R.I.P. Mike

He passed away on Friday, June 18th. 15 days after his companion of 13 years passed away. I hate that we were on vacation when it happened, but he couldn't have been in better company with my mom watching over him.


That little girl that you ran from for years is missing you so bad right now. You were her J.D. and she is in such heartache for you. The way you went from not wanting anything to do with her to not wanting to be with anybody BUT her was amazing.

I will miss that sudden dip at the end of the bed when you would jump up to snuggle. I will miss the way that you would MEOW and demand that I feed you. I will miss that particular little chirping sound you would make when you would spot a bird. I will miss your soft fat belly and your long, long, long legs. I will miss the way you would allow Light to dress you up as Tinkerbell and pretend to make you play the piano.

You are in our heart baby boy, now and forever. Go and play with J.D. I know that's why you left us. You just missed him too much.

Love,

The Other Light of My Life Finale

When I bring him home, I realize that I need to come up with a name for him. I went through the usual “black” names. Joe, Blackie, Blackberry, Java, Coffee, Blackbeard, etc….but nada.

None of them seemed right and he wasn’t responding to any of them.

I then started saying any male names I could think of. Bill, Dan, Bob, Richard, etc…

The minute I said “Mike”, he turned his wee head, stared at me with those luminous green eyes and meowed.

Swear to God.

He meowed.

So, Mike it was.

Mike and J.D. got along great. They played with each other and kept each other company.

During all this time, I noticed that his eyes were getting bigger and bigger. It was almost to the point that his eyelids wouldn’t close completely over his eyes.

I also discovered that the nerves in his eyes must have been dead or not there at all. Mike and J.D. were chasing each other through the apartment and Mike turned and swiped J.D. in the face and ended up scratching one of his eyeballs. With blood dripping from his eye, J.D. continued to chase Mike around the house. He was not even aware that his eye was bleeding.

That was my wake up call to take him back to the vet to get him checked out again.

The eye situation bumfuzzled the vet and she didn’t know exactly what was wrong.

She told me I basically had two decisions to choose from.

I could get some eye drops and drop them in his eyes 7-8 times a day to keep them moist or I could have his eyes taken out.

I looked at the vet long and hard and asked her what she would do if this was HER cat.

She said that she would have them removed. It would be the only way he wouldn’t suffer.

So, $2000 later, we had the surgery. J.D. was no longer just a blind cat but he was now an eyeballess cat.

He looked like a lion. They had to shave part of his fur around his eyes and so the fur around the cheeks stood out making him look all majestic. They also ended up cutting a couple of whiskers.

Poor kitty. For a few weeks, he walked around in circles due to the clipped whiskers! It was kinda funny.

About 6 weeks or so after his surgery, I was over at my mom’s house with the cats and J.D. was sitting near my mom or on her, I can’t remember when. Anyway, she shushed me while I was in the middle of talking and said “listen”. I strained to hear what she was hearing. All I could hear was purring.

Wait….purring….from J.D……who had NEVER PURRED IN HIS TIME WITH ME!

He was PURRING!

It was the sweetest sound I had ever heard.

About a month after that, he meowed for the first time. And cuddled and loved up on me and snuggled down.

When I went to the vet for a follow up a while later, I mentioned this to the vet and she said that his eyeballs were putting such pressure in his little noggin that he was probably in constant pain and didn’t feel like purring or being cuddly.

They did do a biopsy on his eyes and they were cancer free and glaucoma free. They were never sure exactly what was wrong. But, they gave him a clean bill of health which is all I cared about.

He truly is a miracle cat. It is so funny to watch him “watching” bugs that fly around (he can hear their little wings beating, that’s how he follows them). He is also very adaptable to his surroundings. I used to be afraid to move furniture or leave boxes and bags in his way, but, over the years, I’ve learned that it doesn’t bother him. He senses they’re there and will walk around them. The only times he bumps into things now is if he is running and not taking his time.

I found out in Christmas of 2007 that he has a heart problem. It’ll probably be what kills him. His heart is also throwing off clots to his back legs and for a while there, he wasn’t using his back legs AT ALL. He would drag himself around. It was to the point I was researching how to make a wheelchair contraption for him to get around in.

The vet gave me some meds and it’s pretty much under control now. However, I don’t anticipate having him much longer. I want to keep him forever, but I know that’s not the case.

So, I just enjoy every day that I have with my love.

That’s all I can do.

