Meeses, Mices, Mouses!

           A second letter blog in one week! Can you stand it‽

          “It’s okay by me,” my beautiful Miss Rosie said. “I like reading your stories — even when I know what’s going to be in them.”

          And writing our weekly exploits is so ingrained in me that I feel a loss when I don’t get to write.

          We had snow.

          My handsome husband made paths.

          And so did the mice!

          I went out to burn trash and saw all these trails in the snow.

          HOLY COW! I thought. It’s a whole herd of mice!

          “It could be one mouse a whole bunch of times,” you say.

          I don’t know if it was one mouse, or several mice, but it looks like a bunch of meeses to me!

           We live in an old house. We will never ever be able to keep them out. And between birdseed and cat food, they figure out where the food is.

Our lazy cats aren’t doing their jobs.

I was at my computer and heard Mike’s recliner squeak as he got up. And it squeaks again, and again, and again, and again.

He’s rocking, I thought.

          Then Bondi starts barking.

          What in the world... I thought and got up to look.

          Mike wasn’t even in the room! Bondi and Blackie were both fixated on a dark, dusty corner between Mike’s desk and the wall. And that’s where the squeaking was coming from.

          Bondi kept up a constant stream of commentary as I went around to the other side. I grabbed a flashlight and when I shone it down there, I see a mouse hiding under the transformer for Mike’s computer, crying. I do feel bad for them but not bad enough to save their lives.

          Blackie wasn’t even trying to catch him. He was just sitting there watching. Turkey.

          Spitfire heard all the commotion and was coming to investigate. He’ll kill it, I thought.

          With both Blackie and Bondi on one side of the desk, I got Spitfire and carried him around to the other side. Once he was on guard, I’d poke the mouse and see which way he ran.

          It didn’t work.

          Bondi’s barking freaked Spitfire out and he took off.

          I’m trying to get Bondi to stop barking and wrangle Spitfire into seeing the mouse, but in all the confusion, the mouse made a run for it.

          I didn’t see where he went. Only that he was gone. I checked behind and under stuff but never scared him out. I gave up. Bondi didn’t. She’s so obsessed with this mouse that she wasn’t giving up. She did stop barking though and put her nose to work. I left her to it.

          Mike came in and I told him what was going on. Together we poked around a little more but failed to find the mouse.

          The tall, covered cat condo lives in front of Mike’s desk. Bondi kept diving in and out and all around. I finally decided he must be hiding in the cover. I shook it.

          “There he goes!” Mike yelled.

          Back along the wall he travels, we’re shouting and grabbing for cats, trying to get one of them to see it. Bondi’s on his trail but takes too long sniffing it out. By this time the mouse had made his way down the length of the bookshelf, around the corner, and scampered into a crack between it and the wall. He was gone.

          “No way is he coming out of there,” I said. “Until the house is dark and quiet.”

          Nonetheless, we picked up Blackie and put his nose to the crack.

          Nothing.

          Next, we tried Spitfire.

          Nope. He wasn’t interested.

          I don't know where Tiger was.

          Bondi was paying attention and takes her turn sniffing the crack. She knew he was in there. She might stand guard for a while, but I walked away. “He’s never coming out of there.”

          Mike and I sat down to a game of cards.

“I hear him,” I said.

“What?”

“The mouse. I hear him squeaking.”

I heard three or four little squeaks while we were playing cards. After Mike won, he went into the living room while I picked the cards up.

“Bondi’s got a mouse!” he calls.

“No way!” I grabbed my camera.

“She’s rolling on it,” Mike said.

I got there in time to see that. I’m actually quite pleased that she got a mouse. But I wasn’t going to let her eat it. Ginger did once and puked it up. I wasn’t going through that again.

“Bondi!” I exclaimed. “What’cha got there!” She was biting it. I snapped a picture.

“What a good girl you are!”

She sat up and Blackie crept in for a closer look.

           Bondi wasn’t having any of that. She picked her mouse up and moved a few feet away. 

