Suzy Says

Taking a break from troublemaking

Q: It’s 5 am. Do you know where your cats are?
A: Not really.

Clyde woke me up early this morning by clawing at the bedspread. It wasn’t so much the clawing that was the problem, as it was his trying (unsuccessfully) to cover up his pee, which was merrily sinking into (and stinking up) the quilt.

I opened the balcony door, put him outside, and put on the balcony light. The rest of the outdoor lights were already on, since Audrey had demanded to go outside about an hour before.

I dragged the quilt* and its cover off the bed and headed to the laundry room. On the way, I opened the sliding glass doors, since Clyde hasn’t figured out how to get back on the balcony once he gets to the ground. This is a trick only Audrey seems to know. At least so far.

I poured detergent, stain remover, and Nature’s Miracle into the washer and hoped for the best. Then I stumbled into the kitchen and made coffee, though it was hardly necessary at this point, after the pee horror and the worry about the boys being out in the pre-dawn darkness.

And then there’s the tragic loss of beauty sleep.

About a week ago, I decided to try again to wean Clyde off the litter box. Roscoe figured out months ago that the world is his bathroom, if not his oyster, but Clyde couldn’t seem to get the concept. I put the box out on the porch, then moved it closer to the woods each day. I even put dirt and pine needles in it, hint, hint.

Finally I emptied it out, bleached it, and leaned it against the shed so Clyde would know it was no longer available. Yesterday, I saw Roscoe dig a little hole to pee in. Clyde watched him, then helped his brother to cover it up. Then they ran off together to play in the woods. I figured Clyde finally got it, but apparently not.

Should I reinstate the indoor bathroom? Or hope that this is just a fluke? Maybe there’s some kind of remedial summer camp I can send Clyde to.

*Since it’s summer, I have switched out the feather duvet for a thinner quilt. Thankfully. I have learned the hard way that it’s hard to get cat pee out of feathers.

Well, Miss Audrey doesn’t seem to have put on much, if any, weight. I’ve been feeding her fancy wet food on the sly, and also setting aside chicken to give her. Maybe she just gets thinner in the summer, like my brother’s Wonderdog Jed used to. Maybe she’s just one of those enviable creatures who can eat whatever she wants and yet stay slim and fabulous, like the Gilmore Girls.

I recently learned that in addition to the extra food at home, Audrey wanders over to Mark’s place, strolls in through the cat flap, and helps herself to his cats’ food. He described her as “the little stripy one”. Here you see her taking a break from all that eating:

You can see her slimosity a little better in this picture.

While Audrey’s been busy eating, Roscoe has turned into The Intrepid Explorer. Whenever I go to Megan’s, he accompanies me there and back, like a body guard. Megan says that her cats like the boys, which makes me feel all proud of their adorableness.

Jungle Roscoe

Last night looked like a nearly full moon, and Roscoe didn’t come in until 4:30 in the morning. I think it’s going to get harder and harder to get him in at night. I just leave the outside lights on and hope for the best.

All three of them spend a lot more time outside now that the rain has finally stopped. When the boys come home, their shiny black coats are covered with dust and pollen. When you pet them, they look like Pig-Pen in the Peanuts cartoon, with puffs of dirt flying up.

Clyde is still his cuddly, treat-lovin’, mama’s boy self. He’s generally the only one who comes when I try to call them in at night, galloping in from the woods and meowing pathetically for treats. Roscoe and Audrey magnificently ignore the bribery of treats.

Garden Clyde

Clyde still meows for food when there is still food in the dishes. He’s like those guys who channel-surf. They don’t care what’s on, they want to know what else is on. Clyde doesn’t care about the food in his dish, only the food that isn’t (yet).

He also still specializes in the smother snuggle, which is a little harder to take now that he’s a full-grown cat instead of a fuzzy little kitten. He gets kind of heavy draped across my head. But I still manage to fall asleep, listening to him purr with his fur up my nose.

