City Kitties in the Kountry

(Warning: mouse dies.)

Every now and then, an unfortunate field mouse notes that the mud room door of the farmhouse has the tiniest gap at the bottom. Just large enough for an itty-bitty field mouse, if it holds its breath, to wiggle through. And just inside that door is a bowl of cat food.

So Mr. Mousie awaits the cover of darkness, sucks it in, belly-crawls toward the Manna From Heaven, and startles Bes the Doublewide Kitty, mid Midnight Snack # 3. Bes' howl brings her five siblings running.

The Staff does not mean this unkindly, but these Kitties are...um...not good mousers. They spent their formative years in a cluster home in the city. A cluster home with the Gold Standard of Pest Control. The closest thing to a mouse in their lives pre-farm was a dying cockroach. (Although some of the older Kitties remember the day the wren flew into the house. They watched as The Staff used a broom to swat it out an upstairs window.) The very first Field Mouse Incident, in fact, took place while the Mother-in-Law and her little dog were visiting...guess who caught the rodent?

Since the Great Humiliation at the paws of the pesky pup, The Kitties have developed a strategy. The Staff has cursed loudly, and often, especially in the face of impending tornadoes, about "herding cats". While The Kitties found this vastly amusing (and, by the way, they think The Staff grossly overreacts to twisters) they also noted the opportunity in their numbers. They developed drills. Foster chases Veronika down the hall. Veronika chases Foster up the hall. Dewi chases Bes around the kitchen island. Bes.....gets a snack. Violet times their runs. Mona hides under the sofa. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Ad nauseam.

And, last night, finally, the payoff. Alas, Poor Mousie...herded to death. But The Staff is going to have to handle things around the farm for a while. The Kitties have some recovering to do.

A Day Without Kitties is Like a Day Without...Hairballs

Aah, here's a photo of Nancy and The Kitties in happier times, last weekend. You can't see me, but I'm just to the right of the picture. With my trusty torch, melting metals. You can't see Foster, the Kitty, either. He was messing with the torch, and trying to catch his fur on fire. But you CAN see Bes. After conducting her morning bird census, she decided on a well-deserved rest in the salad bowl; as she coached Foster on the finer points of bothering Mom from the sidelines.

But now, NancyLand is a very sad place, indeed. There are no Kitties. We have reached the point in the renovations that involves toxic fumes, open windows and workmen who have no idea how to close a door. Consequently, the Kitties are "summering at the farm." And I can't believe how much I miss them.

Just today I let the dogs out - they are with me because they are immune to toxic fumes and would never exit an open door because they might miss a meal and they can't stay alone at the farm because they eat furniture - and in walks, bold as you please, a giant palmetto bug. For those unfortunates without southern roots, that is a cockroach on steroids. About the size of a lobster, but a lot uglier.

And all I could think was, if The Kitties were here, and I showed them the palmetto bug, and I pretended that I wanted to play with it, and perhaps sprinkled it with a little catnip; well, they might just poke it out the door. Then again, there was that recent incident with the mouse at the farm...six cats in the house, and my mother-in-law's little dog. Guess who caught the mouse? The Kitties didn't even feign embarrassment. In fact, I think they TOLD the little dog to get it, because they didn't want to ruin their nails.

Then, there's RatRat; poor filthy, fuzzy RatRat, favorite fetch fetish for Foster the Feline, forlorn in the foyer. I threw the damn thing upstairs just to hear it "thunk." But "thunk" was not followed by the sound of Foster skidding across the hall to tackle it. Oh, my heavy heart. I drew the line at fetching RatRat myself, so he is languishing upstairs in hardwood floor refinishing dust.

I have typed this entire entry without "help". No one has walked on the keyboard, erasing the entire piece; or spilled my Diet Pepsi, causing me to grab a throw pillow to absorb the liquid before it reached the grooves on the underside of the laptop. I have not stopped writing once to respond to that "haronking" sound, harbinger of the hairball. And I didn't have to open a can of smelly, oily fish eyes at dinner.

Sometimes it sucks to be me.

This is a Test! It is Only a Test!

I am baffled. I am a very noisy person. I hang out with generally noisy people. I attract noisy people, I am attracted by noisy people. Especially noisily laughing people.

And.