Thanks for reading.

Captain Dumbass…I’m done. You can come back now.

Later,

Mama Dawg

The Other Light of My Life part 2

Somehow or somewhere, I heard about a non-profit no-kill shelter that was constantly looking for volunteers. It was about 45 minutes away, but I started going there regularly on the weekends.

About a month into my volunteer services, I arrived on a Saturday morning and saw the new kitten that had been brought in the night before.

This little ball of dirty fur was in its own cage separated from all the other cats and kittens.

I went over to check out the new arrival and before I actually made it all the way over to the cage, I could see the fleas and smell this awful smell.

I dubbed the kitten Orphan Annie and proceeded with my volunteer duties. I would check on it periodically throughout the morning and before I left, I asked the front desk clerk what the story was behind the drop off. She said that some man came in Friday morning saying that he rescued it from some dogs that were about to attack it. He didn’t want to keep a cat so he dropped it off to them.

I went on with my day, running errands and whatnot. I went to bed that night thinking of that kitten.

On Sunday, I got up and went out to the shelter again. I check on Orphan Annie’s progress and noticed that it was even more lethargic than the day before. I tried to coax it into playing with me, but to no avail.

I asked the desk clerk what would happen to the kitten since it seemed so sick. She said that they had already made the decision to put it down the next day when the volunteer vet was making his rounds since it appeared to be fatally ill. They also didn’t want any of the other cats or kittens catching some sort of disease that Annie might have had.

Although this made sense to me, it still broke my heart a little. Even though it’s a no-kill shelter, they still had to take precautions as well as remain humane for the animals sake.

So, with a heavy heart, I said good-bye to Annie and left for the day.

I didn’t sleep a wink all night.

I got up the next morning, skipped classes (I was in my second year of community college) and went to the shelter, praying I was arriving in time.

I got to the shelter and ran to the front desk asking if the vet had made his rounds yet and they said that normally he would have been there and gone but that he was held up at his clinic and was running late.

It was FATE.

I don’t care if you believe in it or not. This is a real life case of FATE.

I went to the cat house, snatched up little Orphan Annie and ran out of there like I was on fire. All I had in the car to wrap it up in was an old flannel shirt. The whole hour drive back to my apartment, all I could do was pray and cry, cry and pray.

I arrived at the vet’s office and literally walked in with this kitten wrapped up in an old flannel shirt, crying and begging them to save it.

They took us immediately to a room and unwrapped the shirt. The vet came in, took one look and told me there was nothing they could do for it. That the humane thing was to put it to sleep.

I asked them to take a closer look and to make sure that nothing could be done.

They hesitated but went ahead. They cleaned it up, discovered what I thought was a she was actually a he (no real basis on why I thought he was a she, it just seemed fitting. I had never “peeked at the goods” so to speak) and re-evaluated.

He had ear mites, he had fleas, he had an infection, he was dehydrated, he was blind, he was OVER A YEAR OLD! They based this on the fact that all the teeth in his mouth were permanent ones.

Yet, he only weighed a little over 1 pound.

He was THAT malnourished.

They sent me home with a bathed and flea free cat. They told me that the infection would probably take him sometime during the night and to be prepared. They said if he survived the night, I was to bring him back in the next day for a follow up and a course of treatment.

I stayed up all night. Just holding and petting and giving him water and trying to encourage him to eat. He took a few small bites and drank a little bit of water.

He lived through the night.

I took him the next morning to the vet. They gave me vitamins, ear mite meds, antibiotics and feeding instructions.

Over the course of a month, he gained 4 pounds, shed the ear mites and fleas, got rid of the infection, learned how to use the litter box and learned the lay of the apartment. He rarely ran into anything.

After I had had him for a few months, I decided he needed a playmate since I was working full time and going to school part time.

At this time, I was also looking for a new apartment since the one I was in was getting too crowded and the lease was about up.

I found a complex across the street from the one I was in and fell in love with the apartments. When filling out the application, one of the questions was if you had a pet. I said yes and discovered that the apartment manager was a cat lover. She said that her boyfriend’s cat just had kittens and asked if I wanted another one. I thought about it for a second and asked if I could come see them.

She gave me their address and I went the next weekend. The kittens weren’t weaned yet, but they were at that really adorable stage. I fell in love with the tiniest one and they told me they would call me when I could come pick him up. They’d have all the initial shots done and then would pass him on to me.

