Adventure Dog

Cleopatra's all buckled up for yet another adventure this weekend! Today we'll be at Rick's Aunt Louise & Uncle Bill's farm in Holmes County, helping to tear down one of their sheds. This dog's going to need a vacation to recover from our vacation...

Someone Gave My Dog an Empty Beer Can.

JesusKali&Ishtar.

The ridiculous dog (poor thing) is trying to coax more drops out.

As if she didn't already crave EVERYTHING human-consumed, already...

And it probably wouldn't be so bad if it at least could be a beer that had some actual flavor... a nice oatmeal stout might even be a little nutritious (ignoring the alcohol, of course)...

And all the while I'm reminded of an old Ma and Pa Kettle episode in which they unwittingly (did they ever do anything otherwise??) harbored bootleggers. The men dumped the leftover mash (heavily alcoholic) into the animals' troughs, and watching the mule, hogs, cows, and chickens stagger around the barnyard was just classically hilarious. Fortunately, a few drops of weak American-style lager -- light or otherwise -- is never going to do that to my hyperactive basenji.

 

Our 1-Day Vacation

We're spending the day in Marblehead, at at Ginny's summer house on the lake. It's already a lovely day: Cleo has a friend!

Her name is Lucy, and the two girls were just great friends all day. Well, till it was time for food. Then they got tetchy about space. But that lasted all of about 15 seconds. I'm pretty proud of my girl.

 

Morgan & Cleo Discuss Our Brunch

Crazies.

I think they want OUR breakfast.

It is unspeakably lovely to sit on the patio and enjoy a quiet meal together. It's even nice that we are not denied our furry beggars.

Table for 2

Double decker dinner! Mirth (top) and Bert (she's the one giving the 'go away, I'm eating' look) like to dine with a view.

Bert's done eating now, and curled up in my lap for a post-prandial nap. I think, as long as she's got me pinned down, I will join her.

Morgan Munching

It's Suppertime at Casa Garcia, starting with the cats. Morgan prefers to dine privately. She has a perch above the piano.

Dog's Eye View

Cleo and I are listening to an amazingly melodious robin in our tree (*OUR* tree! How lucky is that? It's a guarantee, like having 'The Robin Channel' on the radio!) and occasionally the visiting dog next door, who is (so far *only*) intermittently yappy. I love our little backyard.

Welcome Home!

Ahh. The natural order is once more restored. Bert is finally coming to me voluntarily. (She'd been beaten up pretty badly by the other two cats -especially Morgan- to the point of being nearly feral.)

Cleo has joined the two of us on the couch. She likes to snuggle with both me AND Bert, as my 2 girls get along quite well. I suspect Bert missed her canine champion while we were gone. (Cleopatra had a 'spa week' in Strongsville with Grandpa Oerkfitz. :-} Grandpa spoils her.)

This is the very thing I missed while we were gone, and my deepest regret about the delay.

Funny thing, though? A little over a day into the trip, my sinuses were clear. Clear like they've not been in years! Not an hour after returning home, they were full and draining, and my eyes were burning. *sigh* These cats are killing me! But it is the death I wholeheartedly choose. Give me bonds of love every single time! These are the sacrifices that are worthwhile.

 

Piles of Cleveland Sunshine? Fertilizer?

Here's the snowpile at the end of our driveway. Can you see the "parking restricted" sign peeking out from behind? It looks like it's stuck in the top of the pile, but actually it's about 3-3 1/2 feet beyond the crest. Rather impressive! It'd be even more impresive if some human had hand-shoveled that, *and* all the rest of the drive.

Yesterday, Rick's brother Mike came over to do precicely that task and to check on the cats. After he'd been shovelling for a short bit, the guy from Heights Garden Center across the street came over with the bobcat and finished the job. I am going to make the garden center triple chocolate brownies. (We got a t-shirt for Mike - he re-watered the cats and tipped back up the food bin they toppled, beheaded, and marauded. Viking kitties. Good to know they're resourceful when they run out of food!)

