Absence Makes The Heart Grow Harder

My Cabrillo has been gone over a month now. Other cats have disappeared as well, including Cab's twin George.
Oddly enough, the cat-napper hasn't taken the cats I only kept to save them from the Shelter.
I look for my fur babies at the local shelters, in the neighborhood. I had heard a coyote was killing cats in the neighborhood but found out that was last year an no-one has seen any coyotes this year.
I am very close to taking everyone except Romeo, Randy and Jerry to the shelter. I've talked to Charlie about an invisible electric fence to keep the cats in the back yard.
I have to let this go so I can write again. It is just very hard...

Summer of Changes

We are finally free of breeding female felines. I had to send Pinky Lee to the shelter; she hated humans even after 3 years of effort and passed her distaste for us on to many of her progeny (who usually died, something wrong with that cat).
We are also missing two beloved feline family members - Cabrillo and Trixie. This is Cab:

He is so smart that I almost expect him to speak English to me when he has stored up enough to say. In the meantime he purrs and meows at the same time when he sings to me. He has been gone since Monday and it is killing me.
Monday morning before I left for work I put out food on the back deck, let in all who wanted in, and saw him playing with his twin brother George on the patio. George's differences are eye color and back paw sock length - yellow eyes and tube socks on his hind feet.
Then Trixie, aka velcro kitty, went missing Tuesday. Trix is a medium length hair fluffy black and white cat and I didn't have any pictures of her to use for flyers. My niece took a picture of Trixie's twin, Pixie, who lives 2 1/2 hours away with her. I used them to make the posters.
I have posted color flyers of both cats on stop signs and street signs on my block and one block over and will do the block south of us tomorrow. I'll go a little further with black and white flyers into mailboxes, too.
I am afraid that George may have chased them away. Even though Trix is spayed and Cab and George both neutered, George has always been aggressive with them (all siblings) but I thought he was just asserting his authority as first born.
Now I think he was clearing the decks of cats old enough to challenge his authority. I saw him threaten Fang today. Fang is in line to be neutered and is just shy of one year old (I know, I should have done it sooner, but I had other obligations).
My heart hurts for my Kitty Boy - I went through all of the awful what ifs earlier in the week, have called the shelter daily, and now think they are in the neighborhood and if I knock on enough doors I'll find them.

I went out hunting and gathering today and bought a few new kitchen rugs.

I like the ones that are made from gel padding. These things are usually $20 or more; I got them for $5.99 each.
The one above is in front of my oven.
I can hardly look at pictures of Cab without wanting to sniffle so I have to end this now.

Play Day

Last weekend was work-work-work in Tampa but at least the food was good:)
This weekend is about laundry and play time for me.
Lynn Haven is a little town attached to a big town and things are often aranged with extreme informality. One of those things was scheduled for today - a fund raiser for people with head injuries. T  here is a "clubhouse" program that lets them have a place to go every day like a work site and do something useful. They were set up in a small local park and had music, food, junk and craft vendors.
I bought a hamburger from an older lady who was operating the front end of the set-up with a handsome young man sitting at the cash box. After a few minutes it was clear that he was a clubhouse client.
I sat with my burger and water bottle and watched the world. It seemed to be mostly parents and siblings manning the booths and the attendees were sparse. There was a dad calling for cake-walkers, "Come on, step up, win a cake for your girl! The song goes around, some sit down, last one in takes the win!"

There was a table of yard sale stuff that caught my eye. A young couple, likely siblings of a client, were on duty behind the table.They looked tired and it looked like nothing much had been bought from the table. A small doll caught my eye and as I reached for it the young woman reached to and said "The price tag is wrong." It was a hand-written tag tied to the doll's arm and read, in pencil, $3.
I shrugged and said "Cool. How much?" thinking she'd  ask for five or ten. it was hot and I was ready to walk away if the price exceeded my charitable mood.
She sold it for a quarter and I gave her some future yard sale advice -if you have souvenir ashtrays, try to sell them on line to collectors first to get the best dollar. People don't smoke much anymore so that type of memorabilia is no longer common.
The doll above is my twenty-five cent prize. The red string on the right side is part of the actual "purse strings" so little Miss Roma can hang from a young girl's wrist. The fabric is mostly felt with some ribbon trim.

