Short Day

I had the best day. What more could you ask for? Start about 9:30AM, go until 11:10AM and take over an hour for lunch. Next class I had began at 12:37pm. Less than two hours later I had my coat and sunglasses on and was walking out the door. Ahh, these are the days I live for.

Oh, I wanted to post a couple pictures. First you see the cat, Sully, in the way he is supposed to be...white and black.

Next, well, apart from the shorn fur, check out the color. Dost mine eyes deceive me, or tis that a white, brown, and black(gray?) cat? I hate giving cats baths.

Oh, and because I had so much time today, my lovely wife asked me to take her dresses (the ones she has finished) in to the elementary, where dwell many new mothers and friends of new moms. (practically a breeding ground for kids...and yet...not...at least in my experience) We thought it might be a place where Cora could drum up a few sales...it is. Here are a couple fabrics that she has that I did not take with me. In the next few weeks Cora will begin putting new stuff on her blanket blog...in the mean time, e-mail her if you'd like to know more, or see pictures of her dresses.

I think these are cute.

Oh, we had Chicken Quasadillas for dinner...not bad...

The Cat IS BACK! HURRAY!!!!!

So, this morning I got up and decided to shoo the dogs outside. I made coffee and walked over to my chair to pick up a glass and put it in the sink and out of the corner of my eye I saw something. It seemed to be black and white, it took a moment to register. I looked again and sure enough!! The CAT is BACK! Sully looks a bit dirty and bedraggled, but overall, he is healthy and seems happy! Oh, we took his cone off as soon as we got him back. That cone was a little beat up and dirty, though!

We feel so much better! HURRAYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I Am Amazed At The Wonders Of My Cat

"Oh, I found it, you may go now."

Several years ago, I wrote a short poem expounding on the wonders of my cat. My cat at the time was named Moe. He was a nice, long haired, black cat. He had personality…one day he went outside on a cold January morning. When he came back he was still black, just not so fluffy. Our lovely neighbor stored their used motor oil in an open pan, which apparently had collected some snow and water. The water froze, and it seemed obvious at the time, then Moe came along and somehow landed on the ice, which dutifully collapsed, cat and all. Moe was dripping oil. He rushed in the door before Cora or I knew hat was wrong…there still appears to be a slight Moe print in the carpet. It is quite faint now. Another day, he went out and he never came back. We were very sad that it was him and not the semi-psycho cat, Sassy, that disappeared. (I should point out that in her final years, Sassy actually became a very dear member of the family, whose eventual demise was extremely difficult for me) Eventually, we got over Moe. I still have a poem that points out his wonders, though…somewhere.

With that, I am forced to continue my previous musings over the wonders of my cat. Moe and Sassy are gone. We still have Sully. Sully, our black and white long haired Canine cat. He seems to think he is at least part dog. We got Toby in the spring of 2002, within a couple weeks we got Sullivan.

I was at home one day in the spring. Cora called and asked me to bring some canned cat food to her. I knew something was up, so I told her no immediately. Then I went down to see the kitten she had rescued. Apparently, while out on their walk the women of the plant saw a white (skinny) ball of fluff come out of the bushes. It further headed straight for my beloved wife. She already had a small box with some towels set up for the small black and white cotton ball. It looked at me with large eyes that pled for me to take them home (not the eye balls, the cotton ball)…I broke and told her she could bring him home.

He and Toby grew up together, and before Gypsy entered the picture, they were brothers and best friends. Often you would see the cat chase the dog down the hall and then the dog chase the cat back and then they would change roles again. They still play with each other from time to time, but Sullivan has matured whilst Toby has remained a puppy at heart. Sully, though, has developed some strange quirks.
First: He uses a dog door.
Second: He does not use a litter box…he goes outside.
Third: He seems to believe his place to sleep is on our feet, and despite being kicked numerous times, usually none too gently, he keeps coming back.
Fourth: He likes us to show him his bowl. It usually still has plenty of food in it, but he meows until he annoys us enough to follow him to his bowl. He then sits on the ground and meows more, then when you take that final step forward (often considering whether to drop-kick or hurl him in an arc out the door) he jumps up and “discovers” that he still has food. He even looks surprised. Then he nods at you as if to say, “You may go now.”
Fifth: He knows when you are in the bathroom. I swear, he could be three miles away and if I get up to go to the bathroom something clicks in his brain that tells him my bladder is full. He probably races home at the speed of fur, comes through the cat DOG door and wanders nonchalantly (and slightly out of breath) to the bathroom, which, if I have not locked and latched, he uses his paw to open. He then looks at you as though slightly hurt that you did not notify him ahead of time of your intentions to relieve yourself and thus make available to him idle hands which he figures are best used in petting a cat. If you ignore him, he comes over, steps into your pants and butts his head against you to remind you of his presence, if the ever-present loud purring was not enough.
Sixth: He drools.


