Fondles's Fine

Just a quick note - I heard from Fondles yesterday. All is well, except for her computer. It's a little under the weather, but she's working on it. She'll be back when her laptop is back on its feet. Soon I hope.

The Saga of PK and Ballou

I wrote here about us adopting a new cat. I decided that if he was going to be a permanent member of our family he would have to be neutered.  At first, I worried about neutering someone else’s cat. But when no one treated his ears and he had scratched himself raw I assumed no one was caring for him.

I was able to get him back into the cat carrier and took him to my old boss for the surgery. He’s retired now, but still the best vet I know. Doc knocked Ballou out and I assisted with the surgery as I’d done hundreds of times before.

 

Ballou came home with instruction to not let him out that night because his vision would be really off. I put him in the bathroom as he was waking up. Several hours later he was still very wobbly, he was unable to walk across the floor without falling every other step. 

He seemed to have no idea what to do with a litter box, so I carried him out to a bit of grass. Then this cat, who could not walk across the room, took off in a dead run to the woods behind the house and disappeared into the underbrush. 

I was frantic! He had only had surgery a few hours before and he was still heavily sedated. The weather was cooler, well the coolest we’d had this season and it was raining. We looked, we rattled the food box, we called lovely… nothing, Ballou was gone.

This happened Saturday afternoon. My hope was that he would avoid the many possible dangers in the woods, sober up, and come on home the next morning. That didn’t happen. I was truly worried we scared him off for good this time. But I kept hoping.

 

Monday found me hoping and praying he’d come back. I decided to go looking. There is a creek behind the house and I’d worried he could have fallen in while still ‘drunk.’ I was standing on the bank trying to look for him when my feet slipped on the muddy bank and down I went sliding all the way to the water. Now it was much of a fall, I just sat on my butt. However I quickly realized I couldn’t get up. I desperately wished Nick was with me, but if he had been I’m sure he would have been busy filming the whole thing. 

Not me, of course, 

but you get the general idea.

 

After wallowing around for a while in the thick, slippery mud, I managed to get to my hands and knees and tried to climb back up the bank – barely more than a large step in dry weather. But the mud was fighting me all the way. The only plant around me were brier bushes and they were no help. I did have my phone with me, but I was damned if I was going to call anyone to see what I was going through. Finally, I made it up the bank but getting to my feet without anything to help me was still a struggle.  Eventually, I made it and headed back to the house for a hot shower. I’d seen no signs of Ballou. And he didn’t come back that day.

 

By Tuesday I was losing hope and spent the day shaking the food box and calling for him. Then that evening around 10:00 PM I walked by the glass storm door and there he sat, calm, well-groomed ready to come in for something to eat. He ate for a long while, got some water and then quietly curled up in Nick’s chair for the night. All and all I’d say he’d fared better than I did since I was still nursing a pulled muscle from my awkward rise from the mud.

 

I think it’s safe to say that we have two cats now. Ballou sleeps here in the house each night, stays around to visit until around ten each morning then disappears into the woods until dark when he comes home for dinner. Obviously, he has his rounds to make each day, but after all this I’m not going to worry about him. I’m going to assume he can take care of himself. Hopefully I’ll be able to say the same for myself one day.

 

Home from the wedding

We’re home from the wedding all in one piece and I have to admit I had a lot of fun. Of course, the most fun came from being with my kids! I hadn’t seen the boys in person since January. They looked great and Collin was walking well with his cane.

 

I sat in on the bridesmaid’s hair and make-up session. That was a new one for me. Mollie looked absolutely beautiful when they finished. I’d never seen her in false eyelashes the whole effect was amazing. Here she is having her hair done.

The wedding was held in a castle, which had some beautiful spots for pictures.

The first thing my niece said to me about her dress was, “It’s got pockets!” And I have to say I loved her choice of footwear too.

The reception was complete with a wonderful dinner and an enormous array of desserts. After we ate our fill, we danced – sometime with partners, sometimes not. But we danced and danced. It really was a fun wedding. But I'm not used to dancing and my feet burned all night. I think I'm too old to have so much fun!

Off to the wedding

It’s been a crazy busy week. We’re heading out to the wedding on Sunday morning. It’s about two hours away. Mollie is the maid of honor. We get to see LJ and Collin. There will be tons of family there. Even if I don’t like weddings, I’m going to enjoy this one. Here are the outfits I came up with for the rehearsal dinner and the wedding.