A month or so goes by and I go and get my new kitty.

To be continued......(last entry tomorrow)

Later,

Mama Dawg

Friday Foto Finish Fiesta

Further proof my cats are gay!



Yeah, this is pretty bad.



I'm thinking of going on record and changing it from "doggie style" to "kitty style".



This is the ultimate proof.

Now do you believe me?

If you wanna play, click here to go to Candid Carrie's!

Later,

Mama Dawg

More Random

This is a random post but it has a purpose.

I've read/seen/heard/thought some things lately that I feel I need to share.

---------------------

First of all...I'm thinking of starting that twitter thing. Is is fun? Is it worth my time?

---------------------

You need to go check out this post. I found it hilarious for some reason. You need to skip down and read the italics part. That's what slayed me. (No, Lula, Heather and Tiffany...it has nothing to do with Edward and his kind...I just used the word slayed!).

--------------------

Trooper Thorn has written a screenplay and he's started a new blog to dole out bits and pieces of it. It's not been made into a movie...yet. Let's try to change that, shall we? He's only got the first installment up, but so far, it's hooked me. It's kinda Jude Apatow-y...I'm totally picturing Paul Rudd as the lead.

Click here to read.

-------------------

I'm going back to New Orleans for a visit this weekend. I'll be bringing back a special visitor on the return trip. My daughter's friend, Z, is coming back to stay with us for a week. Next week is the last official full week before my kid goes back to school, so what better way to spend it than to have her good friend from back home come and visit!

------------------

Light of my life is RIDICULOUSLY excited because she's managed to save up $100 to help pay for her iPod. This girl seriously loves music and she takes pretty good care of her expensive electronic toys (DS Lite, stereo, plug and play games, etc....).

------------------

I had her go through my iPod last night to pick out what songs she wanted to put on hers and I was so impressed with what she chose.

First of all, she chose lots of Jimmy Buffett. More specifically, she picked some Jimmy that's a little obscure. She picked my fav, "Stars on the Water". She also picked out "Werewolves of London". Jimmy covered that for the movie, "Hoot". She also chose lots of Bobby Darin as well as the "kid-friendly" (insert sarcasm here) songs like "Love Shack", "Baby Got Back", "Beautiful Girls" and the such. However, she did pick out the entire soundtrack to "Chicago". My girl's got taste, y'all. We'll also be downloading all the songs from the soundtracks to "Grease" and "Grease 2".

------------------

I love the small town I live in. They post the school supply list in the newspaper. So easy! AND, the list is not one like the ones she had when she was smaller. I mean, seriously, does it matter if the kid has Rose Art or Crayola crayons? The reasoning I was given for that is that they wanted all the kids to have the "same brand" so no one would feel out of place.




Really? Don't make me start a post about this. You don't want that. I could SOOOOOO go off on this kind of "helicoptering parenting" kind of behavior. Please, please, please don't get the teachers involved in this stuff, too.

-------------------

I'm taking a half day tomorrow so we can get on the road early.

-------------------

I was on such a high on Monday when I discovered that another item from my etsy shop was purchased! And...she isn't a blogger. She's just some random lady!

-------------------

The best news for last...my baby, J.D., is walking again!!!!! Albeit, like a drunken sailor, but still...it's walking!

-------------------

I leave you with these images:










Later,

Mama Dawg

Friday Foto Finish Fiesta

Here's some pics of me and my sick baby, J.D. He pretty much lives on my bed these days. I was snuggling up with him and my mom decided to take some pics of us.

I know I've probably mentioned this before, but J.D. has no eyes (story for another time). However, even with no eyes, he's still a pretty expressive cat. You can pretty much tell what he's thinking in each picture.




In this pic, he's saying "Hey, who are you and what are you doing?"




In this one, he's saying "Awww...ma, that's gross, get away!"



And in this one, he's saying "More, more, more!"

He's a snuggler, that one.

And yes, I'm wearing overalls. Shut up.

Everyone is allowed to have skeletons in their closet and mine are short overalls.

If you wanna participate or just check out some other cool photos, head over to Candid Carrie's. She won't bite...I don't think!

Later,

Mama Dawg

My Weekend

It seems that all I do lately is post about my weekend.

Well, to be honest (I hate that phrase...makes me think that the person who says that is getting ready to lie to me), I'm just lazy.

I had Friday off. It was nice. I slept in for a little bit but then had to take J.D. to the vet once again because his back legs are failing...once again.

