Chipmunks, Bunnies, Spiders and Snakes

While I know there are many small animals around here, we do not see many due to the hawks and eagles.  Any small animals that we see, I am sure that the large birds see as well.  (Mice are the exception; we are plagued by mice.) But this year is different and I do not know if this is good or what.

It started with a chipmunk.  This is the first year that we have seen one and it is a brazen little thing, sitting on our root cellar structure and looking into our laundry room/office window.  Drives the cats crazy.  We put out food scraps - it loves fruit.

Then, bunnies started hopping around the back yard, eating the 'rabbit ears' grass that grows there.  (I have no idea what kind of weed or grass it is, but my mother called it 'rabbit ears' because it looks like that.)  These bunnies have very little fear (like the dust bunnies in the house!) - we can walk within 4 feet of them before they hop away.  We have one that sits on our car parking pad and dares you to move your car closer.  I have heard my husband honking his horn and waiting to park his car because the bunny is there.  This bunny joins a select group of animals with attitude that we have up here.  Deer, turkeys, bear and now bunnies stand in the road or whatever and I can swear they have the look of "What, I should move for you?"

I do not notice many hawks or eagles or other birds of prey this year.  This explains the small creatures, I guess.  Maybe it is too warm and the birds went farther north.  I notice we have more song birds this year as well.  Nice to be serenaded at sunset.

Every year we do get a lot of spiders, living in the woods as we do.  But this year is ridiculous.  I find myself turning on lights and checking the ceiling for nests and webs, especially in the garage.  Large webs and spiders appear overnight outside next to the house.  Impressive webs, but yuck!  I know, they keep the gnat and fly populations down, but it follows there are a lot of gnats and flies in order to attract this many spiders.  Either way, bug repellent and constant clearing of webs outside are our ways of coping.

And now, snakes.  There are snakes up here, outside, in the woods, near water, etc...but - not in the bedroom, right?  Our little Fancy has caught three snakes so far in our bedroom!  Little, non-poisonous, but they are snakes and creepy nonetheless.  My husband flushed one, I flushed one, and the other night he went running by me to go the back door to throw out another one.  Might not have thought anything of his running by, telling me to ignore him, if he had not dropped the stupid thing in the middle of the living room!  I screamed, and he asked me why the scream.  Hey, I'm a girl - girls do that.

Time and Inclination

I am not going to apologise for not posting, as I guess I just did not feel inclined to do it.  Not an attitude, just no concrete reason.  Time moves on and the realization that a year has gone by escapes me.  Also, every time I opened the blog, I saw the last entry where we had so much sorrow over losing our 'children' and I would just close it up and walk away - or play Solitaire.  I lead an exciting life!
We are looking to adopt another - or a couple - of new cats again.  So many need homes and we have so much love to share.  Not to be fatalistic, but most of our cats are over 10 years old, so it appears we are preparing for the inevitable.  And I like to think we need some new life in here.

My husband and I celebrated 30 years of marriage in June.  When we made the 25 year milestone, I thought we would surely do something spectacular for 30.  We didn't.  We just made a little 3 day trip over to Mystic, CT - a place we have never visited, but passed by - and we had a lovely time remembering why we still love and care for each other.

take us with you on your trip

I am no longer working, for personal reasons. My husband is very understanding and (knock wood) is doing well with his job and enjoys it.  So I am waiting for my pension to kick in the month after I turn 60 next year.  Yes, I fret with every news story about pensions and the effects of the economy.  And yet my husband has a hard time getting people to apply for a job at his place - go figure.

Home improvement is still an issue with our older house.  It seems like every time my husband has a few days off, we are working to repair, place or embellish something around the house.  The present need is our shower pan.  We purchased a special, half-round shower for our front bathroom and the pan has developed a crack and a leak.  Of course, they no longer make that version of the shower, a replacement pan is unavailable, so we have been trying many different things to patch the surface.  I hope this last repair, involving epoxy and fiberglass and sanding and more resin and hardener works.  Good thing we have another bathroom. 

After this repair is complete (oh, please!), we move on to the other bathroom to replace the toilet.  My husband is an expert on toilet replacement - he has done many of them at the various places we have lived and has done a complete install in 15 minutes flat.  The power of need, if you will.