Birthday Girl

No less an authority than the Duchess of Windsor said that a woman can’t be too rich or too thin (or, apparently, have too much jewelry – her remarkable collection was auctioned off for a record-setting $54 million in 1987), but perhaps a cat can be.

Though Audrey has always been as slim as her namesake, the lovely Miss Hepburn, lately she’s been looking, despite what the Duchess said, a little too thin. I wondered if it was just having more exercise since the weather’s nicer, or perhaps if she had worms from eating mice and other outdoor delicacies. I bought some très expensive de-worming pills and served one crushed up with some chicken.

But Audrey’s bird-like eating habits (besides actual birds) meant that she only ate some of it. That, or she was on to me. She ate a bit more later, but I ended up tossing the remainder. Megan said next time she’d administer the pill herself. So I wasn’t sure if Audrey had actually eaten the whole dose.

I also started giving her canned food a couple of times a day, but of course she would only eat a spoonful at a time, and sometimes not even that. Oddly, the boys didn’t try to horn in on it while she was eating, though they’d eat the leftovers, if any. Come to think of it, they never sleep on her throne and she doesn’t sleep on their bed, either.

Eventually, I decided it was time for Dr. Karen to give her a once-over. She wasn’t horrified by Audrey’s thinness, though she did say that she is a tiny thing. She administered a rabies shot and FVRCP, and decided to keep her for a few hours to see if she’d poop. Needless to say, this was the first time that she didn’t express her opinion on driving in the usual way.

At first, everyone at the vet’s said how cute she was and what a little doll, but that was before they trapped her in a cage. Audrey growled and swiped at anyone, human, canine, or feline, who passed by. She also stubbornly refused to poop, so I reluctantly left her overnight. By the next afternoon, nothing had happened, so Dr. Karen administered a worming pill and I picked up an indignant, howling Miss Audrey.

She howled all the way home, and just as we reached Hooterville, she finally pooped in her carrier. A call to Dr. Karen revealed that samples are only good for 12 hours after they’re produced, not much help when the vet’s office closed in fifteen minutes.

I released Audrey in the garden, thinking she’d take off into the woods and not be seen again for hours. Instead, she went straight into the house, where the boys sniffed her thoroughly, ate a little, and then went upstairs to bed. She was pretty sleepy for a couple of days, but then she was back to her usual self. She still seems a little on the svelte side to me, though.

Today Miss Audrey is four years old. We’ll all celebrate with canned food (kitties) and cocktails (the help) later on today. I’m already wearing “For Audrey” polish on my toes for the occasion.

Sleeping shop cat in the Castro

While we were away, Jonathan was on pet patrol. It turned out to be a lot more complicated than he thought.

Early one morning, he woke up freezing, only to discover that his door was wide open. Star was sleeping peacefully, but Schatzi had apparently pushed the door open and escaped.

It’s hard to find a deaf dog in the pre-dawn country darkness. He eventually found her shivering in her own backyard. She happily hopped into his car, and he added a long training leash to the backseat before taking her back to his place. Schatzi spent the rest of the day on the long, long leash if she was outside, or not, if she was inside.

That evening, she asked to go out and pee. As soon as she was out, she made a break for it. Jonathan clapped to get her to come back while scrambling into his shoes to chase her. By then, she had a good lead, and by the time he got in the car to go after her, she vanished.

He spent all night looking for her to no avail. Finally, he called Megan in hysterics early in the morning to tell her that Schatzi was lost. It takes a lot to make him cry, but we all know how Megan adores her dogs. It must have been one of the worst nights of his life.

Megan told Jonathan not to worry, and he kept looking for Schatzi. Eventually, he found her sleeping in her garden as if nothing had happened. He shut her in the house anyway, since we were coming back that day. Checking on her later, he found her in the garden again. He was sure that the doors were closed, but checked them again, just in case.

They were.

This time he just left her outside, since we were due home in a couple of hours.

Guess how she got out?

She went upstairs, climbed up on a chest and through the window which is open for Harriet and Ramona, Megan and Rob’s cats. Then, like the cats, she jumped to the ground from the porch roof outside the window. With her fragile old bones. There’s a good idea.

