Goldie Girl

It seems like I have always had Goldie as a cat because she fit in with the family the very first day that she came into my home. The first time I saw her, she was lingering by the pool. She had burrs all through her hair and she looked like she was just burrs, skin and bones.

I sat on the bench on the porch and watched her for a bit before I called, “Come here kitty.” That's all it took to have the kitty run from the pool and land in my lap purring away. I was giggling hysterically because the cat was extremely friendly and cute. After about fifteen minutes of petting the cat, I decided I was going to relieve this stray of her burrs and see if I had any food to give “her”.

While she was eating half a can of chicken, I cut the burrs out of her hair. She didn't care that I was doing that because she was so hungry. She finished the amount I gave her before I was done cutting, so I gave her the other half of the can. “She” licked the can clean.

For some reason, Michael came up from downstairs and saw me interacting with the cat. He would never let me have a cat because he said that he didn't want his house to become a big toilet, didn't want his TV to be destroyed (the tv doesn't have a protective plastic screen), and he was very allergic to cats. I guess he couldn't stand to see an animal starve, he opened the living room door and let the cat come in.

The cat didn't hesitate in walking through the door. I was in total shock watching Michael let the kitty in considering I was never going to have a cat. The cat toured the majority of the house. I jumped on the opportunity to possibly have a cat by suggesting we go get some cat food from the store. While Michael and I went to get food and kitty litter, Andrew babysat the cat.

We came back with lots of canned cat food. A box lid was used to make a kitty litter box. Over the next couple of days, we kept a close eye on the cat to see how she was adjusting to eating regular meals and what kind of behaviors she had towards us and the house. She didn't scratch the furniture but a couple of times because we admonished her when she did it. Krysty, Beckie and I looked over the cat's skin to check for flees and ticks because Krysty saw something on the cat. We got over ten ticks off of the cat.

Andrew helped me give the cat a bath so “she” would be nice and fluffy, along with flea and tick free. As I was drying her, I noticed two white worm like objects near the kittys bum. I did research to find that the poor thing had ring worm. I treated her for that twice and haven't seen any signs of worms since.

About a month ago, I noticed that there was a male cat that would hang around our property. Since Goldie (the cat) is an indoor/outdoor cat, Michael and I decided that we needed to get the cat fixed. Beckie tried to make an appointment with one of the clinics closest to us, but they were booked for six weeks. She found a place to take the cat within a reasonable distance and that could take her within a week.

We kept the cat indoors until the day of her appointment. A lady from work gave me a cat cage since she had many. Beckie managed to get the cat in the cage and drive her to her appointment. Goldie complained the whole way there. At the clinic she was shaking because she heard other cats and dogs bellowing. Beckie left the clinic and went about her other plans for the day. Sometime during the day, there was a message left on the machine from the clinic. That wasn't discovered until Beckie and Michael returned from picking the cat up.

I guess when Goldie was dropped off at the clinic, Beckie told them she was a stray. That might have been the reason that she had her belly shaved before she was put under. It's a good thing they did that because they did find a scar in the place where kitty's get spayed. ::::Laughing Out Loud:::: Goldie went all day and the night before without food and water just to get her belly shaved and spend the day stuck in a cage. She was not happy one bit when she was brought home and she wasn't afraid to show it. She pouted the rest of the day and didn't want to have anything to do with us.

The next day, she was back to her loving personality, wanting to play, be petted, and fed. Goldie does not hold grudges. She even lays on her back to have her bare belly petted. She is truly a great cat. What a trooper!

Unlike my parents, I know a girl cat from a boy cat. :oD

SQEAKHER BECAME SWEEKHE

CAT CONFUSION

We have cats. Here a cat, there a cat everywhere a cat cat. Before the recent addition of Squeak I would see two or three cats in the kitchen and one or two in the window sills and some lying on the bed.

Now Anita swears there is only three but I have counted up to a dozen. However, when she gets them all together it does appear there are only three. Maybe the confusion is in the names. She calls the two black cats Emma and Lucy while I call them Thunderbolt and Lightfoot. She calls the Calico Rosie Cat and I have called her RZG short for Rosie Girl. So that accounts for at least six of them. At any rate along came Squeak.

Our good friends who live out on 110 acre farm have Barn Cats. Sometimes the quantity varies due to foxes and chicken hawks and various other factors. One day we got a call and they asked if we could baby sit a newborn cat while they were on a trip to Texas. We agreed and received a cat no bigger than a small apple. Anita had to feed her with a medicine dropper. She gradually got bigger and bigger and Anita became more and more attached to this tiny fur ball. The cat would make a noise that is best described as a Squeak so therefore the origin of the name Squeak.

