Suzy Says

Audrey’s new hangout

1. I followed my sister’s advice and complained to the Motel 6 manager. He apologized and is going to mail me a gift certificate good at any Motel 6 in the entire US of A. I said thanks, but privately wondered why companies whose products have disappointed you offer you more of the same disappointing product to make up for it. “Sure, we lost your luggage and nearly killed you, but hey, why not try it again for free?”

   I kept that thought to myself, though.

2. Rob did fix the cat door of death. It’s sealed at all times, though I guess I could take the cover off during the day. It seems unnecessary with all the other doors being open, some of them in a so far vain attempt to get rid of the booze’n’condiment smell in the pantry.
3. It looks like we’ll have to come up with a Plan B for Star the foster dog if/when Meg has her knee surgery done. Star is just one of those dogs who like to chase anything that crosses her path, from quail to kitties, and the thought of her chasing my remaining kitty makes me quail, so she can’t stay here post-op as originally planned. Hopefully our collective ingenuity will come up with an alternative which will stop Star from bouncing on Megan in her Tigger-like fashion while keeping the local cats un-chased.
4. Speaking of cats, Harriet got sick of being an invalid yesterday and took off all day. [Update: she’s back!] I’m hoping this means that her leg is feeling better, though still dislocated, and also that she is back home by now (it’s too early to call and find out). Megan is much more philosophic about these things than her paranoid big sister. She says, “She’s lived here all her life, and if she doesn’t come home, it’s because she doesn’t want to.” Whereas I have already called Audrey with treats because it’s 8:00 and I haven’t seen her since I let her out two hours ago. She came, ate the treats, and left.

You can see in the picture that she has a new place to hang out. It’s to the left of the sliding glass doors and to the right of the bathroom door leading to the porch (the surprisingly useful one). I’m not sure why this part of the house is open like that, but I’m planning to put potted plants in there one of these days.

That’s one of my vague home improvement plans, like painting parts of the exterior, finishing the de-hippifying and clean-up of the garden, and doing something about that godawful lime green floor in the foyer and bathroom that may or may not ever happen. However, Mark has promised to buy me new carpet for the sleeping loft, so once that’s installed, maybe it will spur me to get going on the other projects.

Or not.

Drinking bottled water really makes the recycling pile up, my friend. I notified Rob a couple of days ago that one of the recycling bins was full, even by his exacting standards (you would not believe how much stuff he can jam into one bin). The dump is only open on Wednesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays, so notification is essential.

I was washing the dishes in hose water when I heard a mighty crash. I thought it might be Rob hard at work, but it turned out to be gravity. One of the shelves in the pantry had given way, depositing full bottles of brandy (it’s medicinal!), wine, beer, and partly full jars of peanut butter (organic!) and soy sauce (“low” sodium!).

You can imagine the smell.

I stood there for a little while in my silly sandals, contemplating the mess and how to clean it up. After a period of reflection, I went and put on my trusty sneakers, got the mop, filled the bucket in the shower, and went to work. First, I swept up the glass, trying not to breathe too deeply, and put it in a paper bag, which then went in the not full recycling bin.

Then I mopped the floor, and since there’s a drain in the floor, I figured I could use the hose to rinse it. Alas, the hose was not there. While wondering where the hose had gone (is there a lively hose nightclub scene in Hooterville which I don’t know about?), I decided that this was probably the perfect opportunity to face reality and put away June’s dish after I washed the glass and booze out of it.

I called Mark, and it turned out that he had repo’d the hose. He said he’d bring it back.

While waiting for the hose’s return, Rob came by to really take the recycling. He pointed out the serious design flaw that led to the crash, and also pointed out that it could have been worse. After all, Audrey could have been eating in the direct path of the bottles. And two bottles of beer survived.

You have to look at the bright side.

When Mark brought the hose, Rob quite correctly assessed my hose skills and took over the rinsing job himself. He also took the recycling and went off to make me a new shelf.

What would I do without him? I hope I never find out.

Update: I just sprayed Nature’s Miracle on it. I’m not sure it’s quite that miraculous, though. Is anything?

Further Update: I heard water running, and discovered water pouring into the pantry. Hey, it’s thoroughly rinsed now. It still smells like….nothing I’ve ever smelled.

Mark ran over and fixed it. Nothing like Dial-A-Boy when you really need it.