She did make it, though she needed extra pain meds that night. Nothing like an old dog who can learn new tricks, is there? Maybe we should re-name her Houdini!

Audrey decided to show Roscoe how it’s done. She sashayed out around 9:00 last night, and didn’t show up again until 5:00 this morning. It was a full night’s work for Miss Audrey. And being so dedicated, she was out the door again before 7:00.

You can imagine that Audrey’s absence led to a restless night for her neurotic maid, partly from worry and partly because I find it hard to sleep with all the outside lights on, even with the help of sleep mask.

I was just dropping off to sleep when Luna started barking her head off and wouldn’t stop. I gave up on the whole sleep thing and went downstairs. As I passed my front door, I saw a bearded older man emerging from the woods near where Rose’s daughter Catrin and her boyfriend Zach live. So maybe there was a reason for Luna’s barking. When it gets to be a more decent hour, I’ll call them and see if they know who he is. I watched him walk down the driveway toward the road, so hopefully nothing is really amiss.

A slightly worrying morning when you live in a house with no locks.

And in the worrying department, Rob is once again slated for surgery on his neck. They are going to take out the old titanium piece and put in a new one from vertebrae C3-C6. Apparently these are not good vertebras to be messing with. Also, the surgical coordinator loftily told Megan on Tuesday that no surgery was being scheduled until September. Megan said that was too late, and suggested that the surgeon review Rob’s x-rays. The coordinator said they would and they’d call back in a week or ten days.

They called the next day with the operation date, two weeks away, and said it was “critical”. This was unnervingly like the time Rob went to the city to consult with the surgeon and was instantly admitted, the surgeon coming in to operate on Rob on Superbowl Sunday.

It looks like I will be able to take that week off – June 27 – and go with them to the city to help in any way I can. So much for the party I was planning for their 20th anniversary on July 1.

Update: Turns out the mystery man was Zach’s Dad. And Rob’s surgery has been moved to 10:00 am on Friday, June 24.

Roscoe and Clyde turned one year old yesterday! Can you believe it? It seems like just yesterday that I brought them home from the shelter.

They were so tiny:

Either they’ve gotten bigger, or their bed has gotten smaller:

I’m glad that they still cuddle up with each other and play together.

To celebrate the momentous occasion, everyone got fancy canned food. The rottens, to borrow my friend Amber’s affectionate name for her children, decided to dine al fresco. It was a lovely evening.

So lovely, in fact, that Roscoe refused to come in. So the rest of us had to go bed without him, leaving all the outside lights on and hoping for the best. He turned up just before 2:00 am, ready for a snack and a nap.

They grow up so fast!

Audrey woke me up at 4:00 this morning, demanding to go out in the pouring rain. She is the only one who greets a rainy morning with any kind of enthusiasm in my house. I held out for an hour, and then let her out into the cold wetness, deciding that I might as well admit that I’m up.

I have my regulation two sweaters on as well as the heater. Hard to believe it’s June. Last night on the news, they showed interviews with tourists in San Francisco who were horrified by the unseasonable (and unreasonable) weather. One guy pointed out with asperity that the guide book said the rain ended in late March or early April, “and now we are June.” Good point. An exasperated guy in a rain slicker, clutching his small son by the hand, exclaimed, “I hate it!” in a heavy accent. His kid burst into tears.

I couldn’t agree more.

Yesterday, Rob picked me up early and we made our way to Charlottesville for the car part. It occurred to me that we’re lucky we can get the part in Charlottesville, instead of having to spend 5 hours driving to Santa Rosa and back. Also the car parts store opens early and the people are nice.

Rob told them what we wanted, and, as almost always happens in this situation, they immediately started asking questions which were hard to answer. “Is the single-edged doobywhatsit? Or the dual cam whateveritis?” Rob and I exchanged looks. Finally, Rob looked at the part pictures and picked out what he thought was the right one. Then he dropped me off at work and went home to work on my car.

