Deliver me from contractors and stray cats...

First, the contractor... who was supposed to be here on Thursday morning, but called the day before to tell me that his schedule was delayed because of concrete work. "When you order concrete, you're on their time, not yours," said the Ken doll.

The contractor assured me that he would call me before Friday to let me know when he and his crew would be here to begin the work on the roof of the gazebo. Let me check my calendar.... yes, today is Saturday, just as I thought. I haven't heard from the contractor. I went so far as to call his number this morning to ask just where we were on his schedule.... no answer... I left a message.

I never did like Barbie's choice of Ken in that little doll empire of hers back in the 1960s.  Ken was too good-looking, too un-real, too perfect. And this Ken-doll-lookalike of a contractor is proving my point, I'm sorry to say.

My husband said this morning that maybe he should have chosen the first company that came for the estimate. Both of those guys were definitely not Ken dolls.... their shirts were stained with their lunch, their jeans weren't pressed and creased, their truck had dents on the door and tools scattered in the back, and their hands were rough and calloused. Barbie would have poo-poohed both of them, but they screamed "Real Workers!" to me.


And now.... that cat. That orange and white cat whom I refuse to call my own.... the one that my friend V insists is indeed ours because we've been feeding him, talking to him, and worrying about him when he doesn't show up on the porch. V went so far as to eMail me suggestions for real names for that still-un-named feline......... Amarillo, Butterscotch, Ginger, Persimmon, to mention a few. My favorite was Amarillo, but then just this morning I thought of Maverick, because he's that kind of cat--- very independent and in-charge, and perfectly content to be his own cat.

For the last two days, that orange cat has not wanted to eat the Meow Mix.... he will go to the dish and sniff it, look up at me and honestly, he puts his nose further into the air as if to say "You don't really expect me to eat that, do you?"  It's the same Meow Mix that he's been munching on for the past ten months (Yes, he's been here that long.)

So now I have an orange cat sitting by the back door, clearly hungry, and I absolutely refuse to buy another brand of cat food for that cat. I already know that he doesn't like the cans of Fancy Feast, and he doesn't like the tinned sardines that my neighbor thought would be the perfect way to catch him and get him to the shelter.

If the Meow Mix is good enough for our inside cat Sweet Pea, and good enough for the outside cats Gatsby and Mickey, then it's certainly good enough for a stray cat who never wants to go away and stay away.

I can hear my friend V now.... "He's not a stray cat, he's your cat!"

Hammering? What hammering?

And so it begins....

The construction guy, a la Ken doll, called me this morning to tell me that he wouldn't be able to start work on the gazebo tomorrow morning as planned.  Why am I not surprised?

It seems that the job he and his crew on working on now has come up with some problems.... they need more concrete... the concrete truck can only be there tomorrow and he has to be there when they arrive.

"Would it be alright if I call you on Thursday afternoon or Friday morning to let you know when I'll be out your way to start on that gazebo?"

Sure. Fine. What can I say?  I know about those concrete trucks... when you order a concrete delivery you are on their time, not your own... and if you can't be there for delivery, they'll go on to some other location and you get put back on the bottom of their list.

So the Ken doll won't be here tomorrow. I should have mentioned that schedule change to my neighbors... most of the ladies around here were planning to bring their lawn chairs and watch him working.

The list of readers....

... keeps on growing.... I can now add Canada and Ireland to the list of new readers.  Thank you all very much!

Let the hammering begin....

The construction guy/Ken doll will be here this week, on Thursday, to start the work on the new roof for the gazebo.

Being that I told the ladies here that the contractor looks like a Ken doll, I expect to see at least a few cars driving by for a look-see. Not to stare at "Ken," of course, but just to make sure the work is progressing well as each section of the gazebo is tended to.

As for me, I wouldn't care if Attila The Hun was out there working on that gazebo.... I'd just like the work done, and done well, so when I look out my kitchen window, I will not see a gazebo without a roof anymore.

Another 'Thank you!'

New readers on my blogs..... from Romania and The Netherlands......

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

It is just totally amazing how many people from around the world find their way from there to here.

Clutter happens....

.... by not by itself.  Clutter always has a lot of help.

I was down at a neighbor's house this morning, looking through boxes of a collection put together by the neighbor's wife who passed away a couple of years ago.  This wasn't the first time I'd been down at his house, and this was surely not the first of his deceased wife's collections.  She had lots of stuff, most of which wasn't even on display in their home.. it had been packed away in boxes since the 1950s.

Now, how sad is that?!

If you're going to collect something, then at least give it some respect.  Keep it on display, use it, enjoy it, and if you're tired of it all (or just tired of dusting everything) then give it away. Plain and simple... give it away. There are probably family members who may like to have something of yours before you go to that big antique shop in the sky. And surely you may have friends who would like part of your collection just to have a little reminder of your friendship.

