Life With Cats:

How to bring groceries in from the car: take in one or 2 bags, leaving one hand free to unlock and open the door. Hold the bags near the floor so the cat doesn’t get out, say NO very loudly. Put the bags on the table, go back out for more, easing the door open and saying NO very loudly. Go out into the yard to get the cat, who does not do NO; put the cat inside and say ‘bad cat’. Get another load of groceries. Open the door and hold something down near the floor and say NO very loudly. Push the other cat out of the way with your foot as you walk to the kitchen. Put the bags on the table. Go back out, easing the door pen and saying NO very loudly. Go further into the yard to get the cat, who has run further from the house: put him inside and say BAD CAT. Continue to car for the 40 pound box of cat litter. Open the door slowly, saying NO very loudly. Try to avoid tripping on the other cat, or dropping the 40 pound box on her. Pet both cats, and explain that they should neither push the groceries that you don’t have time to put away off the table, nor chew through the boxes/bags to eat the cereal/bread/etc. Life with cats.
PS: Left 4 books on the table for the night, and discovered th is mornign that the thumps i eard earlier were those, hitting the floor.

Yesterday it was a bad day

There’s a saying in the fire service: “It’s a good day when everybody goes home”. 

In the rugged mountains near Yarnell, Arizona yesterday it was a bad day.  A very bad day.  19 wild fire fighters were trapped by the wind-driven flames.  They will go home, but not in the way it is hoped.  They will be carried from the spots where they tried to find refuge from the fierce flames, carried no doubt by brother and sister firefighters and rescue people.  Carried by people who know their fear and their pain and their devotion to what they chose to do: give their all to try to help, to save others.  They gave all.  Prayers of sympathy and hope go out to their loved ones, their fellow firefighters, their town, the ones left behind who must cope with this devastating loss.  They join the heroes who so rarely get the acclaim they deserve, they and the men and women in West, Texas, and Webster, NY and Houston, Texas and New York City and in the forests and cities and towns and plains all across our land - so many more men and women in so many more places.  Yesterday was a bad day for 19.  May the days ahead be good ones for all of the others.

 

AND THE MOUSE GOES ON, THE MOUSE GOES ON………

The saga of the mouse (well, probably not the same one) continues: Monday night I woke up to some bumping and crashing in the kitchen.  I have some shelves on one wall there, two packed with mugs, and one with mugs on hooks and some cute old bottles on a narrow shelf.  Turned on lights and went in there and a couple of the little bottles were on the floor, and Prettypurr was pacing around on the floor under the shelves.  Said ‘whatever’, put the bottles back and went back to bed.  A while later more crashes, went back in the kitchen and Prettypurr was hanging by two paws from the edge of the lower shelf that has the mugs on it, trying to climb up onto it.  I discouraged her from that notion – her weight (I believe I mentioned she’s on the portly side) would no doubt bring the whole thing down!  She cursed me, and we all went back to bed.  No more crashing, but there was evidence that she’d been playing mouse hockey in the tub during the night.  Last night passed peacefully, or so I thought, until I got up and saw the curtain rod and curtains from the kitchen windows laying across the table.  ‘What the hey?’ said I, and looked further to see a mouse cowering on the top of the window frame.  And Prettypurr pacing underneath it, of course.  I got the usual container to try to capture and release the mouse but it got away from me – and peed down the wall in the process.  I believe it went under the dry sink and cupboard that I have along the wall by the kitchen, because the cat was very attentive to the underside of those, and went in to the dry sink to see if it had gotten in there; since she came out alone I presume it hadn’t.  I found more evidence of a mouse hockey match in the tub, and when I left the cat was halfway under the chair in my bedroom, but she wouldn’t say if she was mouse-watching or just hanging out.  No doubt this saga will continue, as there seems to be a never ending supply of mice.  They are supposed to be outside at this time of year!   