Four hundred newsletters later, he was back to pick me up and tell me that while it was the right part, he wasn’t done working on the car. Jonathan gets home about noon today, so maybe they can work on it together, rain willing. Sitting here in the rainy dark drinking black coffee and thinking dark thoughts, I hope that he put a tarp over the whole mess.

Megan should be here in about an hour, and I can drive her strange car to work in the pouring rain in about another hour. I don’t like driving at the best of times (and the best of times definitely do not include driving), and I really don’t like it in the rain or dark. Wish me (and the boys) luck. If all goes well, I should be driving my own car tomorrow. Hard to believe that’s the best case scenario.

Audrey peeking out from the side of the house

I think all the kitties were happy to see me, though I also think they are equally happy when I’m gone and they can scamper in and out of the house, playing and napping at will. Come to think of it, I’d like that.

When I adopted the boys, the shelter workers told me that they were very happy and affectionate kittens. I thought they were just saying that, but it has turned out to be true. They took turns sitting on my lap that evening and both slept with me (Audrey, of course, slept regally on her throne). And I’m glad that they all get along, whether I’m away or not. Audrey still isn’t their biggest fan, but there’s hardly any growling or swiping these days.

Here are the boys eating dinner after I got home:

I could see that Rob had been at work during my absence. He found these cupboards somewhere and installed them:

No easy task with the curved wall and heater, etc. to deal with.

After he put the cupboards up, he decided that it was too dark to see into the cupboards, which he also decided was unacceptable. The cowboy lamp, though fabulous, does not shed a lot of light.

He got a fixture at the thrift store for $2.50 and wired it into the same switch as the cowboy lamp. Let there be light:

Outside, I discovered that a little rose which I thought was dead was in bloom:

All in all, a nice welcome home.

Clyde style

Roscoe style

Audrey style

Roscoe and Audrey on the lookout

It was a chilly 48 degrees in the house when I got up this morning. A cautious peek at the thermometer revealed a mere 36 degrees outside – as far as I could tell, with food-crazed kittens milling around my slippered feet. Oddly, Clyde makes just as much fuss about getting fed when there is still kibble in their bowls (which there usually is) as when the bowls are empty. Go figure.

Roscoe is more the strong, silent type. He also has a beefier, more manly build than Clyde, who is still the smallest and slimmest despite his food mania. I am sorry to say that as they approach the 11 months old mark, I still have trouble telling them apart.

They also don’t seem to mind getting wet, which I always thought cats hated. Audrey is clever about avoiding the worst of the rainfall, even when it’s storming, but the boys come in soaked to the skin, with their fur all in points. I towel them off and then they sit by the heater, having a bath. Apparently licking your fur dries it off more quickly.

Roscoe is also more adventurous than Clyde. At least, he’s harder to get in at night. He usually goes out after dinner and stays out until at least 9:00. And he’s stubborn. If he doesn’t want to come in, forget it. You can’t even lure him in with treats. All that happens is Clyde appears, going nuts, and there’s no sign of Roscoe until he’s good and ready. Once he’s in, though, he likes to sleep with me.

Yesterday, I came home from work and noticed a black tail peeking out from under the couch. I called “Kitty?”, and there was a sort of flattened struggle, but no sound, which suggested it was Roscoe. Also Clyde is probably too small to get stuck under the couch. I lifted it (carefully, with my legs, to avoid a Calamity Suzy incident), and Roscoe slithered out. Other than being embarrassingly dusty, he was fine, and ran off to play. I wonder how long he was under there?

As I write, the air in my little hippie hovel is delicately scented with eau de skunk. So glamorous!

I woke up around 2:00 to the distinctive smell. I knew all the cats were in for the night, but wondered if an intruder had made his stripy, stinky way into my humble abode without any of us noticing. This seemed unlikely, but I got up and checked the house anyway. The smell was there, but Mr. Le Pew was not.

I went back to bed, and the Audrometer went off around 4:30. I didn’t want to let Audrey out into the darkness, in case the skunk was still there, so I meanly made her wait until 1) it was light out*; and b) I had checked the perimeter.

