Bloggin' Dogs again!

Hi everyone, and Merry Christmas!
It's been awhile since I blogged, and it's almost Christmas. We've got the tree up, we've been snowed and iced in for several days, so the 4-legged members of our pack have donned their winter finery to perform their daily ablutions.
Perhaps you remember the smallest member of the pack, Shepherd, or as we sometimes call him "Sheppie."

Shep is not as into playing dress-up as Freckles, so it took a couple of minutes of going out to make yellow snow for him to appreciate his new red turtle neck sweater.  Frankly, he'd much rather use the human's bathroom for depositing residue of a different type, which is fine with us, as our bathroom has a white floor and a light blue bath mat, so we are not surprised by "dog bombs." Shep informs me, however, that he did not appreciate his new young master, my grandson Ethan, shouting, "Oh my God, my dog is wearing a sock!" then proceeding to sing, "Don we now our gay apparel." I can tell you, because all three of our dogs are exceedingly smart, but none of them can read yet - Shep's Christmas present is a Chihuahua-sized tug-o-war rope.

You may remember Gizmo from earlier posts. She and I are the senior citizens of the pack. Gizmo has a bad cataract on one eye, is developing one on the other eye, is too old for surgery, and - like many children and senior citizens - has selective hearing. She loves her new pink snow parka. She's had lots of fun leaving nuggets of coal in the snow for the bad little children. She has very thick fur, so she doesn't mind the cold or the snow. However, her vision problems get worse when the sun comes out after a heavy snow - she's snow-blinded. The first day it snowed, then iced, our back door screen was frozen shut. First Ethan had to de-ice the back screen, then let the dogs out. Thinking his job was done, in a few minutes he called them back in. At first we thought Gizzie was just being hard headed, but no - she was snow blinded and couldn't see the back door. Ethan had to get his boots back on, go around to the back yard, and carry her around and into the front door. Neither of them were particularly happy campers for a bit. In the picture below, she appears to be content, and she is. She's yawning after her outing in the snow, preparing for her long winter nap. Her Christmas present is a big, comfy,  poly-filled bed, covered in grey plaid flannel, which I haven't made yet.

 

I want to introduce you to my only granddogger, Kai Lei. She lives in balmy Hawaii with her beautiful mommie, Katryn. You also met Agent K in the previous post - though her lovely auburn hair is now sun-streaked blonde. Surf on, girl!

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Kai is a part Pit, part Dalmatian, part Lab, part ?, born in my home town, Altus, Oklahoma. Her favorite toy is in the picture. It talks and asks if you want to hear the most annoying sound in the universe, and then makes a hideous, high-pitched, whiny screech like the one from the movie "Dumb and Dumber." It makes her bark and growl she finds it so annoying.





 

 

Now for Freckle Face, aka Freckles. Having returned from his tromp in the snow (yes, that's snow he tracked all over the living room floor), he is a little miffed, because none of us would go out and play ball with him in the snow.  He loves snow, leaping through it, tunneling through it, and attempting to sniff out the wily squirrels who live in our big maple tree in the back yard. He's chewed his three tennis balls to shreds. He's down to one tennis ball which has a funky curve when thrown, as it only has "hide" on one side. His Christmas present is two, brand spanking new tennis balls in fluorescent colors, so he won't lose them in the snow or the grass.

 

I'd like to include the two-legged members of the pack in this post, but the only picture of me that's on this computer (I had a computer crash right before Thanksgiving which took out my external hard drive, also.) is the one that's already on this blog. The only one I have of Kristin is in the previous post about my children - when she was about five, and (while I have thousands of  Ethan (including the hated "naked baby" pics) I have none on this computer, and won't have until I retrieve my scanner from a friend's house. So, I'll leave it to Freckles to say what we all feel, "May this special time of the year bring you all God's special blessings, and we hope you find lots of goodies under your tree!"

 

The Four Most Beautiful Children in the World

Of course I might be a little bit prejudiced, because these are my children! From left to right we have Karl Herman Ernest, in his lap Kurt Wilhelm Heinrich, next little Katryn Anne Hoye, and last but not least Kristin Leota Georgan. This was perhaps not the wisest choice of names. My first husband's first and last names started with a "K," and my first name starts with a "K," so we thought it would be cute to name our kids all with names that started with "K."  When I got mad and started calling roll, as mothers will, I sounded like an idiot - "K-k-k-k-k-k-k." 

Karl was named after the husband's favorite uncle and mine (Karl and Carl), his paternal grandfather Herman, and his maternal grandfather Ernest. Karl is 52 now.

When Kristin came along 26 months later she was named Kristin because it was a pretty name, Leota for my mother, and Georgan for one of my best friends. At my 50th highschool reunion, my daughter and the beautiful woman  she was named after finally got to meet each other. Kristin is 49 now.

Katryn's first name was picked from an historical novel I was reading at the time about Mary Queen of Scots. Katryn was a Welsh girl, a maid-in-waiting to the queen. The Anne Hoye comes from an Irish ancestress about 10 generations back who was a maid-in-waiting to Elizabeth I of England. Interesting juxtaposition of names, I think. Katryn is 47 now. 

Kurt was named after the son of a couple we were friends with just because I thought the name was cute - I could call him "Kurtie." The Heinrich is after my great uncle Henry (originally Heinrich) and the husband's great uncle Heinrich. The Wilhelm and the Heinrich are both after my great-grandfather, Wilhelm Heinrich Schmidt. Kurt would be 46 now. He was killed in a tragic car accident 5 months before his high school graduation. I miss him very much.

All four of the kids were very smart. Neither the husband nor I could claim credit, but they came from good stock on both sides. They were quite adventurous, too. Karl and Kristin were close, as were Katryn and Kurt. In fact, when I would be walking along pushing my overburdened twin stroller, people would say, "Oh, look. How cute, two sets of twins."

