Change of Style/Color

Well, not only have I had a problem with hair color this past week, now it seems I've had a problem with blog color.

My hair is doing better, by the way..... lathering it up two or three times each morning has softened the color and now it's looking the way it's supposed to look. Note to self: forget the hair color and stick with what you've got. Second note to self: re-read the first note when you see some gray hairs popping up.

As for this blog page, the pink pages were shifting the columns...... not by my doing, since I wouldn't know how to edit the HTML (or whatever it's called). For some reason, the second column shifted itself down to the very bottom of the computer screen. The only way I could think to fix it was to change the template of the entire blog, which changed the color. So now instead of dark pink print on a light pink page, I've got just the pink border on a white page. I'll see how this works. If it starts shifting around again, I may just change it back to the way it was.

Faulkner's "Light In August"

Well, finally, finally.... Willie got it right with this one. Not only can you read this book and know who the characters are (and their relation to the others) but you can follow the dialogue and know who is saying what on any given page.

"Light In August" is Oprah's book for the month of August. She had a Faulkner triple-play this summer. Hopefully, she will not do the same for next June/July/August. This book is my favorite of the three Faulkner volumes that she chose, and because it's so easy to read, I'm more than half-way through it and I only just started it the other day. The characters are interesting and the story is very dramatic.

Speaking of "Light" ---- we woke up this morning and there was not a drop of electricity coming into the house. I called the electric company on my cell phone (thank goodness I re-charged it yesterday). Even though I was certain that they already knew there was a problem, it still makes you feel better to have called and reported the outage. Makes you feel like you're trying to solve the problem, even though there's nothing you can really do about it. We made sure not to open the freezer... there's too much salmon in there to risk losing any of the coldness.

The Powers That Be at the electric company had the lights back on within an hour and a half, which wasn't bad. We've gone longer than that when transformers have blown out during a severe rainstorm. This was just a simple "line fuse" that affected 27 houses in this area. All the conveniences we take for granted every day... they're not worth a cent if there's no electricity to make them work.

I think I'm on a pool campaign again, even though I said I'd let the matter rest for a while. Once again, we've had such a hot/hot/hot summer, as we do every year. Once again, The Chronicle has been printing beautiful photographs of backyard pools..... and this weekend's pool was truly tropical looking and gorgeous. Sure would look great in our own yard. And it sure would be a lot more useful to us than a backyard filled with grass that has to be watered and mowed and weeded and trimmed.

However, until my husband stops looking at a pool and thinking it's just "an expensive hole in the ground," I guess the grass is going to stay right where it is.

Mickey Kitty

The new kitten continues to adjust here and make himself at home. I do believe that he thinks he owns the screen-porch. That's where he spends most of his days and all of his nights. I don't even confine him in the puppy-crate at night anymore... he just finds his own places to sleep out there. Heaven knows, there's enough to choose from-- wicker chairs and rockers, and cat-sized baskets. There's even an antique wicker baby cradle, and a vintage wicker doll house... both of which have been favored sleeping places for Mickey Kitty. AngelBoy used to sleep in the antique cradle. He can still fit into it, but he prefers the larger chairs now, King that he is.

I spoke to my dad last week and told him about the new kitten. I gave him the whole story, about my husband finding the kitten in the park near the bayou and carrying him home. "Well, did you expect him to leave the kitten there in the park? You're lucky that man hasn't found a horse yet because you'd have to turn the garage into a stable."

When I told my sister about the newest addition, she said "Are you serious? Four cats now?" I told her I wouldn't be making up such a story. She reminded me of her prediction that I would one day be an old woman with seventeen cats. "Make that eighteen," she amended. (Everyone's a comedian.)

A few days ago when I was fixing up one of the baskets as a little napping spot for Mickey Kitty, I searched the linen closet for a not-so-new towel to put into the basket. At the very bottom of a stack of hand towels, I found my very first baby towel. I had forgotten all about it.... but I'm glad I had thought to save it. The towel is white, with an quilted kitten in the center. The colorful (now faded) kitten is wearing a crown. So I guess my cat-loving fate was sealed with that very first baby towel. No sense in saving the towel for a baby.... it's now in Mickey Kitty's basket.

I will have to ask my Aunt Dolly who bought that towel for me. She's good at remembering all the family details like that. I don't think my mother would have picked out a towel with a cat or kitten on it, since she doesn't like cats. Or dogs. She's really not an animal lover. My dad was always finding puppies and kittens and abandoned baby birds.... he'd bring them all home and my mother would immediately tell him to bring them someplace else.

Mickey Kitty goes to the vet next week for his two operations.... neutering and de-clawing. I will bring him there on Monday night, about ten minutes before the clinic closes.... and that way, he'll be the first little patient on Tuesday morning. I told our friend the vet that there's no way I could keep Mickey away from food the night before...... not with three other cats in here. I would have to confine Mickey in his crate and I'd be listening to him cry for hours and I couldn't handle that. So Mickey will be there from late Monday night till 11:00 on Wednesday morning. Once again, he'll be wondering what happened to all of us.

Gracie to The Vet -&- Harry Potter

Today was the day for Gracie to go to the vet's..... she was under anesthesia to have her teeth cleaned, and she also had a lump removed from her chest area. Right now, both she and my husband are resting and doing just fine.

This morning, however, was a different story. My husband took Gracie to the vet's office at 7:30. I'm sure that Gracie thought they were going to the beach, or to the bakery for breakfast rolls. Poor Gracie was in for a shock when the morning's drive ended at "Uncle Todd's" office. Gracie dug her heels in when they tried to get her in the exam room, so my husband went back there with her. Gracie had her escape well-planned..... as soon as they put her on the scale to be weighed, she jumped off and ran to the door. She didn't get very far, since the door was tightly latched.

Gracie was there all day...... we picked her up at 4:00 this afternoon. She was on her feet when we got there, but very groggy still, and unsteady as she walked. If Gracie could've gotten into my husband's pocket, she would've done just that. She walked over to him and let her body rest against his legs while Todd gave us instructions for her pain medication. During the car ride home, Gracie tried to keep her head on my husband's shoulder, but she was just too "out of it" to do anything more than lay down and take a nap.

When we got home, the cats sniffed around Gracie and I'm sure they detected a medicinal odor from the vet's office, and they're staying away from her. Gracie is a little more alert now than she was this afternoon, and I'm sure she'll be fine in the morning.


"Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince" --- I finished the book this afternoon. Shocking, parts of it, and I won't mention the details here because I don't want to give anything away. My husband read the book before I did, and he couldn't wait till I got to the last few chapters so he could discuss them with me. I just wouldn't have guessed the outcome of this book, and one thing I know for sure--- I hope J.K. Rowling uses the 7th and final book in this series to answer the questions that were left un-answered in this volume. This entire series has been great reading. Rowling's imagination is just incredible.