We're trying the Prednisone and Baytril one more time. If this doesn't work, he'll have to go on daily heart pills. Pills that he can never go off of until he dies. Costing me $45 a month.

Sigh...why does the world have to rely on money for EVERYTHING? If I knew the vet would accept free sex as payment, I'd do it. Kills two birds with one stone that way...gets the pills and it gets Mama Dawg some lovin'.

But, he's happily married...sigh.

So, on Friday, light of my life got invited to the local gas lady's house to go swimming at her private pool with her grandchildren. By local gas lady, I mean the lady that owns the natural gas place where I purchase gas for my tank for my gas heaters (not the local lady that farts a lot...that would be me). She's nice and is really good friends with my aunt (hence the invite). Light of my life slowly learned to dive while there because her grand daughter (who's 10) is on the swim team and was teaching her how to dive.

She had a blast and came home all full of herself.

I went flower and berry picking in the late afternoon. We have all these black-eyed susans growing wild EVERYWHERE, so I decided to go pick a few and make a small bouquet for the dining room table.

While picking flowers, I noticed that some of the blackberry (no, Jared, not a BlackBerry, but the actual fruit) plants were already producing mature blackberries.

So, I went a pickin'.

Here's what my efforts yielded:



Here's the flowers and the blackberries together. Such a pretty pic. The scissors really set the whole thing off.



Here's a close up of the blackberries. Don't they look yummy?



Here's the flowers. Kinda pretty, huh?

Saturday pretty much was a regular day. Made a Wal-Mart run to exchange some primer and to get a few things for dinner that night.

My grandmother is down in New Orleans with my other aunt for a while, so my other aunt (that my grandmother lives with) was all alone.

So, we invited her for dinner on Saturday night.

Light of my life was in her element. I swear, she's gonna make a good politician's wife someday. She totally stole the whole pre-during-post dinner conversation. It was filled with witty stories about learning how to jump off the diving board, learning how to dive, attending the library's reading program, telling stories that involve various bodily functions (that part was a little gross) and whatnot.

She had a blast with our first official dinner guest.

We had sun dried tomato rubbed turkey breast, brussel sprouts with curry sauce, butter beans and a tomato and avocado salad.

All in all, it was a nice evening.

Sunday was church and swimming. I also had to bathe the cats and then put on Frontline and give them a capstar pill.

Bathing cats is NOT FUN!

Due to J.D.'s bad heart and the stress that comes with getting a bath, I actually had to GET IN THE TUB with him to give him his bath. Poor thing. Once I got in the tub with him though, he stopped struggling. Maybe that's the key. However, I'm not gonna get in the tub with Mike. He'll kill me.

Oh, and I'm watching a DVD that was a mini-series on I think the Sci-Fi channel, called "Tin Man". Has anyone seen this? I'm obsessed. It's soooo good. I LOVE, WORSHIP, ADORE Neal McDonough.

Anyway, that was my weekend. How was yours?

Later,

Mama Dawg

Friday Foto Finish Fiesta

It's Friday again!!! Yay!!! I'm off work!!! Like all my exclaimations???

Anyhoo...since I'm such a HUGE fan of Heathers...here's a pic of my two gay cats!

Doesn't Mike (the black one) have a look on his face like "this here's my bitch!"?




To check out other photos, go to Candid Carrie to join the fun!

Later,

Mama Dawg

Update on The Cat

Got off the phone with the vet just a few minutes ago. I had called at 2 but the lab results hadn't come in yet.

I called back at 3 and the vet said that his white blood count was elevated and his hemoglobin count was low and he was slightly dehydrated but that the levels weren't anything to be concerned about.

He still feels it's the heart throwing off blood clots but just in case it's another ear infection, he's been injecting him with Baytril and then injecting him with dexametazone (unsure of spelling) which is a steroid.

You can't really give cats blood thinners (to help with the clots) and the cost to get a sonogram at the university is $700 but the vet doesn't recommend it due to J.D.'s age (not that anything would happen to him but because he's just so old that it might only confirm what the doctor suspects and it wouldn't do any good in the long run).

He did say that he's already showing signs of improvement from this morning but that he wants to keep him one more night to continue the injections because they appear to be working.

So, I'll hopefully get to pick him up tomorrow afternoon.

Thanks for all the good wishes!

