Bullet's opinion about not being fed on time this morning.


Cats like schedules, and they like them a lot. They sleep in certain places, which in my case is Bullet (the old and cranky one) on one side of me, Jessie Nell (the baby) on the other. Winston on the fuzzy green coverlet at my feet, or if he gets there first, he will press his nose into the window screen on the far side of the bed. By morning, Jessie Nell is burrowed deep under the covers, Bullet in a lump beside my head and Winston is wherever Winston wants to be. They get up as soon as the kitchen light comes on, demanding fresh food.

Each cat has a particular Friskey's food dish they eat out of. And everyone must be fed in a certain order. If any part of this routine runs amuck, everyone gets their panties in a wad. Jessie Nell does not eat wet cat food. Wet cat food, in her opinion, is something akin to dog dudu. Jessie Nell is very clear on the fact that she wouldn't eat Iams Premium Pate' kitten food if it were the last meal served to her on earth. She likes evaporated milk though. And she if very fond of watching you pour it into her very own special small clear bowl (I found three of them packaged together at Dollar Tree, then promptly broke one. Now, I've got to drive all the way back out there to spend one dollar and get three more). If I pour evaporated milk into the very small (and more expensive) white custard bowl, she uses her paw to swipe all around it, like something smelly was left in her litter pan that she needed to cover up.

After eating, we have to have a drink of water. Winston and Bullet race to the back door to be let out onto the deck so they can drink water out of the RED water bowl. Shock of shocks, they actually take turns. Jessie Nell (who is not, at this time, allowed to go outside because she's just a little kitten and gets into everything and can slip through tiny tiny holes like a vaporous fog and can run straight up a tree so fast you'd swear you didn't blink before it happened) (Guess how I know this?) likes to drink her water out of an I Can't Believe It's Not butter margarine tub located in the shower stall. Upstairs.

If this is a sink, where is the water?

Same routine. Every morning. Even before I put the kettle on and have some caffeine. But that is okay because I've done this routine many times. I'm used to kitty cat schedules.

Last night, before we crawled into bed, our little paper instructions said we had to remove every food bowl. We had to remove every water bowl. No food or water after midnight when "someone" is going to have surgery. And that someone was Jessie Nell, our baby, who is 5 months old today. Hey, my doctor wouldn't "spay" me until I was at least 30.

I left for the vet's office with one cranky kitten at 7:30 this morning. She mewed and mewed and mewed (the tiny high-pitched mews eventually dropped about an octave before we got there) for the whole 10 mile drive. It's a wonder she still has a voice.

Jessie Nell. SHHHHH! It's best if she sleeps right now.

We are now back home. Jessie Nell is w0bbling and stumbling and teetering sideways and slipping and sliding on the wood floors, slowly getting her bearings. She does not feel real good. She's been sniffed over real good by anyone in this house that is wearing a fur coat. I don't think "normal" will return until tomorrow when we can once again start the day's routine ON SCHEDULE!

This is Winston. Hey Jessie, are you going to be okay?

This is the very last day of August and it's freezing cold. As soon as my bare feet hit the floor at 6 a.m. I noticed that the wood floor against my surprised feet was rather chilly. My legs were cold. My arms were cold. Why? Where were these goose bumps coming from? The thermometer just outside our kitchen window reported 48 degrees. Forty-eight degrees!!?? This is August, right? Today's predicted high? 74. What's up?

I can remember past Augusts when we got down on our knees and prayed for rain to fall on our dried-to-a-crisp crunchy brown grass. Augusts so hot and dry that we once again realized why we always looked forward to fall's cooler temperatures, and please autumn, hurry and come; winter wasn't looking so bad either.

June was our hottest month this year. Can you believe it? We've had so much rain in July and August that our gardens are doing strange and weird things. Tomatoes, usually so abundant that we have to get creative about what to do with them, are not producing much. This year Arkansas tomatoes have been hit with some type of blight that has caused the leaves and stems to sort of do a wilt-melt-turn black kind of thing. Now everyone is being kind of selfish about giving away tomatoes, including my MIL. She's usually begging me to take some so she can free up her refrigerator.

Yesterday we decided to just go ahead and take down our little above-ground pool. Now watch it turn hotter than hot in September. Anyway, it just felt kind of sad to put away the pool. It's like we're waving good-bye to yet another summer, and I love summer soooo much. *Note: Cleaning the pool is an all day job that requires a lot of down-and-dirty work, so this was no minor chore. Some people leave their pools up all winter. Can't imagine how fabulously filthy it would be by next season. YUCK!




Let me introduce Miss Alice Ivy. She's our newest (unexpected) member of the family. Obviously, she's a border collie mix -- mostly border collie. We found her huddled under my husband's pickup truck, shivering and scared. If PupDog hadn't been bark, bark, barking at her, we might not have noticed. You could actually feel her ribs, that's how thin she was. And she was filthy dirty. Strangely enough, she let me coax her from beneath the truck, pick her up and take her inside. Eventually, I decided to take my chances on being bitten and give her a bath. That's when I discovered why she smelled like rotten meat. I thought her tail was just tucked under her, you know, like dogs do when they are scared or unsure about something? Nope. Her tail was not tucked under her. It was barely hanging on. It looked like raw meat. THEN I actually saw something fall off. A maggot. A MAGGOT! Although our vet doesn't have a 24 hour clinic, he did agree to meet us at his office and take a look at the situation. It didn't take him long to tell us, as we knew deep down inside, "you do know that that tail is going to have to come off, right?"

Many $$$$$$$ and several weeks later: We have a very happy, very energetic, very clean little dog. She's our new little happy walker. PupDog doesn't walk. He lumbers, and not very far at any given stretch. Alice, on the other hand, loves to walk. The longer the walk, the better. She also loves to ride in a car to the point that when we have to leave without her, she's crestfallen. And she's housebroken now, although it took a bit of work a few soiled puppy pads and many doggie treats for her to get the idea.

It took a bit for PupDog to warm up to her, but it's like he's been given new life by her energy. Well, to be honest, so have we.

Now, what to do with the person who treated this precious little creature so badly? Any suggestions?