Tag: cats

It’s raining cats and dogs

We have been getting some rain, but not quite that much. However, I know you’ll cut me some slack on the light blogging and the delay of a new Runway Monday design when you see what’s been occupying my time. We’re still fostering three of those precious puppies at The Compound; the others are being fostered elsewhere, until they’re all ready for adoption into new homes. Most of them will be traveling to Colorado rescues courtesy of a new transport rescue group that Timothy has helped found.

Oh, just standing around this Houston sauna and dreaming of the Colorado climate.
Permission to come aboard!
Wait–who has the GPS?
There’s a lucky home waiting for me in the Centennial State! (What’s a “centennial?”)
Dog is your co-pilot.

Legacy Writing 365:304

There’s a box of photos that belonged to my mother that I forget that I have. Looking through it today, I found more photos from when I lived in that rural area I mentioned in a post a couple of days ago. It was a good meeting place for my family, pretty much equal distance from the various cities where they were all living at the time (except David, who was already living out West then). I found this photo of Debby still in her nightgown one morning, looking as if she’s being edged off the chair by her cat Casey Sid Vicious.

I include this picture mostly because I think Lynne may be the only person who’ll remember those bizarre and mostly unidentifiable animals on the shelf behind Debby. There were more of them than are pictured here. I bought them at World Bazaar in Birmingham and called them “the ugliest animals in the world.” I don’t know where they were imported from, but they had real animal hair and amateurishly painted faces–almost as if the painting were done by small children (likely) with nail polish (or some paint containing lead, no doubt). I kept those things forever until I was finally shamed into throwing them away by everyone who was repulsed by their hideousness. Poor ugly animals; I loved you.

In that same batch of pictures is one of Josh, Gina, and Sarah’s father. I include it because there’s that ashtray I made in art class that my mother ended up breaking. Remember how I said I never used it as an ashtray? The fact that it’s on the table by her cigarette case is proof that she was always dragging that thing out against my wishes. Stubborn old woman.

Legacy Writing 365:281

Something I haven’t mentioned is that Lynne decided to sell Green Acres. It was a wonderful home with beautiful grounds where Jess grew from a toddler to a young man, but for a number of reasons, it became time for a change. One day I’m sure I’ll be sharing photos of her new place, and no matter what, I know it will have gorgeous grounds because gardening is one of Lynne’s passions. Meanwhile, some of her potted plants are on loan at The Compound, and since I am not exactly known for my green thumb, I’m hoping she plans to make regular visitations.

During the move, when Tom and Jess were putting items into storage, Jess apparently talked about some of the cats from Green Acres’ history. Coincidentally, I’d been planning to post a couple of my favorite cat photos today in honor of Jess’s birthday. Happy birthday, Jess!

Lynne once had a dog named Pepper, and when a new kitten came to Green Acres, Jess said he wanted another spice name. We went through a list, and he settled on Ginger. In one way it didn’t make sense, because the cat wasn’t red, but since I’m the person who encouraged Daniel to name his rocking horse Fido, I’m all in favor of defying standard name practices. Ginger he was. Except Craig either never remembered Ginger or didn’t like the name, because he always called Ginger “Bubba.” In time, the rest of us called him Bubba, too.

Bubba was an outside cat–he wouldn’t have had it any other way because Green Acres was surrounded by lots of undeveloped land ideal for feline stalking and exploring. Unfortunately, this lifestyle can leave long, flowing cat hair matted and tangled, and so it was that Bubba once needed a somewhat severe haircut.

I don’t think Bubba was amused, but I sure was. (Aside: Lynne recently found out the wooden toy box Bubba stands on in this photo was built by her father.)

Since I was so rude as to laugh hysterically during Bubba’s photo session, Jess was quick to comfort him. I especially like the tuft of hair at the end of Bubba’s tail.

Speaking of hairdos, during the time of this photo, Jess’s hair was mullet cut–buzzed in the front with some length in the back that ended in a rattail. I’ve read that the rattail is making a comeback. However, I’m not sure any cats will bring the Bubba cut back into vogue.

Legacy Writing 365:232

Saturday night, Lila informed me that I am old. She’s right. I’ve earned every gray hair that I ask Tim to color dark brown, every wrinkle I refuse to see in the mirror when I brush my teeth, and every anniversary of my thirty-fifth birthday. But inside me, there’s still a girl for whom summer means:


Being outside all day with friends like Daffy (Daphne the cat).


A pool in the back yard with a hose swung over a pine tree to keep the water level up and provide a little extra splash.


A sensible bedtime–freshly bathed with teeth brushed–and after hours of untroubled sleep, I could wake to another day of no bills to pay, car issues to think about, meals to cook, and that nagging feeling that I’m not the best person I can be.

Enjoy it, Lila!

Lila watching The Lion King.

Legacy Writing 365:219

Our last Houston house we rented before we bought The Compound was just down the street from Lynne’s home in the suburbs. Like our previous house, the view from the front made it look deceptively small. We stepped through the front door into a large great room/dining room with cathedral ceilings. To the far left was a set of stairs that led to a landing that overlooked the living area. Off that landing were two large bedrooms joined by a bathroom.

Downstairs, the dining room was separated from the large kitchen by a bar. Turning to the right, we walked through a vanity area with a bathroom on the left. Passing through that, we were in the huge master bedroom with a giant walk-in closet. I LOVED that closet, because it held all our clothes and a a ton of other stuff, so the upstairs closets were relatively empty. I think I did eventually move my clothes to a walk-in closet upstairs because I used that bathroom so Tom and I could get ready for work in the mornings without getting in each other’s way.