Audrey chilling in her clubhouse. No grown-ups allowed!

Not ready for her close-up

The girls have always been good at adapting to whatever circumstances they find themselves in. First, they went from the safety of their mother to the weirdness of my loft, the converted woodworking shop of a Victorian coffin factory, where they shared the space with an elegant German Shepherd, the Lovely Rita.

Then they were taken on an airplane far, far away, then in a car, then in a hotel somewhere. After that, they moved into a little house in a scary city. But they always had each other, and no matter what happened, they could curl up together and forget about it all.

Recently, they were driven a long way to a house in the country, where they shared the space with the stray cat their girl had brought from the scary city for no known reason. But they were too busy exploring the woods and the novelty of going outside to worry about that. And anyway, time took care of that problem.

Now June is gone, and I wonder what Audrey thinks. Is she lonely? Does she miss her sister? They were together before she was born, and the reason I adopted Audrey along with June was that they spent so much time together, even when they were just a few days old.

Audrey is adjusting well to her new regime, as she always has. Above, you see her hanging out in the garden on the table left over from Rose’s funeral fiesta, which is her little club house. I bet she’ll be sorry when Mark gets around to taking it away.

She’s been sleeping more, and spending more time in the house and with me. She hasn’t gone bananas asking to go out at night, maybe because the novelty is gone, or maybe because she knows what happened to June, or maybe because she’s one of the best-adjusted cats around.

When I’m reading in bed at night, she sits on my lap, or climbs onto my chest so she covers my face with her fur (making reading challenging), or, my personal favorite, curls up against my side with her head on my chest, purring. She sleeps on the bed most of the night now, which she never did before.

Before June’s disappearance, I complained to Megan that Audrey was like a college kid, coming home for food and laundry and then going out with her friends all night. Now it’s like she knows I need her. Maybe she needs me, too.

Let’s review.

In the past couple of months, I have lost two of my three adored (and adorable) cats. My sister’s dog hurt her leg, then she hurt her leg, then her cat hurt her leg. Three weeks after her injury, my sister is still waiting for a date for her surgery, and woke up with excruciating dental pain early this morning.

It turns out that her dentist is, wait for it, having knee surgery, so she was referred to a different and unknown dentist, who she saw first thing this morning. She has an abscessed tooth, and the replacement dentist wanted to drain it on the spot and do a root canal. My sister said no. The next appointment they had was in July, but she took it and a prescription for antibiotics and painkillers and went home.

Back home, she called Lu, who called in a favor to her own dentist, who Meg is going to see on Thursday. Lu’s dentist recommended that Meg also take ibuprophen to bring down the swelling, which not only worked, but was not suggested by Dentist One. I think Dentist Two is definitely the way to go.

However…the root canal/abscess situation complicates the knee surgery situation, assuming that a date is ever set. They do blood tests before surgery to make sure there’s no infection or high white blood cell count, and there will be until the tooth thing is dealt with. God only knows how this will affect the whole worker’s comp bureaucracy.

And in other fun news, it looks like Megan’s cat, Harriet, may have to have to have her leg amputated. Apparently the fix it surgery is less likely to be effective when the femur is as dislocated as Harriet’s is – you can see it through her skin, the poor thing – so she might go through the surgery and find it doesn’t work in the long term. Supposedly cats adjust well to being three-legged, but I have to say the prospect kind of fills me with horror.

As I was making chocolate pudding for my poor sister today, I pondered the family curse and its remarkable creativity. It never stops coming up with new and horrible ways to mess with us. I’m beginning to think it might be worth finding a gypsy to remove the curse.

I was drinking my thimbleful of coffee and reading Postsecret, my usual Sunday morning routine, when I noticed a movement under the stairs.

It was a mouse!

I screamed, spilled coffee everywhere, and looked for Audrey, who was peacefully sitting on the back porch, having a bath and completely oblivious to the terror of her unpaid and adoring servant. The intruder retreated under the refrigerator, and when Audrey finally meandered into the house, she sat near it, clearly on alert. It’s the first time I’ve seen a mouse in the house since I moved in. Obviously the mice are taking advantage of the abrupt drop in the cat population.

While Audrey was still on patrol, Megan and I went to the Safeway, so she could buy groceries and I could re-up my supply of Vitamin B(ooze) and Vitamin C(hocolate) and get asked for ID by the cashier. I explained that I was twice the required age and showed him my driver’s license. “It’s a fake,” he said, winking.

