Who needs Heloise?

With Chelsi at Charlie's apartment in Port Hueneme
2004

Boy, how time flies. This May will be three years (2008) since Charlie retired from the Navy. It will be four years (2007) since I stopped (I refuse to say I retired) working.

Captain Bell

I’m glad I had one year to be “home alone”. I was able to spend quality time with our dog, Chelsi. She had been diagnosed with inoperable cancer in March of 2007. The vet had given her only a few months, but she went on to live until September 2008. For the most part, until the last couple of months, she felt pretty good and had a good quality of life. I used to take her with me when I went shopping or ran errands around town. She loved riding in the car and being with me. I always knew where the shady parking spots were.

A couple of times I took her out for lunch. Yes, I went through the drive thru of “Long John Silver” and got us some fish and chips. Then I found a shady spot to park and she and I had our lunch. Those were our times together.

In years earlier, I would drive up to Thousand Oaks to get my hair highlighted and/or cut. I always took Chelsi with me. I would drop her off at her groomer, “Indiana Bones in the House of Groom”. They kept her while I went off to my hair dresser. Usually she wasn’t ready when I got out, so I had time to go shopping or meet a friend for lunch before picking her up.

One time, I picked her up and before driving the three hours back home, we needed some lunch. I stopped at Arby’s. When I got out of the car, I saw some coupons on the ground. They were for 6 sandwiches at a very cheap price. Well, I couldn’t turn that down so I bought 6 roast beef sandwiches. Then I found a shady parking lot of a building which was closed. Chelsi and I sat on the curb and ate our sandwiches. This was before Chelsi was sick, so she really enjoyed her share of those sandwiches. This was my favorite lunch with Chelsi.

Later, when she started losing weight, I tried the fish and chips to tempt her to eat more. It worked a couple of times, but then she really didn’t want much to eat. I missed our times together when she passed away.

Charlie and I have gotten into a routine now. At first, when he was home all of the time, I felt like I never could get anything done. He really wasn’t in the way, but just knowing he was in the house made me put things off that I would normally just do. I usually stayed busy around the house. I could always find something that needed to be done. Now, I don’t do much of anything, but my days just fly by.

After the first year or so, I thought maybe since Charlie was home, he could help around the house. Things that I had always done and thought that I was the only one who could do it, no longer were sacred.

It started with me asking him to vacuum the upstairs and then the stairs and bring the vacuum down and I would do the downstairs rooms. Then it got to “Can you vacuum the house today?” Well, there was a reason. We got a new Dyson vacuum cleaner which is very heavy, compared to the little Kenmore’s I’d always used. Usually Charlie will vacuum while I’m out for my morning walk.

One of his other jobs is putting the garbage out every week. Our garbage pickup has been on Thursdays since we bought this house in 1999. The boy next door puts his cans out on Wednesday mornings like clock work. Thursday morning comes and I say to Charlie, “Did you put the garbage out?” He usually says, “No, I need to do that” and he does it. Then I usually say, “We (meaning YOU) should probably put the cans out on Wednesdays and then you wouldn’t have to go out in the cold”. He agrees. The next week comes and I say..........well, you get where this is going. Sometimes though, he surprises me and when I ask if the cans are out, he says “Yes”. When I recover, I say “Oh, good!”

Charlie’s closet is upstairs in his computer room, which is usually where Charlie can be found during the day. I used to go up to his closet and get his dirty clothes basket when I do laundry. Then I started yelling up to him, “Can you bring your dirty clothes basket down and leave it in the bedroom for me to sort?” Then when the clothes are washed and folded, I either put them in his clothes basket or if I don’t have that, I stack the clothes on the stair steps for him to take up and put away.

He would usually just bring them up and stack them on top of his chest of drawers. After seeing them stacked there a couple of times, I would say “You need to put your clothes away” and he would agree. If they were still there the next time he wasn’t in his room, I would put them away. I just stuck them in any drawer that had room. I knew he had a certain drawer for everything. He would always have to look for shirts to wear, etc. and would tell me that he never could find anything when I put clothes away. But, inevitably he still would stack his clothes. So, then I started threatening him that if he didn’t put his clothes away, I would do it. The threat worked. He’s pretty good about putting the clothes away now.