Karl and Kristin seemed to have a fascination with cars. When we lived in Houston, I had a paper route. We drove a big old red and white Oldsmobile station wagon. One day when I was collecting for the Houston Post, Karl got behind the wheel, and Kristin managed to take the vehicle out of "park."  My customer said, "Er, ma'am, your car is getting away." I screamed, "My babies!," ran down the steep drive, hopped in the car, and slammed on the brakes. When I got back to my customer,  flushed and panting, he said, "Nice save.," and gave me a $5 tip in addition to his monthly subscription. I waited until I got them home to paddle their little bottoms. We also owned a nondescript pickup with a wooden bed. They managed to start that with a screwdriver and back into the chain-link fence. Punishment was immediate and unrelenting. Karl had five wrecks before he was 18, thereby costing me a long and happy relationship with Allstate. Kristin has also had five wrecks, none of which were her fault, putting her in the same league with the grandmother I named her after. Katryn has never had a wreck. Kurt never got the chance to own a car, but he did have a completely unrepairable motorcycle, given to him by a friend.

In Houston the kids had many adventures, some I recall had to do with fishing. The girls are the fishermen in my family; the boys never cared for it. One time we were at the cabin of a friend on the San Jacinto river, celebrating Easter with my cousin Doug and his family. My husband sat Karl down on the end of a pier and set him up with a rod and reel. On his first cast, Karl caught a crab. He screamed and threw the whole outfit into the river. His father sadly watched rod, reel, and crab float off down the San Jacinto. I'll bet Santa Ana was no less disappointed at that mighty river. Another time on the same river, different bank, we were all fishing (actually, I was reading - can't stand fishing) when a man down the bank started jumping up and down screaming.  A water moccasin was swallowing his line. Husband calmly got up, walked down the bank, used his pocket knife to cut the guy's line, and threw the snake in the river. We were all, except for the kids, thinking, "dumb ass."

Kristin was perhaps the most adventurous. One hot summer day when I was very pregnant with Katryn, Karl ran into the house, yelling in unintelligible gibberish. I kept trying to understand, so in frustration he grabbed my hand and dragged me out to the yard.  In the backyard was Kristin, hanging by one heel about 12 feet up in a large pear tree. Thank God for sturdy little baby shoes I could tie on her feet with double knots!  I was in no shape to climb 12 feet up in a tree. In fact, I had to go a few feet higher in order to dislodge her and get her into my arms. How I got us both down in one piece I'll never know. Simple relief that she was alive precluded any possibility of a spanking, but she did get a severe scoldng.

Katryn was the most curious. She was forever poking peas and beans into the ears and noses of herself and her siblings. Sometimes extraction required the help of a doctor. I think Karl was the only one who escaped these untender ministrations. I'm surprised she didn't become a doctor, though I think she considered it at one time.

Kurt was unquestionably the most mischievous, also curious, and the most willing to take a dare. Tell him not to do something, and he was bound to try it. We had a box full of Lhasa Apso puppies which he was warned to keep away from until their eyes were opened. I have a cute picture of him on the floor of my darkened bedroom with the box of puppies and an "uh-oh, I've been busted" look on his face. Another time I told him not to touch the Spam can I had just tossed in the trash. When I glance back to check, he had it in his hand, unwinding the metal coil, and his thumb had just been cut to the bone.  Needless to say, three blood soaked towels later, I called my best friend to come and get us for a quick trip to the emergency room with three other kids in tow.  There was a blood trail from the kitchen to the bathroom, and there was not time to leave a note, so when Karl got home from school, he ran screaming to the next door neighbor's house, thinking his entire family had been massacred. Kurt was also a little gullible, too. Once Kristin got him to eat mud pies by covering them with real chocolate frosting!

All things considered, they were pretty darn good little kids, grew up to be considerate, caring teenagers, and three of them are now sensible, responsible adults. I consider myself fortunate considering the day and time they grew up in - the advent of sex, drugs, and rock and roll combined.

Eyes are the Mirrors of the Soul

Today I'll talk about two people you might or might not know. The one in the first photo is me. I was 46 and I was auditioning for some plays and commercials that year. It's a head shot from my contact sheet. When we got married, Tom kept it on his night table so I was the first thing he saw in the morning, whether I was there or not.  The poem below he wrote about my eyes the year before he died.

ICICLE

Icicle, Icicle, burning bright,

light of mystery, light of delight.

What is the fire I see,

burning bright, burning true?

Do you love me, as I love you?

Can there be true fire in eyes so blue?

Hush, sweet crystal eyes.

I hold you now, sleep through the night.

Icicle, icicle – eyes that delight,

first green, then violet, then blue.

Will love that burns with such

sweet passion, stay forever true?

First you see me, then I see you.

I stroke your heart, and the fires flame.

Then they flicker violet, or is it blue?

If I should fall in love this night, I blame you.

Thomas Carmack Rice

This is Tom when he got his BA in playwriting and directing. You can't see those amazing, sapphire blue eyes, but you can see that wild, red hair! Below the picture is the poem I wrote about his eyes the same year he wrote the one about mine.

THOSE EYES

Those eyes have seen a lifetime of pain and hurt,

yet returned only kindness and understanding.

Those eyes have seen a world that looked so bad,

and still managed to pick out the hidden good.

Those eyes have seen the hopelessness in humans,

but found a way to give them a glimpse of hope.

Those eyes have seen my mind, my heart, my soul,

and joined lockstep in the eternal dance of love.