There was an article in The Houston Chronicle a couple of weeks ago..... it seems that the new Pope in Rome has declared the Harry Potter books to be a good example of bad writing, bad thoughts, bad superstitions, bad magic. Well, pooh to that, in my opinion. The Pope talks of superstitions in the Harry Potter books? Well don't get me started on the list of superstitious rituals that abound in the Catholic Church and thrive inside the walls of The Vatican.

Thursday Before Dawn......

Today is the day that Gracie goes to the vet to have her teeth cleaned and to have that small lump removed from her chest area. I'm sure she knows that the lump is there now because we've seen her trying to lick that area. She can barely reach it, which is a good thing because she'll have stitches there this afternoon.

As I'm typing, it's just about 4:45 a.m....... I've just brought The Chronicle in from outside but haven't read it yet. My husband has been up for an hour already.... he's going to take Gracie into the vet's office later on this morning. Not going to be an easy thing to leave her there, I'm sure. Gracie will be pulling at her leash with a terrified look on her face.

It's amazing to me that ShadowBaby has begun to act like a kitten again. I'm certain that he doesn't like not being the baby-cat around here anymore since the arrival of tiny Mickey Kitty. ShadowBaby is curling up in my lap when I sit down to read, just like he did when he was Mickey Kitty's size. He's always been a very close, Romeo-type of cat, but now he's been giving me those upside-down cute kitten looks whenever he can, as if to say: "I'm still your baby, right?"

We had Mickey Kitty in the house for a little while again yesterday. We bring him in here (from the screen-porch) only when we can watch him every second. He's so fast, and so tiny that he can get under low-sitting furniture and crawl behind the piano. Too many places in here for him to hide, and too much stuff around for him to see all at once. I'm hoping that he will be as good as the other cats as he gets older.

I'm trying to teach Mickey Kitty that he can crawl through the breakfast room window to get into and out of the screen porch. We've been keeping that window closed since we got the new kitten, because I can't have him coming in and out at will until I know he'll be good inside the house when I'm not watching him every second. I'm sure that the other cats miss not having that window open a little bit for them.... and I miss having it open because I have to keep opening and closing the door that goes from the breakfast room to the porch. There are days when I feel like a need a little doorman's cap.

I'm still wearing the little pedometer every day. I learned something new about the three little buttons on it--- the steps can be translated into miles. On Tuesday, the number of steps was 15,541... which is 7.34 miles. Yesterday's number of steps was 10,643 (or 5.02 miles). Slow day.... I sat and read the new Harry Potter book yesterday..... still trying to finish this book, which is taking me more time than usual (to read any book) because of the extra time I need for the new kitten. A new baby in the house always disrupts the schedule. ("And I'm worth every second," says Mickey Kitty.)

We haven't been having our daily rainstorms for about a week now. Everyone has their sprinklers turned on again and on any given night when you walk around the neighborhood you can hear a symphony of clicks and sprays and splashes. We have a fairly big frog that has found a home underneath our front porch. I think he found a dry spot there when we were having those torrential downpours, and he has decided to stay around for a while.

I see the frog just about every night. He sits on the front porch tiles and just watches the street for a little while. If he sees me watching him from the door, the frog squeezes himself down between the brick border of the flowerbed and the tiles of the porch. He looks like he's too big to fit into the 3/4-inch space of that opening, but he actually backs up into that spot and shimmies his body down till he reaches the larger opening underneath. It's comical to see... he looks like he's doing a dance from the 1960s, like the Twist or the Watusi. Just what we need to add to our little menagerie here.... a dancing frog.

Monday Trip to Uncle Todd

We call our vet Uncle Todd..... at least that's how we refer to him around our dog Gracie. "Come on, Gracie, we're going to see Uncle Todd.....!" --- and poor Gracie jumps in the car thinking we're going to the park or out visiting.

Our vet is absolutely wonderful, and he's one of our friends who has been to our Charades parties and Christmas parties with his wife. And wonder of wonders, this amazing man even makes house calls for people who can't get their pets to his office, or have too many pets to transport to his clinic, or have cats (like Rusty) who just get too sick during car rides. (Not even our own medical doctor makes house calls. What is wrong with that picture?)

So off to Uncle Todd we went with Gracie today. I swear, as soon as my husband opened the door to Todd's clinic, Gracie turned herself around and started to walk back towards the car. No offense meant to Todd, because Gracie clearly likes and trusts him, but she's a smart dog and knows that sometimes a visit to that clinic isn't exactly a walk in the park, if you'll pardon the pun.

And today wasn't good news for Gracie. Not altogether bad, but not what we wanted to hear. My husband noticed a lump on Gracie's right side, near her chest. He found it over the weekend and wanted to get it looked at right away. Todd took some fluid from the lump (as I stood there watching the wall because I couldn't look at the needle going into her). From what he could tell under the microscope, the fluid is either fatty tissue or the beginning of cells that could turn into cancer. He said he's 75% sure that it's just fatty tissue, but being that the lump is small and not yet attached to muscle or organs, he gave us the option of leaving it alone or having it taken out.

My husband looked at me and I told him the decision was his to make. Being that Gracie has to have her teeth cleaned and will be put under anesthesia for that, he opted to have Todd remove the lump as well. All this will be done this week, on Thursday. We'll have to get Gracie to his office very early in the morning and leave her there till after four o'clock that afternoon.

We've had Gracie's teeth cleaned before, and when I went to pick her up the first time, poor Gracie was still groggy from the anesthesia. I swear it was the saddest thing to see and I've never forgotten how disoriented she looked when I picked her up that day. My husband was out of town for that adventure, but he's home for this one and I don't know who will be more upset on Thursday.... my husband or Gracie.


While I was walking Gracie after dinner tonight, I saw our neighbor V walking along the GreenBelt in the park. She was walking her dog and had his leash in one hand and the biggest bunch of weeds in her other hand. Of course I couldn't resist, so I walked towards her and said "Now don't tell me you've been pulling up weeds in the park?"

V looked at me and said there's no place for her to hide from me when she has weeds in her hand. She told me that her daughter's car had a parking ticket on it this morning. "Right in front of our house... a parking ticket.... just because she was parked the wrong way on the street..... someone was probably robbing a Stop & Go, but that policeman gave my daughter's car a ticket...."

I told V that the same thing happened to my husband's car a while back..... and when it did, we told all our neighbors to make sure their cars were parked the right way on the road. V said she didn't remember us telling her that. I assured her that we did....... and told her "Well, no wonder you're pulling up weeds again!"

V told me that her having to go to the park for weeds was the fault of my gardener who didn't save any weeds for her when he cleaned out my front flowerbeds. You have to know V to understand that this makes perfect sense to her.