Well, it came to pass that the friends came back from their trip to Texas and they said that they would be out in a few days to get Squeak back. I told them that Anita had grown quite fond of the little fur ball. I told them that Anita had a firearm in the house and that it would probably be dangerous to repossess the cat. They realized that Squeak and Anita had bonded and after all, they had oodles of cats still around the farm. So Squeak became a member of the family.

When we first got Squeak she was sick and Anita took her to the vet to get some medicine to clear up the virus. Everybody made a fuss about what a cute girl that Squeak was.

A little later, we discussed having Squeak fixed because we did not need any more little cat critters running around. Anita made an appointment with the Vet for Squeak to have a cat hysterectomy.

On the fateful day, Anita took Squeak to the vet. I was sitting at my desk at work and Anita called me on the cell phone. It sounded as if she was crying so I said what is the matter? At that time I figured out she was laughing as she told me about the call she received from the vet. The vet asked her, “Did you know Squeak is a male?”
I was floored. After Squeak being a cute little girl kitty for so long, it took a long time to come to grips with this. Thus Squeakher became Squeakhe.

At least that explained his aggressive behavior running around the house like a bat out of hell. Chasing the girl cats. Squeak was an Alpha male and the only male cat in the household. But the vet tamed him down a mite as Squeak ended up nutless in Idaho. We still refer to him now and again as a her and when we do he attacks. He always wants to get even so we are watching him closely. All the ladies on Anita’s quilt blog were flabbergasted to find out that Squeak was a he. This is going to take some getting used to but everyone is now able to laugh about it. That is everyone except Squeak.

When I told my daughter, Margaret about Squeak’s ordeal, she told me her cat story. She had a female cat, yes indeed a real her or she. She wanted to have her cat fixed so she took it to the vet only to get a call saying: “When I shaved her belly I discovered that she has already been fixed or altered as Squeak would say. Anyway the daughter Unit had to have her say. She said at least I know a girl cat from a boy cat. I explained that all the time we thought that Squeak was a she that I had not seen, nor had anyone else, a dangling participle. Over time we are hoping that Squeak will forgive us for calling him a girl for almost 5 months. But just in case, I lock the bedroom door.

