My (perhaps controversial) thoughts as a "newbie" to CA.
Comments
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Lori, you have a gift-giving feral cat! That's quite an accomplishment on your part!
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You are so right Trill! I'm betting it's my "Bob Cat" that left the mouse for me. I still can't get any closer than 2 feet from him before he backs off :-(
The little tabby/calico mixed female is expecting. I wonder if I make a birthing box for her on the far side of the deck if she'd use it? Otherwise the coyotes will have her kittens in no time :-(
Too many worries for a feral cat owner LOL
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I am giggling at the bread dragging cat story! I had a kitty that used to love corn on the cob. When my DS was about 2 he was eating his dinner at the table. I turned around and the cat was on the table stealing the corn on the cob off of his plate! He used to dig in the trash and steal the already eaten corn as well. He was a smart, funny cat. He was climb in bed with me , snuggle under the covers and put his head on the pillow. He loved donuts and pop tarts, too.
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WenchLori--a real dilemma....hope you get it sorted...my sister's beloved cat was killed by a coyote, as was my niece's cat....this came as a surprise to this Easterner....so scary...you more than have your hands full with all that wildlife...how do you do it and still stay sane??
Molly50--what a funny story! That kitty had a sweet tooth--my kind of cat! I thought cats couldn't taste sweetness.....or is it that they can't see color?
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Trill, for the most part I just put critter food out and let the critters sort it all out. I just sit on my love seat and wait for them all to show up lol
Awesome cat story Molly, I can picture your cat stealing the corn on the cob lol
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Hah-hah! WenchLori--that's good. Just dump it and leave the divvying up up to them!
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My first kitty Tabigail (they’d named her “Tabby” at the shelter, which I thought way too prosaic), a silver mackerel tabby, had unusual tastes. About a week after we adopted her, I came home from work and she greeted me at the door, with this strange white fungus-y looking stuff covering her muzzle. I was about to scoop her up and take her to the vet when out of the corner of my eye, I saw something on the dining room floor which hadn’t been there that morning. I walked over to investigate....and it was a box of powdered-sugar-dusted buttermilk donuts, with five intact....and a little pile of crumbs next to the box. Over the next 14 years we had her, she evinced a love for potato chips, french fries, sugar cookies and fresh basil. But for the basil we’d have renamed her CarboCat.
She was an indoor cat (as were all of ours) and needed ways to satisfy her prey drive. One evening after we’d moved to what is euphemistically called in Chicago a “garden apt.” (i.e., a daylight basement), Bob & I were sitting in the bedroom watching TV, when from the living room we heard a muffled “ow-ow-ow:” the sound she’d make when bringing a toy with which she wished to play chase & fetch and then present it to us as a trophy. Bob said, “Oh look, how cute--she’s bringing us her catnip mouse!” As she trotted in through the French doors, I looked a bit more closely, and said, “I don’t think a catnip mouse has wiggly legs & tail and a terrified look on its face.” Bob said to go into the living room. So I did. The French doors closed. I heard a cacophony that began with a meow of protest, and then squeaks of terror interspersed with BLAM-BLAM-BLAM, and finally the unmistakable flush of a toilet. The doors opened, revealing Bob wiping off his Grant’s Atlas of Anatomy, declaring, “All clear.” Poor Tabigail looked up at me and gave a sad meow, crushed that we did not appreciate her desire to put on a chase-torture-chase-kill show for us.
She also loved to catch waterbugs, and deposit their headless carcasses in my loafers. After we moved first to another apt. and eventually our house--neither of which proved good sources of prey, she was never the same.
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ChiSandy, I was eating some fig newtons and was halfway through one when the whole scene of you in your garden apartment and T-Abigail (spellcheck kept wanting to turn it in Abigail so I had to alter it a bit to get it at least somewhat true to her name) delivering her most generous gift played out in my head and then I couldn't hold back any longer. I've just finished sneezing the rest of that fig newton out of my nose.... too too funny.... these stories we share should really come with black-bordered Surgeon General's warnings...
