CATS I'VE KNOWN

A Cat by Any Other Name
When we moved into our first home, a wild cat obviously recognizing a new food chain, began hanging around. We couldn’t get near her but judging by her, pardon the pun, hangdog expression, she was sorely in need of food.
As any family with kids will tell you, it was never a question of “Can we feed her?“, but rather “How soon can you get to the store“? So began the saga of “Mama” cat. No matter how much we stuffed her with food, she resisted every effort to let anyone pet her, instead making sure no one was nearby to see her consume her free handouts.
As the days got cold, it soon became clear that “Mama” at one time in her past, had been “friendlier” than she was now and was going to have kittens, hence her ferocious appetite.
Between our back steps and the house, there was just enough space to drop a tennis ball and that’s where “Mama” decided to drop her four kittens. There was no doubt they would freeze if we didn’t help her, so with much spitting, scratching and clawing from the ungrateful wretch, we successfully transferred the family to our basement where we had made a bed for her.
She was terrified, as she had never been inside before, and would have bolted at once if not for her motherly instincts. Of course, the kittens all were given names and unlike their mother, were very happy to have a warm place to stay. “Mama” was greatly relieved when they were all allowed outside again.
One of the kittens was named George who was very playful and frisky. Seven months had passed and we found out just how frisky George was, as “George” had a litter of five which made nine cats! To make matters worse, poor dumb playgirl “Georgette” had no clue about “birthin’ no babies”, so “Mama” had to do all the dirty work and nurse the newborns besides. We were finally able to spread the kitten wealth, which just left “Mama” to contend with, who was still no friendlier than when she first came into our lives.
We used to have an egg man who delivered eggs every week and, out of desperation, asked him if he wanted “Mama” cat. “Sure”, he said, “the farm can always use a good mouser”. Arrangements were made and we put “Mama”, spitting, snarling and screaming, in a box to take her to the farm, an hour away.
Poor Paul, holding the box on his lap, had to contend with a clawing arm every few minutes as “Mama” tried to escape. After a harrowing trip and the awful stench of cat pervading the car, we finally arrived with frayed nerves, Paul’s arms scratched beyond belief, and a sense of relief from Ed and me.

Cooking 101

I decided to fix dinner for our family today and thanks to Kathy, Chris and my supervision, we did it! I am exhausted and realize for the first time since my stroke that I simply can't cook without help. What a blow.

With all three of us working busily, it still took three hours to assemble this meal and get it in the oven. We did double the recipe so we can have a second meal at a later time. The most remarkable thing about it though, was that too many cooks did not "spoil the broth" as the saying goes.

I suppose I will try to help more with cooking dinner, as long as long-suffering Chris will help me with it. Cooking was never my forte, but I love to try out new recipes. Hopefully, everyone will like this one, because we have another complete meal in the freezer.

Back in the "What's for dinner?" days, I made a meat loaf one evening, and while it was okay, it tasted a little funny. Ed said, "Did you do something different with the meat loaf"? Much to my chagrin, it turned out that what I thought was groumd beef was ground pork sausage. And that was just one of my more unevenful meals. On second thought, maybe I won't cook any more meals.

Election of a President

What a thrilling event last night, as we the people came together to elect Barack Obama as our next President. Regardless of who you wanted for the highest office in America, we were united as soon as the results were announced. I hope everyone will pray for him and his family as he meets the tough challenges he is facing with knowledge and courage.

Some of his decisions will be unpopular for many of us, but for our country to recover it's self-esteem, he will have to make some unpleasant choices. We can only pray that he will make our country stronger, wiser and better off economically than it has been in a very long time. Now is the time to stand up and support Barack Obama.

THE WHITE DRESS

The White Dress
Twenty years or so ago, it was quite customary to wear a long dress for special occasions. Several of my girls and I were window shopping because it was something I loved to do, even though we rarely bought anything except clothes for school.
At one of the department stores, I happened to glance over at the dresses as we browsed, and my breath caught in my throat as I saw this beautiful, long dress, pure white with little pearl buttons that traveled the whole length of the dress.
My girls saw my expression and chorused, “Try it on, try it on”. I told them it was silly, but in my heart I knew I had to try it on just to see how it would look on me. It was a size 10, (was I ever that size?) and as I slipped it on, I became Cinderella instantly. It encircled me in a beautiful haze as it fell in soft folds around me.
Oh, what a special dress it was. But then reality set in, as the price tag read “One Hundred dollars“! Ed was working three jobs as it was, the kids all needed clothes, Christmas was coming soon, and my priorities were clear. I honestly did not even obsess over it, and we went on to finish shopping before we headed home.
I never thought about “The Dress” again. Fast forward to Christmas Day. There were Christmas wrappings and ribbons strewn across the floor, when the kids came in carrying a big box and presented it to me with silly grins. “Open it”, they said, “It’s for you”.
And there, nestled in yards of white tissue paper, was “The Dress”. I cried. Even though I knew they had enlisted Ed’s help in buying it, I was overwhelmed at their generous outpouring of love.
I wore it on New Year’s Eve and then again to a St. Valentine’s dance at our parish. And I must have glowed, because perfect strangers came up to me to tell me how beautiful I looked and inevitably asked, “Where did you get that dress?”
Although there were other memorable gifts over the years, this one memory will always be one of my most favorite.