When I got home, there was bird poop on the leather bench in front of my couch, which doubles as a footrest and a coffee table.

I leave the doors open during the day, whether I’m here or not, so I’m guessing that the Steller’s Jay who keeps flying into the sliding glass doors in the living room finally made it inside. There were no feathers or bodies to be seen, so I’m assuming that both the home invaders have moved on.

Is that a treat, or are you just happy to see me?

Since Megan’s been sidelined by her ongoing injury – two weeks since her MRI and no surgery date in sight – she’s had to ask for help training Star. We want to keep the training sessions going, since the newspaper piece should appear on July 1 and we’re hoping to show Star off to prospective adoptive parents at the big Humane Society event on July 10.

Fortunately, Megan has built up a lot of goodwill over the years, and people have been really helpful, donating their time and expertise to make Star the best Star she can be (and the most adoptable).

Yesterday, we met Carol in the village. We handed Star over to her, and she took Star all over the place, meeting new people and dogs. Just the hand-off itself was a minor triumph, since Star had refused to walk with Carol alone on Tuesday.

While Star was out and about and Megan was stranded on a park bench with the latest Victoria Thompson*, I wandered around and took a few photos for you, so you can walk along with me.

Doesn’t it look like it’s 1945 instead of 2010?

Another sign of the passing times:

I checked, and the phone book is still in there. Just in case.

A water tower for you to live in, with a view of the ocean. Looks like a great place to dream and write:

Star did really well, and today she’s playing with Lu’s dogs, Harlow and Marco. She’s come a really long way in the two months we’ve had her. Tonight we’re planning to have a barbecue at my house with Star in attendance. We have to get her used to being here, because if Megan ever has her surgery, Star will have to sleep with me for the first week or so. Megan can’t risk having 52 pounds of musclebound dog jumping on her leg in the middle of the night. Hopefully Audrey can adjust to yet another night time change. And she can sleep upstairs in the dog-free zone.

*Megan introduced me to these fun, Victorian-era whodunits set in New York a few years ago. So I’m next when she’s finished with this one!

Audrey in sunlight and shadow

It was country dark by the time I got home. The city-dwellers among you would be shocked by the totality of the dark, with no streetlights or ambient light other than the stars and a crescent moon.

Driving through the tall redwoods near the end of the drive (we refer to the steep, switch-backed part of the road after Route 128 becomes Highway 1 as “the home stretch”, even though it’s about 7 miles home from there) was quite creepy, with the ancient trees looming over the road, impenetrable darkness outside the comforting glow of the headlights. I tried not to think about Stephen King stories or monsters bursting out of the woods, with varying success.

Arriving at my pitch-black house, I discovered that I couldn’t park in front of it. There was a bunch of chairs blocking the way, so I used Catrin’s space instead. I went inside my house through the surprisingly useful bathroom door on the back porch, closed it, then opened the bathroom door to the hallway. Audrey ran in, and was trapped again for her trouble, as I took a flashlight and unpacked the car.

Once everything was safely in the house, I released my poor kitten and gave her treats. She was very happy to see me. I don’t think either of us enjoyed our day apart. I later learned that Rob came by to check on her, and she was meowing sadly at the door and so lonely that he came back after dinner to sit with her. She’s never been left completely alone before – she always had June Bug, even before she was born – so it must have been hard on her.

I wonder what she thinks about her disappearance. Both girls knew Henry Etta was dead, having sniffed and inspected her, but Audrey must wonder the same way I do. She seems to be adjusting to her nightly imprisonment. She sleeps with me sometimes – which wakes me up with June flashbacks – and although she does claw at the door, especially once day is beginning to break, I just have to suck it up. Better lost sleep than a lost cat.

On the drive home, I thought that this whole nightmare could have been avoided if I had just stood firm and kept them in at night. In retrospect, I cannot believe I ever let my little girls out in the inky blackness full of unseen predators. It literally makes me sick to know that the loss of the magnificent June Bug is entirely my fault and was as preventable and senseless as my father’s death.

Yesterday, Catrin’s cat Fiona wandered in and gave me a shock. Audrey saw her too, and stared for a moment, then ran over to her at warp speed. Realizing it wasn’t June, she shooed her out of the house, and then came over to me to be petted. We sat together for a while, both thinking of our June Bug and, I think, taking comfort in each other’s presence.