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Oh my gosh! I'm going to start a book of all our funny stories about our furry family members. What a riot! Still LOL!!
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I love my blocks Trill! Thank you so much again!!
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When I was a kid we had a cat who ADORED cigarette butts. She found them on the ground (smoker neighbors in the 70s.)She would roll around purring and rubbing the butt on her face. They were her catnip. She would eventually eat it then puke it back up. Drove my dad nuts.
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Melissa, I bet your cat smelled pretty yucky for awhile? Yuck! LOL
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Sandy, you had a cat named Tabigail and I had a dog named Abbey-Gail :-) I miss my old girl
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I had a beagle named Abigail
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Stink or not, this cat you did NOT take things away from. She was legendary. Our strapping 6'2 neighbor was terrified of her. Dogs with a habit of getting out & taking strolls crossed the street when they got near our yard
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Great story, Sandy. Melissa, your cigarette butt loving cat sounds like our orange fluffy cat who stole a pack of peppermint gum from my purse and rolled around on it like catnip. She runs our dog out of the room and sometimes even off her dog bed. The funniest thing is the competition between the dog and cat for my DH's attention.
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Melissa--Now if only ALL smokers vomited after after every cig!!! Think what a deterrent that would have been!
Lori--I want a copy of that book! Glad you like your blocks!
Molly--Look at that love fest between your DH, your fluffy cat--and the dog, who looks to having squeezed as close to your DH as she can possibly get...as if declaring no one puts Baby in the corner!!
One cute thing our Siamese--Lyla--used to do with my dad was every morning she'd jump up on the bed and go up to his pillow and position herself inches from him. Then she'd proceed to bat at his face--very gently--with her paw until he woke up. He told us he was so tickled at this that he'd pretend to stay asleep just to see how long she'd keep it up. (For all his treating it as if HE was guiding HER activity, we all duly noted that it was SHE who was really in control.)
Here's a shot of Miss Panty--well, of half of her--whose fur is the thickest it's ever been--even more so than in the dead of winter. (I keep telling myself that it's an insulator against the muggy 87 it is now at--what?--3 a.am. here in the bedroom.) (Time to turn on the a/c....I'm making myself feel guilty...)
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Trill, nothing more cooling than snuggling up to tile flooring on your tummy! Very smart move Miss Panty!
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Molly, you crew are so cute! With the two of them keeping your DH busy you are free to move about the house 😜
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Hi, Ladies!
Trying to catch up after being offline for a few days. Still loving all of the pet photos and the raccoon picture. I love raccoons even though they can be really destructive. They are so smart.
Trill, Miss Panty laying on the floor is hilarious! I have been so hot at times, I have thought about doing the same thing on our kitchen floor. If someone saw me do that, they would probably think I had been drinking out of the same bottle you apparently drank out of before hitting that poor girl's car. LOL.
My husband says he is not a cat person (due to being allergic to them) but every cat that he comes across seems to love him. It is pretty comical. They want to rub all over him.
JBeans, glad to hear the queen bee is doing her thing!
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If I'd known you two were going to pass the bottle around I would have asked you to send it my way! ROFLMBO!!
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Hi all---
Sorry, DisneyGirl and Lori, that bottle's long gone--weeks ago! I tossed it in the weeds as I was peeling out, dashing from that drunken T-boning I did of that poor gal's car---
OMG, I hope teasing about this doesn't get me in trouble! I'm just kidding--I'm just kidding! House of Cards has me all paranoid! I didn't hit anyone and I don't drink! If liquor tasted like milkshakes instead of spit-up I'd be in AA today, but it doesn't--it tastes like spit-up! So I don't drink it!
It's been so hot the past couple of days, enough to make me haul out the air mattress and blow her up to sleep in my much cooler living room, on the cool floor...with Panty....
Well, that was the plan.
I had to be up early this a.m. because they were coming to install a new medicine cabinet over the toilet--they forgot to do this during the massive renovation--I mean, all of us are seniors in this building, we all take a med or two or twenty--and they forgot to put in medicine cabinets! We used to have a small one with a mirror over the sink, but when they installed this huge mirror flush against the wall and a new large sink with vanity underneath--really nice,though!--that took away our medicine cabinets.