MEMORIES GOOD AND BAD

I was stationed on the USS Hornet, an aircraft carrier, home ported in Long Beach, California in 1967 and 1968. I was a Second Class Petty Officer. Things were going well in my life. I had a beautiful 1965 Chevrolet Malibu Super Sport (SS) forest green with bucket seats. It shined so bright when I waxed it. Anita and I had a nice apartment on Pine Street in Long Beach. We were expecting our first child, Margaret. We had a reel to reel tape recorder and tons of music I had collected during my Vietnam cruises. We had some good friends and even though there was not much money left over after the rent and car payment we were happy.
We would lift the couch cushions and scrape up .98 cents to attend the .49 cent double feature movies down on Ocean Boulevard. Once we went there with only .49 cents and when we got to the ticket booth realized that we were two not one.
We had a good friend from Louisiana named Frenchy. I was feeling flush one day with about $30.00 in my pocket so we invited Frenchy and I think his live in girlfriend, to dine with us. We went to a fancy restaurant up at the top of Cherry Street. We were seated at the table, the waiter brought us fancy gold leafed menus and we were shocked to see that just about every dish was 12 to 25 dollars each. Anita and I split a chicken dinner and I think Frenchy and his girl did the same. At any rate, it brought me back to reality but in a sense it made us realize that money is in fact no measure of happiness. We enjoyed just window shopping in Long Beach and once in a great while we would splurge and go to our favorite restaurant “Hoff’s Hut”. It was a small place that served excellent food at a reasonable price. We always had the same thing even though the menu had various choices. I chose the chopped sirloin with mashed potatoes, gravy and corn (chopped sirloin is a fancy name for a hamburger patty) and Anita always chose grilled halibut.
We felt we were living high on the hog during those days. Life’s simple pleasures like an afternoon in the park lying on a blanket enjoying the sun, watching people from all walks of life pass by and guessing about them as they walked by. That guy there is named George. His wife’s name is Alice and they have a Chevrolet Impala and a dog named Simpson. They fight a lot and like to BBQ.
Fantasy and fun were the name of the game during those days. We eventually moved to an apartment in Wilmington not far from Long Beach. I would whistle at our land lady, Mrs. Carey. What a nice person she was. She was about 80, loved my whistles and often asked me to cook grilled pork chops which I must say were delicious. Such a joy to have a land lady who seemed to adopt us and we enjoyed our stay in Wilmington. Then came another cruise to Vietnam and long hours of launching aircraft and loading bombs sometimes as much as 20 hour stretches for months on end. War was quite an experience and I lost some good friends and shipmates and had some close calls myself.
Sailing back into Long Beach with the crew manning the rails with flags flying showing off the awards or gedunks as we called them in the day was quite an experience. The docks lined with newspaper and television reporters and hundreds and hundreds of residents and relatives to welcome us back home.
Sousa marches and hugs and kisses and then a period of time in dry dock to prepare for the next war deployment. I was getting close to completing my first hitch in the Navy and had decided to get out.
My happy reunion was soon sobered by the death of my Mother. I flew back to North Carolina where I spent hours standing in front of her casket gazing at her face and waiting for a slight movement or twitch so I could explain to my family that this was a horrible mistake and she was just unconscious. The movement I was waiting for never came and I faced the hardest time in my life coming to terms that my Mother was gone. I don’t feel that I have ever fully accepted the loss. I know my family has never recovered. None of us have been the same since. Time dims the memories and hurts but does not erase the pain of them. The cruelty of the funeral ritual to me extends the depth of the pain and slows healing. I won’t put my family through such an ordeal.
I tried to transfer to another carrier for the short time I had left but no, hell no. We left Long Beach once again early one morning and picked up the sounds of a Russian Sub which we chased all the way from the California Coastal waters into the cold frigid waters of the Alaska islands where we discovered our Submarine was a whale. Well at least it is a whale of a tale eh? All the sailors were expecting to spend some time in Hawaii before heading back to the North Vietnam coastline and here we found ourselves wearing foul weather jackets and launching aircraft to chase the whale. Well, we did eventually make it into the port of Hawaii and I took the time to visit the USS Arizona Memorial, an experience I will always remember. Standing on the memorial looking through the clear water to the sunken battleship below with entombed sailors who went down fighting was a moving experience for me.
Instead of taking me on to Vietnam and flying me back for discharge I was flown back to the states for discharge. They gave me orders to Treasure Island, California for out processing and I drew a line through San Francisco on my ticket voucher and wrote in Los Angeles. I drew a line through my orders also and wrote in Long Beach Naval Station for my destination. Though some processing people questioned the pen and ink changes, I lied and said that it was okay-ed by the ship and the travel costs were the same. I reported to Naval Station Long Beach for discharge thinking they would release me early but no, hell no. I spent the last two months on my first Navy Hitch in charge of a Military Funeral Squad. I still can see the people dressed in black clothing and the tears in the widow’s and parent’s eyes as I handed them the folded American flag after I ordered the gun salute and taps were played. It was a sad time in my life to be so closely involved with that part of the costs of war. Finally, I received my discharge and Anita and I put our suitcases in the back of the Malibu SS and headed back to my hometown in North Carolina. I remember coming down the mountain from Tennessee and seeing the Welcome to North Carolina sign. I pulled the Malibu over and had Anita take a picture of me hugging the sign. I was welcomed home by my family and friends but as I stood over my mother’s grave for hours and tried to revive the good memories, I knew that the reality of life had hit me hard.
I find it amazing that I can recall those details so vividly after all these years have passed yet now, I find often that I can’t recall where I sat my coffee cup down. No matter how great your life seems at times, life intrudes with sad events that mar your happiness. I have developed coping skills but when I conjure up these old memories, the sad times appear along with the good times. The realization that life is a journey and the path has rough spots as well as smooth places sinks in. I concentrate on the good memories and good times and count the other times as part of the experiences that have made me who I am.

