Not totally serious--yet

Zing, zing, zing. Seems like this year, there goes my summer. That’s probably true every summer, but this one, times three. So, here goes on what I trust (cross my fingers) is the last update on the ongoing melodrama of Trilla’s personal life—in the next few months, it’ll be more about Trilla’s book life.

Foster is happy to be home with his
own food bowl. "Feed me!"

Ginger doesn't mind being an
only cat again. Not on bit.

            The doctor told Kate to stay with us two months. That lasted about two-and-a-half weeks.  She’s back at work, but still can’t put weight on left leg at all, and so this means we’re still helping out lots, but we’re all easier on our own turfs. Happiest of all with the arrangement? No surprise—Foster Cat.

So my “reading just for fun days” have slowed and I’m turning to other books, but still reading lots and lots and lots and lots. And I’m not totally serious yet. I had a great fling, and a good transition with Susan Wittag Albert’s Widow’s Tears.  (http://www.amazon.com/Widows-Tears-Bayles-Wittig-Albert/dp/0425255727/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1373379759&sr=1-1&keywords=widow%27s+tears+susan+wittig+albert).  A great story, particularly if you, like I am, a longtime friend of China and Ruby.  But it’s more than just a story. Albert packs lots in there.  Not really escapism, and it’s set in the beautiful countryside around Round Top, Texas—a place I love.  Indeed, I recommend it.

            Then being a reviewer for Story Circle Book brought me just what I needed! Home Front Girl: A Diary of Love, Literature, and Growing Up in Wartime America appeared at the front door as if on cue. I’ve been journaller about as long as I can remember. A one-year diary showed up under the Christmas tree every year with the same dependability as the doll at top of the red stocking, and continued even after the dolls went away. I made my most recent entry this morning. Part of my life. I was ready, ready for this book.

Joan Wehlen Morrison was a greater journaller than I. What’s more, while I assume “no one’s ever going to care about these” and store them helter-skelter and here-and-there, Joan wrote thinking that her journals would be read, stored them carefully, and made sure her writer daughter knew where they were.  That daughter, Susan Morrison has turned these journals into a story of both her mother’s life from when she turned 14 in December of 1936 to 1943 when she met her future husband of 66 years. But Morrison has done more. She’s captured a slice, a small slice but an important one, of American history. This is an important book.

Well read now, and I'll be reading it again.

            And inspirational to me. My next get-organized is not going to be the mess under the kitchen counter that’s on the schedule now. No. I’m going to take those boxes of disorganized mixed-up journals and diaries and get them in chronological order, and then, I’m going to read them.  It may be that some do indeed need discarding—I’ll do it now, and I’ll be the one to do it. But others I’ll keep and who know, while likely they will never be published, someday great or great-great grandchild may enjoy knowing what twentieth-century life was like in the Panhandle of Texas.

            Thank you Morrisons.

            More to the moment, I’m thinking about my weekend reading. Young Joan reported hearing and puzzling over the stance of Charles Lindburg in the time leading up to the war. I knew Kate  read and enjoyed the fictional account of Anne Morrow Lindburg’s life, Aviator’s Wife. I knew it was lying on her bedside table.  Yesterday when I visited Foster, I nabbed the book. Now it’s on my bedside table with the first two chapters consumed—and it is not the weekend yet.

Waiting for bedtime and Chapter 3, maybe 4.

(This entry is also posted at http://storycirclenetwork.wordpress.com)

Serious Reading

Last post, I was in a bit of a panic, and I owe you an update. Things have calmed down,  Katy’s still with us, and she’s thriving—well, maybe I should say getting along very well for someone who’s on crutches and  dwelling in a bedroom not her own.   

                Fortunately, we all have senses of humor so that the laughter sounds spill over several times a day. Here’s an example—first day—Katy waits politely until one of us appears and then requests a favor—“Would you please bring me my I-pad?” “Might I have a fresh water?”

                A few days later as I was making my bed, my phone gave its distinctive “Katy” ring.

                “Mom would you mind coming into my room.” Of course, I was happy to oblige.

                Now we’ve got it down to an art. My message signal chirps. I scarcely need to look knowing the message will be one word: “Fetch.”