Yesterday I thought, instead of getting him to bring his clothes basket down, I’d just have him put his clothes in the washer for me. So, I asked him to do that, “Put your clothes in the washer and I’ll take care of the rest.” He said “Okay”.

A little while later I went out to start the washer. The washer was empty. I knew Charlie had taken his clothes out because I heard him come downstairs and go into the garage earlier. The dryer door was open. I had some clean clothes in there from an earlier wash. Sure enough, he had put his clothes in the dryer instead of the washer. Both are front loaders, so it could be an honest mistake I guess. I was amused.

I came back in and yelled upstairs, “Hey, you put your clothes in the dryer instead of the washer!” His bathroom door was closed and he couldn’t hear me because he was in the shower.
I forgot about it until now.

One of Charlie’s longest and I think, favorite, jobs is unloading the dishwasher. He has done that for as long as I can remember. I never asked him to do it. When we both worked, I could hear him at 5:00 in the morning, quietly putting the dishes away. I didn’t mind at all because that is one job I do not like to do myself. Sometimes though, he forgets and I start getting the dishes out. If he hears me, he says “Stop, let me do that”. If I’ve just started, I say “Okay”, but if I’m almost finished, I say “I’ve got it”. I know he makes a mental note to pay more attention to that little green light on the dishwasher next time. That is definitely job security for him!

My Favorite Domestic Engineer

More later............

HAPPY, HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BABIES!

Jezibel, 10 days before delivery

Let’s go back in time.......say, 11 years ago today, Wednesday, March 22, 2000........

This is what I would be saying that day:

I talked to Charlie last night. It was about 7:30 p.m. my time. He was in Yokosuka, Japan and it was the next day there. Anyway, I told him that I thought Jezibel was going to have her babies. He said, “That figures. I knew she’d wait until I couldn’t be there”. I agreed.

Before I went to bed, I noticed that Jezibel was trying to make a bed in my shower. I took a blanket and laid it down for her. I thought, “If she has the babies there, I’ll just take a shower in the upstairs bathroom”. I went to bed thinking I’d see kittens in the morning.

Sometime early, around 4:00 a.m., I was gently awakened by Jezibel. She was mewing and purring really loud. She never has much to do with me and if Charlie is at home, she doesn’t give me a second look. Well, she was insistent about waking me up. I knew she was in trouble.

I got up and called the emergency vet. They said to bring her in immediately. When we got there, they took her right in and did an X-ray to see what the problem was. They said there were at “least” eight kittens in there. I saw the picture and one of the kittens was blocking the birth canal. It looked like a little short, fat sausage curved, blocking any exit.

The doctor tried massaging and they gave Jezibel a labor inducer, hoping that between the massaging and the drug, she would be able to move the blockage. I was told to go on home and check back around 7:00 a.m. I went home and back to bed, not really worried, but concerned.

I called the vet at 7:00 a.m. to see if anything had happened. The massaging had worked. The kitten who was blocking had been born. It was a little female, a Calico (Lexi), like her mother. I went on to work, thinking that Jezibel was probably having the rest of the kittens.

I called the vet back about 10:00 a.m. and was told that another kitten had been born, a little boy, gray and white. That would be Toby. It was slow going, but the vet thought that Jezibel would eventually have the other kittens naturally.

At noon I received a call from the vet. He was very concerned. They had tried everything they could, to get Jezibel to finish having her babies. She was happily cleaning and licking the two kittens that she had. It was as if she said “I have my boy and girl and that’s perfect, I don’t need anymore”. They had taken the kittens away in hopes that Jezibel would have the rest. All she did was get frantic and they were afraid that would not be good, so they put them back in with her.

The doctor asked if he could do a caesarian because he was getting concerned about the kittens now. It had been several hours since Toby was born and Jezibel showed no inclination to let the other kittens be born. I said yes, go ahead, of course.

I called to check on Jezibel at 4:00 p.m. Congratulations! Jezibel now had 9 kittens! Seven boys and two girls. A tenth one had been still born. I never did know whether it was a boy or girl. I would be able to pick the kittens up after work. Since Jezibel had had surgery, she would have to stay overnight. Also, I would have to bottle feed the nine kittens when I got them home.