I love these souvenirs from days gone by. The quality is often very good. This one makes me think of an early 60's movie like those with Haley Mills and Rosalind Russell running around Europe and having madcap adventures. Buses drive by colorful local men will break down, boys will chase girls, and adults will be exhausted by adolescents. An imaginary more innocent time.
I was also on a mission in area Goodwill Stores today - our summer program is a "go" and we want to give the kids fun books to read and take home if they like. I love Goodwill; the work they do for others, the little pieces of other people's lives I see. I collect glass items; clear cut glass and bas relief glass dishes, pottery dishes from California. My everyday china is Franciscan Apple, all of it "antique" with the made in California stamp. The stuff made after the English firm bought Franciscan is crap.
I encountered a lovely new pattern today - Metlox Poppytrail California Ivy.

Look at the handle - see how it is shaped like a rough, thick old rope of ivy? Everything is hand-painted and then each piece is fired, like old Franciscan. This line also includes bas relief patterns of grapes, berries, daisies and zinnias.
Today I found the gravy boat, large platter and vegetable serving bowl. I like this kind of thing just because it suits me. For people who need to make an impression on others, though, using these old patterns as tableware looks expensive (it can be, if you don't hunt it down yourself) and chic. 
I carefully washed my new treasures, water hot but not too hot and using Mrs. Myers' Basil dish liquid (gentle on me, dishes and the environment).
All in all, a good day:)

"The heart is a lonely hunter"

That's a Carson McCullers book title. She wrote it in North Carolina in the late 1930's and it was published to great acclaim in 1940.
I like the phrase because of its essential adolescent melodrama, among other things. The misunderstood loner, aloof, watching, with a deeply hidden heart that yearns for connection. The heart as a leader in the body's reaction to love, loss, elation, satisfaction, stress...Unfortuately it is just the title of another damned depressing Carson McCullers story. She either needed to drink more and play more or just write less. Gah!

My heart has been acting peculiarly for a little while. I think that's what it is, and the doctor seems to think that is what it is. I'll have a test Monday to start sorting it out.
For the past year or so, without warning, I get a heavy and painful feeling in the middle of my chest that sometimes radiates right up into my jaw. This is such a painful thing that while it lasts all I can think about is pressing my fist against my chest to try, somehow, to get the pain to move to the outside. I've never made notes about it or talked to the doctor about it because I have always been afraid it was some psychosomatic mystery pain or yet another example of my neurological misfires. I spent a few hours connected to electrodes when I was in my late teens because I had started smelling things that weren't there, feeling an odd heaviness in my head and other things that I didn't take drugs to cause. The tests came up empty.

Wednesday night I had a long and painful session with the fat hatchet in my chest and a jaw that felt like it had hit a wall. It finally eased off and I slept but in the morning I woke up to something new - the pains were still present but at a much lower level.
Mystery chest pain usually completely disappears after it has inflicted its torture.
With the pain still playing a frightening back-beat behind my sternum I decided it was time to chat about the feeling to see if I needed to see a doctor.
Mother and husband both voted for a doctor visit so I called my GP to see about being worked in. The receptionist spoke to the nurse who suggested that I go to the Emergency Room.
Really? REALLY? The EMERGENCY ROOM, where I could grow old before being seen? Fuck that!
I controlled myself nicely, however, and said "Well, suppose I don't go to the emergency room. When can I be seen?"
Then I called a walk in to see what the wait was and went to see them. EKG was fine but the PA was concerned about the situation and I now have an apointment Monday for a stress test and echocardiogram. I also have an appointment with my GP that day at 2 which I am not sure I am going to make.
I think it is just my body's reaction to stress. Last year I had a stabbing pain every 8 minutes in the back of my head for 2 days solid. It was stress. I have broken a tooth from grinding. Stress (I got it fixed!). My shoulders are so tense that I have to conciously remind myself to relax them. So having subverted my body's attempts to express stress in other ways I am being attacked by my own heart.
Dammit, man!