  

          I let her have it for a few minutes, then picked him up by his widdle tail and threw him outside!

          “Maybe the cat got it,” Mike says.

          And he’s right. We didn’t actually see who got it. But certain clues lead me to believe it was Bondi.

          For one, Blackie had no interest in catching it when he could have. Spitfire never saw it.

          Two, Bondi was the one who stood guard.

          Three, if one of the cats had gotten it, Bondi would’ve started barking her fool head off. At least, I think she would.

          Four, it was dead. The cats usually like to torture their prey.

          It’s not all sunshine and rainbows with this little bundle of joy. Mike and I changed the sheets on the bed this week. I toss the dirty ones in a pile on the floor until we’re done. Mike left, I was putting the fresh pillowcases on and saw Bondi climb onto the mountain of sheets on the floor, her nose extended toward her ball which was laying on top. I finished the pillows, reached down, gathered the dirty sheets, and immediately came into contact with warm wetness! Her nose was extended because her back end was down — but I didn’t see the whole picture!

          “Bondi!” I was incredulous. “Bad girl! Outside!” And I ran her out the door.

          I have no idea why she peed on the sheets. I’m just thankful I have a washer.

          And this, my dears, is what’s left after Bondi modifies an earbud.

          Several times over the past few months I’ve caught her with my earbud. I’ll set it down someplace and Blackie’ll knock it to the floor.

          This time, I was too late.

          Turkey.

          Never again will I break a biscuit into pieces for her! There’s obviously nothing wrong with her teeth — or her jaw strength! 

          Speaking of Blackie…

          He had an appointment to get his last kitten shot — and I had a Christmas gift for Dr. Lori. She’s always so good to me. And yeah. I know, it’s late.

Tuesday was blustery and snow-showery. We love seeing the flags fly on the Veteran’s Bridge between Wysox and Towanda.

          “Someone’s on the ice,” I told Mike and snapped a picture through the railings of the bridge. 

          “Will I see Dr. Lori today?” I asked when I called from the parking lot to check in.

          “No. It’s a vet-tech appointment.”

          “Is there any chance I can see Dr. Lori for a moment?” I asked.

          She was taken aback a little. “What’s this about? Something to do with Blackie?”

          “No. It’s personal.”

          “Okay. I’ll ask Dr. Lori and whoever comes out to get Blackie will let you know.”

          When Katelyn came to get him, she said, “Dr. Lori said you can come in.”

          They had me wait in one of the exam rooms and it wasn’t long until Dr. Lori came in.

          “I made you a gift,” I told her and handed her Copper Dreams.

          “Oh! How beautiful! Thank you! How did you make this?” she wanted to know.

          We spent the next few minutes with me telling her it’s cardboard and air-dry clay. Time and paint and love.

          “You could sell these,” she said.

          I grinned. “Really? How much do you think I could get for them?”

          “How much time do you have in it?”

          I never, never even try to keep track of my time. “You never get your time.”

          “Fifteen or twenty anyway,” she thought. “Thank you for sharing your talents with me.”

          “You’re welcome. I’m just glad you like it. And thank you, too, for sharing your talents with us! You care about our pets.”

          And it’s true. Dr. Lori would sooner give up profit then to see an animal go uncared for.

          Even though I didn’t have an appointment to talk about Blackie, we did. Dr. Lori brought him up so I felt free to tell her, “He still stinks.”

She pulled up his chart on the computer. “His fecal came back clean.”

“I know! I can’t believe it! His poop is mushy.”

          “Sometimes, kittens have a rough start in life and their digestive tracks don’t develop properly. Let’s give him a shot of B12. I’ve got some here that was donated, so it won’t cost you anything. And we haven’t wormed him so we can try that, too.”

          After she left to take care of that, I heard one of the girls in the back say, “I don’t smell anything.” I guess he only stinks some of the time, like say, after he poops.

          He got a shot and I left with two different worm medicines to treat different kinds of parasites.

