Streetcats

I'm currently drinking my morning, home-brewed Starbucks and watching one of the neighborhood street cats woof down some chicken I put out on my patio. I can't see details, like whiskers, but she is a pretty cat, white with beach sand-colored splotches - the perfect look for a Galveston street cat.

Oreo is sitting next to me, watching curiously, probably wondering why this cat gets fresh chicken while she only get Rx dog food with only a smidgen of chicken for flavoring. She doesn't understand that eating that plate of chicken would end with her going to the dog hospital. She's had stomach and bladder stone issues since a baby and only gets Rx food.

The cat finishes and moves on. My experience with neighborhood street cats has led me to discover something quite amusing - they are quite persnickety in their dining habits. For the past two weeks, I've been putting down bits of leftover rice and boiled chicken. Each night around 5:30, my sandy colored street cat friend comes visiting and gobbles up the offering. 
Yesterday, I got the idea that I could feed more cats and provide more nutrients if I put down cat food instead of chicken. I bought a bag of Purina Cat Chow, placed a mound of these healthy brown pebbles on a blue plastic plate, and waited.

First, a big black tom cat jumped up, strutted over to the dish, and sniffed. He quickly turned away and left. "Nope, not going to eat that stuff!" 

Next, my sandy beach cat arrived to see what was on the menu. She sniffed at the crunchy brown substance, glared at me through the sliding glass door, and almost appeared to roll her eyes. She turned, stormed off, and flicked her tail at the "flies" in the dish. I guess I got told!

When I woke this morning, there was the cursed cat food, still sitting forlornly on the blue plastic plate. Not even a rat came to dine!

Like an obedient wife for an overbearing husband, I replaced the scorned manna from heaven with chicken. Lesson learned. The neighborhood street cats have formally decreed, "We street cats have class. Do NOT feed us rat food." 

In truth, I'm a spoiled street cat as well. Give me breakfast at Blake's or lunch at Truluck's, but do not feed me "rat food" from a fast food restaurant. Maybe that's why I love my street cats so much. We are soul mates at heart.

Excerpt - The Landlord (A Chapter from a Mystery I'm Writing)

This is an excerpt from a mystery I’m working on – very slowly! As background, the story is about a woman who moves to Galveston to be near her daughter as she takes care of her husband with dementia. Hmm, does that sound familiar! After placing him in a nursing home, she needs more income; so, she starts a Professional Organizer business. A murder occurs in town, she ends up accused, and then she has to solve the murder before she gets arrested and put in jail. It’s just a fun thing I work on when the muse hits me. I love mysteries so this is my favorite kind of writing. Here goes. . . 

As I put the last of the groceries away, I hear heavy footsteps climbing the stairs. 

“Oh crap,” I say as I spot my landlord, Alec. Oreo barks, jumps up and down and runs around in circles, while I quickly pick up dog toys, newspapers, and coffee mugs before opening the door. “Alec, what do you want,” I ask?

“I need to discuss your lease,” he says, pushing his way through the door. I roll my eyes. Typical for him; he pushes his way through life.

Alec picks up Oreo and tosses him off the lounge chair, thumps his butt down, and reclines his feet up.    

“How about some coffee,” he demands. 

You might think I’m his housecleaner, I say to myself as I pop a Starbucks pod in the Kuerig.

“Cream and sugar,” I ask?

“Nope, black,” he says. “Got anything sweet to go with it?”

After he’s comfortably settled with coffee and a chocolate chip cookie, he pulls out a lease and tosses it at me.

I scan the five-page, size-8-font document and jerk my head back with a loud “What is this?”
Alec swallows his cookie practically whole and drinks off the top of his coffee with a loud slurp. “What is what?” he asks, wiping his hand across his mouth.

I notice a chocolate chip fall on his designer jeans, but I’m not concerned about that. I’m too distraught at what I see in the lease. My hands are shaking as I say, “You raised my rent $200 a month!”

 “Inflation,” he says. “Everybody is dealing with inflation these days and landlords are no different.

“But you haven’t fixed the rotten door jamb or my dishwasher or the holes in the bathroom ceiling.”