The number of steps on my pedometer tonight is 12,705. It's just about 11:00, and my night is not yet over. I still have to go out on the porch and play with Mickey Kitty for a little while so he'll settle down and go to sleep. And Gracie has to go outside on the lawn for a minute or two before she goes on her blanket for the night.

Speaking of Mickey Kitty, our vet asked me this afternoon if we had found him a home or were we keeping him. Silly man....... did he really think that this little kitten could come into our home for a week and then be given away? Kittens have a way of letting you see everything with new eyes, even if the things you're looking at have been around for years. Mickey Kitty absolutely loves my black sandals with the rhinestone flowers on the toes. I usually wear these shoes around the house, and when Mickey Kitty sees them, he curls his little head up on the toes of these shoes and rubs his nose on the tiny rhinestones that are on the petals of the flowers.

AngelBoy also loves these shoes. Come to think of it, he does the same thing-- rubs his nose on the rhinestone-covered flower petals. AngelBoy has been sleeping out on the screen-porch with Mickey Kitty these last couple of days. Oh goodie........ now I'll have two cats who are fashion critics.

Sunday Night Stuff......

I'm still wearing the pedometer as I go about my days here....... Friday's number of steps was 14,969. Saturday's steps numbered 9,532 (a slow day). And today's number was 13,527. Totally amazing to me, but then again, I shouldn't be surprised.... I was never one to sit around much, unless I've got a book in my hand.

Speaking of books...... I'm reading the 6th Harry Potter book now. We had pre-ordered it from Amazon and my husband read it first and now I'm half-way through it. The imagination of J.K. Rowling is totally overwhelming. I would guess that the pressure is on her to make the 7th and final book of Harry Potter more amazing than the first six.

We spent part of the last few days watching movies starring Johnny Depp. We had no idea that he's made so many movies over the years. We don't spend much time at the movies and we hardly ever rent BlockBuster films..... but after seeing Johnny Depp in "Finding Neverland" and "Charlie and The Chocolate Factory," our curiosity got the better of us. Mr. Depp can surely take on any role and make it his own.

Tonight is Mickey Kitty's first night without being confined to the puppy crate. He's out on the screen-porch now, with AngelBoy. Mickey Kitty has run of the screen-porch all day long, so I thought I'd try not crating him at night. AngelBoy keeps the little kitten in his place with a single long hiss. Mickey Kitty hears that and backs away without trying a second time. ShadowBaby needs to learn how to hiss like AngelBoy. Poor ShadowBaby runs away from Mickey Kitty, which only makes the kitten run faster and faster and of course, he catches up with ShadowBaby.

This afternoon, Mickey Kitty was biting ShadowBaby's tail and not stopping, and ShadowBaby was just sitting there and whining and meowing. Rusty was on the porch at the time and he got up from his napping spot and walked over to Mickey Kitty and gave him a swat on his tiny head with his Rusty-sized paw and that was the end of that. Mickey Kitty left ShadowBaby alone, and Rusty resumed his nap. Maybe ShadowBaby needs to take lessons from both Rusty and AngelBoy on teaching manners to Mickey Kitty.

It's been hot, hot, hot all week, and we haven't had rain in two days now. I guess I need to turn the sprinkler system back on tomorrow. Let's see... how many steps from the back door to the garage....

While we were out doing errands today, we stopped in Target so I could get new shampoo. I had been using a mild shampoo which protected the color on my hair. Well, forget that.... this dark brown coloring isn't one I want to save. I can hardly wait till this washes out and I have my own color back again. I am still looking in the mirror and tsk-tsking over this hair.

I swear, I can hear my dear friend Frankie's voice in my head from time to time. A friend of Frankie's once asked her why she didn't color her hair to get rid of her gray. Frankie, wise and practical that she was, replied: "Honey, once you start with that hair color stuff, you've got to do it again and again and again and again........ and both my time and my money is just too precious to waste on that."

If Frankie were still alive, I probably would've told her that I was thinking of adding color high-lights to my hair to cover the gray strands....... and she would've given me that opinion of the entire process.... and saved me all of this grief.

No More High-Lights!

After looking in the mirror for the past few weeks and wondering "Just who is that?".... I went back to the beauty shop this afternoon and got rid of the brighter high-lights that were colored into my hair about a month ago.

The first time I had the high-lights done, they were soft and golden brown. Very subtle, very nice, and I liked the way my hair looked. This last time, the high-lights had a red tint to them, even though she used the same mixture. Could have been the sun... could've been just because my hair was lighter, so the high-lights made my hair even lighter.

Definitely not me. And it's definitely not my style to be sitting in a beauty shop and wasting my time that way. I don't like to sit in those shops.... idle chatter and old magazines are not for me. My usual trip to the hair-stylist (and I've got a great one!) consists of a quick trim of the ends of my hair. I wash and style my hair every morning, so all Nancy has to do is give the ends of my hair a teensy-bitsy trim every three weeks or so and my hair-style always looks great. (Except on the rainy humid days, when my hair does what it pleases, but that's another story.) And Nancy is good enough to cut my hair dry... my hair is clean and styled when I go in there, so it's very easy for her to see what needs to be trimmed just a bit. Before I started to color/high-light my hair, my visit to Nancy's shop took all of 15 minutes, not 90 minutes.

Between Nancy and I, we had this down to a science. Until I asked for the high-lights the second time. She still gives me great trims, but I wasn't happy with the color of my hair, and the high-light mixture changed the texture of my hair-- made it straighter and a little bit dry.

So right now, my hair is a dark, soft brown, the way it used to be, except that to my eyes, after seeing myself with the lighter high-lights since last year, my hair looks too dark. But this is what I had in the first place, except I had natural gray "high-lights" here and there. And if it hadn't been for both my sister and my cousin, I would've kept those gray high-lights till eternity.

My husband came home from his office this afternoon, after I had come back from the beauty shop. When he left earlier this afternoon, I had lighter hair. When he came back at 5:00, my darker hair was back. Let's just say it was a bit of a surprise. One look from him prompted me to tell him: "Don't say a word. I've been having too many bad-hair days as it is and I just couldn't stand to see that light hair anymore."

Then he asked me if I was going to get high-lights again. "Sure," said I.... "they'll be gray and they'll be back in a few weeks." He asked me if I wanted to go out to dinner. I told him I'm not going anywhere till I wash my hair a few times, which I don't plan on doing tonight, so I'm not going out.

Right now, I look like I have hair color from a bottle, which it is, and which I absolutely hate, hate, hate. Bottle hair-color is exactly that, and it doesn't look natural. There's a reason The Powers That Be have given you your own personal color... it goes with your skin-tone, it goes with your personality, it goes with you. And I can't wait to get mine back. Being that I shampoo my hair every morning, within two or three weeks or so, this deep brown will soften up a bit and will be just fine. Till then, my mantra will be "No more high-lights! No more high-lights!"