Tiny picture of Harriet as a tiny kitten

It turns out that Harriet managed to dislocate her leg from her hip, if I understood all the medical terminology flying around Dr. Karen’s sunlit office yesterday afternoon. Apparently, this is quite a feat for any cat, and can usually only be accomplished with the assistance of a car or a heaping helping of gravity.

Harriet lost her voice years ago*, so she couldn’t explain what happened to her. Although Megan dodged a bullet with Schatzi, who now has approval for longer leash walks, it hit her fair and square with Harriet, who will have to have surgery. With the lethargy of workers’ comp in scheduling Megan’s surgery, it’s anyone’s guess who will go under the knife first.

As for me, I’m off to the bright lights of Santa Rosa, possibly best-known as the perfect small town in Alfred Hitchcock’s masterpiece “Shadow of a Doubt”, but now best-known as a traffic nightmare for which ten exits are not enough. It’s not a small town anymore.

While I’m enjoying the swank amenities of Motel Six, Audrey will be in solitary confinement, since I’m trapping her in the house while I’m gone. Better safe than sorry. Megan will stop by and check in on her. She’ll probably be glad to see me go, because last night I successfully and expensively Advantaged her, and she gave me the stink eye all night, running away in disdain and disgust if I dared to approach her.

*Though this did not deter her from yowling all the way to the vet’s office. Megan said it was the loudest she’d been in years, so I guess it’s all about motivation. At the office, a woman asked if there was a Siamese in the carrier. I said, “No, just a really pissed-off tabby.”

Native silk moth on my front porch

As if being a part-time prisoner weren’t bad enough for Audrey, I sort of poisoned her.

Just a little bit.

For the past couple of months, she’s been scratching a lot, and I had several flea bites. Advantage is expensive, and at the time, I had three cats and one tube of Advantage. So I delayed, thinking I’d wait until summer kicked in to get more. Since the Advantage supply now meets the demand, I figured I’d anoint Audrey with it.

Easier said than done. She hates being picked up, and is incredibly squirmy. Once I tried and failed to pick her up, she was onto me and out the door. She ran away every time she saw me coming, so I waited until she was napping and squidged it on.

Unfortunately, I squidged it on the side of her neck instead of the middle, and about two minutes later, she went racing through the house drooling like mad. I caught up with her under the wheelbarrow, where she continued to drool and stare at me accusingly with her big green eyes.

I called Megan, who advised me to call Dr. Karen (why didn’t I think of that?). Dr. Karen said not to worry, Audrey wouldn’t die. All I had to do was rinse out her mouth and wash off the expensive medication, which probably was not 99% effective in the five minutes it was on Audrey.

Since Audrey was already deeply suspicious of her jailer/attacker, she was not amenable to my grabbing her, oddly enough. So I had to resort to luring her with treats, then seizing her before she’d eaten more than one and carrying her outraged self into the bathroom, where I followed the program as prescribed. Remarkably, I was unscratched, though neither of us was unscathed.

I gave her more treats and she seemed to forgive and/or forget pretty quickly.

I’m going to see Dr. Karen today* and will re-up the Advantage supply and hope for a better result this time.

*Incredibly, Megan’s cat Harriet has injured her back left leg, just like Meg and Schatzi, so I’m helping Meg with carrying her there, since she is still on crutches and awaiting her date with the surgeon.

Poor Audrey. In the short space of a week, she’s gone from having a fun, cool mom like Lorelai Gilmore to having a freaky, overprotective one like Mrs. Bates of the famous motel.

If I haven’t seen her for ten minutes, I’m calling her and looking for her anxiously. Unlike her sister, she never deigns to respond, even if she’s two feet away, and when I find her, she always looks at me as if to say, “What now?”

Unfortunately for her, winning the cat version of “Survivor: Hooterville” means that I’ve been locking her in at night. As soon as darkness falls, I lure her in with treats and then slam the prison doors until dawn. She doesn’t even get reading materials to while away the long hours.

The Alcatraz treatment was slightly hampered at first by the fact that the balcony cat door has fallen out and I keep forgetting to ask Rob to repair it, leaving an empty space where the glass should be. I solved this problem temporarily by putting a stereo speaker in front of it at night.