When I got to the vet’s to pick the kittens up, they took me in a room to learn how to bottle feed. I got a crash course from one of the tech’s who do this regularly at the hospital. I was excited to get home and get started.

When Charlie called that night, I gave him the news about our population explosion. He was as shocked as I had been that Jezibel had so many kittens. She was such a tiny girl. I told him to hurry home so he could help feed them. Jezibel would be able to feed them, but we would have to supplement because she wouldn’t be able to keep them all fed enough. It was also important that each kitten get enough of Jezibel’s milk because it helped with their immune systems.

The next day I checked to see when Jezibel could come home. They told me to come by at 2:00 p.m. I took off work to go and get her. I took her home in a kennel. As soon as we came in the front door, she started meowing. I took her upstairs to the room where the kittens were. She came out of the kennel and went straight to the basket of kittens, got in with them, curled up and started licking them. I had already come home at lunch and fed them, so I waited awhile for her to say hello to all of her babies.

Jezibel with all nine of her babies
3/23/00

I wondered if she was a little surprised to see nine kittens. The last time she saw them, there were only two babies, Lexi and Toby. Where did all the others come from? She didn’t seem to mind a bit.

After a couple of days, Charlie came home. He immediately got in the routine of feeding the kittens at 5:00 a.m. each morning. We each took a kitten and fed it until they were all fed. Then we went back over each one to make sure they had enough. Then we went to work. I came home at noon and fed all nine kittens. I loved that, having them all to myself! After work, we both repeated our early morning routine. Before bedtime, we fed them all again to make sure they had enough to get through the night.

Charlie feeding Ellie, 3/26/00

One of the little boys, a little orange one, was very fragile. He was the smallest of the litter and he didn’t eat very well. We took extra care to make sure he was eating. We were also having a problem with Jezibel moving the kittens.

We had set up a bed in the walk-in closet upstairs. She would move them from one side to the other. They were only a few days old. One day we caught her carrying one of the kittens downstairs. We took it back upstairs and did a head count. No one was missing, so she had just started the move. As long as she stayed in the closet area, we let her move the kittens if she wanted, but we didn’t want them out of that area because it was warm.

The kittens were growing so fast. We were still very concerned about the little boy who was so weak. We left him in the box with Jezibel and the others because he needed the warmth.

On Friday morning, March 31, the kittens were 9 days old. I went in the kitchen to get the formula and bottles ready while Charlie went to check on the kittens. He came down and told me that we had lost the little boy. He had passed away sometime during the night or early morning. He had been alive when we went to bed. We were so upset about it, but we really didn’t think he was getting better or stronger. We quietly fed the other kittens and Charlie buried him on the hillside, near Calvin.

Jezibel was on the move again. When we got home from work that afternoon, she had moved all of her kittens to my closet downstairs. We decided to just let her keep them there in hopes she would stop moving them.

We had a party to go to that night. We got home around 1:00 a.m. When we checked on the kittens in my closet, six of them were in the bed together, Jezibel was nearby with one of them (Pinto) and one was a couple of feet away, all by himself. He was cold to the touch, but was still alive. While I heated towels in the dryer, Charlie kept the kitten, another little orange boy, next to his chest with a blanket covering him. I called the vet to see if we should bring him in. I was told that we were doing all we could do, try to get him warm.

We stayed up with the kitten all night, rubbing him and warming him. He lost his fight for life at dawn. We were devastated to lose another one. It made us wonder if we would lose more. This kitten business wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be.

We’re sure that the kitten was strong enough to survive if it had not been moved away from the others and gotten too cold. Maybe there was something wrong with it and that’s why Jezibel separated it. She had stayed with the one. We’ll never know. We only know that he ate well and he was strong, trying to climb out of the box, etc. Whereas the one we lost early that morning, was not strong and was not improving.

Well, that did it. We moved Jezibel and the seven remaining kittens back upstairs. Maybe Jezibel knew that we had had enough and weren’t taking any more chances. She stopped moving the kittens. They got bigger, started coming out of the closet. We made a little pen for them. We weaned them onto solid food. What a mess that was, but they learned to eat finally. We put a little box in the corner and they all started going to one area to use the bathroom. Pretty soon we had them litter trained.

