Life goes on in spite of it all.

 I woke up at 3:10 AM this morning missing my momma.  I am not good with dates and have to consult a book when pressed to put a time, place and date on any given event.  Seems like Bret was 3 or 4 years old when momma died and he is pushing 30 now.  I know Kenny has been gone almost 20 years.  And here I set!

I know God has a purpose for me, but I am not at all sure what it is!  Covid has us so limited in our lives that my volunteer work is pretty much out the window and the church is closed more than it is open.  Every where I go I wear my protective gear, race home and wash my hands and face.  Pueblo County is now the hot spot for the virus.  I have had my vaccination and am ready for my booster next week and the numbers just keep climbing.

It saddens me to see how little regard the populace has for us old people.  When I do venture out it is usually to Lagreese and back.  I hurry in with my list in my hand and grab what I need and scurry back to the car and home to my sanctuary.  I used to meet a friend at Starbucks and have a Green Tea Frapaccino or Latte, but I now go through the drive thru alone.  Life is not the same as it was 2 years ago.  For Christmas last year I received a $100 Starbucks gift card from a dear friend .  I have used it once.

Life is just easier living in the past.  There is no present and the future looks like it is going to be Republicans and Democrats fighting over who can spend the most money and do the least good.  The other countries seem to be pulling it together and controlling the spread of this virus, but we are so busy fighting about whether your rights supercede mine or vice versa.  I just want to go to Kohls and buy a couple new towels and maybe a bra, but I am afraid to venture that far from home!  And is Kohls still out there?

As the road before me gets shorter, the road behind me looks better.  There was a time when we helped old ladies across the street and picked kittens up out of the gutter and took them home.  There was a time when we gathered in the park for birthdays and played volleyball!  There was a time when I got a mohawk hair cut and went to the Eastside Safeway and the "gang bangers" smiled at me and gave me a thumbs up.  Not now.  Safeway was torn down a couple years ago and I do not even know if Louie is still cutting hair because I never see his barber pole turning, but then again, I never get to town to check.  Once a month I pick up my prescription at Blende Drug.  The rest of the trips are one mile North to Lagreese and one mile South back home.  Church is on Sunday, but it is not always open.

I do have a job taking supper to a man in town 3 evenings a week and that is nice.  We play a game of checkers after he eats and then I hurry home to put the geese to bed.  The cat is always glad to see me, but even she is on her downward spiral!  And I have to be alert around her because she bites!

So it is almost 4:00 AM and I am on my second cup of coffee.  Whoopie!  I noticed yesterday that the tin shed has blown full of leaves so when the sun comes up I will go out and sweep them out into a pile and burn them.  I mean if the powers that be are allowing burning today.  If not I will sweep them out and let them pile up some where else.

Maybe I will make cinnamon rolls today.  Maybe I won't.  While I moan and groan about my lot in life you should know that it beats hell out of the alternative!  And remember this: You can not sprinkle showers of happiness on other people without getting a few drops on yourself!

I heard that line of crap some where!

I got a doorbell and installed it just in case someone came by and I did not hear them knock, but Janet came and she said she rang it and I never heard it!  $30 down the crapper on that one!

There is more than one way to skin a cat.

I woke up this morning with the cat on my head.  Naturally, the first thought in my mind was one of mother's famous sayings:  "There is more than one way to skin a cat!"  Now let me go on record as saying, I have never skinned one; nor do I ever intend to do so but I have been known to flip the sheet so she flies off of me and onto the floor.  Trust me, she does not stay there.  I have had a lot of cats in my life and everyone of them has been devoted to me.  Well, mostly.

All of my cats have been Calico cats and so they were females, because all Calico cats are females, or so I have been told and it has been my experience.  I did at one time, have a male cat named Boots and I do not think he liked me at all.   He was a gray and white striped cat.  He was pretty much Kenny's cat.  I think Kenny always wanted a cat, because at one time he got a white Spitz dog and named it Kitty.  That dog did not stay with us very long and moved on to someone who actually wanted a white dog.  Except for that dog from hell, all animals that find their way into my home are here for the duration.  If you doubt my sincerity, you might want to take a look at the 8 geese residing in my back yard.  I do not even know how old they are.  My guess is about 16 or 17 years old because I got 3 geese when Bret was a wee lad and he now has a wee lad of his own.