The good news is that the outside smelled like rain and fresh air, and the area appeared to be skunk-free. The bad news is that it’s too cold and wet to air out the house. So Roscoe and I are sitting by the heater in the stinkiness and hoping for sun, while Audrey and Clyde are playing in the woods somewhere. By the way, Clyde’s paw is much better.

Mine is not.

You may remember that I managed to fall off a log as my own special way of celebrating the new year. Well, that hand has never been the same. The middle finger and ring finger can’t straighten out, and they are oddly swollen and arthritis-y looking, which is painful for the aesthetically inclined. Also it makes it impossible to wear some of my favorite rings on my right hand. And amazingly, it still kind of hurts when I press on those fingers.

Megan thought at the time that I broke something in there, but I don’t have health insurance and can’t afford to pay thousands of dollars to have my fingers x-rayed and what have you. So I’ve just been living with it.

My left hand now temporarily matches my right hand. I made Jacques Pépin’s mustard-crusted chicken** the other night. When I took the skillet out of my little oven I used my very cute red potholders, and set it on top of the stove. Just a few minutes later, I grabbed the skillet handle with my left hand to move it, apparently having forgotten that it had just spent an hour in a 400 degree oven.

I let go pretty fast, let me tell you. I ran cold water over my hand for a while before calling Megan, who arrived with burn bandages and painkillers. The burn bandages look like a second skin and contain lidocaine or some other kind of surface pain deadener. She also lent me one of her ice packs from her knee surgery last summer, so I was all set for a bad night’s sleep.

Nothing like having EMS living on the premises. Practically a necessity when you’re Calamity Suzy.

*Stupid, stupid daylight savings time.
**A quick search of my archives reveals that I have never shared this recipe with you. Will remedy this shocking omission in the near future.

Clyde and Audrey take a nap

Cats find the funniest places to nap. This is behind my bed in the sleeping loft. As you can see, part of the curved wall is made of corrugated plastic, which makes it warm for napping kitties, but makes rain noisier and is, as you can see, almost impossible to clean. Sometimes it’s so obvious that this house was built by and for a boy.

Clyde has been limping for the past couple of days. I’ve tried to keep him in more often, but it seems really mean to keep a 10 month old kitten in the house on a beautiful spring day, especially when his brother frolics around in plain sight through the sliding glass door.

Megan checked out both his front legs and paws – it seems to be the left front that’s the problem – and couldn’t detect any signs of breakage or injury. He didn’t cry out or anything, so we think he may have fallen out of a tree and landed awkwardly, or something like that. I’m keeping an eye on him, and he seems to be slowly improving.

Also slowly improving is A! She is now in a regular hospital ward, sharing her space with a 38 year old methadone addict with cirrhosis of the liver and a kid in jail and an ancient lady whose only means of communication is howling like a banshee. I imagine A has to keep reminding herself that this is better than Intensive Care, where she spent so many weeks.

I have been calling her once a week now, in addition to my regular silly emails which C prints out and brings her. I can’t tell you how wonderful it was to hear her voice. She still has no feeling in her hands and feet, and is learning to walk again with the help of physiotherapists and a walker. She is hoping to be moved to a rehab facility soon. Apparently, it’s like applying to college, with your first, second, and third choices, hoping that the one you really want will accept you. The one she wants is near Sylvia Plath’s final home, though we shouldn’t take that as an omen.

A says she is covered in scars from the tracheotomy, dialysis and so on, and that she bruises very easily now. It seems that spending three months in the hospital is not a beauty treatment. Also, she has lost huge amounts of time. She doesn’t remember anything at all from C calling the ambulance on January 7 to waking up in the hospital around the middle of March. Nothing. Medical comas will do that to you.

She’s in remarkably good spirits, though, and determined to get back to work this summer, maybe working from home starting in June, half a year after her ordeal began. I can still hardly believe it, and she feels the same way. I am so thankful she is alive and has no brain damage. I need to save up my pennies and get over there and hug her!