Yes, Audrey does claw the door a couple of times a night, but it’s better than freaking out about her if she’s out and about in the dark. It doesn’t completely eliminate the freak out, either. I couldn’t find her when I woke up at 4:30 on the first morning, and looked all over the place, calling her. Even though I knew all the doors were closed, I was convinced she’d found some secret way out.

Eventually, I found her sitting in front of the heater, staring as if waiting for a mouse to emerge. Then she started chasing something all over the house, just as I had chased her.

The same afternoon Rob put the flyers up at the store and the post office, I had a call from a woman who said she’d seen June.

My heart leaped.

“Where?” I asked excitedly.

“In the long grass by the field where the bull is.”

“Near the store?”

“Yes.”

Now, the store is more than five miles away, and June has never been known to venture as far as Mark’s house, but I raced to the car and jounced down the driveway like a bat out of hell. I made it to the field in record time. Shaking a bag of treats (and shaking), I called for June through all the long grass, to the bull’s curiosity and that of drivers-by, but to no avail.

I saw a cat run down a side road and chased it, only to discover it was the wrong cat.

I went to the two houses across the road from the field. No-one was home at one, and at the other, an elderly lady answered the door. She was sympathetic and asked what June looked like, since there was a black cat with white paws (the one I had chased) and a multi-colored one who were often seen around there.

My heart fell as I realized that the caller had seen that cat, not June.

I gave the lady my name and number just in case, and drove slowly home, checking the ditches.

A couple of days later, another woman called just to say she was sorry and was keeping an eye out for June. Like many locals, she had tales of cats who went missing for a month, five months, a year, and turned up one day as if nothing had happened.

As I hung up the phone, I thought how nice it is to live in a small town, where a total stranger will call you up just to try and make you feel better. I remembered when I lived in Oakland and had left the keys in my car door in the driveway. An African-American gentleman had noticed this on his way to church and came to the front door to tell me. When I answered the door, he had his hands up before I said a word.

Evening light last night

Wondering where I’ve been?

I’ve been desperately seeking June Bug.

As you could probably tell from the tone of my last post, I was worried about her right away. When she wasn’t there in the morning, and didn’t come in for breakfast, a little seed of panic bloomed in my heart.

I’ve spent hours scouring the property from one end to the other, peering inside abandoned trailers, cars, boats, strange shackoid structures and the like. It was like an Awful Warning about hoarding. You would simply not believe the amount of decaying things and stuff semi-hidden in these bucolic woods. Most of the trailers and structures were open in one way or another, so she isn’t trapped in any of them. I figure anything I had trouble wrenching open was outside the possibility of someone without opposable thumbs, but I wrenched away anyway.

I looked up and down the logging road behind the house, on the lookout for signs of mountain lions and bobcats, or even, God help me, circling crows and vultures. At the end of the logging road, I walked down the Ridge, spying an abandoned Werther’s Original package in the ditch, which made me wonder if my mother was trying to tell me something. During her final illness, she ate bagfuls of them, always crinkling the wrappers or crunching them furtively. After she died, we found a huge stash of them. It kind of traumatizes me every time I see a bag of them.

I turned onto our driveway and after searching the structures there, stopped at the front house. I got to meet my new neighbor, a nice woman named Laurie who has a cute little Yorkie named Louie. She hadn’t seen June, and Louie would have barked if she had ventured up there, but Laurie said she’d keep an eye out for me.

Other than bothering Laurie, I repeated this procedure repeatedly all week, with the same results.

I made a flyer, and Rob put it up at the store and the post office. I figure everyone in Hooterville goes to one or the other sooner or later. Megan and I put flyers in our neighbors’ mailboxes and on utility poles. So every time I drive down the Ridge or check the mail or go to the store, I’m faced with them. I’m hoping that someone found her and took her in, since she doesn’t have a collar (too dangerous in the woods).

Finally, I took the flyers to the humane society and animal care and control, and checked the rescued cats. I knew she wasn’t there, but it had to be done. It was the worst of all, since it pretty much removed my last tattered shred of hope.

People keep telling me that she’s off on an adventure, but they don’t know June. She is a real homebody, who slept with me every single night, had a nap on the bed every afternoon, came when she was called (unusual for a cat, but she is an unusual cat), and was almost always visible around the house when she was outside. Megan, Mark and Laurie all say that they have never seen her at their houses, so she never went far. Audrey is the adventurous one, not June.