The kittens in their "training" pen
Chelsi watches in awe

When they were 4 weeks old, we invited friends to come and pick one out. My friend at work, Brian, chose Mr. Creme and Toby. Kim chose Pinto and Minerva chose Panda. We kept Lexi, Ellie, and Grady.

The kittens on display left to right
Pinto, Grady, Mr. Creme, Lexi, Toby, Panda and Ellie

All kittens at 4 weeks old
Easter Sunday, 4/23/00

Kim's Pinto
Grady

Mr. Creme

Lexi
Toby

Minerva's Panda
Ellie

When the kittens were a year old, I had a birthday party for them. Kim came over with Pinto; Minerva came with Panda. Brian had been in the process of moving and I was keeping Mr. Creme and Toby for him. So, with them and ours, all seven kittens were together again.

It was a fun party and we thought it would be a good idea to get together every year, but of course we haven’t been able to get all seven “kittens” together again.

Our Grady passed away last year. We miss having him with us. He was a special boy.

So today is their 11th birthday. They are all loved and will always be special to us. I would do it all over again if I could. I’m so happy that they all went to good homes. Brian couldn’t keep Mr. Creme and Toby, so we got them back in December 2002, before they turned three in March.

Kim and Minerva still have their boys, Pinto and Panda. They will always be taken care of and loved. I do get to see Pinto and Panda sometimes and I have to say that I’m really proud that we took care of them for their first 8 weeks and we loved it.

Jezibel has moved on from motherhood. She now denies ever having any kittens.

More later..........

A kitten is the most irresistible comedian in the world.

Heerree's Jonesie!

Charlie took Jonesie in to see the vet last Thursday. Jonesie had to have his second de-worming pill. We didn’t know if he’d been treated before we got him and the vet said it wouldn’t hurt him one way or the other. I asked Charlie to go ahead and get an appointment to have Jonesie declawed for the next week. Their first opening for that was on May 2, but they had a cancellation for the next day, Friday, March 11, if we wanted it. Well, since we plan on traveling in May, I didn’t want Jonesie to be still getting over his surgery, so we set it up for last Friday.

Thursday night we had to take his food and water away since he would be having surgery the next morning. I decided that I would put him in the room upstairs where I stayed with Taz when he was recuperating from his surgery last summer. I would stay with him and keep him company. It would be easier to not have food and water in the room than to deprive the rest of the cats of their nightly foraging runs through the house.

Jonesie is a very sweet, calm little cat. We went to bed and he quite happily settled down near me while I read. I turned the light off and thought how ironic it was: Here I was with Jonesie, trying to make sure he didn’t eat or drink anything and just a few months earlier, I was in this same room with Taz, encouraging him to eat and drink as much as he could.

Early in the morning, Jonesie woke and purred and wanted attention. I lay there and petted him, hoping that he wouldn’t want to eat. I was supposed to take him to the vet at 7:30 and we still had a couple of hours. Finally, he jumped down and went over to the area where the food bowl had been last night. Of course, it wasn’t there. Then I heard a “CRUNCH” and I jumped out of bed and went over to see what he’d found. Sure enough, he had found a little dry morsel on the floor. I frantically felt around to make sure there were no more crumbs. I didn’t want to take any chances.

Since he was up and about, I couldn’t stay in the room with him and not feel guilty, so I went downstairs. The other cats were waiting for their breakfast, so I quietly got the bowls out and fed everyone. I didn’t want Jonesie to hear, although I know he knew what I was doing. Cats are such creatures of habit and even though Jonesie is only 6 months old, he knew it was time to eat.

At 7:30 a.m. I went up to get Jonesie. I brought him down and put him in his little carrier. He’s such a good little guy. There was no fuss or struggle, just resignation.

Mr. Creme
(Isn't he handsome?)

When I got to the vet’s office, I didn’t have to wait long. They know us well. The tech who signed me in remembered that Jonesie was our little “stow away”. He had been in the kennel when we took Mr. Crème and Toby to the vet for shots. When we opened the door to get Mr. Crème out, Charlie said “Jonesie’s in here!” It was funny. The whole office got a big laugh over that. Jonesie’s little trick on all of us was the comic relief of the day.