I have analytics on this blog. I know that lots of people stop by to Katch up Wit The Kitties. But, apparently, only shy, quiet, and keyboard-phobic folks visit, because no one leaves a message. This makes The Kitties unhappy, and very restless. And, let me tell you, life with Unhappy, Restless Kitties is no fun. I worry quite a lot about the Collective Power of Unhappy, Restless Kitties.

(I have considered, and rejected, the idea that my musings are so profound that readers are rendered temporarily mute.)

A tutorial: to leave a comment, you just click on the "comments" thing. If you are not a "Blog Person" you will make a little account, by filling in a couple of blanks. Then you type some words that are written in wavy text. Eazy Peazy. And then you can comment here, and on other blogs! You will be a Published Author! And the Kitties won't be Unhappy or Restless! Try it! (For my personal safety, please!)

Stories from the Scorched Earth

What I learned from the fire:

No matter how much garage space they consume, one must ALWAYS have as many cat carriers as cats. In case there is not an extra car around to stash cats in.

When the (wonderful, fabulous, awesome) firemen turn off the breakers to one's furnaces, it is a good idea to double check the panel to be certain that they have not also turned off the water heater. Especially if it 11 degrees outside, and the ONLY thing that could possibly warm one up is a nice, hot bath.

Occasionally the HVAC guru, Bob, will spend all day trying to repair a burned-out furnace; only to discover - just at the stroke of 5 PM, when the Parts Warehouse closes - that the brand new motor he just installed is a dud.

And this will be on a Friday. So it will be Monday, at the earliest, before one again has heat.

If there is one space heater to sit in front of, and six Kitties who want to sit there, something bad is going to happen.

One can't cure "burny" with FeBreze.

Nancy and The Kitties Have a Three-Alarm Fire, and Also A Three-Ring Circus

You know those days when you just want to scream because your life is so booooring? Well, today wasn't one of them.

I was editing photos of "Two Fish" when I noticed that something smelled, um, burny. Which is a word I just learned today, on a forum post about made-up words. Serendipity!

Checked the coffee pot, oven, stove, microwave, hair curlers and the electric mixer. (Even though I hadn't used the electric mixer since I made my father a lemon meringue pie last month for his birthday.) Nothing on, nothing burny.

Checked the automatic litter boxes to be sure the Geek Kitty had not stuffed sticks in the motors. Went outside to breathe (extremely cold) fresh air and came back in to be sure something was burny.

It was.

I guessed it might be the heat pump. Changed the filters I knew about. There are Secret Filters that only Bob, the HVAC guy is aware of. Called Bob, who is never home and returns calls sometime between the time you call him and eternity.

But, when he does stop by to find that you have a busted Rumple Basket on your heater's Strippel, he will know where to find a discarded Rumple Basket behind the Dairy Queen a few towns over. And he will have the heat back on, Rumple Basket and All, for $50. Including the changing of all Secret Filters.

I waited awhile, and wandered the house. Not so burny upstairs, or in the basement. But the main level of the house was now burny, and a bit OH KRAP! SMOKY!!!!

I dialed 911 and spoke with Deborah. After she introduced herself in Starbucks fashion, "Hi, my name is Deborah. How can I help you with your emergency today?" I tried to respond in Calm/Collected/Capable mode, "Hi, Deborah. I have a..."

"This is 9-1-1! What is the nature of your emergency?"

"I smell something burny, and there is smoke."

"You have SMOKE?"

"Yes, Ma'am. Smoke."

"Get everyone out of the house and I will have the fire department respond immediately! I repeat, get everyone out!"

"Yes ma'am. Uh, Thank you."

"Thank you??" It was time to feed the dogs and cats their dinner. And I was supposed to get them out because the fire department was on the way. Where could I put them? The Kitties had never been outside in their LIVES!?!

Son One had left his car in the driveway, and his dog in the house, while he went to Hawai'i and I had a fire. I thought it was fair to use his car as a giant cat carrier. I started grabbing felines and stuffing them into the Honda. But I quickly reached Critical Mass. Throwing one more in would result in the escape of at least one already captured, so it was on to Plan B. Vet carriers. One cat in one, two cats in the bigger one. Hisses, spits and claws. I was bleeding profusely from bites and scratches.

The DOGS! They really wanted dinner, but they followed the biscuits to my car. And they like the car, so they just went to sleep, drooling on the leather.

Then I realized - I hadn't made the bed. In the master bedroom, which was where the smoke was thickest. (There was a good reason for my negligence. Although I had canceled their appointment, the Vietnamese Cleaning team had been on the way; and I was going to have them change the linens.) How embarrassing to have the fire department arrive with the bed unmade...I got it done just in the nick of time.

