Red Dog and fireworks

I have talked about Red Dog a lot over the last dozen years.  She has been an important part of my life.  Right now, as I write this, she’s just outside the kitchen door, protesting being outside.  She prefers her usual activity, also known as “Occupy Floor”.  It’s a movement she believes in devoutly, as long as it is in my vicinity.

Red Dog has a strange personality.  Most people, on observing her for short periods of time, regard her as “very loyal.”  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not doubting her loyalty at all, at least as long as buttered toast isn’t in the equation.  On the other hand, since I know her very well, I know it’s more than loyalty.  It’s a severe case of separation anxiety.  It is her job to protect me, and that means she has to be with me at all times.  She has gone to extraordinary lengths to ensure that she is with me.

On one occasion, we were visiting friends.  She was young then, less than two years old, and she was more than a little suspicious of new people and situations still.  She lacked the confidence that more experience would give her.  We were in a crowded living room, and all of a sudden, I realized that she was panicking.  She was on the opposite side of the room, with people and furniture blocking her access to me, even though I wasn’t more than a dozen feet away.  I tried to get people to move to give her a clear path, warning them that she was panicking, but people who are not accustomed to the level of devotion she exhibited weren’t accustomed to dealing with panic either.  She collected herself, then sailed in a single leap over a coffee table and leather sofa to land beside me, managing somehow to avoid crashing into the stairs beside me.  Needless to say, after that, when I moved, she tended to move immediately as well.  The people who saw it also realized that when I said to move, that maybe they should too.

On another occasion, I was at the house of a man I was dating.  He was hosting a seafood boil with his neighbor, his brother.  There was going to be a lot of people and children, and I knew that supervising her was not going to be easy.  The solution was to leave her inside the house.  Unfortunately, she was not in agreement and decided that escape was critically important.  She exited through a window.  It just would have been nice if it had been an open window.

Obviously, she prefers to be at my side.  She has developed more restraint over the years, but she still is very unhappy at being left behind.   Unfortunately, the world is not particularly receptive to her desire to remain at my side, and she’s had to be left behind for everything from jobs to hospital stays, as well as on a few trips.  She has been boarded, and while I’d not claim she was an easy boarder, she is usually manageable, as long as there is no possible escape route.

During our time in New Orleans, we lived very near the Zephyr baseball stadium.  After almost all home games, there was a fireworks display.  It was an impressive one too, far more elaborate than the small town displays I was accustomed to seeing on the 4th of July.  However, among Red Dog’s skill sets, coping with loud noises such as fireworks and gunfire was not among them.  To make it even worse, New Orleans has fireworks for more than baseball and 4th of July–it’s also wildly popular for New Year’s Eve.

It was a New Year’s Eve when Red Dog made a very surprising decision.  I was hosting my then-boyfriend and his younger children at my house for a rather low-key celebration.  At midnight, we assembled on the kitchen steps to watch a rather impressive neighborhood fireworks display.  I tried to keep Red Dog inside, but she was facing a true dilemma: she could remain inside where it was safe, but she was alone OR she could come outside with the dangerous noise where I was at.  She came out, she darted back inside, she wanted out…back and forth she went, probably a dozen times.  Finally, she sat on the step beside me as we ooo’d and ahhh’d over the fireworks.  She began to watch them, as I put my arm around her, absentmindedly scratching and petting her.  Fireworks became a good thing.  Over the coming years we lived there, everything changed about fireworks.  Instead of cringing when it started, she would start barking at the door, demanding to be let out.  She loved to watch the fireworks.  She still does.

Okay, that’s totally weird.  Seriously, how many dogs LIKE fireworks?  She is the only one I’ve ever encountered that does.  Don’t get me wrong, she does not like firecrackers–they sound too much like gun shots and gun shots scare her half to death.  She likes the colorful displays in the night sky, even when accompanied by loud booms and shrieking whistles.  She stands and stares at them fixedly, and I have the peculiar sensation that she is remembering that long-ago New Year’s display when I was petting her as we watched them with our friends.