When the fellows finally arrived I made them hook mine up high enough so that there's room over the toilet (and under the medicine cabinet) to hang this neat-o Victorian comb and mirror carved wooden holder that I just love. (I was not going to stick it in a closet!) When the guys said they had to install the cabinet at a set height I pulled out my best Frank Underwood (or maybe, better yet, Claire Underwood) face and talked them into putting it higher--telling them that as I am six feet tall I NEED a higher mirror/cabinet--and they said, Well, if you never tell on us we'll do it.
When they left I thought Aaaahhhhh, now I can turn in! I'd been up all night watching season four of House of Cards and anticipating this 9 a.m. knock on my door (I'd rather stay up than get up...I'm so bleary for about two hours after waking up it's painful...much easier to grab a nap and just stay up...)
Just then something outside my window and down on the street turned on. I mean really ROARED to life!
Remember I told you the street that runs parallel to the little one I'm on caved in back in early May? Well, the gas and electric company and the city's infrastructure people have been at it ever since. That street is completely closed off now and there are massive cranes, bulldozers, etc over there--you name it. It looks like the Second Normandy Invasion.
I'd heard this noise before. It's varied and weird and phenomenally loud. Every now and then it chortles and coughs and splutters and sorta dies away like a big tired bee. But mostly it's a big BOTHERED bee. (JBeans, thanks for putting bees in my brain!) (Has anyone ever been chased by angry Africanized South American bees? Or some weird name. These are huge and scary as hell and my brother Skip stirred up a nest burrowed in a walnut tree at home one summer. He was just shaking out the vacuum cleaner bag and these bees came after him. Then they came to the back porch and hung angrily around the overhead light all night. I got some roach spray and sprayed them right through the screen door. They dropped and died and more came. Scariest thing I've ever been through. We got an Orkin man out and he said they're the worst to get rid of. To hang in till winter (yeah--behind a door!!!) and they'll die off.) (Wait. Is that how Nature works? Doesn't sound like Natural Selection to me. More like Unnatural Obliteration.) (Sorry JBeans if this is upsetting you. But they really were terrifying and Skip was stung twice ...)
I wonder if the noise outside my window is being manned. Is a man out there manning i? If so, is he there all night long?
I see they have these long thick hoses taped down to the street in a u-shape, and those big neon traffic cone barrel things all placed around.
The racket is awful!!
But as I took my third shower of the day I said to myself, I said, "Trill, be happy you have water and can take three showers in one day. Thank those men out there who are working hard at this, even though it does sound as if they're digging for fresh water or preparing to build another Large Hadron Particle Accelerator..."
I've been thinking it's some kind of compressor or generator or something. It sometimes goes all night.
But today it changed. Just as I was rocking and rolling around on the air mattress, getting acclimated, getting drowsy--on comes this thing--right under my third floor window--and this time there was the sound as if they were piping gravels through a hose--which is prolly what they were doing. In mid-afternoon we'd had a terrific thunderstorm--sideways rain, lightning, hail, two inches in about a second--and after listening to this strange set of noises it hit me (I don't mean literally): they're pumping water and debris out of that massive sinkhole and routing it over to my street and dumping it--well, somewhere.
Resigned to the noise, I crawled along the dark (curtain drawn against the sun) floor to the closet and dug out my earplugs. Unfortunately, back there in time somewhere I trimmed these down because at their full length these plugs tend to pull out of one's ears while sleeping.
But I trimmed too much! I stuffed them in and then suffered a mild panic attack when I couldn't get them out!
Not a trip to the ER to get the ear plugs unplugged???!!!!! Not on top of everything else!
Thankfully my tweezers grabbed them and yanked them out and I was treated to the raucous street noises again but at least had my ears back...
Is there anything more foolish than TRYING to go to sleep? I mean is that an oxymoronic idea or what? I don't think anything on earth will arouse one to full wakefulness like TRYING to go to sleep...