Karen Mabry Rice

George and Sophia

                                       Grandmother and Grandaddy Smith

                                                Two Sweethearts on a Rock

As I recently said, I’ve blogged about everything under the sun, and now I’m starting with my family. This is my grandfather, George Sidney Smith, and my grandmother, Sophia Kathleen Chastain Smith, sitting on a giant granite boulder at the Wichita Wildlife Refuge north of Lawton, Oklahoma. This picture was taken in the spring of 1916 when my mother graduated from Porter High School, just north of the Smith farm, and just south of Altus, Oklahoma. They loaded up the senior class (all 6 of them!) in the buckboard and drove the team to the Wichitas for a picnic. Grandmother fried the chicken and made the potato salad the night before. I’m sure Grandaddy took along a dutch oven and baked some sourdough biscuits. He was the master of sourdough biscuits, having begun his cowboy career as “Little Mary,” the cook’s helper. You can see they took their shoes off for the climb. Grandmother grew up wearing high button shoes and always had to have something with a bit of a heel. Grandaddy grew up wearing cowboy boots and had the same problem.

They met at the annual May picnic at the Doans Store, pictured above. The Doans crossing is where the cowboys forded the Red River to take their herds up to Dodge City, Kansas, to sell. Grandaddy had many stories to tell of the wild and wooly days of Dodge City. He didn’t like Wyatt Earp, having watched him pistol whip a cowboy nearly to death on Front Street. He didn’t like Bat Masterson either. The kindest thing he had to say about Masterson was that he was a whoremaster. He did have a great deal of respect for Marshal Bill Tilghman of the Oklahoma Territory.

The picture above was taken on the Smith farm, probably by my mother with the red Brownie box camera Grandaddy gave her for graduation. You can see Grandaddy was happy holding his fat grandbabies in his lap in his old wooden rocker. That solemn critter on the left is me. The happy lad on the right is my cousin Billy (William Charles Smith, Jr., named after his father, third of the Smith children. My mother was the second, and Aunt Opal the first.) Opal was the only one born in Texas, at the home of Grandmother’s parents, William Edgar Chastain and his second wife, Rosa. At the time, Grandaddy was the foreman of J. R. Sumner’s Rocking Chair ranch.

That’s all for now. I won’t bore you with more, because I’m writing their life story, and I’d like you to buy the book.

Karen Mabry Rice
Author of Ghost Walk
Soon to be published by
4rv Publishing, LLC
Of Edmond, Oklahoma

Yipppee-ayo-kai-yeah!!!

I've blogged about my pets, my family, just about everything in the world but the horses I've known and loved. The first photo is of me (age 2 1/2), my great uncle Charley Smith, and my grandaddy, George Sidney Smith. Uncle Charley was born in Saxony, Germany. His real name was Karl Wilhelm Schmidt. So was their sister, Katerina Schmidt. Grandaddy was the first person in his family born in America. Both of them were real, honest-to-God, working cowboys.  I'm sitting on Choklit, the brown and white pinto pony they bought for all the Smith grandkids to ride. Mamma wasn't happy. (she took the picture) Grandmother was happy. She loved to ride horses (side saddle!). Grandaddy, Uncle Charley, and I were as happy as three ducks in a room full of June bugs. I was just impatient and ready to ride with the wind blowing through my hair. The picture was taken in Uncle Charley's front yard in Wilbarger County, Texas. He was a widower who had married his boss's daughter, inherited the ranch, and struck oil before the war, so he could pretty much do what he darn well pleased. By the way, the photo was taken in 1945 when the war was almost over.

The next photo is well after the war. It was taken in 1949 when I was seven years old, and we are at the Altus, Oklahoma train yard getting ready to ride in the Fouth of July rodeo parade. Uncle Charley was always asked to carry the American flag in all the rodeo parades around. He was very proud of his American citizenship. He was naturalized during WWI, when they were killing so many Germans. Grandaddy bought a gun during that war for the same reason. A six-shooter, it was the first gun he ever owned. My cousin Monty owns it now. He inherited it from my youngest uncle, Carl, (named after Uncle Charley) who was too young to be in WWII. 

I was proud to ride in the parade with my Uncle Charley. I was born in Altus, Oklahoma, July 30, 1942. The horse we're on is named Silver. He lived to be 21 years old, and starved himself to death, grieving when Uncle Charley died in 1952. Horses are amazing people.
By the way, those hats we're all wearing are genuine Stetsons, and the boots custom made in Nocona, Texas.
Signing off for now,
Karen Mabry Rice, aka Min Cotton (the protagonist in my mystery novel Ghost Walk)
Soon to be published by 4rvPublishing, LLC, of Edmond, Oklahoma.

Canine Utopia

I'd like you to meet the newest member of our pack. Though lowest in the pecking order, Shepherd is a real top dog, and he knows it. He's a three year old purebred short haired Chihuahua.  A nice couple who live not too far away rescued him from an abusive home a few years ago. They are getting out of the Chihuahua breeding business, so Shepherd got to come live with us.  The shots below are of Shepherd and his buddy Freckles, whom you've met before. As you can't plainly see, they are both dressed to the nines. In the first pic they are napping on my sweater. In the second, the scarf is a hand-me-down from Freckles. I haven't had time to make Shep any of his own.

Freckles & Shep

Shepherd, the Manly Man



Those giant hands holding little Sheppie belong to my grandson, Ethan. Since he came to live with us we adopted Shep for him.  It wasn't the yellow Lab he wanted, but the dog food bill is a lot lower! LOL. Welcome to the pack, Shep.

Four Labs & a Tomcat named Trespasser

Howdy y'all!  That's "Okie" for "G'day, mate!"

And that's apropos of nothing except it's my day to blog about dogs and cats.
The first Lab I knew up close and personal was a guide dog for a blind girl named Kibby. She was a black Lab named Dolly.  Kibby was in my physical anthro class at OU, and we were lab partners.  It was an amazing partnership. I could "show" Kibby things she couldn't see with words, and she could show me things I couldn't see with words, but which she could feel when putting her small hands inside a human skull.  It goes without saying what a help Dolly was to Kibby, but she was the best "Lab" partner an old lady like me (I was 49 when I when back to finish my degree.) could possibly have.  Dolly was getting along in years herself, and the class was in a cold basement with a cement floor.  Dolly liked to sleep on my feet, and I appreciated the warmth, both physical and spiritual.