And if that doesn't suit you, then box up what you truly don't want, and donate it to a thrift shop whose profits will help the local charities in your town. There is always something you can do with unwanted items instead of just letting them sit in dark boxes in a dark attic. Have a big yard sale, for goodness sake, and use the money you make on your no-longer-wanted collections to take a day-trip... or if it's a really big and profitable yard sale, you could make enough money to arrange a weekend getaway.

No matter how long you live, all of your collections are not going with you when you go. And for as long as you're living, do you really want to live in a cluttered home that's packed with things that you haven't unpacked for decades?  If you haven't unpacked those boxes, then I feel justified in saying that you don't want and don't need those things. As this neighbor's collection stands, I picked out what I could sell in my shop, the proceeds will be split with the neighbor, and the majority of the stuff his wife collected over the years is going into a big yard sale next month.

Keep in mind that whoever gets to "go through" your decades-packed boxes after you've gone... they're going to be standing there, box after blessed box, shaking their heads and tsk-tsking and saying "What on earth was she thinking?!?!"

Live nice. Don't clutter up your life.

That orange cat... again.

After months and months of not petting that orange and white stray cat, after refusing to give him a name, other than Orange Kitty (which doesn't count), that orange cat has now established the back porch as his place of preference.

He no longer hides under the back steps or underneath the cottage all day long.  That orange cat is right on the porch, not only in plain view, but on the porch furniture and looking like he's been there forever.

My husband has started to pet him, and that orange cat no longer scratches or tries to bite.  After watching both Gatsby and Mickey's behavior, the orange cat has taken cat-lessons from them as to the proper way to greet us as we walk out the door and the best way to say thank-you for the countless bowls of Meow Mix.

Yesterday, I looked at that orange and white cat as he sat on the chair by the back door of the porch and he turned his body over so he could look at me with upside-down eyes.  He just laid there, staring at me as I stared back at him. I put my hand down towards him and he didn't try to scratch me..... he let me pet his orange and white head and he started to purr.

I kept petting his little head..... he kept purring, and then he closed his eyes and there he was, belly up towards the porch ceiling, four paws curled up in tight little commas, perfectly content. As if he'd always been there.

Give me a blessed break. I do not want another cat.


Knock, knock.
Who's there?
Orange.
Orange who?
Orange you ready to give me a real name?

Time for crickets...

My husband and I went into town today to have lunch at one of the little cafes there on Main Street. Yes, our small town really does have a Main Street.  I think that's a rule for every small town.

Every year at this time, there is an influx of black crickets. Hundreds of them must march across Main Street and then meet their cricket-maker on the sidewalk where the concrete meets the buildings. Littered all along the sidewalk were the black crickets and if you didn't watch where you were walking, you would hear that awful crunching sound as your shoes smashed down on a crisp cricket. And yes, the dead crickets become crispy like Corn Flakes because they've been baking in the sun as they lay there taking their last breaths.

I have to think that the store-owners on that street must spray the sidewalks with some sort of bug-killer because why else would all of those crickets die when they get to that stretch of their journey. I've not noticed the cricket parade on the other streets in town... just that one particular street. Happens every year around this time.

We also had one black cricket in the house last night... it was on the silk curtains in my dressing room, and when I went in there, I heard its legs moving along the curtain as it actually walked upwards towards the valance. Give me a blessed break.  I didn't want to spray the curtains.... I waited with that can of bug spray till the cricket got up over the valance and started walking on the wall.

That's when I sprayed him.. and that's when he started to fly towards the center of the room. And that's when I screamed.... and my husband came running out of his office to see what the problem was... and when I told him that I had to spray a cricket, he gave me a lecture that crickets were good and wouldn't bite or sting. In my opinion, a "good" cricket stays outside the house.

The cricket landed on a table-top.... and I closed the door to that room and let him die in peace. Then I scooped him up with the little hand-vac thing that's been a life-saver in my little country bug world out here.

Two must-haves: a can of Bengal Gold bug spray on every floor of your house, and a hand-vac thing to pick up the remains of what has been sprayed.

That orange cat...

Well, guess who's in charge of the porch now? Orange Kitty. That orange and white stray cat who will soon be celebrating his first anniversary with us. He turned up around Thanksgiving last year, and as more and more months go by, he gets more and more comfortable outside, and now he's sleeping on the porch furniture instead of taking his naps underneath the back steps or under the cottage.

The orange cat has also learned which windows to look through so he can see Sweet Pea, our inside cat. Orange Kitty is head-over-heels in love with Sweet Pea. The orange cat is an un-fixed male; Sweet Pea is a fixed-male but acts like a female (not that there's anything wrong with that). Those two cats meow to one another through the glass windows, and I've seen the orange cat literally climb up on a screen trying to get closer to Sweet Pea. If that cat's claws put holes in the window screens, my husband is going to have a fit.

