Day after the Terrible, Horrible, No-Good Very Bad Day
I think Annie has recovered, don’t you? (Click on any photo to enlarge all.)
Day after the Terrible, Horrible, No-Good Very Bad Day
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Tag Archives: cats
Judy and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day!!!
Judy and Annie and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day!!!
The plans: Get up early, feed the kids, have a swim in the pool, since it was raining last night when I wanted to go in, do my blog, have a shower and wash my hair, drive to Guad, shop in Costco for Xmas gifts and groceries, stop by Home Depot to get more solar stick-in lights for around the pool, then take the car in at 2 for its first check-up, as scheduled. They’d called and I’d made the appointment a week ago and I’d cleared the day so everything should have gone fine.
What really happened: Got up early to feed the kids, but it was raining, so—no pool. One-third of the doggie domain closest to the open door was flooded due to the rain. Mopped up the floor and set a big towel in doorway to capture further flooding. Fed the dogs. Fed the 3 youngster cats who appeared at the kitchen door. Put their food out in the kitchen rather than outside due to the rain. Called for Ollie. Not like him to miss a meal. Still no Ollie.
Took Annie’s meal into her bathroom hideout, away from the irritating youngsters. Shut the door. Went back to call for Ollie, who finally appeared and put out more food for him. The other three cats immediately swarmed around the food. Rain had stopped, so I put them out, grabbing them one at a time and ushering them out the back door. Ollie ate his food and then jumped up on his favorite chair. Rain started up again so I let the other three in again. Blew my hair dry, dressed for warmer weather in sandals, cut off jeans and a light sweater with vest. At about 10:30, I cornered all four cats again, one by one, gauging their weight as I hefted them up. Ollie and Roo, my two roly polies, seemed lighter, perhaps due to the new feeding regime. Good.
Locked up, went to the car and realized it had gotten colder again. Checked the glove box for my car maintenance book. Checked the trunk, under all the seats, in all the drawers of the garage. No book. Came back in the house. Realized it had started to rain again, so I grabbed an umbrella and set it on the kitchen table so I wouldn’t forget it. Carefully put the car keys next to it so I wouldn’t misplace them. Went in and changed clothes—heavier sweater, long pants, socks and warmer shoes. Looked for car maintenance book. Everywhere!!! Every drawer, every file, every stack of books. Nowhere to be found. Decided to go without it. Collected umbrella and keys. Glasses. Where were my glasses? I had them on when I left the first time. Looked in both bathrooms, closet, bedside tables, anywhere they could possibly be. Finally got a box of old glasses out of the closet and found a pair of ugly far-vision glasses that would do.
Glanced at the clock. Now 11:30! If it took an hour to get to Guad, would I have time to shop at Costco and Home Depot and still get to the car dealership at 2? Suddenly, with a sense of foreboding, it occurred to me that it was Saturday. Didn’t most businesses close at 2 on Saturday? Reclaimed my computer from where I’d hidden it and looked on my calendar to find my appointment was at noon! No way I could get there in time. Looked up Honda dealers in Guad., called Dalton Motors. Five minutes as they located someone who spoke English. Indeed, they closed at 2. Rescheduled my car check appointment.
Went out to close garage door and reclaim my purse, book and cell phone. Decided to reorganize the glove box while I was there. Found three measuring tapes, six ball point pens, two tire pressure gauges, two bottles of NoDoz along with the usual assortment of things, including THE CAR MAINTENANCE BOOK!! Picked up my purse to stuff the duplicates into it to bring them back to the house and found MY GLASSES under the purse!!!
Came back to house to find, sitting in Ollie’s favorite chair, was Kukla!!! How could there possibly be a cat in the house other than Annie? I knew I’d put four of them out. Then, with a sense of foreboding, I started looking for Annie. I mean, I looked EVERYWHERE! Then I moved to the yard. I called. I pleaded. I cajoled. This is a cat who was on death’s door six months ago and hadn’t stirred out of the house once since then. A cat who hated the young cats and who, due to arthritis, could barely walk, let alone jump up on walls or escape enemies outside. But, she was nowhere to be found. In my hurry, I’d scooped her up instead of the fourth kitten/cat and put her outside!!!!
An hour later, I went out to search again. Then searched the house again. No Annie.
An hour later, I went out to look again, calling, looking everywhere. Then my eyes fell on this scene. What a wild tangle, but where could she find a nice warm spot away from the rain?