The second Lab I met was a yellow female named Ralph. The kids down the mountain who "owned" her named her Toto.  It just didn't fit, and she adored my friend Bill, followed him everywhere on his farm. He's the one who named her Ralph.  We were visiting on the occasion of my daughter marrying Bill's son.  One day we were all sitting out on lawn chairs smoking, drinking coffee, and eating cookies.  The only part of that social event my grandson, the Cookie Monster, was sharing in was the cookies.  He had one in each fist, and Ralph trotted by, helping herself to the one in his left hand.  Ethan immediately began to cry over that lost cookie. C'mon, he was only 3 1/2 and he was there to be the "ring bear."  He was deeply disappointed he didn't get to wear a bear suit.  He got over that when he found out he got to wear a cool grey tux just like uncle Blaine's.  He got over the loss of the cookie, too, when we assured he did not want one with doggie slobbers on it and magically replaced it with one just like it.  I don't know why I don't have a picture of either of them, but these two could be Ralph and Bear:

Bear was an abused pound puppy rescued by my grandson Ethan and his mom.  She was truly a loyal, loving creature who saved my grandson's life more than once.  As I mentioned in my post about Bubba, my Basset Hound,
my grandson was one of the smallest preemies ever saved back in those days. As a result, he's had sleep apnea all his life.  He was only on oxygen and a heart lung monitor until he was about two, but he would still stop breathing in his sleep.  One night, in the middle of the night Bear woke my daughter up barking insistently. Thinking the dog need to go out, Kristin said, "Okay, okay." But Bear wouldn't go past Ethan's room and insisted Kris go in there. When she did, Ethan wasn't breathing, and Kris had to revive him.

When I had sell to Mama's house, Kris and Ethan had to move to an apartment where they couldn't have dogs.  Bear came to live with Tom and I.
She stayed until I had to find homes for both Sky and Bear. They were just too big and Tom kept tripping over them. Once I had to call 911 to help me get him up off the floor.  So Sky and Bear went to live with our friend Sarah on her blackberry farm in Tennessee until Sarah got a divorce.  She gave Bear to her three grand daughters, who fussed over her and played "dress up" with her.  Last time I talked to Sarah, the girls' parents had just bought Bear her own yellow Lab puppy, and her heart's desire to be a mommy was fulfilled.  Sky had gone to live with Sarah's son Joel, a grad student in Boulder, CO, so he finally learned that Huskies DO like snow!

The last Lab is a sweet old girl named Dottie.  Like me, Dottie is a senior citizen.  She lives next door to my God daughter in Dongola, IL, where I started writing Ghost Walk.  Dottie loves to play ball, especially with a basket ball.  She'd rather watch someone else run down the hill and fetch it.  So, thanks to Dottie, I lost about 40 pounds while living there.

Trespasser 

 

This big ole marshmallow goes under a couple of names.  He doesn't belong to anyone, just to himself.  Carlene, my God daughter's neighbor, calls him "Papa," because when he first arrived on the scene his goal was to people the neighborhood with little replicas of himself.  After the first litter by another stray cat arrived, the mama cat died.  Carlene helped Papa care for the kittens, then coaxed him into a cat carrier for a trip to the neighborhood vet.

 

Mary Rae has four adorable cats, Pokey a long haired calico, Iesca a big black and white, Pancake a white cat, and Sparky a black cat. Pokey and Iesca are litter mates and don't get along well.  Pancake was a rescued cat, hit by a car on Hwy 51 near Dongola.  His jaw was broken and his tail bobbed.  Mary took him to the vet and he survived.  Sparky we found in the electric company parking lot.  She'd been abandoned one night in a driving rain.  Anyway, Iesca was prone to misbehaving when upset.  Once Pokey was particular mean to him, so he pooped in the kitchen sink.  Mary Rae tossed him out in the cold to ponder his miscreant ways.  Papa promptly beat the snot out of Iesca, and Mary Rae just as promptly let Iesca back in and dubbed the grey tabby Trespasser!

 

Trespasser loves to share meals.  One morning I was sitting on the back stoop eating a bowl of oatmeal with butter and brown sugar in it.  Trespasser stuck his paw in to beg for a bite, and was thrilled to find himself in possession of the entire bowl.  At noon he reciprocated by bringing me a dead frog.  I declined, but that didn't stop him from bringing me more frogs, once a baby bird, and once a shrew or a vole, I'm not sure which.  He's a love, and I'll miss him when I move back to Oklahoma.     

 



 

Tales of Three Cats

Hope this is readable. Today I'm using the "royal purple," because once again I'm blogging about cats - and we all know cats think they rule - and often do.

First a word about Charlie. I forgot one funny story about Charlie that bears telling. When Charlie was a kitten, he loved playing with toys on a string, or just a string. As he moved on into a rotund adulthood, he still loved to play, but wasn't as highly motivated.  One Thanksgiving, my younger daughter (yes, his rescuer) was over to visit.  I was tempting Charlie with a fluffy cat toy on a string. He rolled this way and that on his roly-poly behind, batting at it haphazardly while we all laughed.  She promptly dubbed him "Jabba the Hut!"

During my second marriage, my husband Tom and I were owned by three cats.  The first was Coffee, a little tortoise shell, with ideas of her own.  Busy with a full time job, a husband going back to college for a third degree (no pun intended - Tom was a retired cop), and a red Husky to care for, I guess I didn't get the litter box cleaned out fast enough to please Coffee.  That night, she climbed into the bed and peed on my back.  If the loud cursing while we changed my nightgown and the bedding didn't clue her in, Coffee had to know her days were numbered.  Within the week she found a new home with Wanda, the girlfriend of a rock musician who used to live with us from time to time. 