A Happy Week

It doesn't take a lot to give me a general feeling of well-being these days. If the sun is shining in a blue sky, the scent of some blooming thing is in the air and my cats are watching me like I am about to make magic happen, I am having a good day. Knowing Sweet Charlie will be home for dinner, that I have an interesting task on deck at work and that there are blackberries in the refrigerator on top of that, bliss.
This week was a week of work to look forward to doing. We are getting our work study (I'll call her ""Sweetie" here) ready to move to Tallahassee for school. The fine people at Goodwill gave us carte blanch as a professional courtesy in kitting our girl's apartment out and we found fabulous things. Word to the wise - next time you need to redecorate/refurnish, find out what day the Goodwills in good (well-to-do) areas do furniture pick up so you can shop them. We found such pretty things that our Sweetie will have a living room that I envy. And I am glad - she is an Aged out of Foster Care youth which means she turned 18 and was put on the street. We've gotten her into the Independent Living program but she still needs love and guidance and protection. The women of my office have been trying to cram 18 years of love and life-teaching into 8 weeks. I am praying we've done enough to keep our lessons in her mind and her heart attached to us so we can "mother" her from afar. We are building a safety net for her in Tallahassee, but she's our baby so letting go is hard.

Today was also a happy day. I rambled through a few yard sales and got some non-essentials for Sweetie and a scrap-booking tool for the kids in one of our youth programs. Big Lots yielded skeins of one of my favorite yarns for a dollar each and some tomato cages. When I got home, the mail had run and it was time to check for treats. I love mail.

I received two cool mail items - a shipment from BzzzAgent for my latest campaign:

Covergirl is our Bzz campaign right now for their new NatureLuxe foundation and lipbalm. Note that I posed it with my L'Occitane Divine products. That stuff is bottled so prettily and works so well that it inspired a massive clean-up in the make-up nook:)
Anyway,I hope I like it, I have coupons to share and am in need of another inexpensive weekend makeup.  Updates will be coming:)

My other treat through the USPS was a bottle of an energy-diet supplement I bought from a friend. The samples seemed to work well so I'll see how the bottle does. At this price, though, prescription diet pills are cheaper.

That's 30 days' worth of V3 for $62. I had thought it was a 60-pill bottle. Well, if it works it's worth it. Another "updates will be coming" issue!

My husband is home from North Alabama now; he had gone up to help get some radio stations back on the air. During emergencies, terrestrial radio gets vital information out to people moreso than TV since people generally have battery powered radios.
I'm going to make him something good to eat right now and watch kittens on Animal Planet:)

Sometimes You Just Have to Laugh

I have been working crazy busy stressy for the past few weeks. The big stress has been needing to depend on other people to make my plans happen. I can do anything - but I can't always get the other people to cooperate so I can get my magic done. THAT is what is stressful. And some times there are parts of a plan that look easy-peasy but can be screwed up if you don't do them yourself.
And that's why I was on the Hathaway Bridge heading east on Thursday when my BRAND EFFING NEW SORRENTO crapped out on me. I was heading for Gulf County to measure a room for some equipment we need for a project when the SUV started hesitating. It smoothed out for a moment, then started up again and an amber warning light that I couldn't translate lit up. I pulled into the breakdown lane to think, put the vehicle in park and then every light on the dash lit up and the Kia shut down.

It was hot and I was mad. I was even angrier when I couldn't find the info I needed in my owner's handbook in what I thought was a reasonable amount of time.