What Happened?

I have not posted in a while, I know, but I did not realize it has been over 6 months! Things got away from me, I guess. Thank you for not hounding me about this.

Last couple of months have had a few changes. I was laid off from my job, which is pretty big. I still work, now as a personal assistant, but still, a change.

My husband has a new job, one I think he really likes and likes him. He has had a few of those - jobs he liked - but circumstances beyond his control take away the opportunity. The best was the newspaper for which he was selling advertising space folded - end of job! He was doing well - they were not.

On our kitty front, many changes. After all, our cats are a part of our Pocono Life, so when these things happen, we are deeply affected.

We lost Star - a little girl cat who woke one day unable to stand up and when she did, could only walk in circles. Very scary to watch. We rushed her to the vet, who diagnosed her as having a form of inner-ear abnormality and showed us the office cat with the same affliction. He said she would get used to it and live many years, but she was so terrified of what was happening to her - you could see it in her eyes. Two hours after we got back from the vet, she died in my husband's arms. I think the changes were too much for her little heart and she could not take it.

Next came Scottie, who was older and had not been happy since Ike passed. He died quietly in his sleep.

Then, Sunshine, who was being treated for hyper-thyroidism for the past year. She was so skinny at the end, but had the heart of a lion, never giving up. Sunny came to us as a 2 week old kitten, abandoned by her mommy cat in our backyard, on the first day of summer, laying in a sunbeam. We bottle-fed her and made up a box for her, but her motto was "You cannot hold Sunshine." We eventually had to progress to a refrigerator box; when she escaped that, we knew she was ready to be a part of the group.

Sunshine would allow you to pet her and hug her as long as you did not pick her up. She was a princess and had to be in control. I knew it was time to give her peace when she lost control and allowed us to hold her and carry her around on her last day. The vet was amazed that she lived as long as she did when he gave her her release. It was the first day of summer, 12 years after we found her.

The hardest one for us has been Little Bear. He actually died a week before we had Sunshine put down. We think he had a massive coronary. We love all of our babies, but Little Bear had a special place, particularly on our bed, next to the headboard above our heads, where his thunderous purr would soothe us to sleep every night. This was important to my husband as he went through a year of chemotherapy. After his weekly shot, my husband would feel very cold, but would be sweating profusely (cold sweats). Little Bear made a point of sitting on my husband's head to keep him warm until he would fall asleep - summer, fall, winter and spring. He showed he cared, I believe. The night Little Bear died, he was particularly affectionate, holding my head between his paws, which he had not done since we first adopted him. I did not know why. I found him the next morning on the floor.

So we have adopted some new kittens - Sweetie, Fancy and Guy. I think we needed some energy in the house, and now we have it. We still miss our passed babies, and we are not replacing them, but these little creatures needed a home and we needed the love.

Brophy - the Building and the Cat

My first job for 'The State' was to train employees how to work with the Mentally Retarded clients at a state institution. Three weeks after I started, I was training new employees how to work with the Developmentally Disabled(DD) clients. Better term for sure, but that should have been a clue of how things would go working for the state - same job, different name.

Not that I was really qualified to train anyone, let alone discuss the challenges new employees would face working with a DD population. I took a Civil Service test and came out #3 - so I was hired. Fortunately for me, we did not have any on-going staff development for the first 6 months after I started due to a disagreement between my supervisor and the institution administration. So I read manuals and books and talked to everyone about what I should know.

The first class offered was new employee orientation - some of these 'new' employees had been there for 2 years! - but I was to sit in our the training to fulfill requirements and learn how training was done. Two hours in, one of the instructors was unavailable and I was told I had to train the class. That class was "Life/Sex Education" - a class to acquaint new employees with how the clients at the institution dealt with sexual issues. The crux of the class was the clients were adults and should be treated as such, especially when they used all the different slang for body parts and functions. Yep, trial by fire!

Settling in, I discovered I enjoyed the job. It was very trying and a little intimidating, but the time I had when I first started helped. Truly learning as I went along, I had my own office and developed friendships and was treated with respect - mostly. Some people thought I was silly and not serious, but I found that my trainees remembered what I was showing them if I could wrap it up in a funny bow.