P.S. to the little pedometer I've been using since yesterday: I re-set the numbers to zero when I got up this morning. I was wrong about the numbers only going up to 10,000.... maybe they meant it would only count up to 10,000 miles. The number of steps I have taken since getting up this morning at five o'clock is 13,078.

Can you imagine that? 13,078 steps. And it's just barely 7:30 p.m. now. I've always known I'm on my feet a lot during the day, but I never would've guessed that I take that many steps in one day.

A Step in Time -&- The Cats

I found something interesting in Wal-Mart today...... my husband and I went there for a look-see around the store and they had a display of pedometers. A friend in our Charades group has one of these little things and she clips it to her slacks to record how much she walks in a day's time.

I've often wondered the same thing. I swear, there are days that it seems like I'm on my feet more than I'm in a chair or in the car. The price on the pedometer was less than $4.00 so I thought it was a cheap enough price to pay to satisfy my curiosity.

This pedometer is about as big as a standard-sized ice-cube, but not as thick. It's made of hard plastic, runs on a tiny watch-battery, and clips onto the waist-band of your slacks. It can be set to record miles, kilometers, or steps.

By the time we got the pedometer out of the plastic packaging (you'd think they were safeguarding the Holy Grail in there)... and figured out how to use it... it was nearly 3:30 this afternoon by the time I clipped this little magic thing on and let it start counting. It is now just a few minutes after 9 p.m., and according to the pedometer, I've walked 5,979 steps. And it will still be counting, once I get up from my desk, since the night isn't yet over.

I plan to keep track of how many steps I walk in a day...... tomorrow's number should be interesting because I'll clip this pedometer on when I get up in the morning and then not take it off till I go to bed at night. The maximum number the pedometer can register is 10,000 steps. I would imagine if you do pass that number, it will start counting from one all over again.


It remains hot and humid, sticky and muggy, with thundershowers every blessed day. An umbrella has become part of my accessories every day. Let's see... do I take the pink one, the red one, or the purse-sized purple one. And on some days, an umbrella that would cover a picnic table just wouldn't be big enough--- those are the days that you stay at home.


Mickey Kitty continues to thrive, to play, to entertain, to discover. He is trying to establish himself as King of The Screen Porch, no matter how I explain to him that he has to share the back porch with his older "brothers" who were here before him. Rusty continues to ignore him, and AngelBoy hisses at him and gives him dirty-kitty looks. Mickey Kitty attempts to terrorize ShadowBaby by constantly grabbing at his tail and plowing his 2-pound kitten-body into ShadowBaby's 16-pound cat-body. I'm keeping an eye on both of them, but they will just have to work this out. When ShadowBaby has had enough, he jumps up on one of the tables or chairs so he's at a higher level than Mickey Kitty. In cat language, I imagine ShadowBaby is saying something like "If anyone here is King of The Screen Porch, you're looking right up at him, kitty-boy."

I've brought Mickey Kitty into the house from time to time, to give him a break from the porch, and to let him have a look-see around the inside. I have to watch him carefully because he's so very tiny and there are too many places for him to hide. Not to mention there's much too much stuff around here that I wouldn't want him to be bothering with. We're very lucky with our cats... they don't touch or break anything. Come to think of it, luck has nothing to do with it. I have given a lot of time, patience and love to these cats. I talk to them like children, I respect them as felines, they understand most of what I say and they're very well-behaved.

Except, of course, on the rare (okay, not that rare) occasion that a new little kitten finds its way into our lives. Then I have to make believe I'm a cat and try and understand their individual reactions to the "intruder." In my mind, I can hear Rusty saying: "What? Another one? Does this mean I get less to eat?" And AngelBoy is thinking: "Why do you need another cat? Who on earth can be cuter and more adorable than blue-eyed moi?" And ShadowBaby... I know he's wondering: "I don't care if he's just a kitten... I want to be the only baby-cat around here."

Somehow, it all works out.... somehow, as the saying goes... there is always room for one more cat.

Rainy Tuesday......

Off and on rain today, mostly cloudy, extremely humid. We usually get high humidity here when it rains, and being that there are so many storms around, the humidity is just staying right where it is..... making for one bad-hair day after another. My hair looks great when I wash and dry it in the morning, and it stays looking just fine until I go either outside or out on the screen-porch. Then the humidity takes over and my hair does what it pleases. Oh well, this too shall pass.

Mickey Kitty continues to do well..... he spends each day doing what all kittens do: he eats, sleeps, plays, eats, sleeps, plays. He's been using his litter box since the first day, so that hasn't been a problem. I've been putting very little litter in his box, though.... it seems that the more I put in there, the deeper he digs. The deeper he digs, the more litter goes flying out of the box. But the porch floor is made of wood slats (like a deck) so it's easy to sweep up... just use the broom to sweep it all between the wood slats.

Rusty is still ignoring Mickey Kitty for the most part... and Mickey Kitty must know that Rusty is too old to play. We had a thunderstorm this afternoon and the kitten ran to Rusty and tried to hide underneath him. One wrong move by Rusty, and that kitten would've been as flat as a pancake, but Rusty was very nice and he didn't move a muscle.

AngelBoy is keeping Mickey Kitty at a distance.... AngelBoy is famous for giving dirty looks, and he's been doing that to the little kitten since the first day. I've had to be very careful with AngelBoy.... he's my most sensitive cat and he picks up right away when he's being pushed to the side or slighted in any way. So far, so good, except that he doesn't want to play with the kitten or let Mickey Kitty get too close. AngelBoy keeps bringing me a toy to play with, and I've had to make time for him so he won't get his pretty little whiskers out of joint.

ShadowBaby has surprised me. He has hissed at Mickey Kitty and absolutely refuses to play with him. I thought ShadowBaby would be the best with the kitten being that he's so friendly with everyone and anyone. He's being cautious with the kitten, and trying to keep the kitten in his place, which in ShadowBaby's mind is at the very bottom of the cat-totem-pole around here. ShadowBaby has also reverted back to some of his own kitten-ways. He will curl up in my arms at night and lick my fingers, which he did when he was a tiny kitten himself. I think ShadowBaby enjoyed his "baby cat" status around here, and he doesn't like it that another kitten has taken his place. This too shall pass, hopefully.

Gracie is being very gentle with Mickey Kitty. When she's outside and sees a stray adult cat, she will start to chase it, but come back quickly when we call her. Somehow, Gracie knows that the cats in her house are her cats and she treats them very well. Mickey Kitty walks right up to Gracie and put his little tiny kitty-nose right up to Gracie's face. Not a drop of fear in this little kitten.