"Listen, I let you follow me over here, but I wish you would not watch me eat!"


Gypsy was glad to see us tonight...can you tell?



I had a long day painting. I did not enjoy it. We did go see “Kung Fu Panda,” though! It is a GREAT movie! I highly recommend it! I hope your Independence Day Weekend goes well!

Chemical Warfare and other Ant Remedies!

So, I had the day off. I got started by making coffee for both Cora and me. She got up and went to work. I got up…you don’t expect me to do anything but sit on my butt until 8 in the morning, do you, especially on my day off? I got up and began to do the dishes and laundry. The cat had been whining and mewing all morning. He does this because he has forgotten he has food. He knows where his dish is, he simply does not remember if he has any food and is loathe to check on it. Most of the time you just walk toward his dish, he jumps up in anticipation and then finds, much to his surprise, that there is food already there! He honestly looks surprised! Only on rare occasions has Cora or I forgotten to check his food. Today his crying seemed a bit more persistent than normal. I ignored him anyway.

I began to clean house. I opened one of our armoires to put some potato chips away when I saw some ants. ( I know I have written about ants before. I intend to again. ) I raised the alarm! I began to search for their source, since they always come from somewhere. There were only a few in that spot…I looked and there…crawling up toward his food dish was a line of ants. His food dish resides on a shelf about 30 inches off the ground so the dogs don’t bother it. The line of ants stretched from the corner of where the counter meets the wall out in a diagonal line toward the corner of the shelf that his food is on. It then climbed vertically 30 inches (approximately 1.5 ant miles) strait up a relatively smooth surface. I immediately fell back for reinforcements.

I am an old hand at fighting ants. When I was young we had Red Ant piles all around the house. These red ants are usually about 3/8 of an inch long and possess a nifty little bite or sting…never stuck around long enough when they began biting or stinging. I have used numerous ways of combating them. A magnifying glass and the sun is a pleasantly gruesome death for small numbers of ants, but they run fast, so you must be steady with the magnifying glass. I have used shovels to open up their nests (I recommend an unblocked escape route). I have used water…desert ants get extremely confused when a deluge of water floods their compartments! And, my personal favorite, not necessarily recommended or supported by the EPA, OSHA, Department of Wildlife, or NASA, is gasoline…the lighted kind. You can see them wiggle and writhe in pain!! Ah, the horrid glory! I used to live for the smell of freshly burned Ant Hill in the morning.

My sister could probably tell you the story I am about to tell a little better than I since she was an interested observer, whilst I was a soon to be roasted participant. It was summer time. Red Ant season. There were several piles, but this one had for some reason warranted my attention. I had opted for gasoline and matches. The SOP was to poor gasoline on the pile and then throw a match on it. Watch the ants come out and die and then when it burnt out repeat the process. Gasoline was usually dispensed from any available container...from plastic cup to tin can. Today it was a glass Orange Crush bottle...you remember the thin styrofoam wrappers around them? Anyway, things were going splendid, several hundred ants had died, but the gasoline was still in my bottle. (Mind you this was the old style gasoline...remember the kind you could afford to burn up like that? Today, it is best to put your gallon of gasoline for the mower in a bank safety deposit box) I poored a little on this pile and lit it. Carrie watched from a distance, she had been participating, but it was my turn. I decided that the burn was not quite what I had anticipated (get it, ant-icipated) so, rather than waiting for it to go out, I simply poured strait from the bottle down onto the flames. Now, I KNEW the theory behind gasoline and how it would follow a dribble upwards, but apparently I had not studied the physics quite well enough. The properties of flame in gravity cause them to rise,and the pouring of liquids requires that the doaner be above the receiving parties premisise. The flame dutifully climbed the stream of gasoline, alighting (get it) at the mouth of the bottle. I stood for a moment and stared at this, then my fear struck and I tossed the bottle...remember it was still pouring? A stream of flaming gasoline flew from the bottle. We happened to be standing in DRY CHEATGRASS. The dry tinder lit immediately. I don't remember if my sister helped or just stood there laughing. I started stomping on the fire, and got it out. My beloved little sister had some things to say, though. I think we may also have been worried about how our parents would have handled a brush fire in the back yard.