The kitties let me sleep in until nearly 8:00 this morning! That’s right, Audrey didn’t demand to be let outside at 4 am, Clyde didn’t climb on my head, and Roscoe didn’t bite my nose. I woke from dreams of envelopes* to find that it was raining, though the sky was blue. Audrey was sitting regally on her throne (also known as the rocking chair my great-grandfather made for my great-grandmother, cushioned with her favorite throw blanket), Roscoe was cuddled up next to me, and Clyde was sitting by the heater.

The heater was on, even though I set it for 52 degrees before going to bed. The mystery was solved when I went to feed the ravening hordes. The laundry room/pantry/cat dining room door was slightly open, letting in the 40 degree air. Though this explained the chill in the air, it made it more mysterious that the cats, especially Audrey, were still inside.

The ways of cats are inscrutable, my friends.

Clyde’s painting assault days seem to be over. I came home from work one day and had barely put my Hello Kitty bag down on the table and greeted the cats when Rob came by. I’m sorry to say that he actually had to point out to me that he had (a) re-hung the giant painting, which had been leaning sadly against the stairs – mere inches from where I was standing – and (2) removed the shelf under it, which Clyde had been using as a launching pad to get inside and on top of the painting.

This is why I would make a terrible crime witness.

I miss the shelf, and displaying my RobCo collection on it, but it’s been effective in Clyde deterrence. The first couple of days, he tried to jump on it and was clearly surprised to find it was no longer there. You could practically see him thinking, “I know there was something here before. Where the hell did it go?” as he fell backwards onto the couch. Now he seems to have given up on it entirely and is looking for trouble elsewhere. Compromise: a noun meaning no-one is happy with the solution to a problem.

*I’ve been stuffing, sealing, and stamping envelopes at the jobette for the past two days. I may take Joy up on her offer to give me helpful hints.

The beautiful weather lately has led to some beautiful sunsets, as you see above. And the adage “Red at night, Suzy’s delight” has so far proved to be true. We’re even planning to have a barbecue at our brother’s place this evening. How’s that for daring?

I’ve also been using the break in the weather to try and convince the boys that one of the great things about being a boy of whatever species is that the world is your salle de bains. Clyde and Roscoe, however, come racing inside frantically to use the litter box and then run outside again.

In contrast, as soon as I let June and Audrey outside after we moved to Hooterville, they never went near the litter box again. I’ve heard that toilet training human boys is harder than it is with human girls, so maybe we’re back to the male of the species again.

Or not.

For the past few days, I’ve been putting the litter box outside, hoping that they boys will get the idea of doing their thing outside.

But Clyde seems to have mistaken it for a sandbox:

Or something that must be fiercely guarded:

I guess time will tell!

Audrey enjoys the sun

The beautiful spring weather has not gone unnoticed by the cats.

After weeks of having to choose between the boredom of being inside, or the cold and wet of being outside, the sun is shining and birds are just asking to be chased, trees to be climbed.

Earlier this week, I could not get Audrey in at night. Audrey does not respond to being called, even if she’s in the house. She shows up if and when she’s good and ready, and not a moment before. Of course, this had to happen on a school work night. I left all three outdoor lights on and went to bed, reminding myself that Audrey knows what she’s doing, that dogs bark and cars drive down the driveway and the lights are on, all of which should repel possible predators, but the loss of the Beautiful June Bug less than a year ago was a deeply traumatic event for me.

I kind of half-slept, the way you do on planes or when you are waiting for your beloved little sister to come home from a high school date when she lives with you. Finally, I heard the musical, welcome sounds of claws on glass. Audrey! I leaped out bed and yanked the balcony door open in about a millisecond. I didn’t even bother to put my glasses on. It was almost 1:00.

I was pretty tired at work the next day, but I told myself to try and be more pitbull and less poodle.

I sort of succeeded.

A couple of nights ago, I couldn’t get any of the cats in, and it was after 9:00. I finally managed to lure them in with treats, but both Audrey and Roscoe can usually take treats or leave them. They’re the same way about food – Clyde, the smallest and loudest, is the only one who demands food. So it’s easy to get him in at night. Mr. and Miss Stubborn are another matter.