This morning, Mickey Kitty decided to see how far he could climb, so he scaled up the screens of the back screen-porch. He's so light and his claws are so tiny that he was able to scamper up the screen as quickly as a squirrel goes up a tree. I was in the breakfast room and just happened to see him start out at the bottom, and he got nearly to the top before I got out there. He also fell to the floor before I could grab him, and he lay there stunned for a minute or two. I think the fall scared him enough to not try that again. One more reason for getting this little kitten declawed as soon as the vet says it's possible. I swear, Mickey Kitty looked like a spider as he made his way up that screen.

I'm still taking care of ML's two cats and her aquarium.... I go across the street twice a day, sometimes three times. Her cats are lonely with no one home, and they are bored out of their little cat-minds. ML has dark screens on her windows, to keep the hot sun out, plus she has both curtains and drapes on her windows. Her cats have no window of their own to look out of, which makes for unhappy, depressed cats. Take away a window from a house-cat and you've taken away their world. So there I am, playing with her cats and talking to them, plus feeding her fish twice a day. I keep trying to explain to ML's cats that they can watch the fish swimming around during the day, but they're not grasping the concept. As for the fish, I guess they don't care who is in the house as long as they get fed twice a day and the lights in their little fish-world are turned on in the morning and turned off at night.

Weeds Begone!

My neighbor V is at it again.... within the last couple of days, we have seen her walking around the nearby streets on a weed mission. Yesterday, V was carrying a huge Hefty bag, and a long-handled tree-trimmer. This afternoon, she had a small hand-sized clipper and a small trash bag.

I think she's disappointed that she's had to "travel" to find some good weeds. Our lawn service men finished weeding our front flower-beds, and filled all the beds with cypress mulch. Everything looks nice and tidy..... the flowers are thriving and blooming again, I've rearranged the garden ornaments, and poor V can't find a weed in our front yard. Hence, she's been roaming the streets on a weed search.

This evening when I went out the front door to walk Gracie, there was V standing on our front lawn, clippers in one hand, the other hand on her hips, shaking her head and tsk-tsking as she stared into the mulched beds. I couldn't resist, so I asked her: "Well, what's the matter with my flower-beds now?"

"You don't have any weeds left for me anymore!"

"Is that why we've seen you walking the streets with trash bags and garden tools? Are you looking for weeds now in other yards?"

"Well, if your lawn guys had left some weeds for me, I wouldn't have been forced to look in strange yards."

This makes perfect sense to V, and to anyone who knows her. I told her that I needed to walk Gracie, so she came with us. As we walked, V was holding the hand-clippers in her right hand, and I was walking on her right side. As she talked, the hand-clippers became her exclamation point and I had to keep moving away so I wouldn't have a slash mark on the left side of my face. I finally told her we needed to switch sides so I wouldn't be in the path of her hand-clippers.

As we were walking, V's youngest daughter drove by, honked her horn, pulled up to the curb and told her mother that she was on her way home to change clothes but then she's going right out again to pick up her friends and she'd see her sometime "before midnight, give or take." Then off she drove, leaving V and I staring after her daughter's car which barely came to a complete stop as that one-sided conversation took place.

"You see... (said V) .... that's why I need weeds to pull."

I came home with Gracie and hugged each one of my cats. At least they don't go out at night and come back "before midnight, give or take."

Sunday... A Little Sun, A Little Rain, A Little Kitten

My husband just said that the Weather God must have a remote control and he keeps changing channels. The sky keeps changing from gray to blue, from rain to sun..... the grass is soaking wet from a few days of rain and the backyard grass looks to be four or five inches high. Either we get too little rain or too much.

The kitten (Mickey) is doing very well, and so are the other three cats. This time, I've been keeping the kitten out on the screen-porch instead of bringing him right into the house. The older cats are getting used to him a little bit at a time, and I guess they don't feel too threatened by this little one. And he is indeed so very little..... no bigger than a good-sized mouse. Mickey has quickly learned not to bother the older cats if they don't want to play. One little hiss from them and he will back away and go play by himself.

Mickey's personality is already very evident. He's very sweet, loves to cuddle, loves to play and can have a good time by himself with a couple of pipe-cleaners and a toy mouse. I tried to change his little bed last night.... I had a wicker basket in the crate we keep him in and I thought a smaller box (as a bed) would give him more walking room in the crate.

I took out the basket and put the soft towels I had in there into a small cardboard box. All the while, Mickey was watching me and when I put the cardboard box and him into the crate, he jumped out of the box and jumped back into the basket. Smart little cat already knows that a wicker basket is "plusher" than a plain old cardboard box. So back went the basket... and the cardboard box is back in the garage.

I've been very careful to give AngelBoy lots of attention these last few days, and it's paying off. AngelBoy is the one I worry about with this new kitten. He wouldn't hurt the kitten, but if he gets upset because he has to share the house with yet another cat, he might just find a corner of the house to pee in. (As he's done before.) I keep telling AngelBoy that he's my "one and only favorite cat," and I guess he's believing me. I tell the other cats the same thing, so I guess they all believe me. (Either that, or none of them understands a word I'm saying.)

Saturday Before Dawn.......

We were up early this morning..... as I'm typing, it's not even first light yet. ShadowBaby woke me up at 5:00 by kneading his little paws into the side of my face. (Soft little paws, being that he is de-clawed, as are the other cats.)

The new little kitten is doing just fine. He spent yesterday at the vet's office, getting all of his shots and a thorough exam. Except for the usual kitten-worms which he's taking medication for now, he's just as healthy as can be. He weighs just a few ounces over two pounds, so we'll have to wait a few more weeks to have him neutered and have his front claws removed. (I'm sorry if that offends any cat-lovers out there, but that's the rule in this house for our cats, and it's a small price to pay for the spoiled, pampered, and safe life that we give them here.)

The other cats are getting used to this tiny one, a little at a time each day. My husband named him Mickey, and somehow the name just suits him. Tiny as a little mouse, he is. Our young friend C is thrilled that we have a "new baby" in the house.

We brought C home late last night...... she spent Thursday and Friday with us. Another rainy day yesterday, but we (C, my friend A and me) went downtown to Reliant Center to the International Gem and Jewelry Show. I didn't tell C where we going, and she was very surprised and happy when she found out what was going on at the Center yesterday. She had never been to a Jewelry Show before and she had a blast looking at all of the tables and booths (about 400 individual vendors).

Zillions of beads to make your own jewelry, loose stones, gorgeous fine gems, fun costume jewelry, hats and scarves and purses, sunglasses and watches. If you're into accessorizing, then a Jewelry Show is the place to be. And they have everything there, items priced from $1.00 up to $100,000.00 and more.

I told C that she could have anything she wanted at the show, within reason. Being that I can get into the "wholesale" section of the show, most of the prices are totally within reason. C picked out some very trendy pieces (handmade metal & glass pendants), interesting carved jewelry made of bone (an elephant's head pendant which she matched with a leather cord-necklace), and she found some "way cool" sunglasses. She also found bracelets made of shells, and handpainted ceramic beads from Portugal shaped like tiny animals.