Our other dogs hate them.  They have no desire to watch, and prefer their crates during thunderstorms and fireworks alike.  Red isn’t thrilled with thunder, but I have seen her standing in downpours, complete with thunder and lightning, if I was anticipated home from work.  She has sat through a storm with me on a memorable camping trip where our sole protection when the clouds opened up was to sit on the tarp and flip it over our heads while we waited for it to stop.  I’ve also seen her jump a few seconds before I heard the clap of thunder–she’s apparently feeling the change in electric field before the sound arrives.

In the USA, the 4th of July is a date with many missing animals, terrified by the sounds, they run and try to escape.  Usually, they end up lost and sometimes it’s worse.  Often, they never make their way home again.  It’s a terrible time of year for dogs and cats, with the frightening noises and sulphurous stench of the gunpowder to make the explosions.  Don’t leave your pets outside unattended, it will save you a lot of heartache and it may save their lives.  Just bring them indoors with you, and provide them with a safe space when you are gone, whether its a crate to prevent them from eating inappropriate things (like your sofa, the carpet, trash, electrical cords, etc.) or so that they have a safe “den” feeling to hide from the noise.  Living in the South, I use wire crates for ventilation, but typically will drape them with a small sheet or towel to increase the feeling of security.  Other pets may prefer to curl up on the sofa or bed, some may prefer UNDER the sofa or bed–you know your pet best.

Be safe and keep your pet safe this 4th of July.  Don’t become another statistic.

Me and the dog…with you?

For those who know me now, it’s common knowledge I drive a mini-van.  But in days gone by, I always drove a pickup truck.  An old Nissan truck with a pristine body, long bed, and an engine that was replaced in 2003 to be exact.   I loved the 30+ mpg mileage on that thing, but eventually, it just became impossible to find a mechanic who wanted to work on it.  Reluctantly, I accepted the fact it had to be replaced, and I was no longer going to drive the Banana Boat…it was a sad, sad day for me (and Red Dog too!)

But, as the driver of  a pickup truck, I would often have someone want a ride or to come along on some adventure.  When I had a passenger, Red Dog would ride in the middle, and the passenger would get the seat by the door.  She didn’t like sharing the seat because it meant she had to sit up the entire time, but she’d take it in stride.

The passengers, on the other hand, seemed to have issues with their free ride.  They sometimes would dare to complain about Red’s presence, particularly about her hair when she would be blowing her coat…and without air conditioning, it often meant that clumps of it were “blowing in the wind.”  They’d occasionally gripe about her panting and the steady dripping of drool on a hot day.  They’d complain more if a cat appeared on the passenger side and she would make a rapid movement for a better look (and assessment of her chances of chasing it.)

With the bed of the truck empty except for the seat belts behind the cab (it used to have seats in the back) and a spare tire, they would suggest that Red Dog be put in the back.  Red had never been trained to ride in the back of the truck, and it was unthinkable to me to put her back there.  I didn’t even like putting a crated dog in the back of the truck, let alone a loose one!

My response?

I’d tell them that they were actually riding in Red Dog’s seat…and if they didn’t want to share it appreciatively, they  had a couple of options:

• a) get out
• b) get in the back themselves

Some people would get huffy about it.  What did it matter to me?  After all, I was the driver, the owner of the truck, and the one buying the gas too.  Was it going to hurt my feelings if they opted to get out?

 

Hell no!

Red was my best friend, and you couldn’t ask for a more loyal companion.  Why would I make HER ride in the back?

I must be crazy

Have you ever made a joke about doing something, and it has become a running joke…only to have the running joke turn out to really be a seed for a totally crazy idea that sounds really pretty good?

At least to you?

Yeah

Maybe it’s the turning fifty thing I have looming ahead in a few weeks and the realization that time is getting short for doing a lot of things.