So I’ve lost two cats in two months. It’s heart-breaking.

Flowers from the farmers’ market:

A beautiful card from the girls:

So true!

The lamp of my dreams. It’s from Monica’s store of fabulosity, and I have longed for it for months. It was well out of my price range, but Lu and Megan chipped in and got it for me! I cried. It’s handmade, with buttons and iridescent beading:

A close-up:

It adds a touch of civilization to the sleeping loft. And it goes perfectly with my duvet cover, seen here, modeled by Henry and June.

Speaking of June: I haven’t seen her all day, and I have to admit to a certain level of anxiety. Unlike most cats, June does indeed come when she’s called – at least, most of the time – and she has never, to my knowledge, let a feeding time go by without paying its due attention. She skipped breakfast, and as I write, I have yet to see so much as her little pink nose or a white paw.

I have called her and looked through the bushes near the house, Junk Alley, and the logging road to no avail. I asked Mark, and he said that she didn’t venture as far as their house, but he’d keep an eye open. I went all the down to my brother’s old house at the very end of the driveway, but nothing.

Given the kitty mortality rate lately (Henry; my friend Dali’s cat Delpi; my niece and nephew’s 18 year old cat Tiffy; and Rose’s lovely old cat Gertie), I can’t help but worry. Think good thoughts that my little June Bug comes home safe and sound. And soon.

Early morning ficus shadow against the ceiling

What’s more annoying: the cats prying the door open so a cold breeze immediately freezes you (bonus: expensively heated air wafts out at the same time!), or having to get up when you’re in the middle of something (and/or insufficiently caffeinated) to let them in or out?

I hope it stops raining one of these days so I can leave the door open.

Despite the unseasonable and unreasonable rain predicted for this week, I’m gambling that the power won’t go out. I finally emptied out the buckets of water on the back porch, which were standing by in case of an outage, but were now home to a horrifying number of mosquito larvae. I should do the same with anything water-containing in Junk Alley beside my house, but much like the cat dilemma, I can’t decide which is worse: emptying out countless pieces of junk in various stages of decomposition now, or being eaten alive by mosquitoes later.

Mosquitoes love me. I am magically delicious to them. Now, you’d think someone as bitter as I am wouldn’t make good skeeter eating, but you’d be wrong. Possibly I’m like bittersweet chocolate to them. All I know is that it’s been like this my whole life, and when I was a kid, my parents used to joke that if the mosquito kids were good, they’d get to have me for dessert. The mosquito kids must have been a lot better behaved than we kids were.

One of the great things about San Francisco is that it’s mosquito-free, for some reason. It’s basically bug-free, as I recall, though there was the occasional fly. This may be why every apartment I ever lived in or visited in San Francisco had no screens in the windows. As time goes by, my requirements for an ideal home have reduced down to basics, such as screens in the windows (and windows that open and close); closets; counter and cupboard space in the kitchen; thorough insulation; and adequate heating.

What does your dream home look like?

Spot the Audrey

One of the things about having no closets in your house is that you have to find different ways of storing your stuff. I have storage bags which fit under the bed and are nearly hidden by the not-quite-long-enough bedskirt, parts of which sport a bouclé effect due to Audrey’s illicit attentions. She has stopped doing this since we moved, but the damage is done, and as far as I know, there’s no Restylane for linens.

The other day, I was trying to pull one of the storage bags out from under the bed. It seemed to be stuck. I kept yanking at it and was just about to look under the bed to see if it was caught on a slat or something when it suddenly came loose. June, who had been peacefully asleep in the bag, came rolling out along with the bag. She bumped against the balcony door and sat up, blinking at me, clearly wondering what the hell had happened when she was just trying to take a nap in peace.

Audrey, now lacking in boxes to sit on, has discovered a new favorite place to look down on me. It’s an odd nook in the bathroom, situated to the left of the mirror and having no particular purpose that I can discern, other than the collection of light literature a thoughtful hostess always has on hand. But it’s a nice place for a cat to take a catnap.

Update: The secret is out!

Hey! For the first time this YEAR, I don’t have the heat on. OK, I am wearing a sweater, but still. I consider this a personal triumph. Bonus points since the door was slightly ajar this morning and no untoward visitors such as raccoons, skunks, or mountain lions seem to have taken advantage of that fact.

As far as I know, anyway.