“I fixed your door jamb, just last week,” he says with a snarl.

“You nailed the broken pieces back into place! That’s not fixed. All you did was prevent the rotten pieces from falling down.

“It worked, didn’t it? Besides, I’m going to remodel this place eventually.”“What about the dishwasher?” I ask.

“Your dishwasher works. I ran it through two cycles and every cycle performed exactly as required.”

“Sure, it works, but it doesn’t clean my dishes! I have to scrub them clean first or they come out as dirty as they go in. That’s not fixed.”

Alec grabs his mug, lifts it towards me, and says, “I’ll have another cup.”

I grab the cup and head back towards the kitchen as he yells after me, “And don’t forget the cookie. It was a bit stale, but it’s better than nothing.”

By this time, I’m fuming, but I get his damn coffee and cookie and sit back down. I return my attention to the lease and notice he also increased the lease to two years. “What the hell is this,” I say, pointing to the lease. “Two years! You expect me to sign a two-year lease for this hell hole?”

Alec takes a big slurp and sits back in his chair with a smug grin. “This is beach property, lady. I could be making thousands a month if this was an AirB&B. I’m doing you a favor.

“AirB&B! That’s a joke, right? No one would rent this place as a vacation home. The walls have holes in them, the floor is warped, carpet is stained, stairs are breaking, the outside hasn’t been painted in God-knows when. You can’t be serious!”

“I’m serious. Now are you going to sign the lease or what,” he finishes his coffee and begins to get up. Oreo sits back on her haunches and growls up at him. 

I begin to analyze the options in my mind. Not many, I admit. I’m paying an enormous amount to keep Richard in Assisted Living. I couldn’t keep him home any longer. He was falling down and wandering. 

At 250 pounds, there was no way I could lift him, so I was calling the ambulance on a regular basis to help me get him up. He began to wander out of the house and then forget where he was. Luckily, I say this tongue in cheek, he’s visually impaired so he doesn’t have a driver’s license, or he probably would have had silver alerts as well. 

My children, Crystal and Cameron, insisted it was time to place him in a care home. The only one on the island I could afford was close by, but not the best place for him. It has no memory care. I really need to get him into a place with memory care but that costs even more money.

All this is going through my mind as I ponder the lease in front of me.

There is nothing on the island that is this cheap, even with a $200/month increase. I just can’t afford to move right now. I’ll have to cut back more on groceries and whatever else I can think of, but at least I can still be here on the island with Richard and the kids. I’ll have a roof over my head, even if it does leak now and then. Better than being on the street. I don’t want to have to compete with Ron on 61^st and Broadway! 

“Fine,” I say, grabbing a pen from my desk. “I’ll sign your lease, but at least fix the hole in my bathroom ceiling.” I scribble my signature across the lease and hand it back to him.

“Sure,” he says as he pushes off of the recliner and waddles his 300 lb frame out the door. “Next week. I’ll take care of it next week.”

I shut the door after him and blow out a big breath. Exasperated is mild for what I’m really feeling. How am I going to pay for this and assisted living, too?

Prompt of the day: Frost and Irascible

This is my birthday month - I'll be one year closer to that "three-quarters of a century" mark which happens next year. Like frost on the ground, my hair is much whiter than it was a year ago. Is that because I'm older, wiser, or more stressed? 

Age mellows people. I'm definitely less irascible than I was in my 20s or 30s. I wonder why that is? Could it be, because as I age, I realize I don't know it all; and therefore, there is less to argue about? Or could it be because I realize my time is short, so why waste it arguing? Or, maybe it's because I don't have the energy to spare! Arguing raises the blood pressure and wears out this feeble machine I live in.

I believe it's all of the above. Being irascible takes too much energy, takes too much time, and only proves I don't know it all. Instead, I will simply settle myself down, gently, like frost floating down on a beautiful lily, and live one year longer! 

A New Year and A New Start in Writing

I know I said last year that I was ready to start blogging again, but apparently there was more that I needed to get through before I got there. With friends and family support, I believe I am ready to try again. 