This all leads to Brophy. Brophy was the name of the building I worked in. The building was over 100 years old and had all the charm an institution could muster, which was very little. Still, I came in one weekend, painted my office, brought in some old chairs and wallpapered one wall with the brightest wall paper I could find. It was very comfortable and a refuge from the rest of the world. I got in a little trouble with our union painters, but they reasoned that they did not want to paint our offices anyway and let it go.

After one of my classes, some of the employees came in and told me of a little kitten caught in a bush outside. I was amazed they came to me and did not handle it, but they knew I loved cats and would be the one to save the kitten. So I went outside the front of Brophy building and extracted a little black kitten from the rose bush - now I knew the real reason why they came for me. Scratched from the bush, I brought the little kitten inside. I knew I did not need another cat at home, and we already had an office cat, but my boss (a new boss, not the one who did not get along with the administration) said for me to keep him in my office.

My new assistant would play with anything that moved, answered my phone (hard to explain the 'mew') and followed me when he was allowed out of the room in between classes and cried when I was not there with him and he could hear my voice. I tried many different names for him, but he always paid attention when the name of the building was mentioned. So, he became Brophy.

Fairly soon after Brophy took up residence, I was transferred. What was supposed to be a 'temporary' reassignment became a permanent move to another department within the state. Brophy now had to come home with me and get acquainted with the cats in my house. The minute he was put down, he jumped on everyone and basically told them he was in charge. That went well, except for one little girl kitty in the house who told him otherwise. He avoided her for all the time they were together.

Brophy had a personality and was very smart and opinionated. He was accepting of anything I did to him, but he told me about it anyway. He rode well in the car, he loved going to our cabin, and he hated leaving that cabin, showing his displeasure by defecating in his box - every time!

Last week he lost his year-long battle with kidney disease. For this past year, he let me inject him with fluids, he let me give him the medicine and he made sure to sit on my lap every night. But last week I came home and he was unable to control his bowels and bladder and I knew it was time for him to go. He looked at me with those big yellow-green eyes, the same way he looked at me the day I saved him from the bush as the vet gave him his release.

A fine cat.

I got a Job

Again, have not posted in a while, but I have a good excuse. I got a job. I was not looking for a job, but now I have one. As my new boss says 'you are way over-qualified' to which I reply 'Don't hold that against me.' Good start. Still, innocently enough, I saw one of those tear-off ad papers posted in one of our local diners that said: "I need someone to work out of my home to help me with my business. Must know Excel, Word and PowerPoint..." I showed my husband the posting and said: "I can do that." He replied: "Yes, you can, if you want to." So I took one of the tear-offs and researched the number through Google and she was legitimate - East Coast Marketing Director for a major US manufacturer of floor care products.

Here is where it got more interesting. When I called and told her that I had researched her and was interested in applying, she said, 'Oh good, I am looking for someone mature to fill the position.' How old is my voice?

So when I was "interviewed," I think I was already hired. Maybe she ran a search on me? She wanted to know when I can start, told me what I would do the first day, said she would give me a key to her house, and its a shame she has to tell the young lady waiting in the living room that she hired me.

So I am her Administrative Assistant, but she gave me the title of Assistant Manager. I have a key to her house, my own office in the lower level of the house, and I get a raise after three months and can go to possibly full-time in 6 months - if I want it. Right now I work 20 hours per week and I am tired. I am so out of the habit of working outside the house!

The hard part is the company my husband was working for folded and he is not working. I know he resents that the first job that I applied to hired me, but that was not my intention - to hurt his pride. Still, my boss has come through and is paying my husband a decent wage to fix and paint one of her rental properties. Did I mention the lady has some bucks? Huge property with her own pond, goats, sheep, road, as well as approximately 10 rental properties. The house I work in was owned and designed by an architect and it is only 15 minutes from my house. I thought everyone around here had modest houses - seems the fancy places are hidden in the woods behind Lake Wallenpaupack. Learn something new all the time.