          I took a few more road pictures on the way home. 

          Let’s see…

          Blackie’s a turkey because he wouldn’t go after a mouse.

          Bondi’s a turkey ’cause she chewed up my earbud.

          And Tiger’s a turkey, too.

          We’ve been keeping him and Spitfire in because we love them and don’t want them to get hit on the road. Neither one is happy about it and sometimes get into scraps with each other. I think Tiger’s the instigator most of the time.

          To compensate, I let them go into the wayback or out into the garage.

          Spitfire got his little fanny banned from the wayback because he won’t stay off the ceilings over the house part.

          “We could put a fence up so he can’t get up there,” Mike suggested.

          “Nah. I just won’t let him out there anymore.” Maybe when it’s warmer I’ll relent and put a fence up, but not in this cold. The wayback is unheated.

          So, for weeks Tiger was the only one allowed out there and if Spitfire wanted to be out, he could go in the garage. He’s not happy about that but that’s his best offer.

          Then, one day this week, I hear Tiger at the door. I look and he’s out wanting to come back in.

          “Tiger found a way out of the wayback,” I told Mike. “I’ll look and see if I can see where he’s getting out and we can board it up.”

          I looked and the only hole I found was too small for him to get through. Even so I examined it, thinking if he did manage to squeeze through, he’d’ve left hair behind. There was no yellow fur around the edges of the hole.

          The only other place I thought he could’ve escaped from was an old whistlepig hole. Before we were living here, a groundhog had a den under the wayback. When I was sure he wasn’t home, I let Mike block it up so he couldn’t use it anymore. One day, while I was looking for something in the wayback, the piece of concrete I was standing on collapsed into his den. No jokes about my weight here, please. The sudden drop scared me, but it was only about six or eight inches, and I didn’t get hurt.

          “That’s blocked off,” Mike said when I brought it up. “He couldn’t’ve gotten out through there.”

          “We did that years ago,” I pointed out. “The rocks on the outside have shifted since then. Maybe there’s a hole big enough for him to get out of.”

          I didn’t let Tiger go out there for a few days, no matter how hard he cried.

          “Are you sure, Peg?” Mike asked. “Maybe he scooted out the door when you weren’t paying attention.”

          I considered it. “Possible. There’s one way to find out. Let’s let him go in the back again.”

          I fussed around in the kitchen for a while, keeping an eye on the exit of the groundhog hole, but never saw Tiger come out. I went on to other things and next thing I know, Tiger’s outside standing on the platform of the feral cat house.

          Turkey.

          We’d had snow so I walked around the outside the building thinking I could see tracks where he came out, but mother nature put a kibosh on that. On the sides of the building where there was snow, there were no tracks. On the other side, there was no snow against the building.

          Mike took a look around the wayback. “I think he climbed out one of the soffits.”

          So now he’s banned from the wayback, too. But I don’t feel sorry for either one of them. Our house is big enough they can stay away from each other if they want to.

          Let’s see…

          Blackie’s a turkey because he wouldn’t go after a mouse.

          Bondi’s a turkey ’cause she chewed up my earbud.

          And Tiger’s a turkey because he escaped from the wayback.

          Would you believe we have one more turkey to talk about this week? This time let’s talk about turkey turkey. The kind of turkey leftover from Thanksgiving. I had some of that in my freezer.

          Scrolling through Facebook, since I look at recipes, recipes come up. Grandma’s Chicken Casserole came up and reading through the recipe I saw you could use turkey.

          I bought the cream of chicken soup, the breadcrumbs, the cheese, and even the French-fried onions they said you could substitute for breadcrumbs.

          I happened to be chatting with my sister Phyllis while I was throwing it together. I got out my 9x13 pan, dumped the three cups of turkey in and it didn’t cover the bottom. Maybe I measured wrong. I don’t know. I got out a smaller pan, transferred the turkey, and that looked better.

          “Since my pan is only half the size, should I only use one can of soup?” I asked Phyllis and turned the camera around so she could see.