C is 14 years old now, and she is definitely discovering a style of her own. Her mom has been getting after her to become "more feminine" in her choice of clothes and accessories, but C has her own sense of who she is and what she wants to look like. She is going for comfort rather than style, and dressing for fun rather than fashion. In all these years of knowing C, I've learned that she's a little girl who knows what she wants and knows what works for her. She has found her own style of the moment, which could change at any time.

I suggested to C that she enjoy her own comfortably-fun clothes, but compromise with her mom so she's dressed appropriately for wherever they happen to be going. C asked me to take her mom shopping and get her to buy "cooler" clothes. I told C that I wouldn't want to change her mom's style for the same reason that C doesn't want her mom to change her 14-yr-old style. "Everyone has their own definition of what's cool." That's how I explained it to C and she understood.

What a glorious little girl she is. 14 going on 15, not 14 going on 47. More than once at the jewelry show, vendors asked me if C were my daughter. As the saying goes: "I should be so lucky........"

Room for One More?...........

I have said this before, and I'll say it again......... "If I get to the pearly gates and find out that God is a cat, then I've got it made."

My husband went out on his usual walk through the park with Gracie this morning. And what did he hear? The loud, pitiful meowing of a kitten. Down towards the bayou he walked, and there was a teeny black kitten in the high grass near the water, meowing his little heart out. My husband picked him up and brought him home. "Guess who's coming to breakfast?"

Tiny, tiny black kitten, just barely over 2 pounds. Not a deep midnight-black like ShadowBaby, but a soft, charcoal black, with very subtle dark brown rings on both sides of his back. If you don't look closely enough, you don't even notice the perfectly-formed oval rings. Pale yellow-gold eyes, the teeniest little face and the biggest ears.

Of course, our three cats weren't exactly thrilled, but Gracie (the dog) was just fine with this morning's surprise guest. Gracie must know that a baby cat or dog must be handled gently because she's like a mother-hen to these helpless creatures.

My husband set up Gracie's puppy crate in the back screen-porch for the little kitten. I didn't have a litter box small enough for him, so I used a 9x13" baking pan, which of course I'll replace the next time I go to the supermarket. I tucked the litter pan into the back of the puppy crate, which is quite large, then made a little bed of soft towels for the kitten. I added dishes for food and water, and little cat-toys, and he was just as happy as could be. ("As happy as a clam," as my dad would say.)

Do we keep him? Do we need another cat? Of course we don't need another cat. I've already asked my cat-loving neighbor if she knows anyone who's looking for a sweet little kitten. V assured me that she will ask around.

We also called the local SPCA. There is no room at their inn. With this being kitten season, plus all the animals they took in from Louisiana because of the storms there, the shelter is filled to the brim and they now have a waiting list for taking in unwanted pets or strays.

I called our vet, who is also a friend of ours. And that's where the little kitten is right now... at the vet's office. He will do the necessary tests on this kitten to make sure he doesn't have anything that could harm our own cats, plus give him the required vaccinations. I also asked him to neuter and declaw the little kitten as long as he had him up there, but because he weighs less than three pounds, we'll have to wait on that.

So there we have it. A little kitten. My husband has named him "Mickey," both for Mickey Mouse (since he looks like a little black mouse with big ears) and for Mickey Mantle. Our little friend C is here with us for today and tomorrow, and she's been singing "Oh Mickey, you're so fine, you're so fine you blow my mind, hey Mickey!"

C, of course, wants us to keep the kitten. When I left the house a little while ago to bring the kitten to the vet, C kissed his little nose and whispered in his ear "I think they're keeping you."

Which we probably will. My neighbor V knows lots of cat-lovers, but those cat-lovers already have cats. As do we. But this is what happens. And when you find a cat out in the tall grass near the bayou on a cloudy, rainy day, you just know that you've rescued this tiny creature from the thunder and rain and lightning, and if you have a cat-loving soul, you feel like a hero. And you find yourself asking this question: "How can I not keep this tiny baby?"

The thunder/rain/lightning have now stopped. We tried at noon today to drive out to Galveston with C. We were heading towards the IMAX theatre at Moody Gardens. We got as far as Texas City and the sky opened up..... so much rain that we couldn't see past the car in front of us and vehicles were starting to pull over to the side of the road. And Galveston, with one bridge going to and from the Island, is not where you want to be during a Texas-sized rainstorm.

We decided to turn around and head back towards home. We stopped at "Hot Wok" for lunch, then stopped at "Goodies Creamery" for ice cream. Then we went to the bookstore to look for books on wakeboarding, which is C's latest passion...... then onto the Hallmark store so C and my husband could pick out a puzzle to keep them busy on this cloudy evening. They love doing jigsaw puzzles..... it's their favorite thing to do together. Unless, of course, there was a boat and a wakeboard available. Then I'm sure C would be teaching my husband how to hold on tight and jump over the waves.

Mickey. Poor little Mickey. He's sitting right now at the vet's office in one of their cages, and wondering what happened to all of us. And I'm sure that my Rusty, AngelBoy and ShadowBaby are thinking right now that we've come to our senses and taken that kitten to a cat-less home.

Wednesday Morning, After Midnight

I got into bed about an hour ago..... and tossed and turned. Couldn't sleep..... and my husband was snoring... then Gracie (the dog) started to snore. ShadowBaby (youngest cat) was sound asleep near my pillow. So I was the only one in that bed who couldn't sleep.

I figured I might as well just get up...... and here I am, munching on Shredded Wheat (the mini ones) and pretending they're Cracker Jack. (Believe me... that's a stretch.) My stomach started growling as I was trying to sleep, which could be what was keeping me awake.

This week is flying by...... tomorrow (today) is piano day already...... and after that, I have to meet an eBay buyer at the local Barnes & Noble. He doesn't want me to mail his purchase, being that he lives in the Houston area. He doesn't trust the post office, he said. Which makes me laugh..... with all the millions/billions of mail that the post office handles every week, the percentage of lost and/or damaged packages must be minimal. But I guess when it's your package, you forget about percentages. So I agreed to meet him there rather than mail his item.

I wanted to go to Barnes & Noble anyway to look for a magazine for our young friend C. When C went to Girl Scout camp last month, she discovered a "new" sport--- Wake Boarding. She absolutely loves it, and is now saving most of her allowance and gift money so she can go to a Wake Boarding Camp next summer. I called Barnes & Noble to see if they had any magazines on that sport, and they do, so I'll buy her one and ask her if she'd like a subscription to it.

C will be spending the night here at our house on Thursday. We're picking her up at noon and my husband and I will surprise her with a list of options as to what the three of us can do on Thurs. and Friday. I hope the weather stays nice....... with all the storms that have been swirling around the coasts lately, the weather has been unpredictable. We heard thunder off in the distance today, but we didn't get any rain. Note to the weather gods: Take the rain elsewhere on Thursday and Friday of this week.