Sparc-time fun. Every one a
different color 

                I’m delighted. Means she’s feeling so much better.  She managed to do some work from home within a week of the misstep. Yesterday, she got a new cast that gives her lots more mobility—still no weight on that foot though. Between crutches and a light-weight

Off to work for the first
time in a long time.

wheelchair, she’s getting frisky and is going to try going into her office this afternoon.

                Our other guest livens up the house almost as much as Katy does. Foster Cat considers himself an “only cat.” Guess what?  Up until about two weeks ago, so did Ginger Pando. The two have had some interesting, and noisy conversations, but they are moving toward mutual tolerance and even food-sharing.

It all keeps me busy, but I still have lots more reading time than has been my norm.  I knocked off two or three more Leann Sweeney’s, and then I decided the budget didn’t allow for these forays to the Kindle Store. I then began what I should have done first—if I’d had my wits about me—I went through my towering “to read” stack.  A friend had mentioned how her book club enjoyed Saving CeeCee Honeycutt.  And there was Cee Cee waiting under three “when you decide to get serious” volumes. CeeCee kept me out of trouble for a couple of days. Now I’m ready for a new author.

        Survivor: One Woman's Path Through Life, Love, and Uncharted Tragedy.  Check out the review at http://www.storycirclebookreviews.org/reviews/radicalsurvivor.shtml. You’ll see what I mean. 

Tolerating each other--only because
I'm reading in the nearby chair.

         Casting about for ideas, I visited the Story Circle Book Review page hoping to find another fun mystery for a great price. But the opening page stopped me. It told me that I’m ready to graduate from fun reading and get back to something serious. The editor’s pick leapt out.  I’ve been thinking the Pandos have troubles; well, maybe not as many as I thought.  Nancy Saltzman knows about troubles, and more she knows how to survive them. She recounts her experiences in Radical

                I thought I’d order on the Kindle, but now I’m thinking I need a hard copy. I have a feeling this is a book I’ll be passing along. I have a Father’s Day shopping trip planned with my 12-year-old grandson this afternoon. Where are we going? Where else in this family of readers? Why to Barnes and Noble. I’ll see if they have Radical Survivor. If not, you know what I’ll be ordering this evening.

Happy reading!

(This entry also appear in http://storycirclenetwork.wordpress.com/2013/06/13/serious-reading/)

Tradition! Tradition! Meow!

Fresh, free-range turkey
right from the oven.

The hit of Thanksgiving Dinner--home
made butter.

I’m beginning to think it’s a family Thanksgiving tradition. Not having turkey (yes, we did that with son Chris as chef and mighty good it was, not to mention the homemade butter). No, taking in lonely cats threatens to become a habit.

Ginger--once upon a time

            Almost five years ago a cat appeared on our porch in Southwest Georgia. For months I told him, “Shoo, scat, cat.” He didn’t. He told me firmly speaking in a squeaky cat-ese, that this was his home and we are (yes, are) his family. Finally, on Thanksgiving day, 2007 I gave him a handful of cat food. The rest—history. I wrote about it in this blog in January, 2008 Gentling Ginger I. I’ve updated now and again, and now it’s history repeats herself.

            Ginger, named for his ginger coat, quickly managed to make himself the lead family cat. He even made the move with us to Houston where he now feels right at home.

Ginger now--surveying
his domain,

New cat on the block

            But last March, complications. Douglas appeared. Now Douglas wears a tag that says he lives a block away. That’s what they think. Douglas thinks he lives right in my yard where we’re sharing him with our neighbor Michael.  

Mac and Arthur, or is it Arthur and Mac?

(Check out my March 15 and 17, 2011 entries here.) Not only did Douglas appear. He brought two “nephews,” Mac and Arthur. The boys remain happy to eat outside and run. But Douglas? Douglas tells us plaintively (he tells Michael the same thing, and he’s as soft a touch as I am.), "I'm a house cat. I love you."

            And now—instant replay. Thanksgiving morning, I felt mellow, generous, loving and one more time—I opened the door. Immediately, Douglas accepted. That was a week ago. Now Douglas has made himself right at home—and with Ginger’s grudging permission. When will this end?

            No, Mac!

            No, Arthur!

Well, not until next Thanksgiving. Maybe.