Happy Birthday, Daddy

I missed a Father’s Day message this year, but today was my father’s birthday so I’ll do one for both.  We often celebrated the two together, almost always with strawberry shortcake.  And beef.  He was big on eating beef – we didn’t know then what we do about cholesterol, and what it combined with the family history of heart attacks might have done to his health.  Nope, beef was good for you.  When we went out you were supposed to order a hamburger, and sometimes we’d order a hot dog just to needle him.  Once he had heard or read that watercress was good for you, so every day all summer we had to hike up to the old springhouse that was part way up the pasture hill and pick some for him to have with supper.  He had a multitude of interests.  Not sure how it started, but when my mother got into having her antique shop, he became interested in paperweights.  He read up on them, and had a good sized collection of them.  He’d travel to auctions, or to places where they were made to try to get new ones.  He got one at an auction in Chatham, where the folk singer Harry Belafonte was sitting in the row in front of him; Belafonte asked to see the paperweight and held it,.looking it over – so it was known as ‘the paperweight that Harry Belafonte held’.  Belafonte was a special celebrity to my father, because one of his movies “Odds Against Tomorrow”, was shot in Hudson with several scenes done at the place my father worked, so he got to talk to the stars and watch them at work.  Another paperweight was purchased directly from the man who made it, in a little town in the mountains of West Virginia.  They stopped there on the way back from Florida, and my mother said he was so excited to be at the artist’s studio – he went inside and came back to the car and said “He’s in there – sitting at the table making a paperweight - just like the picture in the book”.  My sister and I have the paperweights now and I think of him every time I look at them.  And a lot of other times, too. There are still things I’d like to ask his advice on.  Happy Birthday, Daddy, and Happy Father’s Day, too.      

A MOUSE IN THE MORNING

 

Nothing like a mouse to start your day off.  There I was sitting in the bathroom doing – well, what you do in the bathroom first thing in the morning (I know, tmi), when Prettypurr raced past my feet and jumped into the bathtub. From the scrabbling noises I figured she had a mouse, and looked to confirm my suspicions, just as the mouse (which was quite large and agile) scampered up the side of the tub and first hid behind the bottle of shampoo on the ledge of the tub and then in my bath scrubby (which is now in the trash, thank you Mr./Ms. Mouse).  So I went to get something to trap it with and then let it go outside, with strict warnings to never darken our door or bathtub again.  Except that by the time I got back, the mouse had disappeared.  Prettypurr was searching diligently all around the bathroom, to no avail.  Ok, the mouse got away, that’s the breaks, better luck next time, Prettypurr.  I did mention that perhaps were she not quite so stout she might be a bit quicker and thus have better mouse luck, but she just glared at me and let me know it was my fault that the mouse got away.  So I had my tea, and did a few things and went to take my shower.  Got into the usual shower-taking attire, and reached up to pull the curtain back to get in, and there was the mouse, on top of the curtain rod.  Saying ‘don’t give me away!’  Ha!  I shook the curtain a couple of times, dislodged the mouse, and it fell into the tub.   Grabbed the jar again and tried to trap it, but that was one fast mouse, let me tell you.  It dodged the jar numerous times and then decided it was time to retreat, so it jumped up, ran across the hand I was bracing myself on the edge of the tub with and headed for the bedroom, with Prettypurr right behind.  I can still feel those little feet running across my hand.  It went behind a little stand next to my bed, and then under it when I moved the stand, with Prettypurr being ever vigilant for it to move within range, and when I moved the stand again the mouse ran under the bed, with the cat hot on its tail, and it sounded like they were doing laps around and around and around. 

So I did the only thing a person could do under those circumstances.  I took my shower and got dressed and went to the diner and had a ‘Hot Mess’ for breakfast. 

PS, I don’t know if Prettypurr ever got the mouse but when I went to the house a few hours later to close the windows against the rain, I stepped on her lying under the chair at the end of the bed.    

 

The Great Chatham Duckling Rescue (or: one more thing that makes Chatham a great place to live)

                Last Wednesday morning, if you saw three people dashing through yards on Kinderhook Street, they weren’t casing houses for nefarious deeds, they were doing a very good deed.  It all started on Main Street about 10 a.m., when Chatham DPW worker Phil Genovese saw a distraught mother duck whose two babies had fallen into a storm drain.  Phil jumped to the rescue, into the drain, and got them out, but then the family was stranded in a world of concrete and cars, instead of their usual serene creek side home.

