Beauty and the Beasts

Note: I have added a link to Sherry’s Salon web page in the last paragraph. I think you’ll find it is not your typical salon page.

Are we becoming England? I mean that in the best way. I think of the English as animal lovers, almost to obsession. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. In fact, I am seeing the U.S. moving even more in that direction. Take one simple hour in my life today.

My hairdresser is located at a marina. Beautiful views of the harbor and the St. Johns River are right out the window. Even better is waiting for your appointment on the deck overlooking the river. But water ways with fish are magnets for stray animals. One poor pregnant cat showed up one day and gave birth in the shop (but that’s a secret). The kittens were quickly placed with customers from the shop and the diner next door. Mama kitty was spayed and was snoozing on the deck today.

Her pictures are displayed all over the shop. Today there was another picture, a digital frame flashing photos of a tiny squirrel and another cat. The shop owner took me through the story of his life beginning with the day her cat brought the tiny newborn through the cat door. That was over a year ago. The frame chronicles his move to the screened porch and finally to the outdoors, where today he has tiki bar, porch swing, picnic table with corn to share with his friends. There is even a whirligig to shoo away the hawks.

I had hardly begun my personal beautification when a guy walked in with his two-month old shitz shu puppy. We oo-ed and aw-ed over him, then talked of spiders and bats we have known in Florida.

I used to avoid going to “beauty parlors” because I felt so uneasy with the gossip and one-upmanship going on around me. You won’t find that at Sherry’s in Sanford, Florida http://www.sherryturnersalon.com/ , but you had better love animals.

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Cat Call

I saw myself today. The little, blonde girl about four sat with her mother in the “dog reception room” of the veterinarian’s office, but she kept glancing into the cat area where I sat with my cat, Emma. There was another woman with two cats beside me. The little blonde skipped over and asked to see the kitties. She bent and peered into the cat carriers one by one, then skipped back over and kissed her beagle on the nose. Shortly she was back again looking at the cats, a little longer this time. This went on until they were called to the examining room. Her eyes were cast toward the cat room all the way.

I am sad for the little girl. I know she loves her dog, but she is a cat person through and through. I would bet she has never had a cat. Perhaps her parents don’t care for them, as mine didn’t. Perhaps she’ll grow up, have her own home one day and always—always have at least one cat to cuddle with. I certainly wish that for her.

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iggy, Artist With an iPad

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But my cats want iPad

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A Strange Dead Cat

What do you do when a strange cat dies in your backyard? The big gray, furry thing lay at the edge of the fern all day, shifting positions only slightly when one of my cats came to the window or when I talked to him. And then late in the day he ceased all movement.. So I tapped on a window. Nothing. Then a closer window. Nothing. That’s when I began to wonder what a person does with a dead cat. I’ve buried many animals in that yard, including a 100+ pound lab, but it’s been a long week and I did not feel like digging though the vine filled yard. How about the county? No, he’s not on county property; he’s on MY property. He’s my problem.

My cats perched  in the windows watching, even talking cat talk, and still he lay there. So I went out the front door to circle around, and grabbed a large stick at the last moment in case a rabid cat suddenly attacked. The spot where he curled motionless could not be seen until I was three feet from it. I took a deep breath and stepped into the opening, not believing what I saw—a perfect circle of crushed fern, an empty circle. There would be no need for the shovel tonight. Thank God!

Unless he just crawled farther back in the fern to finish his exit. Oh, please, let it not be.

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Cat Snips and Tips

There is a new kitten out in Blogdom, I understand. This post is for her/him and all the others out there. These four items work for me, but you know how cats are; past performance is no guarantee of future performance.

 

• Guests to my house don’t know I have cats for two reasons; one, the cats hide until they leave, but most important, they can’t smell the litter box. At least that’s what they tell me. This is probably because I layer newspaper quite thickly at the bottom of the litter box, then pour Fresh Start (though others might work) on top of that. Important here: I do not use clumping litter because it creates little fragrance balls even cooking cabbage can’t mask. With my method, the urine soaks the newspapers which is covered by the nicely scented litter and holds that ammonia scent in. (Thanks to Abbe for this tip.)
• Does your furniture look like shredded wheat? Mine does. Four new leather chairs now feel like dotted Swiss under your fingers. Obviously I learned the following trick too late, but will continue to avoid further damage. Seeing my furniture still covered with quilts and sheets from the night a wise lady asked if I had tried foil. Foil? She said cats hate it, the sound scares them. You can bet I picked up a cheap role and spread it across one chair that night—and subsequent nights for a week. Result: no new scratches although the chair is mostly exposed. In fact, the minute she hears the foil going on, Emma (the culprit) runs from the room. This is only one week’s trial but I am ceasing my research (as they say) because the results appear so promising. I’ll begin to scatter foil on all four chairs at night.
• How embarrassing it was to leave for my super garbage guys a garbage can so smelly I hated to lift the lid to add to it. I am here to tell you the problem is solved. I no longer drop kitty litter bags into the big can, but in a small can beside it. No, it doesn’t smell up the whole garage because of my secret weapon—Glad Bags new odor shield plastic bags. I just plop the dirty bags into that (no cover) and once a week close it up and put in the big can. This would work for dog poop, too. (For the government police dogs out there: I have received no compensation from Glad Bag or, as a matter of fact, Fresh Start. They don’t know I exist.)
• Now this is the most important point. If you remember nothing else, remember this. When you cat is meowing or caterwauling or whatever he does and he doesn’t respond to food or clean litter, you can be pretty sure what he really wants is YOU. Put him in your lap or lie beside him on the floor and stroke him and talk to him. I must credit blogger OmbudsBen for this revelation. When I read a post from him a while back a light came on. He may have been talking about his dog. I really don’t remember, but since then I hear his advice every time chirps and Charo sounds come from my kitties. (They don’t meow.) Attention soothes them every time.