Jonesie was to stay two days after the surgery. Since it was Friday and two days wouldn’t be until Sunday (and the vet is closed), I asked if maybe I could get Jonesie back on Saturday. I was told it would be up to the vet. Fair enough. But, I knew that if he couldn’t come home Saturday, we would be over there to visit him.

I called Friday afternoon to check on Jonesie. Jonesie was doing just fine and I said I’d check back the next day to see if he could come home. It sure was quiet around here without him. Jason looked for him several times during the day.

On Saturday afternoon I called to see if I could bring Jonesie home. I was told “yes”. Woo Who. I went right over to get him.

They told me that he might be a little hungry since he wouldn’t eat for them. Well, he was very hungry and he ate and drank water and went in his litter box, etc. It was safe to assume that he was glad to be home.

Since he was released a day earlier than they would have preferred, he would have to stay upstairs in the room again. His activities had to be curved. No problem. I would stay with him. We spent a quiet night together. This time he was allowed to eat and drink as much as he wanted. He was a little subdued and walked gingerly.

We kept him in his room until early afternoon on Sunday. We figured that if he’d stayed for the two days at the vet’s, it would have been the same. I let him out of his room and he came downstairs. He was still very slow and didn’t really seem to feel normal yet.

The Twins and Jonesie

(Do you know which one is Jason and which one is Kaci?)

I can’t remember any of our other cats being this way. When we had the twins declawed, they probably spent the two nights at the vet’s, but when we brought them home, they were running through the house, up the cat tree, getting used to their new paws, etc. I remember at the time watching them and saying “Be careful, don’t hurt your paws!” They looked at me as if to say, “Huh?”

Jonesie has been getting better each day. He was on the bed the other day and I took a string and teased him. He grabbed at it. Last night he chased after Jason like they used to do. He still has to get used to climbing. Tonight when we were watching TV, Charlie watched Jonesie jump up to the couch. He said that Jonesie gauged his jump to compensate for the fact that he didn’t have claws. Before, he would just take a leap and if he didn’t make it up, he would use his claws to pull him up.

I told Jonesie that all of our babies have gone through what he is going through. He will survive. He will learn to jump higher because of it. We remember when Taz was making that adjustment. We cringed to see him run to his little cat tree and not make it up the first time, but he learned that he could use his paws like hands and hang on.

I know some people don’t think that cats should be declawed and I never had a cat declawed until Rowdy. He was the first cat I had with Charlie. I had never even thought of declawing before. My cat, Sparky, had not been declawed. She shredded the ends of my couch. I noticed it, but it didn’t keep me awake at night.

But, when we got Rowdy, our couch was in pretty good shape and we were renters as well. We didn’t want him climbing the curtains. So we decided to get him declawed. He was an indoor only cat. He never had any ill effects from being declawed. It was all positive, as it was with Calvin and all the cats we’ve had since then. I would never get all four paws declawed though, even if they were indoor cats. I think the cat needs his back claws to help climb and if they happen to get outside by accident, they will be able to somewhat protect themselves if attacked by another cat or dog. When they have to jump a fence, the back claws help pull them up.

Jonesie is still getting back to normal. Like I said, the twins were running circles around each other by now. I’m sure that Jason will have his little playmate back soon. After all, tomorrow is another day…..to play.

Lexi

(Excuse me?)

More later……..

Four Untimely Deaths

The first part of February started with Charlie coming in and saying “My computer just crashed”, words that none of us who use these things want to hear. Not only does it take us away from our “stuff”, but we have to either get it fixed or buy a new one. Both entail spending time and money that we’d rather be spending somewhere else or just holding on to.

After a couple of weeks of babying the computer along, doing scans, getting the hardware checked, etc., Charlie went out on President’s Day weekend and found a good bargain on a new computer.

While he was agonizing I was doing fine, quietly thankful that it was not my computer that went belly up. But, my turn was about to come.

On March 1, I turned my computer on and it would not load anything. Charlie spent several days trying to get it to work. He took it in to the computer guys and they also had no luck. Long story short, we went out last Friday and bought a new computer.