Sleepless, I pulled my kindle fire over and cranked her up and watched THE LAST EPISODE OF HOUSE OF CARDS to the sounds of gravels being spit out of a meat grinder. No spoiler alert here or anything, but, boy....what a crackerjack ending... It was so great I wanted to rush out and find Claire and Frank wherever they're filming next season's shockers and give them a big hug!! I think they built a studio that has the White House and everything in Joppa...
Wait a minute.
I read somewhere that....
that...
Frank and Claire's (pretend movie) home when he was VP is a real home right near
where I hit that car!
I mean, where I DIDN'T hit that car....
Bolton Hill!
At some point I'm gonna google map it.
I have to.
But I'm almost afraid that
that
I'll learn something
Twilight Zone-ish
about it.
Like maybe
I did do it.
Went out on a
House of Cards
spree
seeking out
Claire's home where she keeps
her 4" heels..
and her heel
of a husband...
And rammed
an innocent
girl
named
Ashley
Wilson!
No!
Enough of this craziness!
By the time I'd tossed and turned and watched a ton of episodes and gone through sixteen sweat-wet-dry-heat up-sweat etc cycles, it was late afternoon and finally getting cool outside.
And now here I am, after all that--back in my bedroom.
But the mechanics are still roaring outside....
Funny thing: it's quieter in here in my bedroom than it was in the living room....hmmmm....
OK--now I know. The heat pump a/c/heat thing under the front window is really kinda wide open to the out of doors. That's why I get so many drafts coming from there in the winter.... so our brand new double-glazed, gas-filled (or whatever) windows when they close in the bedroom really do block noises nicely--it's just a rumble with none of the gravel sounds coming through.
But in the living room---aye aye aye......the sound is loud and clear.
And I'll have to sleep on the air mattress in there when it gets hot as it's 10-15 degrees cooler in there than in here...
Bedroom: crazy hot but quiet.
Living room: cool as a cucumber but loud as the cymbals of hell.
It's always either/or. It's always a trade-off. It's never and/and.
Except for Panty.
She's and/and.
Night, ladies! Sleep tight and cool!
love t
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Oh my goodness Trill! Have you raided Muss Panty's catnip again?!?! That stuff is worse than your bottle of spit-up! The nightmares I'm going to have worrying about you all night!
Get some sleep! ((((Trill))))
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HI Lori-- i'm fine! I just had a two hour nap that was wonderful! And no dreams....love, t
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Hi ladies-- I feel so guilty....
This is a big I'm SORRY!
I got carried away yesterday--couldn't calm down and sleep and ended up getting diarrhea-of-the-fingers with that rambling, loooonnnnng post.....
Diarrhea-of-the-fingers?
Oh, God, not another rambling thing over diarrhea-of-the-fingers!!!!!!!!
Please--somebody ELSE write about diarrhea-of-the-fingers!!!!!!!
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I truly enjoyed your funny posts, Trill. I hope you feel more rested today.
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So sweet of you, Molly50! I always write to please-entertain-bring a chuckle but was so over-adrenalized I didn't know how to stop...I did sleep great at last--thanks!
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Diarrhea of the FINGERS! Aaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!
Funny - all of you.
And so says Zaky and I
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Aww, how cute Jbeans!
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Melissa - so funny you encouraged your dog to pick the cherry tomatoes. My Zaky loves cherry tomatoes and leaves the big ones alone. He curls back his lips and picks them with his very front teeth so carefully.
Chi sandy - He does the same picking with our raspberries - he doesn't worry about the lymphodema but I do. While weeding them this spring I got all scratched up before I even thought of it.
Trill - yes, I plan to make my girls work for me and harvest honey. I'll likely get to sneak a bit this fall to try (maybe a pound) but I need to let them build up comb and honey for their own supplies so they can survive the winter. Next year they should have their brood box full and I should be able to put on a honey super box or two and get a proper harvest next July and next September. By the following year and if things go well and the hive is strong also for years after I may be able to harvest about 60 lbs of honey a year. I hope I can figure out how to split hives and such that I can eventually have 4 or 5 to watch and care for. Mmmmmm. :-
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