 

Just don’t look to me for advice when your cat falls in love with a stone frog.

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Mom, He’s Copying Me!

M

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Honest Scrap – Trust Me

Amurin over at Stop & Wander tagged me with an Honest Scrap award. I am honored. Of course, maybe I fooled her. Maybe I am really a deranged young man living in a cabin in the north woods, accumulating fertilizer and poetry, and bumping into Bigfoot every once in a while. Ah well. Here goes.

When you get the Honest Scrap award for your honest crap, you are meant to grace your readers with 10 honest things about yourself, and then pass on the award to other blog friends who write honestly and truly about themselves and events in their life.

At this point the blank white screen is imprinting itself on my brain, but I’ll try.

1. In my family honesty was the Holy Grail. Lies were not permitted and the word “liar” hurled at anyone or even spoken quietly evoked a stern look or smack. There was nothing worse you could say of a person.
2. It is unbelievably freeing to no longer be a sex symbol.  Just a hint to the C.I.A.: In my invisible woman phase I could be unfailingly helpful to you. Just sayin.
3. I’m not a one-friend person, always ran in groups (not cliques, we weren’t that important) in school.
4. When a child, I hoarded all my nickels and pennies and counted them over and over, loving the sound of them flowing back and forth from one hand to the other. I still try to keep most in my hands.
5. In school avoided reading and science. As an adult read constantly and am fascinated by science. What happened to “as the twig is bent, so grows the tree?”
6. My grands are the most amazing four people on the planet, followed closely by their parents plus two, my daughter and her husband.
7. I can live without a lot of things, but not cats. (Well maybe this one blocking the computer screen.)
8. I love, love, love guns. So shoot me.
9. My motto is: Old is not a four-letter word. Senior is what I was in high school.
10. But I refuse to wear “granny panties.” If bikinis were good enough for my pregnant body, they are good enough now.

Now watch out! I’m getting ready to tag someone, and it’s: Corina @Wasted Days and Wasted Nights, C\hele, OmbudsBen, & anyone else who would like to join in.

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Cat Attraction

Are all cats drawn to computers? Are they the ultimate technophobes or is the spot between you and the computer commensurate with you and the newspaper? Neither Emma nor Luther will dare sit in my lap. Oh no, but when my “lap” is the computer desk I can’t keep them away.

So today Luther parked himself right where I needed to spread receipts to enter in Quicken.  I just pretended he wasn’t there and stacked them right on him. He hardly twitched, sat there the whole process.

Now Emma comes along later as I am viewing the picture I took of him. She sees brother on the screen, figures it’s her turn and plops in front of the screen. In a way, Emma is the bigger challenge because she doesn’t know the command “lie down” and he does, and she has that lush plume of a tail that Luther doesn’t. On the positive side, it is well dusted behind the screen everytime she loops back there.

Are you quite sure Hemmingway got any writing done in Key West  with all those cats roaming around?

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The Triaged Life

You know what they say happens when you are over the hill? You pick up speed, of course. Darned if it isn’t true and I think I may know why, at least in my case. Older people tend to cast off things that are no longer useful (my mother almost stripped her house) and eliminate activities and associations that no longer give them pleasure. Perhaps the feeling is that life’s fuse is burning shorter and we don’t have a minute to squander on non-rewarding things. I’ll leave that to psychologists. I just held a microscope over my own changes and found them interesting. Here are some of the things I now do.

• Choose microwave over crock pot (all that planning, you know)
• No longer compare purchases strolling store to store, but on Internet
• Encourage e-mails instead of time wasting phone calls (anti-social, I know)
• During commercials, play show recorded earlier on TV and get two in very little more time
• Skim newspaper articles instead of reading every little thing. I’ve seen most on Internet anyway.
• Crave news instantly from Twitter, treating “refresh” like a one-armed bandit in the casino when things are really breaking.
• Revel in flash fiction and haiku (reading and creating)
• Love challenge of squeezing my thoughts into 140 characters on Twitter, making every word count.

For what do I squirrel away all this time, you might be thinking. Family, friends, good books (or slutty books, if I like), working on my house and first garden, exercising, keeping an eye on government, doing photography, matching wits with my cats, any darn thing I enjoy – and nothing I don’t.

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