Now I have Icarus.  I know Icarus was the little boy in mythology whose parents gave him wax wings and he flew to close to the sun and they melted, but I did not name this cat.  He was named by Sherman who liked the name and did not think anyone else was smart enough to know who Icarus was, but there you go!

But back to this cat skinning business.  Many years ago when I was in grade school and the body still bent, we had a Jungle Gym on the playground and one of the favorite things to do was swing by our arms  on the bars then do a thing called "skin the cat" which entailed pulling our feet up putting them behind your head and sort of turn ourselves wrong side out and then drop to the ground without breaking your neck.and not totally dislocating your shoulders.  As I write this, there are many things flashing through my mind.  One of which is the knowledge that we wore only dresses back in those days so when we were swinging on the bars and when we were turning ourselves wrong side out the perverted little boys were all setting on the ground watching us.  Holy shit!  How damn stupid were we?

Or were we naïve?  I am thinking naïve fits the bill a lot better.  I like to think that the days of sand and shovels were also the days of innocence and freedom. I do not know when the innocence ended for me.  Seems like about the second year of high school.  That was when I became friends with a girl named LaVeta.  Her dad made home brew and I really liked that.  She taught me how to shop lift.  I learned to dance.  I learned to smoke.  Life was good!  I dropped out of school in my senior year.  I ran away.  I broke into a gas station and stole the money out of the cigarette machine.  I had friends and what friends they were!  Sadly none of them showed up for court.  But on a good note, my downward spiral was ended at that point and I became a functioning member of society.  It was not until many years later that I became a respected member of the human race.  Which brings me to the lesson for the day.

"That is water under the bridge."  Been there.  Done that.  Sometimes the water under the bridge is low and just amounts to a stagnant puddle that just breeds mosquitoes and other vermin.  But that a clean rain falls and fills the creek and the puddle is gone.  Water under the bridge.  You can look at it and move on because in due time the cleansing rain will wash it all away.  Or not.

The bane of my existence is such a small thing.

As far back as I can remember I have been plagued by the dreaded mouse!  I hate them.  They are small, dirty little creatures that carry germs and poop on the counter. They can go into very tiny places and I read once that if they can get thier nose in a crack they can collapse thier body and slide through.  I do believe that.  My first recollections of mice as actual creatures in my world was when we lived on Strong Street.  I was probably 6 or 7, which is awfully young to be subjected to the rigors of mouse killing, but I was.  Mother opened the vacuum cleaner and there was a nest full of baby mice in there.

I must digress here for a moment to say this, never do I remember ever having carpet in any house we ever lived in and there certainly was no carpet on Strong Street for damn sure, so what that woman was doing with a vacuum cleaner is more than I can fathom.  I think she had it just as a large mouse trap, because that was the only time I ever recall it being in our home and why she opened it is definitely beyond my reasoning capabilities.  Back to the tale.

She handed the bag to me and some other sibling with the instructions to "Take those out on the front sidewalk and mash them with a brick."

I digress once more to interject that not only was the sidewalk in front of the house the front sidewalk, but it was also the only sidewalk any where around the house, or any of the neighbors houses.  For that matter it was the only concrete walkway on Strong Street at all!  It joined a flat concrete slab that was the front of the house that was cracked and falling away from the house, but it was, nonetheless, the front sidewalk.

I remember peering into the bag and seeing the tiny, pink, hairless mice in there.  Thier eyes were not open and they made a sort of squeaking sound.  As sure as there is a God in Heaven and a devil under the deep blue sea, I knew I was not going to mash them on the sidewalk.  I ran back into the house and pleaded with momma to let us keep them because they were so tiny and so cute.  I told her I would feed them and take care of them and they could sleep with me.  Needless to say, I was relieved of mouse mashing duty.

