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.

Oh, NO! It's Wednesday, and We're out of Cat Food!

Due to circumstances beyond my control, dear friends in town for a conference, re-scheduled doctor's appointments and my car still being full of all the stuff from Saturday's show, it is now Wednesday. It is supposed to be Monday. Grocery day. Big-Buggy-Full-of-Cat-Litter-Kibbles-Dog-Biscuits-Laundry-
Detergent-And-Something-for-Dinner-and-Maybe-Some-
Potato-Chips Day. There is no coffee creamer in the fridge. There are no eggs. The Brown Dog "needs" her cauliflower. And we are dangerously low on Kitty High (street name. AKA, catnip.) That means I have to do the grocery shopping. On Wednesday. On

Deaf-Old-People-With-Double-Coupons-And-
Styrofoam-Cups-of-Weak-Coffee Day.

There are two major problems here. I am tall. DOPWDCSCWCs are not. There will be a great deal of, "Honey, would you reach that Metamucil on the top shelf for me? They keep the freshest ones up there, you know." And by the time I stand on the lowest shelf, clinging to the shelf divider - because even in my platform flip-flops I'm not quite able to reach it - and snag the Metamucil (which I had to poke forward with the DOPWDCSCWC's umbrella first,) the intended recipient has wandered over to the meat counter to join a crowd admiring freshly cut round steak and I'm not exactly sure which one she is until I see the umbrella. I'll smile and hand her the canister, and she'll say, "Thank you, honey, but the store brand was on sale so I just picked up one of those." Don't get me wrong, I am glad to use my God-given gift of height to help out at the grocery store. But I also need to buy toothpaste.

The other problem is a bit more complex. Many of my fellow Wednesday shoppers knew me when I was six. Played bridge with my parents. In fact, had gallbladder surgery, angioplasty and bunion removal with my parents. Some of them led my Girl Scout troops (they don't, thank goodness, remember that little brouhaha resulting in my eventual "retirement" from the World of Scouting) and can wax poetic on those glitter pine cones we made that year in the church basement. And many of them think I am my sister.

My sister and I have looked so alike in the past that one of us could walk into a family party for the first time and a family member would ask us why we changed clothes. And our sense of style, or lack thereof, has been eerily similar as well. We have on more than one occasion shown up to an event in the same shoes. (Not the same PAIR of shoes; two sets of shoes. I just realized I might have confused some people. I decided to expand and clarify.)

So shopping on Wednesday requires me to limber up first, in case I need to be tall; and remember which sister I am and which children are mine in case someone inquires about them, and - God help me - WHO that man is, asking about my father's dizziness.

Arriving at the store, I'll scan the parking lot for familiar vehicles - the ones with ancient school booster stickers, or American Flag decals strategically placed. I'll take note of the "Hollywood Cars", the boat-like Caddies and Lincoln Towncars so favored by Mr. and Mrs. SoandSo. I'll grab a cup of the weak coffee, which gives me a little mental edge (very little) and helps me to blend in. And then I will

Attempt. To. Shop.

If I am lucky, I will remember everyone familiar by name. I will be tall gracefully. And I will remember that the "Self-Checkout" volume is dialed up on Wednesday, so I won't jump out of my skin when the AutoChick shouts, "WELCOME, VALUED CUSTOMER!" And I will not hyperventilate when I reach into my wallet for my credit card, and notice again, with tremors of shock, that it is right next to

My AARP Membership Card.

I hate Wednesdays.