I’ve decided that I want to travel around the United States.  That’s not unusual for someone my age, look at all the RVs that are sold each year and head down the highways.

The trouble is, to use an RV and do that requires a small fortune and a good pension, neither of which are something I have.  It also means being willing to consume gasoline in vast quantities on a regular basis as you travel.  I guess I find that rather unappealing too.

I want to do it a much greener fashion with a much more laid back attitude.

No, not on a motorcycle.  I find them intimidating with their noise, the helmets give me claustrophobic attacks, and I’m afraid I’d miss something.  Besides, most of them don’t get really good gas mileage, hovering around 50 or 60 miles to the gallon.

I want to do it by bicycle.

Granted, I realize that I am not a world class cyclist.  I realize that most touring cyclists typically ride 75-100 miles in a day, and I’m doing good with 10.  Does it really matter?  How fast did the pioneers travel with oxen and wagons?  I can even accept the possibility of adding a gasoline assist motor (they average about 100 mpg up to about 150, depending on the bike & load) to ensure that we get some miles done even if the slope is uphill and it’s hot outside.

It’s kind of crazy, I’d dreamed of doing that when I was a teenager and biking was easy and breezy.  I could ride my clunker of a 3 speed bike for 20 miles before lunch without breaking a sweat.  Now, I struggle with hills.

GM points out that it would take money to do this.  I point out it takes money to stay home too.  He points out my lack of physical conditioning, I point out it would obviously have to get better.  He sees 100 reasons why it is a crazy idea, and I agree.  It is crazy, so why not?

We could bike to Maine, and visit the Acadia National Park.  I’ve never seen the Atlantic coast, or any part of the northeastern USA.  I’d love to visit the Amish country of Ohio, and see the Appalachian mountains.  I can imagine crossing the prairies of middle America, and seeing the Rocky mountains looming ahead.  I can imagine how tiring it would be to pedal our way through the mountain passes, visiting former mining towns long past their glory days.  I can imagine our misery as we cross the Great Salt Desert with its shimmering heat waves, and entering the vast deserts of Nevada and seeing a herd of wild horses in the distance.  I can imagine the rising view of the coastal mountains ahead of us, and then…finally…the Pacific ocean and its great expanse in front of us.  I can imagine biking through the Redwood forests of California, and the maritime rain forests of the Northwest.

Oh, I know full well that some days, the rain would fall and the wind would blow.  I know sometimes I’d look at my bike and hate it.  I know I’d cry sometimes because parts hurt.  Sometimes I’d curse drivers, and sometimes, drivers would curse us.  There might be days when I wasn’t too thrilled with GM too.  There would be other days when he’d look at me and growl, informing me that this was all my fault because it was my idea.

I can accept that.

I know that doing this would be a monumental task.  We have two dogs and two cats, and our dogs are long past the age where they can run beside the bike all day.  They’d have to ride most of the time.  They are heavy.  So is camping gear.  I asked our daughter if she’d keep our cats while we made our epic journey.  I’d miss the grand baby.  It’s insane to think of devoting a year or two to doing nothing but riding a bike and taking pictures and making memories.  We should be responsible and work and save money and visit doctors and buy a house and a new car.

I want to make memories instead.  I want to taste adventure.  I want to feel the wind in my face.  I’ve spent a lifetime being responsible and hard working and boring.  I’ve done what society expected me to.

So is this a mid-life crisis?  Maybe.

Maybe its a symptom of insanity.

There are lots of reasons to not do it, and few besides the simple statement “I want to do this” for doing it.

It takes a lot longer than a bit of Botox and some liposuction, for sure.  Probably costs less and the side effects would certainly be different.

So if you see an overweight middle aged couple puttering alongside on the highway, with gasoline motors droning as we climb that long hill, towing a trailer with a couple of aging dogs and some  camping gear…slow down.

It just might be us.

Maybe.

If I can sell the concept to GM, that is.

Voortman oatmeal cookies and a first birthday rack?