It's been a difficult year with placing my spouse of 54 years into a memory care home an hour away from me. Many bad days during the adjustment. However, while going through this, I began writing about my experiences and sharing them with others. It is therapeutic for me and helps me to process the everyday problems that come up when dealing with Alzheimers.

During this time, my writing gals and I got together and wrote whatever came to mind. Writing became fun again. I found myself exploring my desire to write a cozy mystery. I played around with writing about life in general. Some of my articles were funny, sarcastic, heartbreaking, and even educational. So, I decided it's time to share my writing online once more. I don't know what I'll write about, but here goes. . . 

Day Trip

Last week, my husband Bill, Oreo, and I went on a day trip to Shiloam Springs, Arkansas. I wanted to visit the scrapbook store there called, Creative Corner on Broadway. We had a wonderful time!

On the way there, we stopped at Natural Falls State Park. What a beautiful park! There are all kinds of walking trails there from easy ones for strollers to the all-terrain trail of Dripping Springs that take you back to the falls.

The trails to the falls were nice, sometimes with boarded bridges:

At the end of this trail, it leads down several hundred feet to a waterfall:

It was cool and beautiful here. From there, we took an even more rustic trail around to a "lake" and back. In some places, the trail was climbing rocks! In addition, there were several steep climbs, not an easy trail. 

BRING WATER! I decided to do the trail a 2nd time and left Bill at the top. On my way down, I got dehydrated and almost passed out. Lucky for me, a nice couple came by and gave me some of their water! 

After our hike, we stopped for lunch (and met the couple who rescued me!). Then we went to the scrapbook store. The owner there was extremely helpful. I told her I wanted to make a mini album for a friend's baby. I picked out some super hero paper and she patiently explained what I needed and how to do it. If you live near this store, you must visit. She is a gem! 

I thought I'd add a photo of my finished product so you could see the results:

All in all, it was a fun day! 

Did I tell you that I got a dog?

I've always been a cat person. Since the time I got married in 1970 until now, we've always had cats. (I did have one dog, but it was when I had little babies and I honestly don't remember "having" a dog.) We always had a pair of cats, at a minimum. Sometimes, we had three!

Two years ago, my husband's cat died. We discussed it and decided that after mine died, we would quit having pets so that we could do some traveling. Unfortunately, my daughter wasn't in on the conversation, and before you know it, she brought over a small baby kitten for my husband. He couldn't say no.

Eventually, my cat died. I decided that since Bill has a young cat, I might as well get one too. So, I went out and bought a cat from the local pet shop. He was just plain mean! He didn't like me and I have trouble liking him. I finally got mad and decided to go out and get a 3rd cat just for me.

I made the rounds to the various pet shelters and shops and decided that the one I saw at the first place was the one I wanted. But, when I got back to the shelter, there was this cage full of the most adorable puppies I have ever seen. I had to have one!

I brought home Oreo. She is a Shitzhu-Jack Russell mix and what a joy! I am now a converted dog lover! She is my pride and joy. I've had here over a year now, and I can't imagine life without her.

One of my best days yet!

Today was a special day for me. I've been ill with the flu and had to find a substitute for my classes.  How excited it was to turn to my own daughter, Shelly, who has a Master's Degree in English, to take over my classes!

So, she did what she does best - she taught them a bit about Shakespeare. Next, she had them act out a portion of Star Wars in Shakespearean English. Finally, she had them write Get Well notes for me using what they learned. How much fun I had reading these notes! Here's two samples (some of them were pages long!):

"Hello thither, Mrs. Downes, I hearth thou hath fallen ill. Thou not weepeth, Maddam, for we be not shrewd in your absence. Thy daughter hath best us to learn greatly. Hark, we hath, and fain too. Cowish we hath obeyed thy spawn beautifully. I hopeth thou lurch over your illness and thou returneth soon. Alex"

"Harken unto me thither instructor. Word through the grapevine is that thou hast been bent by a cowish disease. Fie! To this abomination! Castest it out and returneth post haste. Joshiah"

Shelly had to give me a Shakespeare dictionary so I could interpret the letters! I sure am proud today of both my daughter for taking on all six of my classes and doing such a good job, and also of my students for being the best students in the state of Oklahoma!