Charlie set it up, loaded software, and then declared “There’s something wrong here.” I couldn’t believe it. This was a new computer. Everything went well until he opened Internet Explorer (the web browser). It gave strange errors, or went into waiting mode and stayed there. Sometimes it would load a page from the internet – sometimes it would return pure unintelligible garbage.

He called Cox cable. No problem with the connection. He called Motorola, the modem/router company. They did some diagnostics and confirmed that there was a good internet connection even if the new computer didn’t seem to understand it was there. The problem seemed to be with Internet Explorer.

Then he called HP, the computer manufacturer. He was surprised when he got a HUMAN voice after only about 15 minutes of waiting. “Sara” did not know what she was in for. Her accent was a little hard to understand, but not as bad as some techs he’s talked to on the phone.

The only word that really stumped him was “tombs”. “Tombs?” he kept repeating, and then she’d repeat it and it still sounded like “tombs”. He finally said “Spell it” and she spelled out “T-o-o-l-s”. I’ve said before, my husband has the “Patience of Job”.

She put him through steps to diagnose the problem. He had already done the steps before calling her. The browser still would not work. Something was stopping traffic. After an hour, they shut the computer down, started it again and installed recovery software which came with the computer.

Finally, everything was set back to where it was when we brought the computer home. Internet Explorer still did not work!

“Sara” then changed from her “let’s fix it” mode to “let’s get this dude off the phone ASAP” mode because we had obviously bought a bum computer. She announced that the recovery module itself must be corrupted and offered the suggestion that he run the recovery module and create the three recovery discs needed to go through a second recovery attempt, as if that had solved the problem. Maybe her problem, but not ours. Charlie pointed out that seconds before, she had told him that the recovery module was corrupted. Wouldn’t the discs that it would create, also likely be corrupted?

Then she offered to mail us a set of good recovery discs, absolutely free. He politely declined, and told her that what he really wanted was to return this broken piece of you know what, to the store and have it replaced. Her “script” probably told her not to offer that solution, but since he was asking, she admitted that perhaps that would work.

Before “Sara” had finished her closing remarks, Charlie was packing the computer back in the box. It was about 7:00 p.m. and the store was open until 9:00 p.m. We jumped in the car and headed for the store. We did the exchange and brought home a new computer like the first one.

The next morning while Charlie was setting up the new, new computer, I went over to the vet’s to pick up “Jonesie”. He had his front paws declawed. When I got home, my new computer was in the foyer, in the box. I said “Is it dead too?” This would be the fourth computer death within the month.

To make a long story even shorter, Charlie reached the exact point as with the last computer and began having the same problems. He took it back to the store. He was waited on by the same employee, Marissa, who had done the exchange the night before. She recognized him and her eyebrows went up. “Yep”, he said, “this one doesn’t work either.”

This time he wanted a refund, but if a tech was available he wanted one to check out the computer and vindicate him for not being able to get the computer to work.

The tech started the computer and it complained it had no internet connection, even after a different browser was installed. He said “Hmmmm.” Marissa couldn’t stand it anymore. “So, is it working?” The tech said, “Well….sorta…no.” Charlie was vindicated!

Why two computers of the same brand and model would both break with the same symptoms will likely remain a mystery. R.I.P.

Bottom line is, Charlie came home with another new computer, different brand and model, hooked it up and it is now working great. It’s more powerful than my old one. I still have files and pictures, etc. to get situated. I lost all of my bookmarks/favorites. Some of them were places that I’d frequented for years, but I’ll gradually get them back as I require them.

Charlie had backed up my emails and other files so I didn’t lose anything when my computer crashed. We have our pictures on an external drive so we didn’t lose them. Those would have been the biggest loss to me.

Mr. and Mrs. Happy

And Charlie is happy now too. He has his room back. When my computer died, I set myself up in his room, using an “old and slow” computer that he has in there. I know I was invading his privacy by being there (he says “no, not at all” (Really?) because I was always telling him I was having a problem with this or a problem with that, or I wanted to listen to the radio on line, or all of the cats would show up and want to sit on the desk or in our laps, etc. They all tend to congregate wherever I am and when both of us are together, well that makes it twice as much fun for them.

The gathering of fur balls in the Bell kitchen

Virginia 2002

More later……….