Have you ever noticed that recipes that are supposed to be good for you taste absolutely horrible?  You know what I’m talking about.  Like the healthy bakery item where you are pretty sure the box you took it out of had more texture and flavor than the item you just attempted to consume ever did.

It’s only reasonable to assume that healthy food tastes bad, therefore unhealthy food should taste really good. 

And today, I really wanted an oatmeal raisin cookie, fragrant with cinnamon and full of rich oatmeal-y and raisin-y flavor.  So…I bought a package of Voortman Oatmeal Raisin cookies. 

Okay, I don’t need cookies.  I need to lose weight and cookies aren’t part of that game plan.  That doesn’t mean that Voortman corporate offices are supposed to be in cahoots with encouraging me to lose weight. 

Those cookies are AWFUL.

Yeah, I’d say eat the package instead, but its that plastic-foil hybrid stuff, no cardboard to eat. 

The cookies have a soggy texture, that familiar texture on the Gulf Coast that screams “stale.” 

Next, the cookies have a weird off flavor that says “burnt”.

Raisins…in these cookies?  Only by weight are there raisins.  They weren’t on speaking terms with the cookie that I had.  There were so few raisins, I let RedDog and Sissy finish the cookie.  (Raisins are toxic to dogs.)  Red thought the cookie was wonderful, but Red also licks her own butt and roots in trash when she has a chance, so her taste test is not regarded as relevent!

I really got concerned when I realized thatI bought these cookies after their unknown journey until they landed on the local Walmart shelf.  They were going to “remain fresh” until January of 2011?  How long were these things in the warehouse?  I remember buying stuff off of the “day old” rack at the bakery as a kid…what is it now?  The first birthday rack?

Moving, too much “stuff” and business contacts, along with August 21 fixations

I’ve been silent for a while, I have been VERY busy with life…that little four letter thing that swallows us up whole on some occasions.  But, in the interim, I have been putting some serious and major changes into place.

I have officially become homeless by current standards.

And no, despite my sister envisioning GM & I sleeping in a cardboard box under a bridge or overpass somewhere, we’re not that kind of homeless.  We are simply not currently renting a house or apartment.  We are renting a storage unit…for now.  It’s also very full, and I’m questioning that very fullness.  GM is seriously questioning that fullness even more, since everything that is in it, he has toted at least a hundred yards, and at least once.

Us, 2 cats, and 2 dogs are currently residing in a travel trailer, and that is requiring some serious adjustments on everyone’s part.  Especially me, since I’m the incorrigible packrat, always saving something for future use.  As someone who cooks and writes about cooking, this is really interesting.  Ever try to keep props, cooking equipment, pans, etc. in the storage provided by a travel trailer?  Oh, and ingredients…very interesting when there is no refrigerator.

Yeah, we have a refrigerator.  A beautiful Frigidaire, about 16 cubic feet, which is adequate for a couple with 4 pets.  IF it worked.  Ours doesn’t.  It just lights up, blows room temperature air, and looks good.  Reminds me of some people I know.

The move itself has not gone well.  Everything that could go wrong has gone wrong, and its additionally complicated by the fact that I lived behind my former employer, requiring us to come and go through the business.  Since I have been unable to work since my shoulder injury last November, that got a bit complicated.  Unfortunately, my former boss seems to think I’m malingering and exaggerating, an opinion that has not been shared by my doctor.  She has no intentions of bringing me back when I’m released to work again, no matter when that is, and there was no sense in staying in that house.  After living there over six years, I had accumulated a lot of “stuff.”  I have given away, thrown away, and packed away almost all of that “stuff” at this point–we intend to pack the remainder and do the cleaning in one last visit.  Hopefully, we can accomplish that without any further issues!