I tried a friend’s advice of feeding the cats dinner much later. This partially worked. Audrey and Clyde ate dinner at the European hour of 8:00, but Roscoe was nowhere to be seen. When I was ready to go to bed, I went out and called him about 900 times. I saw him slink around but couldn’t convince him that inside was preferable to outside. In the end, I went to bed with the outside lights on again (at least they’re the energy-saving kind). Every time I woke up, I looked for him. Finally, when I let Audrey out at 5:00, I let Roscoe in. He headed straight for the food, then came to bed and cuddled up with me before biting the hand that fed him.

The life of a kitty servant is not an easy one.

At the jobette last Monday, we had a brainstorming session at the Aquatic Center. So basically, we were working poolside (kids kept peering at us through the windows as if we were on display. Look at the grownups in their natural habitat!). The tables were covered with paper, and we had crayons and glitter to use on it. The idea was to get our creativity flowing. To that end, we also had Legos. And there were cookies. This may have given the kids an inaccurate idea of what being a grownup is really like.

On Tuesday, I spent the afternoon with our county’s official canine ambassador. His Dads’ car had broken down and turned out to be jump start proof, so they were waiting for the (one) tow truck to come. My diplomatic friend was faultlessly behaved, and even posed beautifully:

I was sorry when one of his Dads picked him up, and made a mental note to keep some dog biscuits at work. After all, our ambassador also joins our weekly staff meetings.

It’s only fair to give cats equal time. This handsome boy lives next door, and poses as nicely as Hairy (but don’t tell him):

I noticed this pergola on Main Street, while on my way to Paws to pick up food for the kitties. Now that the boys are almost ten months old, I’ve been feeding all three of them the same food. I alternate between Wellness Core and Wellness Complete Health. More and more, I think it’s really important to feed our companion animals the best food we can afford.

Incredibly, it was raining by the time I got back to work. Hard to believe from looking at the picture, isn’t it?

I took this one at the Hooterville post office on Monday morning. I thought its beauty was a great way to start the week:

And I hope it’s a great start to your week, too.

My back yard now doubles as a pond

Well, the experiment failed. Or succeeded, depending on how you look at it.

The cats all ignored the giant plastic dragon until this morning. I was reading my email and slowly waking up with the help of my close personal friend caffeine when I was attacked by a giant plastic dragon.

At first, I thought it was Clyde, since there were at least four claws digging into my head, but it turned out to be a giant plastic dragon. I removed it, and to be completely honest with you, there may have been a certain amount of swearing involved.

I set the dragon beside me on the couch, and figured that would be the last of it, until Clyde started chewing on the toy attacker. I then put the dragon away and Clyde outside.

What else can you expect when you name your cat after a notorious outlaw?

I’m thinking that we might have to remove the shelf and hang the painting higher to keep it out of paws’ reach, but having seen Clyde leap from the bed to the top of the armoire and from the glass roof of the back deck to the ground in a single leap kind of makes me wonder if we could ever hang it high enough to escape him.

While all this has been going on inside, it’s been raining like crazy outside. Frankly, I find it astonishing that there can actually be any rain left to throw at us. My neighbor Jim, whose serendipitous encounter with some unexpected snow made him an internet sensation, tells me that he emptied out his rain gauge on Tuesday evening and by Thursday morning, there was 3.6 inches of rain in it. Also that he collected a further 1.5 inches since yesterday morning.

This proved to be too much for my laundry room, which was awash in water which had somehow seeped in through the walls. Fortunately, there’s a drain in the floor, which has also come in handy when there was a booze flood in there. Booze floods, being attacked by giant dragons…I really know how to have a good time.

Well, Clyde won the battle of the painting.

But if Rob has anything to do with it, Clyde won’t win the war.