I left the door slightly open, even though it’s a foggy fifty degrees outside, so I can drink coffee and blog in peace. Sometimes a girl just needs a vacation from being a cat doorman, even if it’s a drafty one.

Last night, as you can see above, Audrey settled in on top of my father’s books. Maybe she’s absorbing knowledge just from sitting there. In the picture, you can see one of the two antique spoon molds I bought in Paris about a zillion years ago (the other is supporting my collection of cookbooks on the shelf above). The photo is of my Dad (on the right) and his friend Brian when they were kids, playing with guns they found in a downed German plane near their houses during WWII. They were friends from the time they were babies, when their mothers met, and stayed friends all their lives. Brian was the best man at my parents’ wedding.

I wish we’d found this photo when Dad was still alive, because we could have teased him mercilessly. He was so against guns in the home that he wouldn’t let us have water pistols. I guess living through a huge war when you’re a kid will do that to you. But it would have been fun to tease him about the picture.

You can also see my one and only Barbie, a cedar candle which I’ve been meaning to use while meditating, but have actually only used in power outages, and two of the three little hand-painted metal cups Hoho brought back from France after his service in WWI.

Behind the candle is an ashtray from the Sands Hotel in Vegas, which my friend Paul gave me a few years ago. Just think: Sinatra could have used that ashtray! It gives my hippie hovel a touch of class.

June, the Huntress

One of the many things cats can teach us, besides parlaying cuteness into a life of idleness and how to maximize nap time while minimizing work of any kind, is patience.

Above you see the Beautiful June Bug on the prowl for mice under the back deck (a rather grandiose term for wood slats cobbled unevenly together, though it does boast an outdoor shower and a door to the indoor bathroom). This seems to be a popular mouse-hunting locale, which gives me pause about leaving the sliding glass doors open if/when the weather gets warmer. Having said that, though, and touch deck, I have yet to see a mouse since I moved in here seven months ago.

At least a live one.

This morning, I put the cats’ food in their dishes and briefly considered rearranging (well, arranging at all) the pantry/laundry room) as usual. I was surprised by the lack of response. Usually June beats me to the bowl, in addition to her feeding time reminders that are much more persistent than, say, Google Calendar’s.

I found her on the deck, patiently staring in her mouse-seeking manner. She was there for more than an hour, and then I saw her run past out of the corner of my eye. Megan said she saw June tossing something in the air the other day, so I’m assuming the hunt was effective. One less mouse for the house!

In other wildlife news, Rob is pretty sure he spotted Lucky with a herd of her friends when he went to the dump last weekend. He called her name, and she turned toward him instead of running away, as Hooterville deer tend to do, not being used to a lot of human interaction. He didn’t get a chance to check her back leg, which sports a huge and distinctive scar, before she took off with her buddies, but he’s almost sure it was Lucky. Lucky indeed if she’s been welcomed back into the fold.

Thud! Splat!

That was my head exploding and falling off. It’s raining yet again. I can’t remember it raining in May since the evil El Nino winter of 1996-1997, when it rained from September until May, and rained every single goddamn day in February. I worked in a cool old brick building in downtown San Francisco in those days, and the constant deluge took its toll. Rain came down the exposed brick walls, so I had to keep a plastic hood on my computer like a grandma protecting her fresh beauty shop ‘do, and I had no fewer than three wastebaskets collecting rain around my desk.

Sitting here in my sweater by the heater in May just seems wrong. I also have that east coast feeling of “Will winter ever end?” while simultaneously lamenting the fact that the lilacs have already bloomed and gone.

It takes a Suzy.

People have been asking me how June and Audrey are doing. They don’t actually accuse me of being a negligent cat doorman or dumping them in favor of doggier pastures, but I can read between the emailed lines.

Audrey catnaps on the balcony

The girls are doing fine. Since they now have the great outdoors, they’re a lot less destructive in the small indoors. They generally come in to eat or nap, though I have seen them napping outside from time to time. I was slightly surprised by that: I thought they went outside to play and hunt, but apparently they also use it to increase their living space, much as we do.

Excuse me, you interrupted my bath!

June spends more time inside than Audrey does. June sleeps with me most of the night, pinning down the covers so parts of my anatomy are exposed to the chill night air in her patented manner. Audrey’s in and out all night, though thanks to Rob, I’m no longer the night watchman.