The van has been a money pit lately–first a heater hose, which is still just sporting a temporary repair.  Next, some little do-dad on the linkage chain(?) has worn out, and that too is sporting a temporary repair.  In the process of backing up the van and getting it into place for our fantastic mechanic (ever need a repair in Metairie, La, check out Jerry’s Auto Repair on Airline Drive-Jimmy is a great guy!)  GM backed into the mailbox.  Do you know what a spectacular explosion a rear window glass makes upon impact?  So…the next day, we had an appointment with Glass Masters, also in Metairie on Airline Drive.  A great price, and a great installation job in just about an hour.  Earlier that day, we had to take the van to Sam’s Club to have the new tires we had purchased there checked out–one of them was making an odd thumping noise.  They said one of them was out of balance, but the thumping noise seems to have increased.  I wish I had great compliments for their customer service in the tire department, but I don’t.  I doubt I will purchase tires from them again.  Good prices don’t compensate for crappy customer service, and the tire market is fairly competitive.  I’d rather spend an extra $5 per tire and have good service (maybe even with a smile?) from whoever I purchase them from.  I was interested in a national company to honor the road hazard warranty, no matter where we were…but there are a long list of alternatives still out there, and on the next tire purchase…one of the others will get the nod.  During the years I lived in Arizona, I always had excellent service from Discount Tires in Flagstaff, but there didn’t seem to be one in the Greater New Orleans area.

So, in the meantime, I’m trying to decide the fate of trinkets, doo-dads, gizmos, gadgets, too many clothes, too many shoes, and too many books.  I’m looking at my accumulation of “stuff” and calculating not only space factors, but those of weight.

That brings me to emergency preparedness.  In a sense, the whole equation changes when you can hitch your house up behind a truck and move the entire thing with very little preparation.  However, that very little preparation clause requires continual rethinking of how I live.

Food supplies-going through our emergency supplies, we discovered grain beetles had taken their toll, and it was a big one.  It was also time to use the canned goods and replace them.  I’m thinking we need to go to dehydrated foods designed for long term storage to prevent the loss and damage we had with the grain beetle infestation.  What if we’d needed those goods?  They were largely useless!  In addition, we need supplies that are both compact and lightweight, something that traditionally packaged grocery products score very poorly on in general.  At the same time, I don’t want big buckets of whole grain that I can’t use easily, or nasty tasting stuff that you’d only want to eat during a survival situation.  I can’t help but wonder, how does “cheese powder” taste when reconstituted as a spread?  Does “peanut butter powder” actually taste like peanut butter?  What about “dehydrated butter powder”?  I know that non fat dry milk works fine in MOST recipes, even if I’m not crazy about how it tastes as a beverage.  It also works fine as hot chocolate.  And these just-add-water dessert products such as puddings and no-cook custards, what do they really taste like?  I know the dehydrated fruits and vegetables are just fine, but what about the more processed foods?  I’ve sampled Mountain House beef stew, and that was good, except that was excessively salty for my tastes.  What about other brands and other products?

So many things to get done over the coming months, and now this new fixation with some weird connotations–I woke up one night mumbling about August 21, at 4:05 pm there was a big black tornado (think killer tornado, the kind with 1/4 mile wide path of total destruction) and New Orleans.  Does it mean anything?  Not really.  But…do I intend to be anywhere near by on that date?  No.  It’s a Saturday, and I was actually thinking it would be a fine time to go camping in Florida, actually.  Specific dates aren’t usually a precognitive thing, so why am I fixated on August 21?  I have no idea.  The weird thing is that it is a specific date AND time.  If anything happens that day, I’m going to really be weirded out, I suspect.  The tornado, with its massive size and total blackness, might be more of a symbolic thing than anything else, but even on a symbolic level, it has nothing good to say about being in its vicinity, as it still means destruction and damage and danger.

So, we now have a power outage where we are at, and it’s best to call it a night and try to go to sleep despite the stuffy heat before the battery wears down on the laptop.