Since these are ants in the house, I opted for a different weapon. I have used several weapons on the inside the house ones, too. I have used hammers, glasses, and other handy items to squish them, I have used water to drown them, and liquid soap to entomb them, but the old tried and true is Chemical Warfare. I am aware that NATO, UNICEF, and the WHO all frown on it and the Geneva Convention frankly bans it. I, personally, am not signator to any of those accords, so I freely unleashed a WMD (Weapon of Mass Destruction upon their little six legged asses!). It was a chemical weapons attack. I started at the food bowl. Then I hit the rear of the line, those in the middle were trapped, since we know that ants don’t travel outside the lines! Hah, it was shooting fish in a barrel. I made several runs until each one of them was dead.

A few weeks ago, I bought some Ant Barrier. If I sprinkled it around the border of the house it would keep them away from the house. After two applications, I still see lines of ants filing up the foundation. I called the 800 number and they will be refunding me my money. How nice. He also gave me another type that should work. He laughed when I offered to email him a picture of ants trailing past his product toward my foundation. Oh, well.

I also called my professor, who wanted to know when I wanted to take the test…ummm…never? Not an option. Because I really suggested that they just give me a degree and that way we would not have to bother with a test which would waste their time and mine…alas, I still have to read about a billion books. Why have I not been reading them? Well, I just have not felt the fire underneath my ass…trust me, it helps when you are like me. I will be unbearable to live with for the next couple months, but I should be able to get it done, if only I stress enough. I am a horrible student, and not much better as a teacher…or maybe I am too nice? Oh, well, does it matter? I still have to take an 8 hour written test on the Cold War and then sit in front of a committee and answer a bunch of questions…hmm, can’t I just have chosen something easy like a master’s in basket weaving?

So, with that in mind, what am I doing? Blogging. Figures.

Hanging Basket Case, and Broken Windows

You never know when you are going to change plans. Well, I don’t. We had planned to work on one of the bedrooms to better make things ready for Little Miss. As it happened, though, our weather looked much better than the weatherman had planned. Rather than rain, we had lovely sun and the odd cloud. I began by fixing the washing machine. Its part came in on Wednesday. After a little sweet talking (read cursing) it went together beautifully. Cora was full of helpful hints, and received some minor threats for her helpfulness. You can see the joy I was feeling toward the washing machine on my face.

Then I started shoveling the last of the dirt back over the chicken wire that has successfully kept Gypsy in the yard. Then we decided to get some plants for the hanging baskets and also get some groceries. By the time we got to the nursery, we decided against groceries and got plenty of other stuff.

When we got back, I looked at the picnic table and decided I could do better for a spot for Cora to pot her plants. I have had several 2X4s in the shed since Cora’s parents remodeled their home. I decided to use them. Turns out several had warped and were a bit under par. We decided to make another run back in to Lowe’s, where I got wood (2X4s) and she got an extra couple sections of plant fencing to keep her clamydia …clematis safe.

Cora even got in on the hammering action!

Everything turned out pretty good, even the steaks:

On the down side, while the in-laws (mine) are out of town, we check their cat. (that’s not the down side) Their neighbor came over (to our house...how'd he know where we live?)and told us that the window in the in-law’s van got broken. They had already called the police, who showed up when we were there. We fixed the window by duct-taping the window with plastic.

We also had some "help" in the back yard...This is Sully, who did alot of overseeing and managing.

Toby was prety good, too.

and the final product:

Tomorrow, I get to hose up all the plants and Cora will attack the Bleeding Hearts...which must be among the Guiness Book of World Records...they are freaking montrous. four feet tall, six feet wide and four feet deep. Each year they come back bigger, next year we will have to cut them back just to see out the windows!

Have a great weekend!