the field in front of our house. This particular house was the house, the last house I would live in before I left home. There were many rooms in this house that served as my bedroom, but the one that started as my room and ended as my room, was indeed my heart’s treasure.

My childhood room was built as an extension to the house at some point, or at least it seemed like it to me. I am directionally challenged, so I can only describe my room as I am standing facing toward the field, my north.  Out that large window I could see the hillside of lilacs over to the left, the driveway leading down to the mailbox and our bus stop and the road leading away from home. The field in front of the house was where we played softball in the summer, picked wild blackberries in the small creek in the late spring, messed with the frogs and toads in the pond hidden within the blackberry bushes – all to the right of that window. I could sit on the sill of the window and daydream for quite a while before my butt got tired and I had to get down.  The best part of the window was that there was an old oak tree standing sentry to the right at the corner of the house. It was taller than the house, but since the house was kind of built on a slant and the tree was too, it was hard to say just how tall the tree really was. But what was so cool about that tree was that when it was windy or raining, the acorns and leaves on the branches would brush against the house and on top of the house, which hapened to have a tin roof. It would be thundering in my room like my own drum corp. I just loved it.

The second window was to my east and faced out to the wooden deck that encircled the back of the house. I could see a bunch of junky stuff that Dad had ‘stored’ out in that part of the ‘out in the back’. There were a lot of placees that were ‘out in the back’ wth a lot of junk ‘stored.’ That was not a favorite window by any means. In the summer I would open up the windows and let in the fresh air until it  would get too hot and then we used an air conditioner to cool the house. I don’t remember my room gettig all that cool. The sun never beat into the room that much – I didn’t see it come up or go down, but in Mariposa, summers are hot and dry. I don’t think my room was all that big but it was just the right size for me.

My childhoold room was a lot of colors because my mom liked to paint the house a lot. I think it was yellow, pink, white, lavendar, blue. Not all at once, but at different times. I think the last color was a light blue. I was, am, an avid reader, so I spent a great deal of time in my room on my bed reading. I remember specifically being on my bed throughout one summer pouring through Gone with the Wind, cussing under my breath at Rhett and crying my eyes out as I chomped through rosy red apples in the heat of the balmy afternoons. I grew up with Marmy and her girls in Little Women, turning my small closet into a small prayer chapel as closely as I could to the one like Amy had. I had stacks and stacks of books in my room, even though I had a bookcase and nightstands full of them, as well.

My childhood room housed sleepovers with school friends, witnessed fights and resolutions between my little sister, heard my secrets and fears, even became the canvas for all the David Cassidy posters I plastered all over the walls and doors for years. My childhood room saw a child of nine grow into a young woman of 18. On one horrible day, my childhood room was ravaged of the personal contents, drawers torn open and clothes haphazardly thrown about; hangers tossed empty on the closet floor; cherished books, photos, and toys left to the wayside without a second thought. My childhood was over and I was leaving home, very angry and in a hurry. I didn’t even turn to say good-bye…to my childhood room.

The Day I Had My Picture Taken

I was about 36 years of age when I received the dreaded notice in the mail that it was time for me to make a physical appearance at the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) to renew my driver license. I’d been able to skate on just sending in the greenbacks (in check form) over the past several years, but that year, they caught me.

Going to the DMV is no picnic in our town, I don’t know what it is like in yours. Regardless of the appointment system they have set up for you, there are still gazillions of people waiting in any number of lines for what seems like forever. To get the appointment in the first place seems to take an act of Congress, and we all know what that is like. My birthday happens to be in the middle of the summer. I’m a July baby. Couldn’t be any happier to be out in the blistering heat of Merced, CA than a hippo in a dry watering hole. Summer in Central California is hot, folks. You can put a milkshake from McDonalds on the sidewalk and the sun will bake it right into the concrete, after it’s spread it thin as peanut butter.

Hot? Oh yes, that’s what July is. So is June. And I imagine that’s when I was down there at the DMV. In June. My birth date is the 12th, so to give the good government people sufficient time to do their due diligence, I would seem to remember going the latter part of June, with my appointment to meet my DMV person to get my picture taken for my driver license.

So I have been standing in one of the dozen or so lines of men and women who don’t want to be there any more than I do, doing what I love to do in cases like this – people watch. There are elderly folks there hoping for one last chance at the eye chart so they can drive their elderly folks-type vehicles for a few more years (oh dear!). Lots and lots of immigrants of all persuasions are in line for identification cards. Even a few young people eager to get that driver permit or first driver license (heaven help us!). What? Oh, my name has been called.

As I approach the end of the very lengthy counter, actually, it reminds me of a racetrack somewhat, half the length of a football field and curved on either end, I happen to notice a young man approaching the very opposite end of the counter from me. He looked to be about 16 years old. I surmised that it was his father with him and the teenager was getting his first license. We both went through the paperwork process at about the same rate and I was asked to go to the opposite end of the racetrack, er counter, to have my picture taken for the license.

I’m now standing behind the teenage boy, waiting my turn for the photo shoot. He seems appropriately nervous for the occasion. He is several inches taller than myself, has sandy brown hair, is rather thin and wiry. His pictures are taken and he makes his way out of the area and the building. I go through the process and am told it would be about four weeks before receiving my new license, that the temporary one I had been given would suffice. Happy day, thank you very much, wonderful weather and all that. I depart.

Several weeks later, my license comes in the mail. As I rip open the envelope and take a look at my mug shot, I couldn’t help but bust out laughing at what I saw. For you see, it wasn’t me smiling back at me from the driver license but that of the petrified looking face of the young man who had taken his photograph right before me! All the data about me was correct. Everything was peachy except for the photo. What kept running through my mind was what must he be thinking as he proudly tore open his DMV envelope only to find my face smiling back at him on his first driver license! What a hoot!

I made another appointment with the specialist at the DMV. As I began to explain to her my plight, I put it to her this way, “I remember getting a little older, putting on a few pounds, getting a different hair do. I just don’t remember the sex change!” I wonder what his story was?

500 Words a Day Challenge

I started my blog a few short months ago, and I’m fairly new to the blogging scene. I used to write regularly, but it’s clear I need a little help getting into the discipline of it again. I was all fired up when I started the blog, but then life happened, and well, you know. Here’s where you come in. I’ve joined a 500 words a day challenge with a group of writers that is going to get me in the habit of writing on a daily basis. You can help hold me accountable. While my blog site theme is Food for Thought and what I’m passionate about, my next 31 days, (and possibly a bit beyond), will be about writing from the senses, which intrigues the heck out of me. I hope it will interest you, as well.

Where you can help me is…I’d love it if you would comment on the posts you like, and even the ones you don’t so much…and what you do/don’t about them. Your comments will help me know what to fix or not to. At the end of the challenge, not only will I have honed my daily discipline in writing, I will have a collection of writing I will be able to know what to work with down the road. Because of you, Dear Reader! Gotta you up front though – these are free writes – they will not be edited, so hold on to your seats, folks. You are gonna get what you get! Are you ready? Then, let’s get started! This will be a little like Julia/Julia but not as messy. Ha ha ha!