I have to stop now. We have another tornado warning tonight. A tornado blew through last night and left a lot of damage just north of us, so better to be cautious.

Cannot rush this stuff!

I cannot believe it has been 2+ plus months since I posted anything here. Good thing I am not getting paid for this. Then again, if I were, I might write more. Truth is, I did write about a month ago, but my system or the Internet or the site or something 'dumped' an hour's worth of material to the vast wasteland somewhere. Frustration and all that, so I never got the itch to post anything else and figured out other things to do in the meantime.

The summer season is here in the mountains. The first couple of drownings occurred in the Upper Delaware and one of the lakes. DWI's are up - ah, Summer! These occurrences have become a regular part of the main tourist season. Still, up until last week we had frost at night. I guess a few warm days and nights brings out the crazy in people. It also brings the requisite flies and mosquitoes to annoy us and we expect all this.

We painted our living room - finally. A warm antique white. Looks very cottage-y and clean. Next stop in the painting tour is the office. Funny thing about a spring clean-up - you find things! The worst/best was discovering the hiding place for the infamous blue disc to reboot our old PC. I am sure when I put it there, I thought it would be someplace where I would not lose it. Mission accomplished! Now a new conundrum - restore the old PC or donate it. It looks so big next to the new laptop, which is faster and does more. But the old PC was a workhorse for graphic applications and printing stuff. My husband wants to boot up the old thing and have the option of taking the laptop with him when he does sales calls or whatever. Esthetically, I do not miss the thing on the desk, but he is probably right. Your thoughts?

I also found out why the poor old thing crashed - the hard drive got over-heated. I have come to this conclusion after reading an article from the NY Times. Could have saved it by putting the hard drive in the freezer - who knew? I know it overheated from excess dust (isn't all dust 'excess?') from our covered kitty litter boxes which are on the other side of our office, behind a heavy curtain, on the other side of our washing machine and dryer. Read a previous post regarding my thoughts on a dust-free litter - there is no such thing!

So now I will cook our dinner - something I know I have control over, barring anything unforeseen. Of course, if it were 'foreseen' you could stop it - like giant oil leaks - or maybe not.

"Accept the Chocolate"

My husband and I had a lovely day yesterday celebrating our anniversary (see previous blog entry). We had a nice lunch, then poked around in hardware stores and the outlets in Tannersville, just looking and planning what we could do with our house this spring and summer. We would have liked to have taken a nice drive and had a sumptuous feast at a restaurant with a nice view of the mountains or the lake, but it was rainy and grey, so we went to a chain restaurant that played music that I do not particularly like. It was one of those days where every time we decided we should go ahead and get or order or do something, the item was sold out - unavailable - on order - 'should have been here yesterday,' etc.


Horoscopes


I do read my horoscope, several versions. Do I 'believe' in them? Not really. The 'fortunes' they predict are vague at best and get recycled around year by year. I think of them as fun references, especially when the prediction seems to be real. My horoscope yesterday said 'everything you may wish to purchase may not be available, for example, you may wish to buy a vanilla ice cream and all the shop will have available will be chocolate,' or something like that. Darn if that did not appear to be true yesterday! So our mantra became "Accept the Chocolate!"

Salespeople in the stores looked at us funny when we said that to each other after every disappointment, but, then again, we are used to salespeople looking at us funny. Nice to know we can give some variety to their day, I guess.


There was a time that these little 'ant bites' would bother the life out of me. So many things were discombobulated yesterday I could have gotten very cranky, but I have tried to develop an attitude that eventually things will come to fruition. Snow will melt and Spring will come. Mice will stop annoying us in the Winter to be supplanted by mosquitoes and flies in the Summer. Wait, that was not very positive, was it? Anyway, we can get around the annoyances and handle whatever happens. "Accept the Chocolate!"

Ike



This is Ike, laying on top of Sunny (who is not happy about this situation). He was trying to find a replacement for Checkers after she died and started to lay next to - or on top of- anyone who came near him, just like he used to do with Checkers. I put this picture up because it is the last picture I took of Ike. He joined Checkers on February 9, passing peacefully in his sleep laying next to his Daddy. He was 18 years old. R.I.P.