ShadowBaby just walked into my sitting room and plopped himself down on the floor near my feet. I guess he just realized that I wasn't in the bed. He follows me all over, this Romeo-cat of mine.

Mid-July already..... where on earth does the time go? Before we know it, Halloween will be here, and then Christmas pops up ten minutes after that. Or so it seems. I need more hours in a day........ there's piano (almost an hour a day), and reading (usually two books a week, plus magazines), and the house, and the pets (who wants in, who wants out, who needs to be fed/petted/brushed/hugged), the laundry (it multiplies like baby rabbits), cooking meals, shopping for groceries, my husband (who wants to eat in, who wants to eat out, who needs to be fed/petted/hugged), listing items on eBay, packing the 'sold' items and going to the post office, planning for the Halloween party, making a list for the Christmas party, thinking about options for a New Year's Eve dinner party, miscellaneous errands. And of course, there are the "me" things--- hair and nails, clothes, make-up, exercising, shopping, reading, reading, reading, sometimes painting and/or drawing.... 24 hours just isn't enough for one day's worth of stuff on a to-do list.

Nearly 1:00 in the morning now. If I don't get to sleep, I won't be wide awake for my piano lesson tomorrow morning. This week's song was "Home On The Range." The notes are easy, the chords are harder.... especially the chords that are broken up between the right and left hands. The right hand goes one way, the left hand goes the other way.... a natural here, a flat there... and don't forget the eighth notes over there in the fourth measure. Or was that the fifth measure?

That's about it for the night. I hope I'm sleepy enough now to not toss and turn in that bed. Tomorrow is another day, Scarlett. I forgot... it already is tomorrow.

Wet Stuff From the Sky.....

.... And if I remember correctly, that wet stuff is called "rain." We had a nice thundershower yesterday, and then again early this morning. The grass and flowers are saying Thank you, thank you, thank you! No matter how much you water with either an underground sprinkler system, or with a hose and rotating-sprinkler, there's nothing like a good rain to wake everything up. I can't remember the last time it rained here before yesterday..... maybe three weeks ago or more.

I've been adding more cat-hair to the garage every couple of days. Little tuffs of orange & white (Rusty), light-gray & lilac-gray (AngelBoy), and black (ShadowBaby)........ donations from all three of my cats, with a little bit of black & white dog-hair from Gracie thrown into the mix. So far, so good...... I haven't seen or heard any more mice in the garage, and I haven't seen any mice poop in there either. The garage is all swept out, cleaned out, and nicely arranged. Of course, now we're thinking that we don't need to be adding white sheetrock to the garage walls after all.

I'll see if this continues to work. I can deal with looking at the unfinished garage walls...... all I do in that garage is drive my car in and out every day, and store packing materials for eBay, and our outdoor holiday decorations are in there. Two bicycles and a few garden tools, and that's about it.... so if the walls never get done, then I can live with that. What I can't live with is hearing the quick pitter-patter-clickedy-click of mice feet scurrying up the walls when I open the garage door. Hopefully, all the cat-hair in there has out-smarted the mice. Either that, or they're knitting the cat-hair into little mouse slippers so I can't hear them as they run around the garage.

When Does It Stop?

I try not to write too much about current news events in this blog. It isn't that I'm not aware of what's going on in the world.... I read The Houston Chronicle from cover to cover every morning and I listen to the stories on CNN. I have just tried here to keep my own little corner of the world as happy and as stress-free as possible.

I am very aware of the rest of the world and what is going on around me. I have my dad to thank for my love of the daily newspaper...... he always believed that to be aware of what was going on around the world made you a "better citizen of the world." My father always said that we were all here "sharing just this one planet, so we'd better make the best of it." Then he would add, under his breath: "Or God help us all."

Well, certain groups of people around the world aren't making the best of it. They're trying to take the best and tear it down, blow it up, change its landscape. And for what? That's my question. For what reason? For what purpose? To what end?

I wish the news media would stop referring to these violent groups as "terrorists." Somehow, the word terrorist has attained a certain Rambo-esqe Hollywood image. And heaven knows, there are enough movies coming out of LaLa Land which are high on explosives and deaths and low on plot and dialogue.

These groups, these people, these cults, these vermin........ they should be called "cowards." The Chronicle headline should've been: "Cowards Blow Up London Subways and Buses."

Isn't that what they are? Cowards? Webster defines a coward as "... one who lacks courage... one who is shamefully unable to control his fear."

What better way for a coward to show his displeasure and fear of all that is noble and good--- set a bomb to go off and run away and then watch the suffering and pain from afar while raising a victorious fist in the air. And if you think that the Sept. 11th pseudo-pilots who blew themselves up with the planes and the passengers weren't cowards, think again. Those cowards didn't try and change the world and make it better, they extinguished the worlds of thousands of people they'd never seen before who didn't share their fear of a good life.

Does it make these cowards happy to see innocent people blown up? Does it warm their hearts to see children hurt, or to know that children may become parentless?

And that's a better question. These cowards who blow up subways and buses and set bombs in buildings and turn planes into missles.... do they have children? Do their siblings have children? Is this their legacy for those children?

Cowards. I wish all of them would be forced to look into the innocent, hopeful eyes of a child and explain to that child that the planet would really be a better place if bombs were going off every hour in every city in the world.

Faulkner's "The Sound and The Fury"

I've finished the second William Faulkner book in Oprah's three-book summer reading club. If you ask me to tell you about the story, I couldn't. I kept waiting for the light-bulb-moment of that book.... the one paragraph or chapter which would make me say "Ah-ha! So that's it!"

Sadly, that moment never came, not even after I went to Oprah.com to look at the reading guide for this Faulkner book. There's a list of characters on the Oprah.com site.... and that was helpful. At least I knew who was who, and what relationship each character had to the other-- which isn't made apparent in the book. (What were you thinking, Willie?!)

When I had my piano lesson on Wednesday, I mentioned to K (piano teacher) that I was reading Faulkner. Her one-word reply was "Why?" K is very well-read, so her comment should've been my light-bulb-moment. If K couldn't wade through Faulker and come out with her head above water, then I don't have a chance.

I will, however, wait till next month and try the third Faulkner book, "Light In August." I might as well give it a try. I will either be pleasantly surprised or entirely confused. Either way, I'm hoping that Oprah picks a better classic volume for her next choice.

Until it's time for the third Faulkner book, I'll keep busy with the pile of books waiting for me to read. (All of them much easier on the senses than Faulker.) One thing is for sure....... I can accumulate books faster than I can read them.

Happy July 5th........

At the last minute yesterday, we decided to drive into Kemah to see the fireworks by the boardwalk there. The closer we got to the Kemah/Seabrook area, the more we kept saying that we were glad we didn't ask anyone to go with us. There was no place to park. Absolutely no safe place to park.