My house has a doggie door in the back door.  That is so the dogs can come and go.  It used to be big enough that I could crawl through  when I locked myself out, but over the years the size of my animals has diminished so that now it is about big enough for a cat.  Icarus has always been an indoor cat with out door habits which means I do not have the litter box to deal with at all.  What I do have to deal with is her eating habits.  Or her lack of eating habits.  I have been told that cats bring mice into the house to reward the owner for thier care and the cats know the owner is not smart enough to catch thier own food.  What ever the reason it seems that sometime during the course of any given day, I will be rewarded with fresh food.  Cat brings it in and bats it around until I notice that my dinner has arrived and then she stands back and waits for me to eat!

Ah, but I am wiser and faster then that damn cat!  I have 2 of those long handled pinchers that are used to pick something up off the floor that I have dropped.  I have become quite adroit at reaching down and snapping up the mouse, taking it to the back yard and flinging it over the fence into the field where it will be safe (broken ribs and all.)  If  I happen to look out my back window and see her coming across the yard with a treat for me, I slide the doggie door in place.  Cats are not very bright are they?

My doggies are getting old and I fear I will not have them too much longer.  I am getting a little older myself so I have decided when these animals are gone, they will not be replaced,  As it is, if I dropped dead tomorrow, they could never adjust to the real world.  But that cat is going to outlive me sure as the sun comes up in the morning.  When the dogs are gone, I think I will eliminate the doggie door and get Icarus a litter box.  Not sure how that will work, but I am getting too damned old to catch mice!

Home on the range.

This is my garage from the backside of the property.  Looks rather peaceful if I do say so myself.

This is Icarus surveying her kingdom  

Her kingdom includes these geese.  They are supposed to be mean, but they do not know it.  I can actually pet most of these.  Only one likes it though.

These are sunflowers behind the garage.  There are very tiny birds that inhabit these and eat something off them.  I think it might be ants since that is all I have seen on them, but I suppose mosquitoes also might be on them. Sunflowers always make me think of Kansas and thinking of  Kansas always makes me a little homesick.  I do not know why because there is no way I could ever go back to the little house on Strong Street.  And if I could, those were days of abject poverty that I would never wish on anyone.  Of course they were part of what made me who I am today, so it is all good.  

I thought I might ought to burn the pile of limbs from the Apricot tree, so I called in and lit the pile.

Whoops, better go take care of that little wound.

 So I finish my morning  having a cup of coffee on the deck.  Life is sure good here on my little acre.  I know sometimes I don't sound like it, but I do love my life.  Gets to be a lot of work sometimes, but isn't that what life is all about?  Put one foot in front of the other and just keep plodding away.

So from my house to yours, and my heart to your heart, keep the faith because God really is good and he does have a plan for us.  It may not look like it at times and it may not feet like it most of the time, but he does have you and me brother, in his hands.

click here to listen

Yes a cat on my lap is rather a handicap!

This is Icarus.  She is setting on the chair beside the computer.  I keep it there for her.  It is her chair.  She like to set and watch me work.  But she soon becomes bored and wants to set on my lap.

Ever try to type with a cat on your lap?  It is not easy.  It can be done, but she does not like me to let my attention wander from her.

Life is boring for a cat whose sole goal in life is to spend time on me 24/7.  In bed it is my shoulder.  Nap time in the chair it is my lap.  Usually the only way to get her away from the keyboard is to print something at which time she has her paw firmly implanted in the place where the paper comes out.  

So very soon she is in the middle of the keyboard which makes life rather difficult for me since I can not see either the key board or the monitor.  I do pick her up and firmly place her back on her chair which solves nothing since she is like a boomerang and is right back on the keyboard on my lap.

 Right at the moment I do not know where she is.  That is scaring me!  But I am just going to type real fast and hope for the best.