I'd been so worried about things while we were stranded in Florida that it was less easy for me to enjoy the 'bonus time'. Good neighbors and good family are such a blessing!

 

I'm a Good Teacher, But...

This is Bert. She's very snuggly. Sometimes she's rather needy. I don't mind either way, I adore her.

She's my cat. Of the three cats in the household, she is the one who has claimed me as her own. Bert doesn't mind snuggling with Rick. But if I'm available, she drops him and comes over to me. Even if she's in his arms.

That's an indescribably lovely, warm feeling.

So perhaps, in the interest of accuracy, I'm really her person, more than she's my cat. I think that's a better categorization.



So tonight I was sewing. I made a bag for our trip this week. (We're going on our honeymoon.) Bert decided she absolutely needed to be in my lap.

It was cute and endearing for about 15 seconds. And then two things happened. I couldn't do the things I needed to do while sitting at a sewing machine. (I know!! Arrgh, right?) Worse, the second thing was that she decided that her balance was compromised and she needed to stabilize.



Feline stabilizers are more commonly known as "claws". She applied them to the tops of my thighs. It hurt. I was unhappy.

So poor little Bert got dumped off my lap til my bag was done and I could snuggle with her properly.

Cuz, truth to tell, there's no screaming way I'm teaching this cat to sew. I'm patient, but not godlike.

 

Cozy

Aw. No one snuggles in like Cleopatra. I wish I could join her.

Ravelry Ravings

I'm a member of this way cool online community called Ravelry. It's for people who knit and crochet. I spent a fair part of this evening messing around with my site and checking out some of the groups.

I am soooooo in love with this site.

There's even a site for people who knit and crochet and have a basenji. Such a cool niche! So perfect for ME.




And the part about "basenjis + yarn" that's especially funny is that they really REALLY don't mix. Cleopatra eats wool as often as she can get it. Plus, this is a very odd breed, with unbelievable quirks. I mean, dogs who yodel? It's true. But you don't want them near the yarn stash. So now we have our own support group.

Which is nice.

 

All 3 Cats

This is something that rarely happens. It's a less than marvelous picture because it's taken with my cell phone. It's also a photo taken waaaay back in the warm summertime, so enjoy it, and think of warm, sunny, 80 degrees Fahrenheit!

 

Seven Up!Date #2: Our Player Piano

Explanation Number Two of my response to Melissa's Meme on January 24:

2. We have an antique player piano. No one's allowed to play it. EV.ER. I mean it. And yet the cats obstinately refuse to respect my ahthorita'. On a daily basis. Yes, the cover's closed.

It's beautiful. Perfect condition on the outside. But the player mechanism is out of order. We were told it is easily repairable, and would only cost maybe $800. Considering we were given this lovely instrument and it is worth quite a number of thousands of dollars (especially because it has its original piano bench), that seems reasonable. But we don't have that in the budget at this time.

Nor do we have any piano rolls.

Not a problem, as any player piano is also useful as a regular piano. We should be able to open the lid to the keys (I'm not a pianist, I don't know the terminology) and just start Joplin-ing away, right?

WRONG. Emphatic wrong.

This beautiful, elegant, upright piece of furniture is a cat lounge and wallet keeper because of the UNGODLY NOISE of the BEYOND OUT OF TUNE-NESS of the poor, unloved piano strings within. Dinn? Cacophony? Oh, either of those would be lovely in comparison.

(A piano tuner is out of our budget, too.)

Well, then. How do the cats play it?

They jump down onto the cover that shields the keys. It bends, ever so slightly, and hits the keys. We get the sound of either the opening chord of "Hard Day's Night" or the final chord of "A Day In the Life", both by the Beatles, and both raucously out of tune. It's LOUD. It almost always startles. These cats, BEING cats, have remarkable timing. Put your imagination to work. You'll come up with great results. Probably most of them will be close (if not spot on) to what we have experienced.