The orange cat has also discovered the inside of the garage and the chicken-coop-turned-kitty-coop... that's where Mickey spends his nights, and that is strictly Mickey's territory. The orange cat walked in there the other day and I heard Mickey howling for all he was worth... and he's an older cat and his howls are usually pitifully low, but that morning, they probably heard Mickey all over the county.

Orange Kitty started his sojourn here with every-other-week visits... which turned into once a week encounters.... which turned into daily meanderings around our porch.  I didn't feed him at all in the beginning because I didn't want another cat. (Still don't.)

But that orange cat was patient.... he didn't care that he wasn't eating here. He kept coming back for the company of our outside cats, plus in his kitty-heart-of-hearts, he knew that I didn't want another cat. (Still don't.)

When the weather turned cold in December and January of last year, there was that orange cat, skin and bones, meowing on our back porch. How could I not feed him at that point? It was blessedly cold out there, and that cat was a furry toothpick on four paws. "Okay, okay, you win.... here's some Meow Mix, but I don't want another cat."  (Still don't.)

We have tried to catch him so many times over the past months..... the catch/release trap didn't work, the cat carrier didn't work, a can of sardines didn't work, and just this week, I've been trying to catch him with a blanket. That orange cat is still laughing at that attempt, I'm sure.

I would give anything to have this cat away from our property. But I won't let him go hungry as long as he's out on our porch.

And right now as I type, Orange Kitty is sound asleep on the biggest and most comfortable chair on that porch. He desperately wants this house as his home. I have not tried to pet him.... and I walk outside with an umbrella or a broom held down next to my legs, just to keep him away from me. I have told that cat thousands of times over all these months that I don't want another cat. (Still don't.)

I looked at the orange cat today and said out loud "Don't you want to go somewhere else?"
And Orange Kitty probably said "Still don't."

9/11

I just finished watching a program on the History channel called "102 Minutes That Changed America."  Powerful program, to say the least.

No matter how many times I've seen programs and read books about September 11th, it all becomes just as new and as fresh as if it had happened just a minute ago.

In NYC today, all of the names of the deceased were read aloud from the list.  That list is read every year, and I'm sure for the family and friends of people on that list, the events of that September 11th are indeed just as new and as fresh as if it had happened just a minute ago.

We share just this one planet.

It's not as big as you think.

And the more this planet gets weighed down by hatred, the smaller it's going to get.

Thank you...

This is a very long over-due "Thank you!" to those of you out there who are keeping up with all of my blogs.

Not only do I have readers here in the U.S., but on my 'audience' list, I see that I have readers from England, Poland, France, Ukraine, Australia, Germany, China, and Russia.

To say the least, that is very humbling, and so very kind of all of you to take time out from your own busy lives to see what's happening in my teeny little corner of this planet.  As I've written in my blogs, my writing is non-political, and with all the madness that seems to occur around the world on any given day, I try not to include that mayhem in my blogs. That does not mean that I am not aware of the current news events of each and every day.

So it is indeed a wonderful thing to know that my writing has been discovered by blog-readers in other countries who may not always have joyful days.  To all of you, I do indeed wish you joyful days and peaceful nights. And I truly do thank you for stopping by to read my blogs from time to time!

Derek Jeter Day

We just watched the ceremony at Yankee Stadium for Derek Jeter. This will be his last season with The New York Yankees.

What an outstanding baseball career... and the topper of it all for me is his dedication and his love of the game.  There aren't many players on a baseball field today who truly love the game.  By the headlines some of the players make in the newspapers, it's apparent that a lot of ball players think they're the be-all and the end-all of the game. They forget they're part of a team, part of a tradition, and little league players look up to them as if they were the be-all and end-all of the game.

Derek Jeter, in my opinion, is what baseball should be.  He always came across as a gentleman, as a sportsman, as a true lover of The Game.  And baseball, for all its traditions and its camaraderie, is, after all, just a game.

But..... it's the game of this country. It's part of our history, our culture, our red/white/blue personality.  It is Baseball, it is ours, and you can hardly be an American and not love that game.

Derek Jeter's speech today was heart-felt and heart-warming, and for him, I'm sure it was a bit heart-breaking as well.  Derek Jeter is a part of baseball that can't be replaced after he's gone. That man loves the game. Loves the game. Eats its, sleeps it, plays it... he is the game.

For that talent alone, baseball fans should be thanking Jeter for all his years of getting out on that field and picking up a glove, a ball, and a bat. And today, they did.

Joan Rivers

Well, I'm hoping that Joan Rivers and Johnny Carson have now ironed out their differences and are talking once again, with Robin Williams up there also, just laughing at the grudge those two carried for so many years.