A door led from the dining room into the garage, where our washer and dryer were. I don’t know how long we lived there–a long time–before we realized that the automatic garage door with its two remote controls actually DID work. It just needed to be plugged in. That was an exciting day after months and months of hefting that stupid door up to take the cars in or out.


Some more things I remember about living there:

The backyard backed up to a bayou, so there was nothing directly behind us except wildlife. However, from our upstairs windows, we could see into the backyards of three neighbors. On one side of us, we never saw our neighbors. But next to their yard, we could see the potbellied pig who lived back there. That thing was HUGE. But it never caused any trouble. Our neighbors on the other side, however… They had two kids, and they’d toss them in their backyard, where the decibel levels would rise to alarming heights. The bedroom I used as my office overlooked that yard, and one day when I was writing, the kids’ screams got so loud that I began to wonder if something was wrong–like maybe there was a snake in their yard or something. Just as I got up to look out the window, their father came out of the house without a stitch of clothes on to yell at them and threaten to whip them. My eyes, my EYES! There are some things I can never unsee no matter how much I wish I could.


As you can see from Stevie posing here, our backyard was pretty big. Certainly big enough for two dachshunds to run and play. This was the house we lived in when I took Stevie out late one night so she could have a final potty break before bed, and as we stood there, this ENORMOUS thing flapped past me, swooping toward Stevie. I had no idea that the wing span of an owl was that vast. Fortunately, the owl decided Stevie was a little too big to be prey, or else my crazy arm waving and hyperventilating startled it, because it went back up without bothering the dog. Stevie never even knew it happened.


There was also a nice patio just outside the sliding glass doors of the kitchen. We sat out there a lot when weather allowed. This is our grand-nephew Dave being held by his mother when they stayed with us while driving through Houston once.


We used to travel more at Christmas, though I’ve always loved being home for the holidays. We must have planned to be away the Christmas of this photo–probably 1993–so we didn’t put up a big tree, just the tiny one that I use for my Mr. and Mrs. Santa Claus display. I loved the hearth and the fireplace in this house, and that’s where Tom’s sitting with all the presents and Stevie and Pete in his arms.

I wish I had a photo of the room I used for my office, because that’s where we had the daybed that Lynne made all the pillows and bedding for. But I do have a photo of the guest room.

When we moved there, we still had Steve R’s cats that we inherited after he died. They had the run of the upstairs, and we put a child gate at the top of the stairs so the dogs couldn’t bother them. This is Emily lying on one of the guest room beds. Maggie died while we were living in that house, and we buried her in the woods nearer Lynne’s house in the dead of night, with Lynne, Jess, Tom, and me to mourn her. She had a good long life–I think she was nineteen when she went to the Rainbow Bridge. Both cats would lie on the landing and watch whatever we were doing in the living room. This was their cats’ eye view:


That was Christmas of 94, and though we had a tree, it was just a small one that we put on a table to keep dogs and cats away from it.

Amy lived with us for a while, and she shared the guest room with the cats. Debby visited there a couple of times, once with her (now deceased) husband Len. It was an easy place to have visitors because of the way the layout gave everyone privacy.

This is also the place where I was determined that I would no longer wage the War of the Roaches without help. We contracted an exterminator to come regularly, and that’s the company we still use eighteen years later. I was recently out in that area and drove by their offices, realizing for the first time after all these years that I’d never had any idea where they were located or what their building looked like. They always came to us. The first time their tech did an inspection of the house, I sent him upstairs to have a look around. When he came back down, he had an amused expression on his face. I figured he’d been visiting with the cats. It was only later when I went upstairs that I realized I’d jokingly arranged all my Ken dolls in a nude chorus line across the guest room dresser.

We were living in that house when I awoke one morning feeling like the weight of the world was on me. I called in sick to work because everything just felt off. I turned on CNN and was doing something in the kitchen when the news broke about the Oklahoma City bombing–a terrible day. All I could do was sit on the couch with a dachshund on either side of me and stare at the TV for hours, grateful that I felt safe at home but hurting for the families whose lives changed forever that day. A couple of weeks later, Jeff died. Two months later, we closed on our house.

I wrote this post hours ago, but it didn’t feel finished. And I don’t know why, but when I found this poem by the late Michael Shepherd, it seemed to nudge me and say, I should end your post. Who doesn’t obey poetry when it speaks?

Housefly

Now that this housefly
has finished wringing its hands
over the past – what?

Legacy Writing 365:209

Way back in March 2007, I was bold enough to share all my school photos from first through twelfth grades, and in the comments to that post, I also published this photo:

It can ONLY be the fumes from that Lilt perm making me grin like a fool, because WHYYYY did my mother give us home perms? So our hair could look like this?

Dopey looks a little noble with his head up like that, though it’s possible he’s trying to communicate to Debby: The young one: She is strangling me.

Meanwhile, David (holding Daffy cat) sports a smile that’s almost a grimace. I don’t know what he had to be distressed about. Oh, wait. We’re in our PJs and he’s looking all cool kid. Probably he was forced to pose for this photo with his little sisters as a condition of going on a date. Could have been worse. He could have had his scalp tortured with Lilt perm rods.