Reminder about your invitation from Margaret Owen

LinkedIn This is a reminder that on February 18, Margaret Owen sent you an invitation to become part of his or her professional network at LinkedIn. Follow this link to accept Margaret Owen's invitation. https://www.linkedin.com/e/3ykli4-gkgsins9-2a/doi/2357999393/evvE9zAT/gir_396361569_0/EML-inv_17_rem/ Signing up is free and takes less than a minute. On February 18, Margaret Owen wrote: > To: [margmystr.syadiloh@blogger.com] > From: Margaret Owen [margmystr@gmail.com] > Subject: Invitation to connect on LinkedIn > I'd like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn. > > - Margaret The only way to get access to Margaret Owen's professional network on LinkedIn is through the following link: https://www.linkedin.com/e/3ykli4-gkgsins9-2a/doi/2357999393/evvE9zAT/gir_396361569_0/EML-inv_17_rem/ You can remove yourself from Margaret Owen's network at any time. -------------- © 2011, LinkedIn Corporation Friday, February 18, 2011 Invitation to connect on LinkedIn LinkedIn I'd like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn. - Margaret Margaret Owen Clerk Typist at Butler County Assistance Office Greater Pittsburgh Area Confirm that you know Margaret © 2011, LinkedIn Corporation Sunday, November 14, 2010 HIDE NOR HAIR, by Carl Owen The title of this story has nothing whatsoever to do with the story. I was just listening to an old Ray Charles record and this was one of his songs. His baby left him and he has not seen hide nor hair of her since she walked out the door. It is a familiar refrain with Country and Blues songs. However, I got to thinking about the expression and I used to hear it as a child growing up in North Carolina. For instance, the Sheriff would ask me if I had seen my brother, Edgar,who had broken out of jail or my brother Charles who was AWOL from the Army and that would be my answer. No, I haven’t seen hide nor hair of either one of them. Since the statute of limitations has probably run by now, I can admit that I did see Edgar occasionally. He was living in the woods dodging the law and he would show up at home now and again to get some potatoes and eggs and salt to go with the squirrels and fish he caught in the woods and streams. Charles also would show up to say hello and go back hiding from the MP’s. Not many people saw hide nor hair of those two while they were on the run. Anyway, the title to this story should be: FRED, CARL AND THE SNAKE I used to loaf a lot with my Dad. Dad knew the ways of successful loafing. He pretty much knew what time supper was served at various relatives and friends houses. We didn’t hit the same ones over and over, we sorta rotated. Daddy said why spend so much of your life cooking when so many folks did it regularly. Of course Southern Hospitality and custom required visitors dropping in at suppertime to be invited to have a bite. We took several. One day we were loafing and we had just reached the bottom of Jim Dick Hill, right across from the Aunt Lissy place (Aunt Lissy was a witch) when Daddy saw a bottle in the ditch. He had extremely good vision. He could shoot a squirrel’s eye out at 300 yards with a 22 rifle. He could see the glint of sunlight off a liquor bottle from some distance. So, He skidded to a stop on the gravel road and told me to get out and get the liquor bottle. Well, I knew not to argue with my Dad or my Grandfather either. Might as well add Mama and Grandma to that list also. At an early age I had wisdom knots on my head from taking too long to mind or pretending that I did not hear the orders. So, as soon as the old Dodge truck came to a stop, I opened the door and went to the ditch to retrieve the bottle. Why did he want the bottle? Well, my Daddy made corn whiskey and we retrieved empty bottles wherever and whenever we could. My Mama would wash the bottles and we would fill them from gallon jugs and sell them to customers. Anyway, I digress. As I reached the ditch and parted the weeds to get the bottle, a snake coiled close to the bottle struck and bit my leg. I had just gotten hold of the bottle and I yelled quite loudly as the snake sank his or her fangs into my leg. I can’t tell a male from a female snake. Although in high school us guys referred to good looking girls as fine looking snakes. I never figured that one out either but I went along with it. Peer pressure probably. Maybe it was the wiggle in walk. I’ll do a wee bit more research on the subject. Anyway this particular snake bit right through my new denim pants. Daddy came out of the truck to see what was the matter and I told him a snake had bit me. Well, he looked around the ditch and said: I don’t see no dammed snake. Get the bottle and get back in the truck. Well, as I headed to the truck, I heard Daddy say, well I will be dammed. He came back to the truck holding a snake in his hand. This thing bit me he said. I started to tell him I told you so but I wasn’t ready for another wisdom knot. He tossed the snake to me and said hold this thing. I brushed it off my lap into the floorboard of the old Dodge and put my foot on it. Daddy stopped up the road a piece and cut some milkweed. He said he would make some tea out of it since it cured snakebites in dogs. I asked him if it worked on people too and he said, I guess we will find out. When we got back home Mama told us we had better go to the Doctor just in case the milkweed tea did not work on humans. Well, Daddy not wanting another knowledge bump also ordered me and the snake back in the truck and we drove to