Later,

Mama Dawg

Called the Vet

Called the vet around 9 or so.

He said that he's up and walking but real wobbly.

He said to call back about 2 to see if he can come home today.

He thinks he's throwing blood clots. If so, we may be in for $45 a month medication for his heart.

Better than $1000 just for testing at the university or death.

I'll be back with an update around 2ish.

Later,

Mama Dawg

My Crappy Morning (That Started The Night Before)

Days like today are the kind that make you want to just give up.

It actually all started last night.

First of all, I needed to come into work a half hour early so I could get off a half hour early to go pick up J.D. at the vet by 5. It will take me an hour and a half to get from my work to the vets office. So, I have to leave here by 3:30.

Having said that, I needed to be out the door by 6:30 at the latest this morning. I got out the door at 6:35. Not too bad considering what happened.

I have tons and tons of things I need to do and not having light of my life at home, well, it just makes it easier for me to get them done.

Well, nothing got done last night. The house was so empty without light of my life, my mom and J.D. in the house. I actually got lonely. All I could do was wander around the empty house and mope.

Then, after I had finally made a decision to cook dinner and had sat down to eat it, Mike (my other cat) decided he was lonely too and jumped up on the side table next to the couch and spilled my iced tea all over the rug and the floor. It scared him so much, he pushed off my leg while USING HIS CLAWS and now I have a nice 7 inch scratch (looks like a zipper track) on my left thigh. It was deep enough that blood was dripping down my leg. Gross.

That was the first of several liquid situations I found myself in.

I fell asleep on the couch and woke up around 1:47 am. I noticed that my cell phone battery was getting low. I have to have my cell phone as it's my alarm clock as well. Since I had been traveling, I had my charger packed...somewhere. It took me 20 minutes, but I finally found it.

Luckily for me, Mike decided to forgive me for scaring the crap out of him (that's the way he thinks. I just know he blames ME for putting the iced tea cup there to begin with) and hopped up on the bed to sleep with me.

I got up in time to get ready. It only takes me a half hour to get ready (this includes getting breakfast and lunch ready for me).

My routine is to get up, pee and then go to the kitchen to make coffee. Well, I had forgotten that yesterday morning, after I poured myself a cup, I had taken the coffee pot and put it in the sink to wash.

I poured the water in, put in the coffee and turned it on.

Without a coffee pot to catch all the coffee.

I didn't notice this at first because when I was turning around to get breakfast ready, I noticed that Mike had peed in the kitchen near his food bag.

Oh, shit. He has never peed in the kitchen before. Because I was gone for three days, there are currently two litter boxes in the bathroom. Both of them clean. There was no reason for him to pee in the kitchen. The only thing I could think of was that he was depressed because J.D. wasn't home.

So, about that time, I heard a dripping and looked up and discovered the coffee dripping off the microwave (the coffee machine stays on top of the microwave, I have a really tiny kitchen).

Double shit.

So, I clean the coffee mess first and get a new pot started (with the coffee pot in place, this time).

Then, I stepped in the cat pee. Luckily for me, I recognized this and instead of stepping back and tracking pee all over the kitchen, I just took my shoe off and left it there.

I had to get a trash bag and set the cat food bag inside of it so I could scoop out all the food. The cat food bag is layered with several layers of wax lining, so the pee had not penetrated the interior of the bag. In fact, it hadn't even penetrated the exterior portion of the bag, so it had to be pretty fresh.

So, I'm on my hands and knees smelling like coffee and cat pee while in my nightgown and with only one shoe on.

I get all that cleaned up and thrown out in the trash and get ready for work. I have to take a quick shower just to smell normal. By this time, I only had 10 minutes to shower, get dressed, get my coffee in my to go mug, get my lunch and scrounge up some money for my breakfast since I clearly had no time to get any ready before leaving.

I actually got it all done.

Major miracle.

Until....

....triple shit....


....I get ready to leave. I have my coffee in my to go mug and set it down on a table to get my keys to lock up and my cup goes flying off the table by the door and lands on the floor. Coffee spills EVERYWHERE!!!!!!

I am so tempted at this point to just yell "Fuck it" and go on to work.

Well, I did yell "Fuck it" but I didn't leave. I was a good little cleaner upper and cleaned up the coffee spill.

That's what put me 5 minutes behind.

Luckily, I got to work with three minutes to spare.

I swear, the gods were against me this morning.