 

I hope my niece and my sister survive this. Of course, the couple has already been married for three years. And he’s lived in Japan for most of that time, but that’s another story.

Things you need to know if you move to the south

1. A possum is a flat animal that sleeps in the middle of the road.

2. There are 5,000 types of snakes and 4,998 of them live in the South.

3. There are 10,000 types of spiders. All 10,000 of them live in the South, plus a couple no one's seen before.

4. If it grows, it'll stick ya. If it crawls, it'll bite cha.

5. Onced and Twiced are words.

6. It is not a shopping cart, it is a buggy!

7. Jawl-P? means: Did you all go to the bathroom?

8. People actually grow, eat, and like okra.

9. Fixinto is one word. It means I'm going to do something.

10. There is no such thing as lunch. There is only dinner and then there's supper.

11. Iced tea is appropriate for all meals, and you start drinking it when you're two. We do like a little tea with our sugar. It is referred to as the Wine of the South.

12. Backwards and forwards means I know everything about you.

13. The word jeet is actually a question meaning, 'Did you eat?'

14. You don't have to wear a watch, because it doesn't matter what time it is, you work until you're done or it's too dark to see.

15. You don't PUSH buttons, you MASH ‘em.

16. Y'all is singular. All Y'all is plural.

17. All the festivals across the state are named after a fruit, vegetable, grain, insect, or animal.

18. You carry jumper cables in your car for your OWN car.

19. You only own five spices: salt, pepper, mustard, Tabasco, and ketchup.

20. The local papers cover national and international news on one page, but require 6 pages for local high school sports, motorsports, and gossip.

21. Everyone you meet is a Honey, Sugar, Miss (first name), or Mr. (first name)

22. You think that the first day of deer season is a national holiday.

23. You know what a hissy fit is.

24. Fried catfish is the other white meat.

25. We don't need no dang Driver's Ed. If our mama says we can drive, we can drive!!!

26. If you understand all these, y'all come on down. We'll be glad to have you! 

 

Our new addition

Nick and I have had cats since we married – I brought one with me. Over the years we’ve had between one and four cats at the time. Most of the cats we’ve had during these thirty-nine years have been volunteers who just happened by. We’ve long felt that we have the word ‘suckers’ written on our house in cat language.

This is our current cat. We’ve had her about ten years now. She’s a timid thing. She does not like other animals. She won’t stand up for herself, so she usually runs and hides if another cat or dog is around. But way back last December a cat came around and she didn’t run from it. They would just sit a few feet apart and stare at one another.

 

We’d put cat food out for it. I can’t stand to see anything hungry and not help. But this stray didn’t act like a normal stray cat. First off, it didn’t come by every day. In fact, often it would go weeks and weeks without coming by. We felt it probably had several suckers on the line and we were just one of the homes feeding him.

 

But lately he seems determined to stay. So far, I’ve been able to get him his vaccinations and treat him for ear mites. He had scratched large open sores just below his ears and I’ve just about gotten those healed up too. My old boss has agreed to neuter him Saturday, provide I can wrangle him back into the cat carrier.

 

He has lovely blue eyes, so I thought we call him Blue. That didn’t suit Nick. He finally suggested Ballou – you remember Cat Ballou? 

If you don’t look it up, it was my favorite movie as a kid. I saw it eight times in the theater.

 

Here is our newest addition – Ballou. And be sure to check out the raccoon tail.

One last skinny dip

There went summer. No more white shoes or white pants, as if I followed fashion rules. The pumpkin craze, which shouldn’t begin until October is bearing down on us at a full gallop. The temperature hasn’t fallen yet, but it probably will have by the end of the month.

We celebrated the unofficial end of summer in our own way. We have neighbors on both sides of us, but with plenty of yard in between. Behind us there are thick woods. Our neighbors aren’t home very often on weekends, but as an added precaution Nick has put up curtains at the sides of our pool. With these curtains pulled Nick and I took what is probably our last skinny dip of the summer Friday afternoon. If you’ve never taken the opportunity to skinny dip, you really need to. It’s a wonderfully freeing feeling. I’m not in the pool as often as I should be but the bliss of not fighting with a bathing suit – getting it on or off, really does add to the joy.

Later this month is the wedding I got my new outfits for, and LJ and Collin will be joining us. Collin no longer needs his crutches, only the cane. And he will be going back to work when they get back from the wedding. He is definitely healing. I’m much more excited about seeing them than I am about the wedding. It’s been since January.

We are moving toward Fall and I love that feeling – just as long as I don’t OD on pumpkin spice.