Software Hates, Smokey Robinson the cat, & everything else

Okay all you software marketers & packagers out there.  I hate video tutorials.  They are slow, impossible to refer back to for a specific question, not ever indexed, and just generally irritating.  I don’t want to spend 4 hrs sitting passively staring at something that I won’t remember when I actually get to play with the software.  Another thing, when you include “how-to” or quick starts, for God’s sake, don’t put something in there that isn’t in the actual packaged software.  It really makes the consumer question the accuracy of every bit of documentation after the first error.

Three hours of playing, and I managed to accomplish copy & paste.  Should I be proud?  No, I’m aggravated.  I still haven’t figured out how to change the background color (graphics software).  So I can play with clip art, whoop de do.  So, I set aside, and have begun to realize that I’m progressing about as fast as a kid in school would learn a software program.  Slowly.  I should be able to create a banner in about 6 weeks, if it is simple, at this rate.  It won’t be because a “help” file contains anything about background color.

I woke up on the wrong side of the bed, by the way.  In case you can’t tell.  It’s rare that I wake up in a foul mood, but today, I did.  Slamming doors and stomping feet, followed by banging in the kitchen and growling at the  dog.  The only one who didn’t care was Smokey Robinson, also known as the cat.  I have two cats, but he’s usually The Cat.  Smokey has no idea that he was an “unwanted child.”  He doesn’t care.

Smokey arrived during the first cold snap of the fall, perched by the fence of a parking lot, terrified and crying…and crying and crying.  My daughter was visiting, and she spent two nights outside, trying to coax one scared & feral kitten to come to her.  She caught him at the end of the second night’s vigil, and Smokey was incarcerated in my bathroom.

He wasn’t happy.  He made his unhappiness about confinement known, and demolished the bathroom.  I sighed, got him vaccinated, got him neutered the week his testicles dropped, and had him up for adoption.  He was the second cat, and I had few illusions.  The chances weren’t good that when my daughter flew home, minus this annoying kitten, that I’d ever find him a home.

One day, gloomy Cali was observed pinning down the annoying kitten she had been hissing at for weeks, and giving him a bath despite his protests.  She mothered him, despite the fact she had never had kittens before she was spayed, still a kitten herself.  He slept with her, played with her, fought with her, and got bathed by her.  I sighed, and decided he could stay, and officially removed him from the adoption list, resigned to being a two cat household.

Over two years later, when I go to bed, he RUNS to jump on the bed, and he waits for his special treat-me petting him with my feet.  I’m a bonafide klutz, me petting him with my feet is really more like a mauling by foot.  He purrs, nudging my feet when I stop, finally laying down, his nose pushed against my bare feet, drooling slightly.  I wonder why my cats are fascinated with my feet or my shoes (Cali loves my shoes.)  As I work on the computer, he comes and stands on his hind legs, tapping my arm with his paw stretched wide, demanding to be petted or to get a treat.  (He loves these dreadful “Temptations” (turkey flavor).  They stink.  He loves them.  Cali only eats “Whisker Lickin’s” which smell bad too, but she likes chicken & cheese.  Cali will kill for a ham sliver.  Smokey wants melted cheese, preferably mozzerella.

Smokey, despite the fact that he was neutered as soon as possible, has a deep seated desire to get outside.  Cali knows that it’s not nice out there, as Red’s peace treaty is not in effect outside.  Smokey keeps trying.  We put a belled collar on him to reduce his ability to sneak up & dart out, as last summer he was outside for 4 days, and had me worried.  Cali cries when he’s outside, and I just worry about him.  Our neighborhood is not a good neighborhood for a cat outdoors who is not wise about cars.  This time of year, when the weather is warm and the windows are open, he’s half insane with his desire, often standing with his nose pressed against the window fan for scents of the outdoors.

Other Worldly, Pets & life

Those people that know me from the radio show, know I have an “other-worldly” side.  I have pursued the paranormal for so long that it is a part of my character.  Trying to describe what other-worldly means to those who aren’t familiar with the concept can be tricky though.  Maybe part of it is the fear of ridicule?