A couple of weeks later, we were shopping in Wally World.  You know how they cunningly display those appealing pictures of pets who need to be adopted near the pet supplies aisle?  Well, there he was - a purebred Siamese, neutered, named "Tom!"  I knew "Tom" was coming to live with us, and he did.  However, the name just didn't suit him. Tom had had a purebred Siamese named "Sammy" when growing up, so "Tom" became "Sammy Two."  Once we got him home, I did two terrible things to him, quite unwittingly.  We bought him one of those webbed cat collars which was way too long, so I nipped it off to a reasonable length. Unbeknownst to either of us, the damned thing was wicking up water every time Sammy took a drink, then when it dried it shrank until it was eventually choking him.  One day Sammy went missing. We looked all over the house, upstairs and down.  We even got Sky and the De Soto cops in on the search. At long last, I found Sky sitting in the basement, whimpering.  I looked up, and there was Sammy, perched in the basement rafters, unable to meow or even croak. I brought him upstairs, and we cut the offending collar off, doctoring his wound, which encircled his entire neck, with Neosporin.  He forgave us, or at least forgave Tom.

                                 Sammy, post dental surgery to remove the bad tooth.

To add insult to injury, when we got Sammy home, we discovered he only had two toes on his left foot. We never knew if he was born that way - Siamese are prone to foot deformities, but usually it's polydactily, not the other way around, or was the victim of a botched de-clawing.  Once Tom named him Sammy, I promptly nick-named him Sammy Two Toes.  He was not amused, in fact, he was downright offended.  He never forgave me.  Sam also had a lower canine that stuck out, giving him  an upside down sneer, a la Elvis. You know me - I couldn't resist. I called him Snagglepuss. He was also highly offended by that, but at least he had the good grace not to piss in the middle of my back!

When Sam reached the end of his days, about age 17 or 18, my younger daughter paid to have him cremated, and he's in the basement, in a plastic tub, in his pretty little urn, waiting for the move to Mountain Air, NM, a writer's colony where Tom and I intended to retire. Since we never got to make that move, as soon as I find Sammy he's going to reside in my shrink Ray's pet cemetery. Ray is a fancier of the noble Siamese.  

The final character in my litany of felinis nobilis is Larry.  Tom got the bright idea that I should have my own cat, though I was perfectly happy with my red Husky.  He adopted a lilac Burmese with china blue eyes named Ling.  When we got home from our second honeymoon, a trip which entailed picking up my grandson to spend part of the summer with us, they went to the vet and picked up my birthday present - Ling.  Well, Ling hated everybody and everything.  He wouldn't have anything to do with any of us.  Morty, the rock musician I mentioned earlier, promptly diagnosed the problem.  "The problem is, your cat doesn't like you, because you're calling him by the wrong name."  

                                                Larry getting a chuckle under the chin.


Knowing Morty sometimes appeared to be a few tacos short of a complete meal, I snapped back, "How do you know that?"  I shoulda known. "Because he told me so." So, of course I had to ask, "Oh yeah? So what's his real name?"  "Larry." Not wanting to offend Mort, we began to call the cat Larry.  And guess who became Mr. Friendly?  You guessed it.  We discovered a few things about Larry during his tenure with us.  One, he was a bit of an escape artist, which is probably how he came to reside in the pound.  One Sunday morning when chow was served, Larry didn't show up.  As in the case of the missing Sammy, we searched upstairs and down with no result.  I thought I'd take a look outside before calling the cops.  Sure enough, between the wall and our huge dog carrier on the front deck was a pitiful, chilled, very bloody Larry.  Apparently, one of the teenagers who speed up and down this street when school isn't in session, or one of the early arrivers at the church across the street hit Larry.

We weren't able to reach our vet, but found one 50 miles away who was willing to come in on a Sunday to treat our feline foundling.  He howled for 50 miles going and 50 miles returning. All he had was a broken leg and a lot of missing hide.  The vet set the leg, splinted it with a couple of tongue depressors, and wrapped it in gauze. Once we got him home, we discovered it was impossible to keep him from trying to chew the gauze off, so I rigged up a contraption consisting of an empty toilet paper tube fastened on with more gauze. Our gauze bill for the next four weeks was astronomical!

The six week recuperation period was the only time Sammy ever allowed Larry in the bed with us.  He allowed him to sleep between Tom and I.  Since Sammy was doing the fur hat number with Tom, Sky liked to sleep spooned up to me while I was spooned up to Tom, and my grandson's yellow Lab, Bear, liked to sleep on our feet, it was pretty crowded in that bed! By the way, Larry never tried to escape again.

We also discovered Larry was an absolute slut for shrimp. Sammy didn't care for them, he preferred his dry cat food. So when we had shrimp, Larry got the lion's share.  After Tom died, I started remodeling the house for a quick sale and a move back to Oklahoma.  I also decided I never wanted to clean another litter box again as long as I lived. Larry now resides with a friend of mine named Steve. Steve and Larry are great buds, Larry gets the occasional shrimp feast. He even goes outside to poop, and has never attempted to escape.  Go figure!

I know I said this would be my last post on felines, but on the next post, when I talk about Ralph and Bear, two of the most unique female yellow labs I've ever known, I'll also tell you about an adorable black Lab named Dottie and a feral tabby named Trespasser.

Fred the Alligator

I still have a couple of cats and a couple of dogs I want to talk about before I abandon this obsession of reminiscence about what my crazy old cowboy uncle used to refer to as my "livestock," but today seemed like the perfect, dreary day to talk about the most unusual pet my kids ever had.  One day my cousin David was fishing in a bayou somewhere between Houston and Galveston.  He came across an abandoned nest of alligator hatchlings.  The mother had probably been poached for illegal shoes and purses.  He couldn't rescue them all, but good old David decided my kids needed a new pet - like a cat and four dogs weren't enough?