I sincerely hope that the reason they did all this to me was because they wanted me to get on the road a few minutes later to avoid some sort of catastrophe.

At least, that's what I'm gonna believe.

Otherwise, I might just have to go home and have a good long cry.

Later,

Mama Dawg

My Morning

When I got home last night, I noticed that J.D., my cat, was just laying in the kitchen on the floor near his food bowl. This is very unusual. After bringing in the stuff from the car, I went back to check on him and he was still there but decided to get up. Y'all, he stumbled. Like a drunk.

I knew this wasn't good. It wasn't like back in December when he was walking crooked. This time, he couldn't stand up. At all. He was having to drag himself all over the house. It was the scariest thing I've ever seen.

I decided to go to work late and take him to the vet first thing this morning. I decided to sleep on the couch last night with him on me. That way, if he needed to get off the couch, he would have a shorter fall (if I wasn't awake to help him off). The only reason I did this was because he's a stubborn cat and he would have wanted to sleep with me in my very high up bed and I couldn't have him falling off the bed and breaking something during the night.

After a restless sleep, we got up. I watched him drag himself into the kitchen for food. He wouldn't let me help him (kept growling at me when I got too close). After he ate, he tried to come back out. I went over to help him again and this time he didn't growl. I picked him up and took him to the litter box (thinking it was time for him to go). Y'all, he couldn't even stand up to use the box. He just laid down and did his business. That scared me as much as the not walking thing.

The vet finally opened at 8 and I got him there around 8:30.

The vet seems to think it might be a clot that traveled from his heart to his legs. He has a bad heart (just discovered in December) but the vet isn't sure. Last time, the problem was an ear infection but because he didn't have the exact same symptoms, the vet wanted to keep him overnight for observation and to give him some injections. He responds to pain in his legs (the vet pinched his toes with some sort of evil looking contraption) and likes to have them rubbed. The vet also said that the pulse in his left leg was weaker than the one in his right leg but not so bad that he was overly concerned.

I adopted this cat when he was already an adult and no one knows his exact age. He could be as young as 12 but the vet thinks he might be as old at 16.

I'll tell y'all his adoption story at some other time.

My heart is hurting right now. I'm so afraid that when I call the vet in the morning, he's gonna tell me some bad news. My eyes hurt so bad from crying.

Here's some pics of my baby, J.D. (stands for James Dean...my all time favorite movie star but his old vet says it stands for Jack Daniels, lol!).



All wrapped up.



Being lazy on his new favorite thing, his pillow near the heater.



This is my urban panther, Mike. He's the biggest scaredy cat on the face of the Earth. He weighs in at a whopping 18 lbs (but he looks bigger). I got him about 4 months after I got J.D.

Later,

Mama Dawg

City Girl Gets Spooked

I had a weird night last night. We drove back home last night from my wild and crazy New Year’s (see prior post to see just how wild and crazy it was!). Got in about 10:30 or so but because we had gotten so used to staying up all hours of the night, none of us were really sleepy. So, we unpacked the car. Got the sick kitty out of the car (he had to go w/us because of his medications). The other kitty that stayed at home was all pissed off at us and acted accordingly.

It was supposed to be a cold night and we knew we would have to run the water during the night to keep the pipes from freezing. About 45 minutes after we arrived, we decided to turn the water on. Barely anything came out. It hadn’t been cold enough the night before to freeze the pipes and the really, really cold weather hadn’t set in yet. Ended up calling the landlord at 11:30 at night to tell them of the problem. I had to take a shower in the morning and needed the water. What was coming out of the hot water faucet wasn’t even getting warm but the electricity was going, so I wasn’t sure what that problem was.

Anyway, the landlord said they’d be down in the morning to check on it. That sucked for me on the shower part, but it wasn’t really necessary for survival and it was pitch dark outside.

About 10 minutes later, he called back and said he’d go ahead and go check on it for me. A few minutes later, the water started coming out in big gushes and the hot water was actually hot. I thought he had already discovered and taken care of the problem (he lives right up the hill from us) and called to tell his wife that it was fine. She said that that was impossible since he had just literally closed the door to leave. She called him back and that was that.

I guess the water was just running so slow because we hadn’t been home to use it. Go figure.

We live out in the country and we don’t have our own water line. We are connected to my landlord’s water line via a large and long hose. Their connection is in the middle of the woods and is exposed to the elements. Over the weekend he had covered and insulated the connection. Thank goodness. He’s supposed to work on our own water line but it’s expensive to do so it might be a while.