There's a YouTube video showing Joan Rivers at a memorial for Johnny Carson.... his picture is etched into the granite stone, and Joan is sitting on the bench-like part of the memorial which sort of resembles Carson's old desk on The Tonight Show.  You can tell by Joan's voice that she was still sad over the loss of Carson's friendship, and never wanted that friendship to die just because she had been offered her own late-night talk show when Carson was still on the air.

Egos are huge in Hollywood... that's my guess... and Carson being Carson, I think he let his ego rule his mind, thus destroying the relationship between himself and Joan Rivers.

As for Joan.... she made us laugh, she said what was on everyone's mind, and she just let it all come out without caring who liked it or didn't.  There were times in her stand-up career that she sprinkled shocking expletives into her stories... which (in my opinion) weren't needed because her material was funny on its own... it didn't need all the four-letter punctuation marks.

Joan Rivers is being buried today. I'm hoping that Carson was there waiting in the wings for her, and as she walked through the gates of Heaven, wouldn't it be nice if Carson could be heard saying "Heeeeeeere's Joanie!"

Four out of four....

Wonder of wonders, all four appointments with the contractors worked out just fine. They all showed up, and basically on time, more or less.

The first crew, the soft-spoken, slow-talking partners, have even called my husband back already with their estimate, which we didn't think was over-the-top-expensive.

The second contractor got here a little later than the appointment time, but he called to say he was on his way--- he took a wrong turn and ended up in the next town. When he got here, he knew what he was talking about and set about drawing out his plans for the new roof of the gazebo.

The third guy was on time and reeked of aftershave, but he knew what he was doing. Problem with him is that he's got five jobs going at once now, and we'd have to wait for some of that work to be done before he brings his crew over here. But he took down the measurements and said he'd call and give us the estimate.

The fourth appointment was this morning..... two partners, showing up on time, but neither one of them pulled out a measuring tape to make note of how wide the gazebo is, how much of a pitch we'd like on the roof, and how much material they'd need for the job. Nice guys, both of them, and they laughed at my husband's jokes, but I don't know if I want carpenters who don't take measurements before giving an estimate, especially with an eight-sided gazebo.

My husband went downtown this morning to look at samples of the metal roofing materials, which would be much less weight than plywood and shingles... so at least we have an idea of what these contractors are talking about when they suggest metal roofing is the way to go.

The operative word today is "go."  By the middle of this coming week, we should have all the estimates from the contractors.  My husband has the metal roofing samples on his desk as I type.  It shouldn't be a monumental decision to pick one of these contractors and tell them to "go to it" and get the job done.

I'm hoping to see a roof on that gazebo before I send out the invitations to our Halloween party. (As my cousin F would say: "Hope floats.")

Let the construction begin...

.... hopefully.

We had the first of four building contractors here at ten o'clock this morning, to give us an estimate for putting a new roof on the gazebo in the side yard.  That gazebo was built by the previous owner of this house, and while it looked beautiful, it didn't exactly hold up properly. When it started to sag at a very dangerous sloping level, we had handyman W tear down the roofing material and carry it away to the town dump.

That was three summers ago, and we've been off and on looking for a contractor to build us a new roof. We've had estimates all over the map, from a quick-slap of a roof for less than two thousand dollars to a Taj Mahal-style creation for eight thousand dollars. One thing leading to another, between either my husband's job or our traveling, the gazebo has been roof-less for the past three summers. (This is where I usually say "Give me a blessed break.")                                                                

When I first saw that gazebo, I had visions of sitting out there with a book in one hand and a glass of lemonade in the other, with one of the cats sitting on my lap. That vision disappeared when I realized just how many spiders, wasps, scorpions, and snakes are on this property at any given time.  Did I really want to share the gazebo with a potentially stinging scorpion or a slithering snake?  All summer long, I very rarely sit on the wrap-around porch for the same reasons.

But enough already.... I'm tired of looking out the kitchen window and seeing a roof-less gazebo. And I'm sure the neighbors who drive by here are also wondering why we haven't "seen to" that gazebo by now.  My husband finally came to the same conclusion, and he started collecting business cards from the local hardware store. I made four appointments to get estimates..... three today and one tomorrow.

The first team was here on time this morning (big plus) and they measured and talked and designed and drew a rough sketch of what was needed.  As soon as those two men started talking, I knew my husband liked them..... both construction guys talked slowly, softly, taking their time with the planning and the measurements.... my husband is the same way.

If it were up to me, I would have told this first crew to put us on their calendar and asked them to order the material and supplies they need.  My husband was pleased with these two guys, but of course is wanting to see what the other three contractors have to offer.

After three summers of not having a roof on that gazebo, and even if there had been a roof, I wouldn't have been sitting out there under it anyway........ I'm at the point now where I'd just like to tell a contractor "Put a roof on that damn thing and send me the bill."