The Cats!!......

Beginning to remember what it was like to have two small creatures in the house. No, no, not Hoto (Hoto cleans up), nor Steph (Notes from inside my head))....although Sparx, with the spud, is reminding me of those days. No - now it is the ex-barn cats who seem to think they have died and gone to heaven - the kibble appears as if mana, the house is warm, there are no other cats to compete with, and the dog thinks they are little angels come to enhance her life experience. Ya, right. The net result is that the kibble is devoured at midnight or later (loud crunchy sounds) followed by a visit to the latrine (loud scratching sounds accompanied by the swish of kitty litter hitting the carpet at high velocity), followed by the necessary play time (thundering paws down the hardwood floors, along with the scrabbling effect when one goes around a corner too fast). The bags under my eyes are sagging further and further down my cheeks - maybe they will mistake me for a bloodhound and decide I am just another dog to tease....

Oh God, one of them has just found the stash of remotes on the side table and is distributing them around the living room....dumb dog, can't she keep two small kittens under control??

And, of course, we are heading into an Alberta winter, so the likelyhood of them going outside to play and get rid of all that feline energy is getting vanishingly smaller...

Maybe one of my clients will have a job for me in South America....

Finally it;s MY turn - REALLY mired in the bog

I really should have started this two days ago, but I didn't know how to blog - first boggy squelch, and I have been, well, exhausted, second boggy squelch.

With apologies to our son

It all actually began on Tuesday - our Nanton based buddies were coming up to lunch to do a trade - trees for lamb and manure, with some super tomatoes thrown in. And L remarked - "you were talking about cats - do you still want one, or two?" As the other half was hanging out somewhere else I said "oh yes, thankyou", so into the pot went a couple of barn cats...

They arrived in assorted plastic containers and L remarked that we probably wouldn't want the little one as it went completely berserk on being actually touched by human hands and bit through his heavy work gloves. The bigger of the two, (both as yet unsexed) was totally suave, sophisticated and at peace - he (was obvious at 12 weeks) sniffed noses with Sandy through his enclosure so we let him loose. Instant raport - rubbing and sniffing and when cat got up onto dog's favourite chair, dog merely wagged her tail. On the other hand the little one was placed into the bedroom to gain some sort of peace and quiet, whereupon it escaped up into the bedsprings and remained there for most of the night.

It was decided that I would sleep in the spare room with Sandy who was a bit overexcited, and B would oversee the kitties. It came down from It's perch in the springs to eat, copiously and we discovered that even an entire life (all 8 - 9 weeks) spent in a barn and running free across the yard was not enough to stop them from recognising the virtues of a dirt box. However, Sandy did not want to be cut off from her new friends and her adored master so she whined her way into her usual place, her bed at the bottom of ours. So with three animals safely in B's hands, I pulled the covers over my head and tried to sleep.

A loud scream issued forth from the master bedroom. I bolted into action expecting to find Sandy with a bloody face being attacked by half an pound of striped fur. I had left the cat box at the foot of the bed. Sandy had jumped up to grab a belly scratch and on jumping down to her bed, had landed on the edge of the catbox. After copious swearing, some of it actually imaginative, as when I trod in... no not necessary to go there. Sleep of a kind was restored and B left for work in the morning muttering "this was a bloody mistake", with me twittering and placating behind him. Luckily he never discovered the poops on the carpet.

Day two saw two cats exploring - it was hard to actually see them, I caught glimpses of tails disappearing under furniture. Heard scrunching kitty kibble but no kitties seen. I wanted to name them and came up with Jack for the elder one - as in "I'm all right Jack" as he indubitably is but as we still have not been able to pick up the little one so it is called Barneycat. They are both tabbies with some yellow in the markings and to cut a long story short, are settling in nicely.

Saturday morning: apart from being awakened by the thundering of tiny hooves up and down the corridor durng the latter part of the night, all is well today. Neither cat will allow itself to be picked up. Barnycat will not be touched, but FatJack is laid back about belly and ear rubs. It will take a while, but we will have two lovely cats and Sandy is delighted.

Visit to Victoria

Well, have been here a week now, came when mother was still in hospital. She broke her hip in a fall last Thursday. She was discharged from said hospital the following Wednesday - "no room at the inn" - in other words, no beds in the rehab ward for her, so home she goes..... no criticism of the actual care she received, the staff were great - just not enough of them and the ones on duty were run off their feet. Another example of a severely underfunded and understaffed health care system. When will our politians get off their butts, stop courting big business with their (often unpaid) tax dollars, and start thinking about the people who (perhaps foolishly) elected them? Why should our elderly people suffer for lack of decent care levels in a society as wealthy as ours? I was about to say that any intelligent politician...but of course that is an oxymoron. No, it seems that it is impossible to say it politely - the system sucks. And too many of those that are supposed to lead it also suck - greedily at the public purse.

Mortality...

So previous posts included items about the female half of this team going to Victoria to "Granny sit"...MY 99yr old mother has been staying with the brother and sister-in-law, and when they go away, someone has to be there...Well, the classic has happened, and mother is in hospital having hip surgery after a fall. At 99, what are the chances under a general anaesthetic??? So I began remembering the life of this lady...three sons, born 7 years apart (think - depression, world war two, separating the births). And part of it was raising the first two on her own - the father being away for nearly 7 years in the war. Plus she coped with a crusty old father-in-law during the war years. I remember her coping with various crises - scraped knees, yrs truly on a run-away tricycle down a steep hill in Oak Bay, the older brother nearly severing a thumb chopping wood, the younger brother breaking an elbow, yrs truly nearly having his Achilles Tendon severed...how on Earth did she cope? I guess the way every parent copes - with love, a strong stomach and everlasting faith. Makes some of our worries look pretty trivial. Nevertheless, even though one expects the worst when a loved one is 99, the actuallity is hard to take.
One hopes for the best - but, at 99, there can be few regrets. Just think - she saw the development of better cars, the advent of jet flight, the development of computers and the internet..and I am sure I have missed a lot of what she experienced. She was beginning to plan what she wanted for her 100th next February. May she achieve that goal.

Age creepeth on...

So the right hip was getting pretty sore, and the mobility was going downhill rapidly (this is him, not her...).

A visit to the doctor, a new x-ray, and lo and behold - a handicap sticker for the car.

Yahoo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Never knew how good it is to park so close to the store or the post office. That is, it would be really good to know if there weren't some other bugger (also with the sticker) ALREADY PARKED THERE! Hmmff. I could really get into the crusty old fart routine if I reallly wanted to. However, the privilege comes with a sad thought. In all my days I never thought I would join the league of the physically handicapped. I realise now that my body is not immortal (as we all thougth in our 20's), and all those days of leaping about the gym floor playing vicious competetive badminton had a price. Plus the joys of down-hill skiing (started at age 40) which, in retrospect, may have been a mistake. BUT I can say - "I did that, so I was lucky". So if anyone young is reading this (which I doubt), think carefully about those hours on the gym floor, those km's of jogging (another high-impact sport) and take care of those muscles and tendons.

You just may end up trying to park in the handicapped spot, only to find someone else beat you to it.