He brought said creature over after the kids and I had gone to bed.  He and my husband decided the best temporary domicile would be our bathtub.  About 2:00 am I had to get up to use the restroom.  Eyes bleary with sleep and nearsightedness, I was totally unaware of my surroundings. Something to my left made a "s-s-s-s-s-ach-ach-ach" sound. I looked over and saw a prehistoric reptile rearing its ugly head in my bathtub.  I instinctively left my seat in mid-stream, literally, and landed on the cold tile floor.  I gathered my jangled nerves, cleaned myself up, found a fresh night gown, glared at the demon long enough to decide it would not be a long term resident, and went back to bed.  

 Next morning, the kids were wild with excitement - it was almost impossible to get them to settle down to breakfast. They couldn't get home from school soon enough.  I have no idea why, but they named it (gender undetermined) Fred.  There was no real emotional bonding on Fred's part, but the kids were entranced.  They dug up an old cat collar, and made a leash from a length of cotton clothesline rope.  For the next three months, Fred lived in an old washtub in the garage, and my kids were the sensation of the neighborhood, taking their alligator for walks on a leash.  Even the neighborhood bully was in awe.

Fred consumed a great deal of hamburger and rapidly outgrew his home. When it became clear that Fred was growing into something that would soon be looking at my kids as lunch, I demanded that David donate him to the Houston zoo.  Instead, David returned him or her to the bayou where it lived out its days being an alligator, hopefully never becoming a pair of alligator boots.  The kids mourned about an hour.  I think they had begun to realize Fred's carnivorous potential, and I mourned not at all.

Tomorrow has come and gone, but I've been busy, so posting about Charley the cat has taken a back seat.  Charley himself never took a back seat. There were things he needed in his world, and he persevered until he got it.  First and foremost was love.  My daughter, Dusty's mom, couldn't resist stopping by the pound on her way home from school one day.  She looked at every cat and dog, but poor, pitiful Charley was the one who reached out of his cage to paw at her and give a rich, deep wail that plainly said, "Please take me home witchya, babe.  I don't wanna die here in da slammer."

She did, and the first thing we discovered about Charley was that he had a seriously infected leg, possibly brought into the pound that way, or the victim of an encounter with another cat or a wild critter while he was on the loose.  My daughter called me at work, and I told her to take him to the vet.  Apparently, Charley thought the trip to the vet was a trip back to the slammer.  When they entered the vet's office, he struggled wildly to get away, and the pus filled wound exploded all over daughter's new skirt.  It was ghastly smelling.  The vet sedated Charley, cleaned the wound thoroughly packed it with antibiotic ointment, stitched it up, gave him a prescription for that sweet, pink amoxcylin my kids got when they were little, and daughter brought a groggy, somewhat mollified Charley home, but not without a little news from the vet.  

While he was still sedated, the vet had given Charley a thorough examination.  He asked, "How old do you think this cat is?"  She replied, "Maybe eight months to a year old."  The vet chuckled.  "No way.  He's still got his baby teeth.  I think what you have here is a purebred Maine Coon.  He's going to be a big cat."  Oh yeah, Charley topped out at 23 lb., and there was no coping with his appetite.  His favorite sound was the whir of the electric can opener, and you'd better not be in his way when he headed for the kitchen or you'd have paw prints up your back!

Once back home, with three attentive nurses to tend his wounds, Charley finally decided he'd found a home.  I liked to go out in the back yard on a weekend and relax with a cup of coffee.  One fine spring day, I was lucky enough to have a day off in the middle of the week, so I took Charley out with me and used Bubba's leash to hook him to Bubba's tie out screw by hooking it to his pretty blue cat collar with the bell on it.  He was in seventh heaven, prowling through the grass, chasing butterflies, exploring the spring jungle of dandelions and crab grass, when up the alley came the weekly garbage truck.  It made that horrible, loud clanking and crunching noise trash trucks will make when they pick up the trash.  Before I could even think, 'Oh darn, I forgot to take out the trash last night,' Charley had snapped that pretty blue collar and was at the bag door clawing and howling to be let in to safety.

Determined that my cat would not be the neighborhood chicken, I went straight to Wally World and bought him a leather dog collar and his own leash.  Whereupon we discovered he loved to go through the neighborhood for a walk.  We never tried to teach him to heel, he preferred to lead the way, whereas most cats will simply assume a prone position and dare you to drag them along the sidewalk, scraping off all their fur.

Charley did have his drawbacks.  He sharpened his claws on one of my  door facings so often he clawed his way straight through to the sheet rock, necessitating a facing replacement.  I detest having a cat de-clawed, but as a single mom rearing four teenagers alone, I could only afford so many facing replacements.  It didn't deter Charley in the least.  He used his back claws to climb the door facing and polished it with his nonexistent front claws for many years.  I could live with the puncture marks from the back claws.

When the girls and I were living there alone after he got his own apartment, my older son installed a Radio Shack burglar alarm for me.  Having run out of electrical tape, he made do with scotch tape on one splice near the door to my room.  One night about 3:00 am, the alarm went off, and the girls and I met in the hallway like a car wreck, looking for the burglar, who was as nonexistent as Charley's claws.  We finally figured out that Charley had brushed up against that scotch tape splice, and the static electricity from his fluffy, striped Maine Coon tail had triggered the alarm.  We slept the remaining few hours, and on the way home from work, I bought a roll of electrical tape.

With the boys' bedroom vacant, I rented it out to a college student who was majoring in Opera and working part time.  Joe was 6' 5'', wore size 14 shoes, had wild, frizzy red hair and beard, and with his schedule, seriously needed his afternoon naps.  Charley liked to tempt the devil and his own fate.  One afternoon, I had come home from work early. I slipped my heels off to rest a bit before thinking about supper.  Charley liked to sneak in Joe's room, leap on the bed, and bat Joe's beard around like it was a fluffy cat toy.  Suddenly, Charley came racing down the hall toward me at a pace that exceeded the well known can opener dash, followed closely by Joe's size 14s thundering after him.  Charley made it into the laundry room and hid under a pile of dirty clothes in the laundry hamper,  Joe grumbled his way back to bed, and I chuckled all the way through supper preparations. 