I crawled up in the planter a bit, looking in corners, behind plants,
Closer
Pitch black in there. I went into the house for a flashlight.
Would she come out? No. Has she come out yet? No. The jug is too big to lift and the minute I came close, she turned her back to me and I couldn’t get my hands around her to pull her out. The ground is uneven and my balance bad. Called Pasiano. Called Juan Pablo. No one home.
It’s 6:47. I’ve been out trying to lure Annie out of the jar with dinner.
Maybe if I put food out near her, she’ll come out of her cave?
Hmm. Not biting yet.
Still playing it cool.
Aha. I detect interest?
But, Mexican cat standoff!
I put the food a bit further away and leave her alone, then return in fifteen minutes. No luck. This from the cat who wakes me up at 4:30 in the morning to be fed and hounds me for bites four or five more times a day?
7:30 p.m. Still holding out. Meanwhile, the other cats are clamoring to be let out to eat her food. Such is honor among cats.
7:45 I go out to find she’s eaten most of the food I put out. If you look closely, you can see the leaf cutter ants honing in on the rest. I look in the big pot, and she’s gone but nowhere to be seen! I consider stuffing something in it so she can’t reenter as I go around the side of the house to look for her, but I don’t. When I return:
She’s baaaa-ack!
7:50 Juan Pablo calls. I consider not having him come out into the dark and cold. He lives about 2 miles away and is just home from work. But he insists. Perhaps Annie will sleep in familiar territory tonight. Fingers crossed.
Oh Man! Juan Pablo and Yolanda arrive around 8. They lift the big jar up and Annie’s on the run!!! After 15 minutes of bushwhacking through the jungle, the fugitive is finally apprehended!! Now resting well in her own bed, but howling to be fed. Things entirely back to normal, it seems. This was a stinker of a day!!!!!
And here are its heroes!!!!
If you want to see the happy ending, the morning after, go HERE.
New Traditions
New Traditions
This year, I don’t feel jolly, can’t use Christmas as a balm.
I’ll settle for well-organized, painless, mobile, calm.
Ordinary’s fine with me—time to work with plants,
to lie with cats, throw balls for dogs, extinguish cutter ants,
file foot-high stacks of papers and clean my junk drawer out—
a shocking way to celebrate. Mundane, without a doubt.
I never thought that I’d grow up where Christmas was concerned.
I’m sure my metal Christmas tree is going to feel spurned.
The fact that I’m not using it this year is rather strange,
for I wrapped it, fully decorated, last year for a change.
It wouldn’t take an hour to bring it from above
and fall back into Christmas trappings that I truly love.
But the kittens would destroy it. Albeit, they’d have fun,
but that tree would be in tatters by the time that they were done.
The wisemen and the Christ child and dozens of nacimientos*,
the wreaths and lights and figurines–all holiday mementos,
I’ll leave packed up in boxes in the closets up on shelves—
Santas stacked on reindeer, nestled against elves.
This year instead of hanging decorations on the tree,
I’ll lie down on the sofa and let cats decorate me.
If I am the tree, Ollie is the star at the top of the tree!
*A nacimiento is a nativity scene, but in Mexico, they consist of hundreds of different figures in addition to the traditional shepherds, wisemen, angels and holy family. Go HERE to see some of the surprising figures included in a Mexican nacimiento display.
The prompt today was jolly.
(Goldfish) Bowl Games
After carrying around a pill to prevent migraines for over ten years, I for some reason left it behind when I came to the U.S., so of course this morning, for the first time in ten years, I started to feel a migraine coming on. As usual, it was triggered by a bright light —this time by a split between the blinds that allowed sunlight to reflect off the TV screen. Dizzy with the beginning of the headache, nauseous and a bit blind, I stumbled into bed, pulled a pillow over my head to block the light and lay for about an hour, willing the pain to descend from my forehead to my hands to warm them. When my hands warmed, I then became aware of icy feet and decided to see if I could warm them via migraine energy as well. I fell asleep in the act, but upon awakening six hours later, I am now noticing that my feet are warm as well—more likely due to blankets than to brainpower. Nonetheless, after the first half hour of trying to get myself regulated, this poem came into my head. I knew it would be lost if I didn’t record it and my computer was lying closed on my bed next to me, so I roused myself long enough to jot it down. Can’t control these rhymes even when bigger things are going on in my head. In this case, it started with mentally painting the image of a cat. Then the bowl appeared and he gazed into it. The goldfish came last and the poem grew out of the image. Wish I could paint or draw and I’d try to show you what I saw. Lacking this, here is the poem:
(Goldfish) Bowl Games
I watch them swim in graceful curves,
and though they’d make such fine hors d’oeuvres,
I wait and wait and wait and wait.