There were cars in all the gas stations, the store parking lots, restaurant lots, even the fast-food places were filled with cars. People were parking their cars in the drainage ditches. Cars were lined up on the shoulders of the road. The Kemah bridge was filled with cars, and little kids were sitting on the roofs and hoods of pick-up trucks. What were those parents thinking?-- One bump from another car, and those little kids could've landed in the bay.

We drove around some of the streets surrounding the Kemah boardwalk....... not a space to be had, unless you wanted to park in someone's driveway. Then we started thinking that all those cars sandwiched in those streets would be coming out of those streets after the fireworks were over. Let's see....... about two hours worth of a traffic jam, we guessed.

Better to quit while we were ahead. We turned around and came back to Clear Lake. We saw some fireworks during the drive home, then turned on the TV when we got here and watched the last part of the downtown Houston firework display. (Where on earth did all those thousands of people park their cars downtown?)

Fireworks just aren't fireworks when you're watching them on television. There's no noise, no smoke, no snap/crackle/pop. Most of all, you miss all the explosions of color within your entire field of vision.

The Kemah/Seabrook area used to be two tiny little towns that you would miss if you blinked. There was a waterfront area there, but no boardwalk. A few nice restaurants, but not the two dozen or so that are there now. There were a few gift and antique shops, but now there's one shopping plaza after another. Most of the little beach homes there have been bought up and torn down, to make room for either parking (which there is never enough of) or restaurants and shops (which there are too many of).

When the boardwalk area was in its proposal stage, not many people here even knew what a boardwalk was. All they knew for sure was that any sort of organized construction by one billionaire would mean the end of their towns as they knew them.

And right they were. The sleepy little towns where you could go and have a leisurely lunch or dinner have been changed into the mega-million-dollar "entertainment complex" that includes restaurants, hotels, shopping, huge carnival-type rides, and parking. (Never enough parking.)

Used to be that we could drive down to Kemah/Seabrook on any day at any time and never worry about not being able to park or get into a restaurant. Now you have to plan ahead and try and out-think the thousands of other people who go there. (Most of whom don't live in this area. Kemah/Seabrook has become a vacation/honeymoon/tourist destination, especially for Texans from non-waterfront areas of the state.)

The billionaire who benefits from this mini DisneyLand in Clear Lake is very happy about his success, I'm sure. The rest of us who live here aren't all that thrilled.

Just about every day, there's a private helicopter that goes over Clear Lake and heads to the Kemah waterfront area. Word has it that the helicopter is owned by the above un-named billionaire. We all figure that he has to take a helicopter which can land on the roof of the big hotel he built because there's no place to park his stretch-limo in the parking lots down there.

Mice in The Garage

We have three cats, two of which go walking around the backyard on a daily basis. Now wouldn't you think that any mice with a smidge of sense wouldn't cross our property lines?

Rusty has caught a couple of mice in the backyard within the past few months. I would bet that the mice were trying to get to the bird-feeders, to snack on leftover birdseed. To cut back on their snack options, I've been putting half the amount of birdseed in the feeder each morning and hoping that there's precious little left for midnight-snacking rodents.

The mice, however, seem to have made a home behind the tarpaper walls in our garage. Because our garage is only attached to the house via a fairly long covered outdoor breezeway, the walls inside the garage weren't finished with sheetrock. When you walk into my garage, you see the wood studs and black tar-paper. Not exactly an inviting atmosphere, but we use it just for storage of outdoor things. Plus, I always keep my car on one side of the garage. I've never kept anything in the garage that has to come into the house.

I called our favorite handyman company last week to give us an estimate on installing sheetrock in the garage.... all along the walls, and the ceiling as well. Plus, we figured we would add some extra lighting in there, and even paint the concrete floor. A simple project. Or so we thought.

According to the head handyman, if we want the walls sheetrocked and finished so they look like the walls inside our house, plus have the floor sealed and painted, plus the extra electrical fixture, the total cost would be $4800. If we just want the sheetrock put up along the walls and ceiling, along with the electrical work, not counting the floor painting, then the cost would drop down to $2800.

Our jaws dropped at both of those prices. I didn't want the inside of the garage to look like a room in my house. I hadn't planned on hanging up artwork in there or making a game-room. I just want a mouse-free garage to drive my car into and have storage shelves to hold the outdoor holiday decorations, lawn chairs, gardening equipment, etc.

I asked Head Handyman to give me a bottom-line, pay-cash-and-walk-out-the-door price for just hanging up plain white sheetrock, without taping, painting and making it nice. That price turns out to be $1800..... and for that, my husband and I would have to remove all the shelves that now hang on the unfinished walls, and the workers wouldn't put them back up after the sheetrock walls go up. So we'd have to re-hang all of those shelves. Oh goodie.

"You may think this is an easy job, and for the most part it is. But it's all labor that y'all will be paying for. Every shelf in there has to come down, then they have to mark the studs where they were at so they can put 'em up again. It's all labor, labor, labor, because the sheetrock itself would be pretty cheap for y'all." --- which is what Head Handyman told me.

$1800 to hang up sheetrock in a two & a half car garage seemed pretty high. Not to me, since I'm the one who's been sweeping up mouse-poop in the garage for the past few months. But my husband wants to get more estimates.

My young friend C called me yesterday, asking if I wanted to go out to lunch. I had just walked in the back door from the garage when she called and the only thing I wanted to do was get into the shower and get the garage dust off of me------- I cleaned out half of the garage yesterday morning. I told C that I wasn't ready for a lunch out because I was busy cleaning out the garage because we had mice. "You have mice in the garage? Cool!" Bless that child....... she loves all animals, whether they be pets or pests, domesticated or wild.

I now have a huge pile of trash for the next trash pick-up. Old packing boxes that I was keeping for eBay sales... I tossed out the bigger ones because I don't sell large things on eBay anymore. I tossed out some old carpets that I had covering half of the garage floor. I went through all the make-your-garden-grow products that I don't use because the only things I can grow are spider plants and impatiens. I had three pairs of old shoes in the garage that I used for gardening. Out they all went, for the simple reason that I have no idea if one of the mice had curled up for a nap in one of them.

Every time I brush the cats (which is every day), I'm saving the hair that comes out on them and I'm sprinkling it around the perimeter of the garage... along the inside, near where the studs meet the floor. Hopefully, the mice will smell the cat-hair and think my cats have taken up residence in the garage. If it wasn't so blasted hot out there, I would let Rusty stay in the garage for a few days. But my cat-loving conscience won't allow that. I'd rather deal with the "cool" mice than have a cat who needs therapy.

Bottom line...... I will get more estimates and hopefully find a handyman who has a crew of new workers who need to learn how to hang up sheetrock in a garage before they attempt to do the same in a house.