It’s funny how when I first moved, I thought I could bring them in at dinner time and that would be it for the night. In retrospect, I find this hilarious.

I visit Henry at least once a week. She’s safe and cozy under the chinkapin tree. I always bring her flowers and fill her in on the latest news. I miss her so much. She was such good company. I wish we’d had more time together, though as Rob says, it’s never enough time.

Star went to her first obedience class on Wednesday. She was fearful of strangers, barked at kids, and it was generally a somewhat depressing experience. I was surprised, since she adapted so quickly to us and is so friendly and affectionate with us. She’ll go every week and hopefully will improve. We have to get her properly trained and socialized before we can even hope to find a family for her.

Schatzi seems to be doing better. Dr. Karen thought so, and will have another look at her on Friday. Keeping her still is a real challenge. I took care of her yesterday while Megan taught a CPR class, and she followed me everywhere. Finally she settled down on the couch, but you can tell she’s really depressed at being kept inside all the time. A friend of Megan’s is giving her a sort of dog playpen so she can be out on the garden but not wandering around. I’m still hoping we can avoid surgery.

Which is more wrong: being up at 5:30, or it being 34 degrees outside?

Toss up, I’d say.

I forgot to put the heat on last night, so it was 46 in the house when I got up. For me, it’s a two sweater morning, whereas for June and Audrey, it’s just another mouse-hunting day.

Hurry up, coffee maker!

While I’m waiting for the coffee, wondering why on earth I keep getting up so damn early, and why it’s still winter when the calendar clearly says it’s nearly May, you can enjoy some pictures I took of Megan’s garden last week on one of those days which actually seemed spring-like. Maybe they’ll cheer me up.

Lilacs in bloom. My favorite flower.

Heather.

Japanese maple.

Curly willow (so sci-fi!), setting sun.

You know, cleaning is bad enough. But cleaning for three hours only to have your hippie hovel still look like crap explains why I don’t clean more often. Dreams of cleaning ladies danced in my head as I abandoned the whole thing to do laundry in my clothes-eating washer*. I was reminded of the anecdote about Churchill, in which a women’s temperance member held her hand above her head against his office wall and said, “Mr. Prime Minister, if all the brandy you had swilled was poured into this room, it would reach to here!” Churchill gazed from the floor to the ceiling, and then commented sadly, “So little done, so much to do.”

Nothing like housework to make a girl crabbier than thou.

Yesterday, on the other hand, was great. Megan and I took Schatzi for a walk at Big River in the spring sunshine. It was so warm that none of us wore sweaters. Schatzi even took a wallow in the abandoned quarry which doubles as a pond in the winter and spring. It was full of tadpoles gadding about. Schatzi paddled cautiously. She’s not much of a water dog, but we’re trying to improve her confidence.

As we headed back to the car, Meg said, “Hey! Let’s go to Frankie’s for an ice-cream cone!” It seemed like the best idea ever. We couldn’t remember the last time we had an ice-cream cone. In a cup, at Erica’s store, yes. In a cone, no. And to think Megan and Rob used to live at Pier 39 for years, where the whole place smells like waffle cones, year-round.

At Frankie’s, I picked mocha almond fudge and Meg had pear sorbet, thereby negating the entire walk. It’s all about balance for me. All the ice cream is made locally and it was fabulous. We sat in the sun, people-watched, and speculated on what it would be like to live in the water tower that was for rent.

After that, we stopped by Mendosa’s for a few things, and then did a quick investigation of the hardware store that just opened next door. It’s so new that they were still stocking the shelves. Our tour revealed that they have almost as much stuff as they do at Rossi’s in town, but much closer. The boys will be glad to hear that.

Speaking of glad: my brother’s one remaining cat went on vacation for almost a week without telling anyone. We had all kind of given up on his safe return when he reappeared as if nothing had happened. I was so relieved to hear that. For both of us to lose cats in two weeks would be too much, even for our family curse. Also Jinx has been spotted in the woods and seems to be eating the food my brother leaves for him.

So it’s been a mixture of good and bad around here lately. It’s all about balance.

*Rob has appointed himself my agent. He’s already spoken to Mark about replacing the washer, and yesterday asked him to get the junk out of my yard sooner rather than later. I said thank you, and he said, “Well, were you ever going to do it?” and I had to agree that my habitual tardiness with the rent has made me a little reluctant to demand anything. I love Rob.