Another Cat That I Have Loved

I've said for a time that I had 2 and a half, or 3 and a half cats. How does one have a half of a cat? (sounds gross to me)

Max was a big black cat that actually belonged to my across-the-street neighbors. But he spent plenty time at my house, even sleeping many nights on my couch. Hence, the half of a cat, he was a half-time resident.

When my family moved into the house and got our own cat we started having cat visitors, namely the big black cat whom we called for at least a year "Black Kitty". He would show up in the back yard to eat Spicey's food. He would bully her away from it and clean out the bowl. After watching that for a time I decided to do something, so I collected a few small pebbles and waited. When he boldly started to eat Spicey's food (with me a mere 6' away) I tossed a pebble toward him. I meant to bounce it in front of him but it ended up smacking him right between the eyes!

As much as I regretted doing that it worked. He would come and if Spicey was eating he sat and waited for her to finish, then went in to clean up the leftovers. He had become a gentleman!

Soon we learned that he belonged to the people across the street and that his name was Max.

Max crept into our lives stealthily, even my animal-hater ex-husband learned to love Max.

Every morning after cleaning up some kibble he would go out into the woods and hunt. He was good at it, he nearly always came trotting back with a fairly large critter, bigger than a rat even. I don't know what they were but apparently they're plentiful. Once I was working in a garden and Max brought his catch near me and proceeded to devour it within my earshot. The crunching and ripping sounds were disturbing but when he was done and I went to clean up the leftovers I was relieved to find none, he cleaned up every bit of it! Another day he evidently took his catch home as a gift for mom. I heard her as she approached her front door with Max right there on the front porch, proudly holding up his thick, short tail, waiting for the door to open when she shrieked "Oh, Max!"

I like to have company during the nice weather. Max realized this and would always take advantage of the extra bodies parking themselves around my yard. He would show up and meander. He would test people out, rubbing and observing. Then he would make a choice and jump in their lap! When a 15 pound, solid muscle, all black, cat decides he wants to sit in your lap - YOU OBEY! Actually, he was so endearing no one could turn him down.

Most cats have their odd food craving and his was as odd as they get. Corn on the cob. He wouldn't eat it as niblets, it had to be attached to the cob!

Shortly after 9/11 he came to visit me. I was sitting at my computer and he got in my lap, faced me, put his paws on my shoulders and proceeded to rub his face against my neck and chin until I was itchy. He was just loving me up and I loved being the focus of his affection.

That was the last time I saw Max.

A couple weeks later I was out in my yard raking leaves and the man of the house that paid Max's vet bills, Dave, came over to ask if I'd seen Max. I relented that I was afraid Max was gone for good. He told me that his family had searched the woods and found nothing. We talked about pictures, did we all have enough, we'd share if needed, we were co-owners after all, or is that we were co-owned? Anyway, I told him I cried every night, missing the sweet guy.

He said, the man of the house in a house composed of big macho males (and one female):

"Tell me about it"

Max was one in a million and knew how to spread his love.

Stormy Day

It was a pretty neat windstorm. The wind blew constantly all day. The power flickered off a few times, then went off for 2 hours, then on for an hour, then off again til just about midnight. Totally screwed up my day. I ended up unable to complete pretty much anything I tried to start.

Rick got home and we decided to head to Covington to pick up beer and gas for his car. Auburn-Black Diamond road was closed due to a downed tree. We decided to investigate. Turns out a reporter/camera man from Fox news did too. We got some cool shots of the tree blocking the road, laying right over a power/communication line with a neighborhood man chainsawing enough to get his car into his driveway. The Fox news dude decided to interview me cuz I started spouting outage times. Thank goodness he didn't use that footage, I'm sure I looked awful.

We made it to Covington and got our chores done, came home, ate some chicken patty sammiches (cooked on the barbie). Rach, Heather, Hunter and Gage came up for a visit while we ate. As it got dark we pulled out a board game, I got mad cuz I kept getting sent back to start so I pouted and quit playing. Got out a different game, lost at that too but at least I got to play. I just wanna play and sitting in the "start" position, flipping cards and not moving any pieces around the board is not playing.

After Rick went to bed I pulled out the movie "Into the Wild" and Keith and I watched it on my laptop, then switched to Rick's little DVD player. It ended right around midnight and as I was walking out of the shop with a loaf of bread so Keith could have a sandwich since he couldn't nuke anything to eat - the lights came on!

So this morning Rick could continue with his everyday morning routine. Everything back to normal. Maybe I can go back to normal too, I became a bit of a grouch yesterday due to one of those "spinning yer wheels" kinda days where you try to get stuff done and get nowhere.

Picture of the Week

Well, this week I'm even later than normal.  But I have a good excuse, we had no power yesterday due to a wind storm that hit our local area pretty dern hard yesterday!  I mean that wind blew all day!

So I'll post this then do a quick blog about the big storm!

I think this week I'll go with the post on Flickr that got the most attention.  I went to one of my local greenhouses this week, got that spring fever!  Of all the shots I got this yellow begonia became the "creamy, dreamy" one (as commented by one of my Flickr friends)

Picture of the Week

Since I already showed you the best stuff from our LaConner trip in the last blog (remember to click on them to see them bigger) I chose this one that I posted on my flickr page.  I got the idea from an online photography class I'm attending (? do you attend an online class?  what do you do with it?).  Actually the shot on the class was much more artistic, maybe I'll try to duplicate it more closely.