Everyone loved Charley.  My best friend Jacque was afraid of cats, but Charley wouldn't brook such timidity in humans.  He'd jump in your lap and pound his head against your chest, demanding affection.  Jacque finally succumbed to his charms, and to this day swears he's the only cat she ever liked.  One of my daughter's friends had no room for his male equipment between his chubby thighs, so it was not without justification that he dubbed Charley "the feline nut job."  The tech director of my community theater, Daryl, called him "Garfield in a grey flannel suit."  Perhaps due to his love of chow and his nutty behavior.  

I'm afraid I may have tempted fate once, much like Charley.  One of the guys who occasionally auditioned for our community theater was a local newspaper man named Charlie.  I read that women living alone shouldn't indicate that on their answer machines.  Charlie had a nice gravelly voice and a talent for accents, so I got Charlie the writer to pretend to be Charley the cat, from Brooklyn.  We taped this message, "Hiya. Dis is Charley. Da goils and I ain't home right now, so leave da message, and maybe we'll get back to ya, see?"  Sometimes my theater friends would call and hang up, thinking they'd reached the wrong house.  A few got up the courage to call back and leave a message.  Soon the rumor spread that Charlie and I were having an affair.  Apparently, Mrs. Charlie took it in good humor, because he never showed up sporting a black eye, and they stayed married.  

One Christmas eve, Jacque, Daryl, and his wife Cindy were at our house for egg nog, cookies, and a gift exchange. Charley nonchalantly stepped over a Christmas candle and walked along the back of the couch. I yelled at my daughter that the cat was on fire. She turned around and snuffed out his tail like it was a candle.  He looked at her (the very one who had rescued him from the slammer) with a glare that clearly said, "You bitch, how dare you pull my magnificent tail?" and stalked off never knowing she'd saved his life a second time.

There are many more Charley stories I could tell you, but frankly - I'm "pencil sharpening" to avoid the three new chapters I have to write for my book this weekend.  I will simply let you know that Charley lived to a ripe old age in cat years, helped rear my preemie grandson who is now a whopping 25 years old and a character in my book.  Both were well loved and cared for, and Charley is missed.

Miss Dusty from Durango was a half Corgi/half Dachshund pound puppy.  When I first saw her, I thought she was one of the ugliest dogs I'd ever seen. It didn't take more than five minutes to discover she had such a sweet soul and disposition and was smart as a whip.  She jumped up on the couch and sat straight up on her nubby little excuse for a tail, nudging me with her nose for some affection or a treat.  I promptly dubbed her my "granddogger," and a lot of people have picked that word up since - though I doubt it'll ever wind up in Webster's.  

Dusty's favorite treat was a small McDonald's hamburger, which I was always willing to buy her when I was in town. I've often wondered what I did to her health and felt guilty.  She was an amazing little girl, and ferociously protective of her mom.  She once chased a Rottweiler about 100 yards, so it wouldn't come near her mom.  Daughter and her hubby were going to college in Durango at the time. The college was on top of a mountain, and it was customary to give students walking up the road a lift.  They had four other people in the car when Dusty decided to quietly pass gas.  Soon, even though it was the dead of winter, everyone was choking, rolling down windows and looking for someone to blame.  Dusty sat there innocently, looking at hubby, who, of course, got the blame.


Dusty loved to go winter camping, no matter how deep the snow.  Once they were camped by an icy stream in a national park.  Daughter was trout fishing, and when she quit, Dusty thought mom was going off and leaving her. She jumped into the icy stream and was swept away. Daughter ran down the bank, encouraging her to swim.  At last she was able to jump ashore.  Even after being dried off and warmed thoroughly, she never fully recovered.  It was soon discovered she had Addison's Disease, probably from the muscles she pulled in her effort to swim ashore.  She was on medication the rest of her days.

While Dusty was always loyal to her mom, I can't say she was always loyal to me.  One fine spring day we were fishing at a lake above Durango, and everyone was doing what they did best.  Daughter was fly fishing for trout, Dusty was sniffing out real or imagined rabbits along the shoreline, and I was sitting on my little folding camp stool reading a good book.  I happened to look down at the water's edge and saw what looked to me like a bear paw print. I nudged my daughter and said, "Is that what I think it is?"  Apparently it was, because daughter with all her fishing gear and Dusty were sitting in the car at the top of the hill with windows rolled up before I could even fold up my camp stool and begin the uphill trudge.  Fortunately, the bear never showed up!

Despite her ailments, Dusty lived for 17 years. There are perhaps a hundred more stories I could tell about the amazing Dusty, but that's enough for one day.  Tomorrow, a few words about my favorite feline person, a Maine Coon named Charley.

Seems to be my week for dog blogs. I won't tell you about my favorite of all my dog companions.  He was a blue-eyed red Husky named Sky Hawk. You may read about him in my book, Ghost Walk, which should be out in August. 

I did, however, promise to tell you all about my purebred Basset Hound.  His name was Sir Bernard Kensington Paddington, but he was such a lovable doofus everyone called him "Bubba." I was a busy young widow rearing four teenagers alone, and my assistant buyer had to get rid of him, as he and his wife were going to have a baby. Actually, it was a two for one deal. They also had a small German Shepherd named Pepper my younger daughter fell in love with, so we adopted both of them. The photo below looks almost like him, but I was so busy I didn't have time to take any pictures. Of course, this one is photo-shopped. Bubba liked his chow, but he never owned a lunch pail.  Also you'd have to imagine his ears about two inches longer. He was always stepping on them!