That was weird enough in it’s own right but then it got weirder.

See, we have a hamster. He’s a good hamster. Doesn’t make a lot of noise and is not a biter and is real friendly.

He was awake when we arrived home and we paid the little guy the attention he was due. I checked on his food and water and found both sufficient. I end up going to bed around 1 am or so. Light of my life was in bed with me and had been playing her new Nintendo DS that she got for Christmas. I finally made her turn it off to go to sleep. I always have a cup of hot tea before I go to bed (it actually makes me fall asleep) and read for a little bit. I turned off the light and went to sleep. Around 5 am, my subconscious must of heard a noise because I started to wake up. Before I even opened my eyes, I could hear the hamster “chattering” away. Since he never does this, I was a little concerned. I then heard my non-sick kitty softly meowing at him in the same “voice” he uses to warn the big bad birds outside that if there wasn’t a window and door and walls between him and them, he would be all over them like white on rice. I’m paraphrasing of course, but you get my drift. Anyway, I sat up and got out of bed. I went to check on the cats and found both of them asleep in the living room on their pillow in front of the heater. Now I’m getting kind of freaked out.

I then went over to the hamster’s cage (it’s in my room for now) and he was sitting on top of his little house just staring straight ahead (not at me but towards the bathroom door). He didn’t even turn to look at me when I tapped on his cage bars. About a minute later, he finally looked at me. I got him out of the cage and held him for a while and then put him back.

Little spooky, right? Gets just a smidge more spooky.

Since light of my life is out of school for the holidays, she can sleep in and my mom sleeps in every morning as well. It was trash day today so I had to gather up all the trash and take it to the end of the driveway. I gathered up the trash and put on my robe. I went to the front door and found it unlocked!!!! Both my mom and I had checked on the door last night before bed with my mom being the last one to check it. I have no clue what that was about. We don’t have a deadbolt or a chain because it’s pretty safe where we live, but I may just go ahead and plunk down the few dollars for a chain and install it tonight.

I know that story was anti-climactic and not terribly exciting or frightening, but it was weird nevertheless.

Later,

Mama Dawg

First Entry

Yay!!!! I'm number one!!!! Oh, wait......sorry, that's wrong.

I just hate seeing that on other blogs and websites. Like, how dorky can you be?

Anyway, this is my first post. Duh......

I'm back in the city from which I moved. Hasn't changed. Neither have the a$$hole drivers....my bad if you're offended by that! You may be one of them!

I recently moved from a relatively large city to a VERY small town. Both are located in the southern region of the U.S.

I discovered that I really love living in a small town. We're actually on the outskirts of the actual incorporated city. I'm about 4 miles outside of town.

My household is made up of one daughter (from now on known as light of my life, three fish, 2 cats and a hamster......oh, yeah, and my mother. Yes, you read that right, I live with my mother. More accurately, she lives with me. She retired recently and we both moved up here. She plans to build (what she affectionately calls) her death house. This will be the last house she plans to ever live in. Until it gets built, she's living with me. It's fine for now and seems to work. She cooks us dinner and keeps my house relatively clean. Yes, I know it sounds like a dream come true, but, I hate that she's doing all this at the beginning of her retirement. However, she's not complaining and if she's not, I won't....much.

I had a recent scare with one of my cats......no this is not going to be a blog about me and my cats.....at least not all the time!

See, I have this amazing cat. I got him about 10 years ago and he was blind. A few months after I got him, it was recommended by his vet that I have his eyes removed (that's a long drawn out story for later). I did and he survived and has actually thrived with the loss of his eyes. Since he had never seen before, he wasn't missing much. Anyway, I recently noticed him wobbling when he walked and tripping getting out of the litter box. My mom volunteered to take him to the vet and he had either developed arthritis (which can come on practically overnight with cats) or had an inner ear infection. He's on meds for both and is doing much better. After the meds are done, we'll know better what it is. If the wobbling comes back after the meds are done, it's arthritis. If it doesn't, it was an ear infection. Fingers crossed for an ear infection.

There's much more about me and my life. I can't guarantee it's interesting. I can't guarantee that you'll care, but here it is for all to read.

I have minimal access to a fast computer but I'll try to post as much as possible. I'm tired from shopping all day long and from all those a$$hole drivers I mentioned above.

Later gators....

Mama Dawg