Maybe too much at home!

Douglas makes himself at home.

            

 .

Unpredictable--those cats

More on our ongoing and everlasting cat drama.

I’ve spent considerable time on two activities—keeping one cat, Douglas, out, and keeping one cat, Ginger, in.  More than once I thought why fight it? I’m only making all three of us unhappy. Just open the door and see what happens. But no, I didn’t.

            Until one day last week, oops. I didn’t do it on purpose. I brought in the mail and got so busy looking at that I didn’t notice I left the front door wide open. Oh, no!

            Oh, yes! No Ginger! I went through the house rattling a bowl of cat food—my never-fail way of calling Ging. Nothing. Then I went outside.

            “Here, Ginger.”

            “Here, Ginger.”

            Douglas came. Ginger didn’t.

Happy (sort of) to be home.

            I confessed to Bob. “I left the door open, Ginger is gone.”

            He consoled me and predicted Ginger would be back in 30 minutes. The minutes came and went. No Ginger. We had to run an errand that took a couple of hours. I tried not to think about Ginger.

            When we pulled up who do think was sitting on the porch, complaining about the door being shut. That’s right. Since then there hasn’t been nearly so much door sniffing and meowing—from the inside.

Easter Morning nap on the porch.

            But Douglas has taken up steady residence on the front porch. He likes breakfast early then a nap. Sometimes Mac and Arthur come. Sometimes not. Last night, we heard Douglas’s good-night meow. Suddenly Bob mellowed. Was it the Easter spirit?

            “Let’s let Douglas in,” says old not-in-my-lifetime Bob.

            Now it’s, “Here, Douglas.”

            There is no figuring out cats. After months of begging and sticking his nose in the door, Douglas declined. So back to where we started. We have an inside cat and an outside cat, by their own choices. I’ve quit worrying about it.

What have I unleashed?

What have I unleashed? Or is unleashed even a word to use when discussing cats? (Note the plural.)

            I opened the breakfast bar for Douglas this morning, not quite as early as he thought appropriate. He’d requested early service when Bob went out for the paper around six.

            Douglas munched his fill. Dinner from M. must have been glorious, for for all the meowing pleases, he didn’t eat much. For the leftovers, he invited not one but two (!) friends.

So what to name them? Since they are Douglas’s friends, I’ve dubbed the Mac and Arthur. But which is which?

While Mac and Arthur chowed down, Douglas sat by the backdoor regally maintaining that he is too an inside cat.

My problem now? What to name the next one. . .Suggestions?

Douglas? Here, Douglas! Here, Douglas!

Bob, Ginger and I discussed it at length. I still thought it would show hospitality to invite our new friend in from time to time. The fellows voted together, and voted emphatically, “NO!” Bob cited fleas, cat hair and vet bills. Ginger just said, “NO!” We compromised on the breakfast bar.

            I the next morning around six when I opened the back door, Douglas was on the top step. Talk about kitty intuition. This worked fine for several days. Douglas and I  got friendlier and friendlier. He even let me brush him and cut out some really knarly hair wads.

            One afternoon I was giving him an illicit snack, when my neighbor from the garage apartment behind our house strolled by. M. and I discussed our mutual friend. Turns out M. doesn’t have the compunctions of Bob and Ginger, he’s been inviting Douglas in. What’s more, M. is a waiter at a good restaurant and allowed that most nights he checks with the chef about leftovers. Douglas may be having dry cat food for breakfast, but he dines well at night. M. and I left it that Douglas is a community cat. We even talked about getting him a lion cut to take care of the remaining hair wads.

            Then last Saturday, Douglas disappeared. “Douglas? Here, Douglas!” “Here, Douglas!” Nothing. Several times I strolled around the block to see if he’d wandered back to his old digs. “Here, Douglas!” Nothing. Oh, dear. I hoped for the best and feared the worst.

            I still looked out every morning. This morning, there he was, nose pressed against the backdoor, looking aggravated that I was a little late with breakfast. I brought an extra helping. That was good, because Douglas invited a friend. (More about the local covey of feral cats another time.) M. is at work now and has promised an extra special dinner.

            

Ginger still maintains the breakfast bar is fine, but he is and always will be the one and only cat of the house. Sorry! King of the house.