Being other-worldly means that part of the person is more focused on the non-physical world, that magical thing that can’t be seen or measured.  The pursuit of the spiritual self, that hunt for the voice of God.  In my case, it is often the pursuit of a quest for answers, and in the meantime, it only leads to more questions.  Some people want to know if I am a Christian, and I have to shake my head.  Christian these days seems to mean someone devoted to a particular sect and church, more focused on dogma and rules than on questions and answers.  To me, it all too often seems to mean that someone does not have to think for themselves, but rather has let someone else tell them what to think and do.  I guess the God I believe in is much more flexible, forgiving, and yet demanding, than that god.  I can’t believe in a God that wants us to not use the brains s/he gave us!   I have real funny ideas–that God wants us to practice charity and help others, but not because we are told to give 10% of what we get to some church who will then do our charitable work for us.

I don’t think churches are bad, they just aren’t my answer.  Churches, to me, are basically an organization devoted to spiritual well being, complete with a “clubhouse” known as a church.  I agree, all of the members should support their church–it has bills, it has to support that building, and the church’s charitable arm has plans.  I can easily see why any government would rather that its citizens were church people instead of people like me, especially in a country advocating religious freedom.  I’m a logistic nightmare for freedom, I have no written doctrine that tells anyone what I do-or don’t-believe.  At the same time, at least I’m not preaching a religion of exclusion and hate, but rather one of tolerance and cooperation.

All of that is probably more about me and religion than I’ve formally declared in the last 20 years!  I think I’m getting a rash, by the way.  All caused by religious proclamations.  I guess its Sunday morning syndrome?

On the more worldly front, I should tell you about my little family that lives with me.  It features Greg, who while he may be moderately hairy, does walk on two feet and speaks English.  As the love of my life, he takes my crazy tangents and impossible mood swings in stride, and deserves a medal for his tolerance, even if he does hate fans (the moving air kind that I turn on about the time the temperatures hit 70*)

In addition to Greg, I have a pair of dogs who hate each other passionately–Red Dog and Sissy.  Then, plotting on ways to murder Greg and I, there are a pair of cats.  I’ll go on about the cats first.

First, understand that I am NOT a cat person and never was.  I have always been a dog person.  Red Dog hates cats, and has been convicted of feline homicide and doomed to a lifetime of probation.  Cali arrived in our lives about 4 am one morning.  I woke up with the thought that I needed to get up.  I looked at the clock, it was pitch dark still, and said no way and rolled over.  The thought kept on, and finally aggravated enough, I climbed out of bed.  Of course the moment my feet hit the floor, the dogs wanted out.

Now at this point, Red and Sissy still liked each other, so they went outside at the same time.  I opened the door and sent them out into the yard, only to see Red stop and wag her tail, as though someone she knew was there.  It’s 4 am, and there had best not be anyone on my door step!

So, I peered out and low and behold…there sits a small bit of fluff, literally mewing right up the nostril of a cat killer.  Now while I may not be a cat person, I wasn’t going to just leave it there to become a disappointing squeak toy in the jaws of Red either.  I darted out in my nightshirt and rescued it.  But now what?  I had a very large empty crate, as I had just had my last foster dog be adopted, so in she went.  Next it was food, and of course I had no cat food, so it was a bit of dog kibble with some leftover gravy.

To make a long story short, a rescue group got her spayed and vaccinated, and I was to foster her until she was adopted.  She was a cute calico kitten, and I was sure it would be short lived.  Ha.

Every time she auditioned for adoption, she hissed, spit, yowled and acted like she was possessed.  I told her she was crazy, that she did not want to live with a cat killer and me.  She ignored me and groomed herself.  Just the week before Katrina, when my daughter came to visit, I faced the reality that Cali was staying and we needed to integrate her into the household.  It was a good time, when I had my daughter’s help, and within a few days, she had complete run of the house even when the dogs were inside.