LaConner - Been There, Done That

We were having a hard time deciding what to do this weekend. Last weekend we got rained out on Saturday so we wanted to go somewhere, maybe even overnight, this weekend. I offered a few suggestions to Rick and he just wouldn't make a decision. He finally asked me what my choice was and I chose the Tulip Festival because it was something you can't just go any time of year and see.

They topped the tulip fields last week.

Oh well, I knew they had gardens you could peruse in spite of the now all-green fields and I had something I wanted to buy for someone. The only place I knew to buy it was at the Roozengarde gift shop. Besides, there was the hamlet of LaConner that we could also visit.

I think it was because they had topped the fields already that the garden we chose to visit was rather inundated with people. It was difficult to get good shots without at least a half dozen people in it, but not impossible, just frame the shot right and/or wait for the people to move outta the way.

We enjoyed the garden and took lots of shots. Then we just hit the country roads. The area up there is different from our area here in the south as it has broader expanses of flat valley with the mountains further off in the distance. Lots of farm land, big old farmhouses and barns. Chickens, cows, huge, ancient trees, and, being spring, plenty of blooms.

There were more than a couple times that I simply yelled "STOP! Back up!" (he's getting better at it) when I would spot something down in a recessed area like an irrigation ditch.

I say "LaConner - Been There, Done That" because we've seen the town, it's small and having seen it in spring we probably saw it in it's glory. It's small enough that we won't really need to return, the only thing that will change will be the merchants in the shops, the buildings won't change.

We were nearly finished shooting and heading out when Rick spotted a sign to the cemetery. As we headed up a hill we found an old schoolhouse off the road, right in someone's mowed yard. It was pretty well preserved, only some broken windows and a fallen chimney were visible from our vantage point on the outside of the fence. We decided to hit it on the way back out. The cemetery was just another cemetery, nothing outstanding. A few interesting comments and decorations on the headstones.  

A little further down the road we ended up near a small grassy hillside with about 30 half-grown steers in it.  Rick went across the street to shoot a falling-down shed in a field and when he came back to the car he decided to visit the cows.  They seemed a little wary but eventually one or two finally warmed up to our presence and came to the fence.  That started all them flocking to see us.  It was hilarious!  They ended up just streaming to the fence and crowding together to simply stare at us.

We have discovered the the success or failure of one of these photo days leans heavily on the sky. We have lots of all grey days here when the sky comes out just white in pictures and is way too bright and ruins our shots. Those days we have to shoot low, keep the sky out of the picture if possible. Then there are days when the sky is all blue without any clouds. That sky is also not the best for a photo day. This was a perfect day - stormy. Sometimes it almost seemed like we should see a twister or at least some lightning. If you look at a beautiful landscape usually it has a very interesting sky.

So if we decide to revisit some of the spring photo venues next year we have to swap our timing - first the tulip fields (we were too late) then the Japanese Garden (we were too early)

Hobnobbing With . . . . .

While out today with Mary we ran into a member from Survivor from a recent season - Shambo! If you watch Survivor you know Shambo. She had the big, ugly, curly mullet and was from this area. So it wasn't a complete surprise when I spotted her. I chose to leave her alone. Mary, on the other hand . . . .

Well, it turned out to be a very insightful conversation. So all you Survivor followers, listen up!

The very first thing she had to say was they "like to kill me!"  She went on to explain that she starved and it rained for 15 days of her stay.  They froze in the rain and she lost so much weight that now she looks great and she regained over 35 pounds!

She said she slept probably a mile from her camp because she couldn't stand her tribe of idiots.  She also said that Russell Hantz, one of this seasons "Villains" tribe is actually a very nice guy.  She said that he did not find those immunity idols on his own.  It was also her opinion that he doesn't understand the game and that he will never win because he stabs everyone in the back, therefore making them an enemy and they'll never vote for him.

One of my own observations is that the show appears to be slanted to make certain players look like jerks, or idiots, or flirts, etc.  Turns out I was right!  Shambo said that they were interviewed 3 or 4 times a day.  They are asked questions and their answers may actually be taken completely out of context to slant the viewers.  

Apparently the show is recorded months before it's aired.  I think what she said is that they had played the game, cast their votes and were back home for something like 12 weeks before it began to be aired! 

Overall she seemed very disgruntled about the show. When Mary asked if she watches Survivor now she said "no way!"  She also said she turned down offers to reappear, she wants nothing to do with it.

Well, it was cool thing to meet someone that everyone knows like that - almost kinda like meeting a real celebrity, eh?

Picture of the Week

Again a day late! I just posted one of my new favs from this week on my previous blog, Rick on the train tracks. So I'll have to choose something else.

How about the little boys? This is taken on a new yard swing that we got from a coworker (how do you "ork" a cow?). I always envy Leticia's pictures of her granddaughters, they always look so tidy. Not so with little boys. It's getting better as they get older, but, if nothing else, they always have juice mustaches. So I opted to make this picture sepia and voila! No mustaches!

As I said on my 365 post of this picture "just a couple silly boys!"