All I wanted to know was what the damn light on the dash meant as it related to the reason my BRAND NEW EFFING KIA SORRENTO crapped out on the bridge.
Oh, and I wanted to know where the emergency flashers were since I was in the accident lane of a bridge frequented by tourists and my chances of being rear-ended were pretty high.The owner's manual of this model sucks. ALL owner's manuals should have emergency information in the FRONT. When you open the cover of the booklet, you should see the list of what all of the warning lights on the goddam dash mean and where the control for the emergency flashers is. You would not believe how poorly the index on that manual is laid out. I was only slightly panicked and couldn't find what I wanted. Humpf!                                                                                                         
So after 2 hours the tow truck came, allowing the DOT cop who had kindly pulled in behind the Sorrento to leave. I had worn a floaty skirt, the day was hot and without being able to run the AC in the Sorrento my choices were to stand in the wind on the bridge and risk my skirt flying up around my ears or die of sweatage.  My skirt got away from me when I was getting into the tow truck but by that point I didn't care anymore. 
Several hours later I learned that the Sorrento was in the ICU and I would be getting a very likely shitty tiny rental car.  I am sunburned and grumpy because a BRAND NEW GODDAM KIA crapped out on me on the bridge and I spent TWO hours sweating and fighting with a skirt to stay decent and/or cool and they were going to give my princess self a Ford Escort?                                                                                                   
I am naturally inclined towards being a sweetie. Snarling and threatening seems to make my face dry and just worries me later. I will admit to capitalizing on looking scary by threatening new hires with tales of my temper and I have been known to verbally swat miscreants but I would prefer to get what I want through kindness.
The fates smiled on me this afternoon and instead of a crappy compact death machine the lovely young man at the rental place handed me the key to a Kia Borego.
I WANT MY OWN BOREGO. I called the dealership and talked to the guy handling the sick Sorrento and told him to keep it, I'd just take the Borego. She's a beauty, a big black beast with tan leather seats and 3-rows of them, built so a lady can hop into the driver's seat without a stepladder and still sit high enough off the ground to feel safe.
So at the end of this stressful week my SUV is at the fix-it, I am sun-burned from standing on top of a white bridge above the reflective bay, I didn't get the measurements I needed and I still only have one site for my project. But - I have a beautiful, cool loaner to drive, the weather is encouraging my little food garden to thrive, and I got a good story to tell. Oh, and the sun on my face has settled into a pink glow:)

                      



Nattering

That cool little word, "nattering," just means surface chatter, shooting the breeze; but I always think of it as having an undercurrent of comfort. As in being comfortable enough with the people around you to talk of inconsequential things, to let words of no particular significance flow and oil the rope that binds you together as friends, keeping the relationships flexible and thriving.

That's a close up of Tea Olive blooms, which smell like all of the best green things about spring. That's the kind of thing I natter about, along with music and yappy dogs who eat catfood and upchuck. There was natter about old days when friend Lorne and I were young and still building our careers, the odd attraction law enforcement and radio people have for each other, and how we fit that paradigm. Lornie's eyes are the color of a Hershey Bar wrapper and she still fixes them on her husband's face with the same attention and intensity a she did when they first married. 
Then Charlie and I were the chatty audience as Ingrid insouciantly concocted the perfect fruity shot for the guy at table 17 while we sang bits of 40-year-old songs across the bar to each other. She looks like a cool blond sophisticate until she speaks. Her inner Italian then emerges with waving hands, eyes that can shoot sparks and personality that defies stereotyping.

I have no great epiphany to offer here, no clever joke to tell. Just a reminder to talk to your friends, even about nothing, just a flight of fancy or a re-telling of an old story. Watch their faces and remember their expressions. When you get right down to it, the stuff that enriches your life is the stuff that lives - your friends, whether human or furry, finny/feathery, the growing living environment that hosts you, and the thoughts that decorate the space between your ears. Keeping your bank full of those things only costs your attention. Pay it.