The Dining Room Chronicles

THE DINING ROOM CHRONICLES
Almost every evening, my daughter Mary and her better half, Kevin come over to keep me on my toes and my brain active, by playing card games, scrabble or dominos with Martha, Joe and sometimes Chris. Some of our conversations have bordered on the ludicrous, so Mary has begun taking pen to paper to save them for posterity.
That reminded me of a dinner conversation many years ago. My children invariably would get into arguments at the dinner table, perhaps to create a diversion so they could feed peas to the dog while I tried to keep the peace.
To let them hear how horrid they actually sounded, I had a brilliant idea and planted a tape recorder under the dining room table and just let them be their usual quarrelsome, noisy selves. “That will show them“, I thought.
After dinner, I retrieved the tape and told them, “Listen to this, I am going to teach you a lesson“, and smugly pushed the play button.. “Just hear how you sound when you fight“, I admonished them. As I self-righteously played it back to them, there was a thunderous noise which swelled to a crescendo, sounding like a jet taking off at close range. Interspersed between the babble and the jet taking off, my sickening sweet voice could be heard loud and clear, “Please pass the butter, Paul” and “Please use your napkin, honey”. More babble and then my syrupy voice again, “So what did you do in school today Eddie”? “Please use your fork, honey”.
By that time the kids and I were laughing uncontrollably. One of the kids summed it up beautifully, “We learned a lesson alright, mom”. “Never put the tape recorder under your chair“. and, “You’re a terrible actress, but you sure are funny”.

I made it, you will eat it and I don't care how bad it tastes
Ed made it a habit to eat lunch at home every day, as he worked less than a mile from our house. One day in particular, I called and asked if he would stop at the store and bring something home for me to cook for our dinner.
In a disgruntled voice, he responded, “You don’t have to fix meat and potatoes every night, you know”. Stung by his obvious displeasure, I asked “What would you suggest, as we have no eggs, no meat, and no cheese in the house“. “If you would use your imagination once in a while, you should be able to come up with something that doesn’t involve my going to the store on my lunch hour”, he retorted.
When he finally came home, he tossed a roast on the table and with a disgusted “Here’s your meat”, walked out and went back to work.
“Now that is so unfair! We only have one car, I have six hungry kids at home”, I fumed to myself. “Well, I’ll show him”, “He’ll see my imagination at work.” So I fixed a beef stew for dinner, set the table and made sure to have the plates all ready with the stew already on the plates.
On Ed’s plate, however, I had artistically arranged stalks of celery, thinly sliced carrots, and an artful stack of pickled beets in the middle of his plate, and for good measure, some parsley as a garnish.
Eddie said, “Hey, how come dad gets all the good stuff and we have to eat this”? I have to admit it was a colorful, appetizing-looking dish.
A few minutes later, Ed walked in, looked at the kids plates filled with stew, looked at his colorful plate, smothered his laughter and without cracking a smile, he nonchalantly said, “See, I told you if you used your imagination you could come up with something different”.
“Listen Buster, if even one of our neighbors had some brandy, I told him, “I would have set your plate on fire“! “Very clever, Sweetie, very clever”, he said as he helped himself to the stew.

I heard it on the radio
When Kathy was barely two, I told Ed that there was a talking dog on Art Linkletter’s show that morning. “Yeah, riiight”, he laughed. “No, really, it’s true”.
“Kathy, tell daddy what the doggy said on the radio this morning”, I urged. Fully expecting her to tell him that the doggy said, “Mama” and “Hello”, “I love you” not perfectly, but understandable, Kathy looked at me quizzically. “You remember, I coached, “What did that funny doggy say”? “I member now“, she proudly exclaimed, “The doggy said, “Bow Wow”.

Smarter kids today?

When my kids were all fairly young, my daughter, Margaret was definitely "Miss Preppy". She wanted Izod or nothing. No JCPenny for her. So I told her, "I'll pay for what a shirt would cost at JCP and if you want IZOD, you pay the difference".


She had a pair of worn out socks which sported the famous alligator on them, and thinking I had a brilliant idea said, "Hey, we can take the alligator off your socks and put it on one of your plain shirts and no one will know the difference". With a scathing look that could have burned a hole in me from ten feet away she retorted, "But I would know"!


I was reminded of this because my son was telling me about a kid who works for him who bought a bottle of water because he liked the waterfall on the bottle. The kid said "It only cost $1.59". "Are you kidding me, you paid $1.59 for that?" Defending himself, the kid said, "But it has no transfats and no sugar". Paul told the kid, "It's w a t e r, you know, W A T E R"!

A new Blog in Town

I finally took the plunge and joined the bloggers of America. I decided that since the movie "The Lucky Ones" has finally arrived in theatres, I would probably be famous because I was in the movie. Alas, if you blinked just as Martha and my Grand-daughter appeared front and center with Tim Robbins, you missed the top of my head. Alas, fame is so fleeting.