Then came Katrina.  We left on our exile about 2 am on Sunday morning, and while we missed the worst of the traffic getting out of the New Orleans area, we still had a long ways to go.  All too soon, the sun was up and the day began heating up, and we were traveling in a pickup with no air conditioning–two adults, a 75 lb. dog, a 25 lb dog, and a teenage kitten.  Cali was wearing a harness & leash to keep her from going through a window.  I was overtired, having not slept on Saturday night (busy loading up to leave) and my daughter was unable to drive due to medications.  Motel rooms, even in Alexandria, were not to be found, and I was worried that we would never find one at all (which was the reason for packing along camping gear)  If we were to camp, that meant that I needed to be well away from the projected path of the storm, because even inland, a tent is not an ideal abode in a hurricane.  At one point, Cali kept crying pathetically, and the ONLY thing that soothed her was to lie on top of Red, who despised the kitten.  I finally told Red to just let her, because I couldn’t take it anymore, and believe it or not, she did.  She just laid down on the seat and let the cat lay on top of her.

We did find a motel in Texas, with the kind help of a woman at the welcome center.  Cali survived her month stay in a motel room with the dogs.  I think the major trauma was the return home, when because I was returning home, my daughter had returned to her home, and I was traveling alone.  Cali had to ride in a crate inside of another crate, safely fastened in the bed of the truck and covered with a tarp.  Traveling at night so that there would not be heat issues, I arrived home about midmorning, before the sun had warmed things up too much.  For the entire 10 hour journey, she had been forced to listen to semi-trucks, honking horns, and passing cars, as well as the sounds of the wind and tarp as we traveled.

Red was the funny one during the trip.  She had liked our temporary home in Texas, and was not happy about a long car ride.  She had sulked and pouted the entire journey, grumbling at Sissy on occasion.  I don’t think she realized we were going home, she just was unhappy about another long drive.  When we reached the point where I-10 crossed Bonnie Carre spillway, she popped up like a jack in the box, stuffing her entire nose into the cracked window and sniffing deeply, perched like a prairie dog on the seat to allow her maximum nose-exposure in the cracked window.  Over and over, she breathed in the aroma of the brackish water (none too pleasant yet in the end of September) and seemed extremely happy.

Arriving home, when I went to move Cali out of the truck, and lifted her crate out of the big dog crate, the crate pulled apart, the door fell off, and she was dumped very unexpectedly on the ground.  Frozen in terror (she is a completely indoor cat) I easily scooped her up and got her securely returned to the crate.  At home, the yard wasn’t secure–damage had rendered the fences easily escaped by a dog, and the dogs were restricted to either a small pen or leash walks.  The trees that had come down had already been removed, we had power and water (not potable yet) and there was still a curfew in effect.  I had no internet, no one to talk to, and couldn’t really leave the property most of the time (and where would I go anyhow?)

I restored the internet sort of with the help of a veterinarian working on animal rescues and an electrician friend.  It gave me a connection with the world, and alleviated the loneliness of those first weeks.  During the day, I worked on repairing my employer’s business and getting ready for reopening, as well as helping them repair their fence so they could bring their dogs home.  If I ventured to a store, it had to be during the limited hours they were open, and even then it was limited choices.  Craving cottage cheese, I will never forget that purchase–it was rotten, totally and completely spoiled.  Not sure how, as the store had been completely emptied and cleaned, but someone dropped the ball on that carton of cottage cheese, which was not expired.  To return it? Nope, it took too much time.

I had brought enough stuff home with me to manage to avoid going to the store for a month, but I did crave things like meat, cheese, milk, and eggs.  Prices were high, if you could find it, and I will never forget my shock at pricing steaks–they were $9.95 a lb.  We are not talking GOOD steak here either, just a plain steak.  I didn’t eat steak.  Don’t remember what I did eat, but it was probably tuna or something from a can that I had brought home with me or had on hand in the house.

Next time, I’ll tell Smokey Robinson’s story (he’s the other cat, and before Greg, was the only male of the house.)