I was awoken by a crash this morning. Not thunder, not hail, but pretty loud all the same. I didn’t even have to get downstairs before I could see what happened. The painting was no longer above the shelf over the couch, as you see here (aka the Good Old Days – who knew?):

It was on the floor. Miraculously, it wasn’t broken, though I can’t say the same for the vase you see in the middle of the shelf in the picture above.

On the bright side, none of Rob’s pottery was broken (I have the premier collection of RobCo ceramics on the west coast), and the painting was unharmed.

It’s about five feet wide and four feet tall, so it wasn’t easy for me to maneuver, but I managed to get it across the room and lean it against the staircase. As I waited for the coffee to perk (and perk me up), it occurred to me that there are no good answers here. If I put it back up – well, if Rob does – the Battle of the Painting will resume. Also I had previously thought that Clyde tried to climb it to get my attention, but apparently it’s just a hobby.

If I leave it where it is, it may well suffer the terrible fate of the records, and be clawed to death by the Demon Kittens.

If I put it away, I’ll lose my window to the city and the joy the painting has given me over the past fifteen years.

My living room now looks bleak and sad:

By the way – Rob made that shell-shaped plate and its stand.

I told Megan about the whole fiasco, and pretty soon Rob came over to inspect the damage. His thought was that Clyde probably approached the shelf from the side, instead of the front. So he stapled some cardboard to ends of the shelf and baited it with a huge plastic dragon:

to see if Clyde can still get up on the shelf. If it foils him, Rob will make something out of wood and fasten it to the ends for permanent foiling.

Needless to say, the cats have not gone anywhere near it or shown the slightest interest in the giant plastic dragon over the past six hours, even though it’s rainy and depressing outside and you’d think they’d be bored. Maybe I’ll find out tonight.

At this point, I’d have to say that what I hate the most about the time change is not being able to put the kittens outside when I get up.

The actual getting up is not the problem. I still wake up before the alarm, only now it’s in pitch darkness instead of semi-light. The pitch darkness lasts until after 7:00, or later when it’s raining/cloudy, which the weather dial seems to be stuck on.

I still let Audrey out around 5:00 (or when I can’t take it anymore), but I don’t feel comfortable about letting the nine month old boys out in the early morning darkness. I figure there may be bobcats and mountain lions who don’t observe Daylight Savings Time. And I hope Audrey is smart and fast enough to avoid them at nearly four years old.

So the boys, having rested up all night, are wide awake and ready to make trouble by the time I get up. Unfortunately Clyde has whatever the opposite of acrophobia is, and is either climbing up the shelves, across the curtain rod, leaping from the bed to the top of the armoire, or, worst of all, jumping onto the shelf above the couch and climbing into the back of my beloved painting.

Last week, I caught him sitting on top of the frame, and had to lure him down with treats.

Now, every morning he keeps trying to jump onto the shelf-threatening painting. I have already, at 6:40, lost track of the number of times I have grabbed him off it or stopped him en route. There is nothing I would like more than to chuck him outside, but the sky remains resolutely dark.

It’s gotten to the point where I’m relieved if he’s climbing the shelves with Dad’s books and perching beside the antique stereopticon.

It’s all relative.

I was woken at 5:30 this morning by the resounding boom of thunder, so loud it shook the house. The darkness was shattered by lightning, and the rain and hail smashing into the roof/walls was almost as loud as the thunder. The cats were hiding under the bed, and I wished I could join them. At times like this, it’s apparent that my house has way too many windows and doors. There’s nowhere to hide from the storm in Woodhaven.

I figured I might as well get up and make coffee, since it was too loud to sleep and I was too scared anyway. I guess I’m not going to outgrow that one, am I?

When I opened the living room curtains, I was met by the sight of hail drifts, doing a pretty good impersonation of the snow we got a couple of weeks ago. I risked life and limb to move the orchids onto the porch to save them from hail damage, and then took a couple of pictures just for you. Nothing is too good for you, Constant Reader.

All this BC (before coffee).

As I write, it’s raining and hailing again. As I gave the cats dinner, I told them I’d bet $5 that we’d get a third thunderstorm, but there were no takers. Cats are smart.