They have not served me one to date.
(By the way, this technique for ridding yourself of migraine headaches has worked for me three times now over a twenty year span. Prior to this, I just suffered for up to eight hours. Once I found there was a pill available to take in the first stages, I always carried one, but as noted above, had failed to bring it with me on this trip to the states, so my old mental remedy worked once again.)
Cat Napped
Kittens reacting to Morrie and Diego, jealousy barking at the closed gate that separates them from their arch rivals, the cats.
Cat Napped
My dear little creatures, I did not expect
that your lives and mine would intersect.
I didn’t know in the hush of my life
your antics would make such a mush of my life.
I spout silly names like “kitty” and “baby.”
Have I gone dotty? I must admit, “Maybe.”
I’m given to lying prone on my bed
letting the boy kitten claw at my head,
combing my hair with his kittenish claws
as his sisters cavort without mercy or pause,
biting my fingers and licking my knees.
I let them assault me wherever they please.
I find them adorable and entertaining.
Besotted with kittens, my interest is waning
in matters less feline. I neglect the dogs.
Leave them to possums and squirrels and frogs.
I feed them and throw an occasional ball,
but lately, obsessions more easily fall
into matters of cat, I’m embarrassed to say
it’s entirely possible one day I may
turn into that cat lady, brunt of those jokes
told by low-lifes in bars and other brash blokes
making fun of those who, although different, perhaps,
get pleasure enough from cats on our laps!!!
The prompt word today is expect.
Where to Find Cats
Click on first photo to see all and read captions.
In trees
Stealing underwear from your lingerie drawer
In your suitcase, ready to go along
Peek Into her drink glass
In your lap
Bob Brown sculpture and visitor
On the sofa….
And in every available basket.
G is for Gatos
Hint: It will be much easier to see enlarged photos and captions if you click on “Visit” and then click on first photo to enlarge these photos. If you are viewing in Reader or on Facebook and just click on the first photo instead of on “Visit,” photos will be smaller and captions unreadable as they will be superimposed over the photos.
Now that she’s gone, perhaps I can do a little sleuthing.
Yup. Hamburger. Wonder if she left any further evidence?
Nothing here.
Nope, nothing here to eat, er, see, Ollie.
Okay, check for yoursellf.
Wonder what she had to say about us today?
Nothing slanderous, I guess.
If you’re finished over there, Ollie, no need to come over here.
Out here is where she keeps the dogs, but no fun baiting them today. They must be sleeping.
Guess I’ll just hang out here and wait for her to get home. G-day, Ollie.
Heartsick
The story of the four kittens abandoned on my doorstep 3 1/2 months ago continues. As you can see, they are barely kittens anymore, and once they’d had all their shots and been neutered and spayed, it was time to make their transition outside. I knew there were dangers, but 5 cats inside is just too much for me to handle anymore, let alone for housesitters allergic to cats to handle, so the day came when they were finally let out to the wide world as it existed within my compound walls. I am hoping they won’t be tempted to go over the walls but know it is inevitable. A bigger worry is that they’ll venture into the backyard where Morrie and Diego are accustomed to dealing with animal interlopers in a predictable manner. I’ve kept sliding glass doors open (screens and bars closed) hoping they’ll get used to each other, but the dogs are jealous, curious, and, well, they are dogs. Here are the events as they have unwound over the past week, ending yesterday. All in all, a scary day.
(Click on the first photo to enlarge and read captions.)
Some of the things out there are curious about us, too.
Out? What is out?
That day came when suddenly all those doors to the front of the house formerly closed to us were opened.
We found all sorts of hidey holes in the front yard, including a llittle house purchased just for us to sleep in and an half-walled garage that, although there was a gate,
she couldn’t keep us out of, because there were also bougainvillea vines we could climb up for access to the garage.
All in all, it was fun finding places to make our own.
We knew the dangers of the backyard and never ventured there
the lush jungles of the front yard
And so is this.