Just Fiddle Faddle

Taz, trying to stay awake (not a chance)

Saturday when I went in the garage to let Mr. Crème and Toby outside, Mr. Crème was in his chair and Debby was on “Mr. Crème’s” table. Usually when I go out there, if Debby is away from her familiar kennel and cat tree area, she will run and hide. This time she stayed where she was. I walked past her and over to Mr. Crème. I usually pet him for a few minutes before he goes outside. He wanted more attention, so I picked him up and brought him over to the table and put him next to Debby. She remained there because she actually likes Mr. Crème. He kind of ignores her, but he doesn’t dislike her.

I started petting both of them. Debby just loves to be petted. She was rubbing against Mr. Crème and he liked that because he knows that I usually give Debby a treat and he knows he’ll get one too. I did give them treats.

This was the first time that Debby didn’t run away. We’re gradually giving her more space to roam. She has the whole garage. The only time I have to put her in her kennel is when I have to open the garage door to the driveway. I always check to make sure she’s in her cat tree before doing that. Then I close the kennel door.

We will have had Debby two years in May. She’s really a sweet little cat. She doesn’t bother any of the other cats. We allow all of the “house” cats go into the garage where she is. Jonesie was a little afraid of her when he first saw her, but he’s okay with her now. This morning I found him at the top of Debby’s cat tree.

Sometimes when Mr. Crème is in the yard, (he sprays, so he’s not allowed in the house) I leave the door from the house to the garage open. As far as I know, Debby has never attempted to come into the house. I wouldn’t mind if she did. We’re still hoping that one day we’ll be able to pick her up. She will only allow petting for now. For a feral cat, she had come a long way.

The weather was really nice on Sunday. I was sitting out on the patio reading a magazine. I had shorts on and although it was fairly warm, I like to have a blanket over my legs. Lexi, her brother, Mr. Crème, and their mother, Jezibel were in the yard. First, Lexi, our long haired Calico, came over and got on my lap. I petted her for a few minutes and she moved to curl up next to me. Then Mr. Crème came up on my lap. I put my magazine down and started to pet Mr. Crème, occasionally touching Lexi.

Lexi finally realized that Mr. Crème was sitting near her and she couldn’t take that. Abruptly, she got off of the glider and strutted out into the yard to check out the “bird tree”. With her long hair, she looks bigger than she is, but she weighs about 12 pounds, so it’s not all fur.

There I sat with Mr. Crème on my lap, “Taz’s blanket” covering my legs, thinking how ironic it was that I’m out there in the same place that Taz and I sat so many times before. No other cat would have been allowed up on the glider with us, much less on my lap. Taz and Mr. Crème disliked each other immensely. We had to keep them apart. If Mr. Crème was outside, Taz had to stay in until Mr. Crème went inside.

That glider was where I could always find Taz. In the afternoons, even in the summers, when it got just a bit cooler, I would take his blanket out to him. He would sit up when he saw me coming with the blanket. I covered him and I could tell that underneath he was “making biscuits”. Then he settled down and went to sleep. I know he got some of his best sleep out there under that blanket. He would have loved this warm day.

Life is still going on around here. It’s not quite back to “normal”. I still miss Taz more than I ever thought I could miss a pet. He’s been gone for five months now and as for how I feel, it could have been yesterday.

As of today, we’re planning an RV vacation in May. Even with the high gas prices, we feel like we should do this. The last time we took this kind of vacation was in July 2009.

We drove to the east coast. Our dog, Sheila, our twins, Jason and Kaci, and of course, Taz, came alone with us. We really enjoyed it. They’re actually pretty good travelers.

This time, we will have Sheila, Jason and Kaci, and our newest family member, Jonesie. We don’t know how Jonesie will do yet. There’s not much time to prepare him, but we are going to try to take the RV out somewhere for the day and maybe overnight to see how Little Jones handles the ride.

Oh, and we will be going to my school reunion in NC on May 20 and 21. I have never attended one and neither has Charlie. Years ago I went to a school reunion with a date. Talk about BORING! But, I think Charlie is looking forward to seeing some of my old (did I say OLD?) classmates. He’s even wondering what kind of music the DJ will be playing. Why, Beach Music, of course!

More later……..