                Phil set to trying herd the little family down Park Row and Kinderhook Street to the creek.  Ever heard the phrase ‘like trying to herd cats’?   Trust us, trying to herd ducks is harder!  As his efforts seemed doomed, Barbara Peduzzi was parking on Main Street and, seeing that something involving animals was happening, crossed the street to see what was going on.  “I’m trying to get them back to the creek”, Phil explained, adding his story about their plight in the storm drain.  The two tried to corner the mom and babies, and did get them to Park Row when Mama Duck took a right past the church and into some back yards. 

                The people were getting too close, and she panicked and flew over the fence to behind Chatham Brewing, leaving her babies, but quickly returning to lead them into yet another yard.  About that time Lynne Bell was walking down Kinderhook Street and joined the rescue effort.  The mother duck could not deal with that many people, and flew off again, leaving her babies in a yard where they quickly ducked under a porch. 

                Scared without their mother, they came back out and after some quick footwork through flower beds (no plants were damaged in this ordeal) Phil captured both babies. 

                Now, to get Mama Duck reunited with them!  Lynne and Barbara held the tiny little fluff balls and urged them to “Peep!  Call your mom!  C’mon, Peep!”  It worked, and the little ones made as much noise as they could.  After all, they were being held by giants making very strange noises!  Mom soon heard them, and was flying overhead calling out to them in desperation.

                The people made their way through more back yards, behind the Methodist Church and over to Center Street, where Phil stopped a truck while waiting to see if the mother duck would come across the road.  She took to the air again.  Another DPW worker joined the group, helping keep track of where the frantic mother duck was.  By now everyone was on or near Mill Street, and close to the creek.  Mama Duck was in the brush but tracking her babies.  Phil carried them down to the steep bank to the edge of the creek, for a happy reunion.

And everyone went back to work.

Mother's Day 2013

Some years ago there was a saying, I think coined as a tag line to a joke, that went “Oh, No!  I’m becoming my mother!”  All I can say is: I should be so lucky.  My mother was an exceptional woman.  She was smart, she was savvy and she was wise.  She was blessed with infinite patience.  She never stopped teaching herself new things, from needlepoint and furniture refinishing to caning chair seats to selling antiques to bookkeeping for our gas station, and, of course, the myriad things about farming.  She went from a probably upper-middle class upbringing and college at Cornell to a farm wife, doing everything from milking the cows to helping birth calves to driving the truck piled high with bales of hay with all of us kids piled on top of the load.  She showed her love in more ways than we knew, making clothes, leading our 4-H clubs, being there and giving words we needed.  She missed my father every day between his passing and hers.   She was ready for it when it was her time to go and she did that as she did everything else, with calm dignity.  To become even a small part of what my mother was would be an honor that I hope I someday reach.  Love you and miss you, Mommy. 

Life is full of random things

File this under “Life is full of random things”.  I rarely add people to my ‘Friends’ list on Facebook.  I have a bunch of invites, but just don’t ever think about it/get around to accepting.  The other day for some reason I was at the list and clicked a few, including one name from the past.  It’s a convoluted connection: her mother Martha, or Marty as everyone called her, is my age, a younger sister of one of my aunts, but even though just ‘in-law’ related, our families shared get-togethers and we kids grew up as an extended group of cousins.  Marty was in my class in high school for a while, and we hung out together there.  After school, everyone went their separate ways.  She married young, had her family, my aunt moved away, the generations slowly passed on, and it has been many, many years since I’d seen her.  But the other day when I saw her daughter’s name in my invites I accepted.  The daughter is Annie, named after her grandmother.  I had to think a bit to put people together, to be honest, to figure out why this person wanted to Friend me.  That was earlier this week.  I meant to message Annie to ask how the family is, just hadn’t gotten to it yet.  Tonight Annie posted that her mother passed away today.  You know the things you wish you’d done sooner?  Yeah, that’s on the list.  Marty, I hope your life was good since last we met.  Go in peace.  Annie, I hope that fond memories make this time easier for you all.