Heartsick. When I went out to feed the kittens this morning, only two showed up. I put out the food, which usually brings them out, but Ollie and Kukla never appeared. I called out over and over, opened the garage door, looked outside, nothing. I was sobbing by the time I thought to pen the dogs up and look in the backyard. It was the worst sort of suspense thriller–the kind of movie I hate–as I combed every inch of the backyard, expecting to find their little bodies everywhere I looked. I had heard the dogs take after something last night and a loud screech, and I had brought the dogs in immediately, but the screech was not catlike and when I called out for kittens, no one answered. Now I regretted not looking closer last night.
I looked everywhere again. As I searched behind the studio, both dogs came around the back way as though they were helping me to look, but nothing. I wondered if the cats had gone hunting in the lots across the street because I was a half hour late in feeding them this morning, thanks to my spider poem. Finally, I went back to the house and let the dogs out, then once again combed the plants around the studio. Diego kept running behind a monster pot containing aloe vera on the terrace near my bedroom, and eventually Morrie joined him. Beside it were two other pots too large to move and they were all tangled up in the thunbergia vine that covered the wall, all of the tall plants around the studio and behind my bedroom, and also had grown up the telephone post and along the wires. I tried to pull the pots back but they were too heavy. I finally pulled one smaller palm pot out and searched behind all the pots. Nothing. But, I thought I detected a tiny squeak.
I put the dogs in again and went back and repeatedly called “Kitty, kitty, kitty.” Finally, Ollie jumped down out of the vine tangle and nonchalantly strolled across the patio, looking very closely for dogs. I called again and a few minutes later, Kukla joined us. I was so relieved!!! I carried them around the house as I’d exited through the doggie domain and was not about to carry them through the room occupied by Morrie and Diego. I put them in the front yard, closed both of the barrier gates, let the dogs out and put the two wayfarers into the house so I could feed them separately from their sisters, who had already eaten. When I went out to get a collar to put on Kukla, however, the other cats got in, so I put another dish of food out, got a collar on Roo and Kukla but not Ollie. Fifteen minutes later, Frannie is the only one who has kept hers on for two days. The rest of the collars are lost somewhere out in the cat jungle. Phew. Motherhood.
Collared
A few days ago I bought collars with little bells on them for all the kittens. I put the first one on Roo, and it was a disaster! Her eyes went round and she went bucking like a wild bronc all the way across the patio. She tried to claw and scrape and bite the bell off. Then the other kittens joined in the chase and they went careening off into the dense jungle underbrush of the front yard. There was no way I could follow them there, but eventually she bucked her way out of the thicket and I grabbed her and tugged the collar off. Luckily, I had insisted on easy release collars, fearing that they’d get caught up in a tree branch or vine, so it was easy to free her.
It was not so easy to cut the bells off all the collars. It took heavy metal cutters and even at that, I had to twist and twist to get the little bells off, actually cutting them off their soldered link and then had the fun of cutting the sharp metal pieces off the loop still attached to the collar. I’d ordered tags with my phone number to attach to the collars–my guarantee that no one would think they were feral cats once they inevitably climb up the bougainvillea vines and make their way out onto the street side of the wall. I was to pick the tags up a few days later, and since the man who did the engraving insisted I put “recompensa” (reward) on the other side of the tag, I could visualize neighborhood children ringing my doorbell daily, kittens in arms. Ah well. What was a few pesos bribe, anyway? It was a bit like the insurance given to neighborhood thugs in the barrios of NYC in bygone days, and perhaps in the present. At any rate, I eventually got bell-less collars on all of the cats except for Roo, who to this day is a collar virgin. Within minutes, however, the opened collars lay scattered like breadcrumbs across the terrace. Only Frannie retained her collar. I gave up on the rest for the time being.
(Click on first photo to enlarge all.)
Ollie will stand in as spokesmodel for all the rest. Needless to say, he hated his collar with or without a bell. The bells, here seen isolated from their collars, will no doubt be welcome toys if not welcome jewelry for the cats.
Frannie and the New Toy
I bought Yolanda one of those new (rather expensive) self- wringing mops at Costco. It is microfiber and the strings were looped at the end with a twist handle so you could just circulate the handle and the mop would wring itself without having to put your hands on the wet part. The other day I asked how she liked it and she said it was fine, but she had cut the ends off so it was like her old mop. Oy vey!!! At any rate, it is just as good a toy for the cats either way. Here Frannie does a little dance with Yolanda. Usually, she puts them out when she mops, but thought you’d like to see the fun.
(Click on first photo for larger views of all.)
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 