It must have been a slow fire day. I thought maybe one of those red cars with the flashing lights would show up. In fact, three ladder trucks arrived at about the same time. There were at least 15 people in the house; climbing into the attic, poking around in the closets, scanning with some kind of TV devices. And asking a zillion questions. "When did you turn the heat on?" "Uh - September?" "Did you notice any strange noises today?" "Yes, but I have a very noisy neighbor." "Man, this is a great house!" "It's about to go on the market, you want to buy it?" "That car is, um, moaning?" "There are 3 cats in there."

After a bunch of questions and a whole lot of waving devices about and the arrival of another half-dozen or so other people who had other things to wave around, it was determined that no one had a clue why there was smoke and the house smelled burny. But probably it had something to do with a busted Rumple Basket and I needed to get Bob on the case.

In the meantime, the breakers for the heat pump had been shut off. We had no heat. Bob had not called.

BUT

The fire department used gigantimongous fans to blow the smoke away. So the house didn't smell so burny. I added three quilts to the bed. The space heater was blowing in the master; with Kitties camped out all around. Bob would find us a new Rumple Basket behind a Dairy Queen in the morning. And the coffee pot was ready to be plugged in.

All the Kitties survived the Honda and the vet carriers.

Life was good.

Isn't She Lovely?

I won! The Arte Y Pico Award! Many thanks to Ronalyn, discoverer of all things artistically interesting, over at A World of Creativity for the honor. Ronalyn, herself a recipient, chose our blog (along with 4 other fabulous bloggers - you can read about them here) because, in her words, "this girl is smart and funny, her cats are cute and I like it." Ronalyn, so sorry to disillusion you, honey. The Kitties tell me what to write, generally after waaaay too much catnip. And, yes, they are cute. Which is why they are still around after throwing irreplaceable handblown glass lamps to the hardwood floor.

But, I digress. I just LOVE the pretty award lady, all dressed in - how did they know? - PURPLE! And I didn't have to find a dress for the Awards Ceremony, I accepted the trophy in my pajamas. Of course, since I heard the news, I have been working on an acceptance speech. Here is what I have, so far:

You like me! You really like me! Oh, wait, that's been done before...

I would like to thank all seven of my blog readers, especially Ronalyn, who likes cute Kitties. And my mother, for spraying FeBreeze down the vents when there was a dead thing in the basement. I loved writing that post. And my friend David, for slogging through treatment for colon cancer, and getting a ZERO on his circulating tumor test, BIG YAY!, and giving me a reason to blog about colonoscopies. And my dad, for persevering through 13 different doctors who thought they had the answers to his dizziness. And laughing at his own convoluted treatment regimen when I documented it. And, of course, those cute Kitties. Who are not much on Thank-Yous; and are rolling in catnip at this very moment. They look like breaded pork chops with legs.

I'd better not forget my friend, Penelope; and Stacy and Clinton. But I have to say, those constant emails angling for prominence in yet another post is getting old, guys.

Speaking of Stacy and Clinton...to accept the Arte Y Pico award, I have to agree to The Rules. Now I have to decide on future recipients, like this:

1) I must choose 5 blogs that I consider deserving of this award by virtue of creativity, design, general interest, and contribution to the blogging community, regardless of language (the Arte Y Pico site is in Portuguese. Did I ever tell you about the time I was in Lisbon and I thought I asked the waiter for a napkin? When, in fact, I asked for a sanitary napkin? It would be best to use an online translation site if you want to read the Arte Y Pico blog, rather than asking for my help.)

2) Each award must include the name of the author and also a link to the blog, so that everyone can visit.

3) Each award winner must display the award and include the name and link to the blogger who bestowed the award.

4) The award winner, along with the award giver, must include a link to the "Arte Y Pico" blog.

5) The Rules must be displayed.

So, like I'm not busy enough picking up lamp shards and growing organic catnip; now I have to go blog shopping. Geez...I can't wait! Stay tuned. It might take a while, but you'll be the first to know when I make my decisions!

In the meantime, don't forget the auction for the displaced animals in Iowa, here. There are just a few days left! And I've got that BIG project moved from the back burner to the front burner. I will need your help.

Mwa! Mwa! (Air kisses!) Thanks for checking in, and thanks again, Ronalyn!