I had a redwood chaise lounge which I liked to sit in of an evening and sip a cup of coffee while watching the stars come out.  Bubba would come running and leap into my lap. Suddenly my face would be slathered with wet doggie kisses as his big ole tail whammed between my feet. Bubba was not always good at coming when called, nor was Pepper. My daughter and I decided to enroll them in obedience classes.  It was great fun for my daughter, Pepper, and Bubba, but totally humiliating for me!

He did just fine with all the commands - sit, stay, heel, but when it was time to trot them around in circles while they were learning to heel, Bubba's short little legs just wouldn't allow him to keep up with the Rotweilers, Malamutes, and German Shepherds in our class. They would lap us three times.  Bubba tripping on his ears didn't help his speed any, either.  The other dogs and their owners, including my own daughter, laughed at us. Even Sherry, the woman who owned the obedience school couldn't keep herself from it. Bubba didn't mind. He just kept on truckin' until we finished our laps. I know my face was beet red.

I kept Bubba for several years, until my first grandchild was on the way. My grandchild was born three months premature and weighed 1 lb., 15 oz., so I knew right then I had to find a new home for Bubba.  One of Bubba's paws was bigger around than that baby's head! It turned out a girl who worked with me had an uncle who bred Bassets, had a ten year old son, and his little ranch was 640 acres. He knew the breeder who had bred Bubba, so he was willing to take the dog sight unseen.  Sir Bernard Kensington Paddington lived out his days at stud, swimming in farm ponds, and basking in the Oklahoma sun after playing with his boy.

Tomorrow or the next day, I'll tell you about my first "granddogger," Miss Dusty from Durango.

Hi, everyone.  Today I'm talking about Beagles and other dogs I have known, prompted by my friend Rebeca Schiller who blogged about humiliating her Beagle, Trumbo by posting his overweight picture on Facebook.  I've only known two Beagles in real life, and I didn't really like either one of them.  Neither did my daughter's long haired Chihuahua, but I did manage to humiliate him once.  I'll tell you about that shortly.

My first "Beagle" was a half Beagle, half Basset Hound pound puppy named Basil.  My daughters knew I wanted a Basset, so they rescued Basil from certain death in the pound.  Of course, I had to foot the bill!  From day one, it was apparent Basil had only two goals in life - to eat all the food he could find, and to escape from prison, i.e. my back yard with the chain link fence secluded by fifteen foot Arbor Vitae.  He loved the chase, and could only be bribed back into my car with an expensive cut of meat, like sirloin steak.  Basil lived with with us about two months.  The last time I saw him he was headed east through the woods, aiming for the golf course.  I waved, wished him well, and returned home to enjoy a nice supper of fillet Mignon,  small baked potato, and salad with a nice red wine.  I think I even toasted the little half bast - er, Basset!

The other Beagle I knew was a purebred named Hank, who liked three things - his chow, hunting with his daddy, Jerry, and escaping his nice chain link dog run to annoy the daylights out of all the neighborhood cats and my granddogger, Xoxchipili.  For some unknown impulse, Xoxchi had an unreasoning hatred of Beagles.  Every one he saw, he wanted to fight.  Since he only weighed five and a half pounds, I thought he had a serious weight disadvantage, but he didn't see it that way. Neither did Hank, a big, friendly doofus who just wanted to play. 

Once Xoxchi stayed with me while his mommy took a two week trip to California with a friend. One sunny afternoon Xoxchi  and I had lunch on the patio. I was editing Ghost Walk and Xoxchi was sunning himself in the cool October air.  I had Xoxchi's leash looped on one of those cast iron hooks used to hold a bird feeder in the garden.   Sure enough, here comes Hank, trotting down the driveway, his floppy tongue hanging out of his mouth, dripping drool as he looked for a playmate.  Xoxchi lunged after Hank so hard and fast that when he reached the end of  his leash, he took a couple of low, swinging arcs through the air before I rescued him.  Envisioning having to explain to my daughter how her dog hanged himself, I called Jerry to come pick up Hank, and only took Xoxchi out on a leash for bathroom duties.  That brings us to the story of how I humiliated him.

Once, he was staying with me in weather that was cold, wet, rainy, and snowy.  Bred for southern climes, aye Chihuahua, he hated to perform his ablutions in rain or snow, so I bought him a fur lined parka.  Problem was, the only color they had in his size was pink.  What the heck, I thought, dogs are color blind.  He ducked his head when the cats walked by.  I swear, they were snickering.  Day after day, he was reluctantly coaxed into the back yard.  Then one night we had "sneet," a mixture of freezing rain and snow.  He decided that "cross-dressing" wasn't such a bad deal, and gratefully, if not proudly wore his pink parka!  

Xoxchipili

(Aztec for "God of the Volcanoes."

It fit - he thought he was hot stuff!)

Settling down for a cuppa and a biscuit.

I did eventually get my purebred Basset Hound.  His name was Sir Bernard Kensington Paddington, but that's a story for another day, perhaps tomorrow.

Wow! I can't believe I haven't posted since just after Thanksgiving!  Yes I can.  Between editing my soon-to-be-published first novel, Ghost Walk, and rupturing a disk four days before Christmas, I can believe it.

Healing progresses rapidly, and I expect to be in physical therapy soon and swimming all spring, summer, and fall.

My daughter and I recently expanded our tiny family.  In addition to our King Charles Spaniel, Freckleface, adopted last October, we've adopted a senior citizen. Sunday a lady named Gizmo came to live with us.  Freckles is a military gentleman who likes to play dress-up. Gizmo is a part Yorkie/Papilon/Chihuahua. 94 in "doggie years," Giz likes her naps and her chow.  She is blind in one eye and can hardly see out of the other (cataracts), a bit hard of hearing, and likes having things her own way.  I'm still the Alpha bitch in this house, but Giz pretty much has the "life of Riley."  Her former owner passed away, and the elderly woman's son gave her two days to find a home.  Kristin and I couldn't resist her.  Photos below:

Gizmo

Sir Freckles