town. Rosman is a small town with only one red-light and one doctor. We stopped at Doc Stokes house and went in. I was a little fearful of Doc Stokes because he had recently pulled a tooth of mine without numbing it since the numbing shot costs a dollar in addition to the dollar the tooth extraction cost. I was shifting my feet around getting ready to pull up my britches leg to show the doctor the fang marks and dreading a possible shot. Well, Daddy carried the snake in and handed it to Doc Stokes and said this thing bit me and my boy. Doc Stokes took the snake over to a table and turned on a light and stretched the snake out on the table and looked at it through a big microscope. Finally, he turned to my Dad and said: Fred, I’m afraid I can’t do a thing. I hate to give you the bad news but this here snake is gonna die. Daddy gave the Doctor a pint of moonshine for his trouble and we returned home. I guess the word got out to the other snakes cause neither my Dad nor I were ever bitten by another snake. On a side note, Old Dr. Stokes passed away a few years after the snake episode. I was home a few years ago and my old high school coach, Coach Cathy had bought Dr. Stokes office and house and was living there. When I was in high school, my first cousin Willy was a halfback and Coach Cathy called him Lightning. I was a halfback on the JV team and he called me little lightning and later in life, I made white lightning. Sunday, October 10, 2010 The Case For The Return of The A Model Ford by Carl Owen Things used to be so much simpler than they are now. When the A Model Ford was the thing to drive life was easier. You had your choice of colors as long as you chose black. You had a steering wheel and a gear shift and a clutch and of course a brake for the women drivers. Behind the seat was a wrench to start the car. You stuck the wrench into the front of the car and turned it like a lug wrench and the car started. Rarely did it fail to start and if it did you did not call a mechanic, you fixed it yourself with a piece of coat hanger and some duct tape. If you were able to afford a mechanic, he showed up with a coat hanger and some duct tape. When he was done, you paid him a dollar and gave him a dime tip. My seester Vonda Lee recently went in Ebay and bought a Toyota Hybrid a Prius. Well, you have heard of a praying mantis and this car may be a prius mantus because Vonda prays she can figure out how to make it go from one place to another. I told her to get a coat hanger and some duct tape but she says you have to talk to the car and the computer does everything else. You say: Hey car, I need to go to the bathroom. The car says sorry Miz Vonda but if I stop now you will suffer a loss of gas mileage. Then Miz Vonda says look here car, when you gotta go, you gotta go so screw your gas mileage and find a rest stop like real soon. But says the car and Miz Vonda pulls out a 45 and the car pulls over and says to your left is a juniper bush. Anyway the bottom line is that if something goes wrong with the hybrid car, you have to call a mechanic who brings a computer with him instead if duct tape. Miz Vonda says what is wrong with the car and the mechanic says I have no idea but I will guess at it for $125.00 per hour. Now, this car was located in Ohio (yankee land) and Miz Vonda intended to fly to Ohio and spend 5 days driving this hybrid car back to Montana. She could not get out of Kalispell so she flew to Salt Lake City. Makes sense so far right??? Oh I forgot to mention, she hired a truck driver to load the car up in Ohio and deliver it to her in Salt Lake City. When she got the car she could not figure out how to start or stop it. Thankfully it came with a book. They figured out how to get it to Nevada where she gambled and there is no get rich story to tell about that stop over. So she drove from Nevada to Twin Falls about 55 miles from her brother who had Tequila in his liquor cabinet. We won’t go into too much detail about the tequila either. Mike helped her brother put a bed together and a cabinet for the white girl’s quilting room. Oh, I almost forgot, when they stopped in Twin Falls, they left the car running and went into a restaurant for about 43 minutes. When they came out Miz Vonda said What the hell, why is the car still running. Mike said I did not get to the part in the book to get it to shut off. The car said Hey, nobody told me to stop and Miz Vonda did not pull out her 45 so I just continued to run. I am sure there will be more to this story as they make their way toward Montana reading the car manual and arguing with the car that talks. Word through the grapevine is that Miz Vonda was driving just south of Butte Montana when the car said stop within the next 27.5 miles to refuel. Miz Vonda said lookee here car you don’t tell me what to do. I am the owner and you are a car. I will stop when I want to stop. The car said suit yourself Miz Vonda just choose when you want to stop but if you don’t like walking with a gas can you might want to consider stopping within the next 26.97 miles. Miz Vonda pulled over at the next gas station. It seems the car gets such good gas milage that she did not think it needed gas in addition to the car batteries. Yes it is time to bring back the A Model Ford. At a time when most of America is getting rid of Toyotas, my sister buys one that talks back to her. I don’t see a bright future for this car. Nobody talks back to Miz Vonda unless they are looooong distance. Subscribe to: Posts (Atom) Bed of Roses http://anitas-bedofroses.blogspot.com