Need I mention that the cats never look at the clock before jumping on the piano keys?

"So? Put the damper down!" comes the cry of those in the know. Yes, well we would, but the broken player mechanism is in the way, and we can't do that until the mechanism is repaired or removed.

Mostly, we just laugh. Fortunately, cats jumping up and down on the piano key-cover doesn't happen hugely frequently. Not even everyday. Someday we will get this fixed and it will cease to be a problem. Then I'll start trolling eBay for player piano rolls, heavy on Scott Joplin.

I'm really looking forward to that day.

Everybody: Awwww!

Mirth helps his Daddy with laundry. Oooh, I could just squeeze him! He's soooooo darling!!!

Shared Perspective

Bert anticipates that I have some heavy-duty reading and computer work to do. She's right about at my eye level, and purring like a well-oiled Allis Chalmers tractor.

It's been a crazy morning.

A visit from a repair guy cost $350 and he left promising to return in about 10 days when the part arrives. The bad news? It's for the washing machine. The good news? If we want clean underwear (...and we DO...) we'll be seeing our family more than we usually do.

Other news? Ugh. It's looking like The Powers That Be may decide to total our car that was involved in the accident Saturday. We *do* have a 2nd car, and often only one of our cars is ever used by us at one time, but on the days when both of us need to be somewhere very different from each other, being suddenly a one-car family will be a challenge. Worse yet? Both cars are leased. We don't yet know what the liability for payment will be, but we're trying to stay optimistic. We still had a bit more than a year on the agreement, so there's a chance the car will be replaced. Of course, we are still clinging to the extremely happy outcome that no one was hurt. Cars are just things, and ultimately replaceable. People are far more important, and completely irreplaceable.

Tonight, though, we both get to help with the beginnings of voting on proposals for grants that will help the neighborhoods of Cleveland. This, I have to say, is a tremendously gratifying thing. I am so excited to be a part of this very worthy process. Reading through the One Page Proposals, these beginnings of ideas, gives me such hope for our struggling city. There are so many people who care!

This is just the first tier of voting for the grant dispersal, and we do have a lot of work to do. I think we have something around 150 submissions, then once we've 'culled the herd' we'll ask for more detailed information from our group. What fun it will be to give money for good work! Rick and I belong to a giving circle called the Cleveland Colectivo, and to see the projects that got funded in 2007, first of all, follow the link. Then scroll down to the bottom of the page, in the middle to the section titled "Six Projects Funded", and there's a link beneath the list to give further information. Throughout the year we were kept up to date on the progress of each group's project. Each was amazing! So completely impressive; Nueva Luz had me in tears, their project was that moving. And so very necessary.

Life is full of challenges, some are good and some are (*sigh*) ones we wish we didn't have to face. They all make us grow. Growth hurts. Sometimes it downright sucks. But if we don't grow we don't progress, and without progress there's no life. I do want to live. So I'll deal with the pain. It'll make the pleasure that much sweeter. And perhaps I'll learn to purr like Bert.

Oh, PLEASE?

She doesn't care who she gets it from, she just wants it, whatever it is. Bert is our unabashed beggar. It's *just rice*!!

That's My Grrl

So snuggly. Cleopatra's ready for bed. Snuggly little bug-dog.

Morgan: She's Cute. Sure... Right NOW...

Ok. All together: "awwwww!"

Just so we're all on the same page: she's only cute when she's not up to something. She's usually up to something.

Early Spring

We are thawed again. Less than a week ago we were buried under more than a foot of snow. There's none left, and the ground in our yard is saturated, almost spongy. From Cleo's point of view (the backyard being her toilet) the ground is TOO wet, but for her, "foggy" is "too rainy to go down the steps", so we always take Cleo's complaints with a bowling ball-sized chunk of salt. She IS an equatorial, dry climate breed, after all, though, so we do not leave her alone outside to make sure she doesn't feel abandoned in such hostile conditions. Still! HARD to call 60 degrees F 'hostile'!