          “It looks like enough to me. But I think I’d add a can of milk.”

          “It calls for either breadcrumbs or French-fried onions. What do you think about using them both?”

          By way of an answer, she said, “I like French-fried onions.”

          Some dummy, and I won’t say who, was so absorbed in the conversation with her sister, that she didn’t halve the breadcrumbs — and didn’t use the milk Phyllis suggested.

          Sigh.

          It was dry.

We ate it anyway.

“Why didn’t you listen to your sister?” Mike wanted to know.

I should’ve. Cooking and baking is like her superpower.

          The second time I warmed it, I used half a can of milk, and it was still dry.

          We ate it anyway.

          The next and final time I warmed it, I put a whole stinkin’ can of milk in there! By golly, we were gonna get this sucker moist this time!

          And it was good! I also added broccoli to mine.

          I’m looking forward to making it again, now that I know what not to do.

          “Huh?” you say.

          Don’t not listen to your sister and put milk in it.

      

          I know y’all like to see what’s on my craft table. So, let’s head out and check on that.

          If you remember, and even if you don’t, I made a book box with a warped lid.

          “Wet it and put weight on it,” was the advice given to me.

          I did that. And I let it dry for days. When I took the weights off, the lid was flat!

          Yay!

          A few hours later, it looked like it did before. The fix wasn’t permanent.

          Okay. So, failures are a part of learning.

          I’d ordered a mold to make a dreamcatcher with. It shipped on the sixteenth and was due here two days later. It’s lost. Amazon offered me a refund, “But it may still show up,” they said.

          I’m hoping it does.

          So, while I’m waiting to see if it shows up, I decided to make a new box. This time I let my glues dry naturally instead of hurrying them along with a blow dryer. The result is I have a nice flat lid. Now I know what caused my problem.

          Every day I’m hoping the mold will come. And I need to get it done and delivered before my friend needs it.

          “Maybe I can freehand one,” I told Mike. “I can practice on the warped one.” That’s its name now, you know. No matter how it comes out it will forever be known as the Warped One.

          While I’m trying to work it out in my head, I decide to go back to my Cricut. They have a dreamcatcher pattern, but you have to pay for it. However, if you sign up for Cricut All Access you can get it for free. All Access costs ten dollars a month but you get thousands of patterns and it’s free for the first thirty days — cancel anytime. Me being me, I’ll use it for twenty-nine days and cancel. Then I went work making stencils.

          Concentrating on the ones I’d have to pay for once my trial period is over, I made a bunch of pattern stencils. They’re easy. Sure, they’ll look different than using clay and molds, but I think they’ll be fine.

          Then I picked the simplest dreamcatcher pattern and tried to make it.

          Remember what I said about failures?

          “I cut it three times and it’s still wrong!” I cried to Mike. “I don’t think it can be done!”

          I searched You Tube video after You Tube video trying to figure out all the buttons on my Cricut and what they do and how to do what I wanted to do.

          And I cut it again — only to fail again.

          Several times that night I woke up with new ideas to try.

          Maybe I need to do a reverse pattern, I thought and gave that a try.

          I made this.

          I thought I had it. Now I had a frame to hold the plaster of Paris on the outside of the shapes.

          I couldn’t wait to try it!

          I mixed the POP, pulled Warped One in front of me, and gave it try.

          I peel the stencil away and have the exact opposite of what I want.

          I don’t think it can be done.

          “Just order another mold,” Mike tells me.

          I’m afraid I’ll end up with two! Returns are such a pain.

         

          In closing this week, I want to show you what I got in the mail.

          “Who’s that from?” I asked when Mike brought the box in.

          “The kids.”

          Kevin told me I’d be getting a late Christmas gift.

          “I hope it’s a new picture.” There’s not much I need or want but I love seeing their beautiful faces and the family portrait I have of them is a zillion years old. Andrew was a toddler.

          And guess what it was?

          Perfect! Just exactly what I wanted!

        

          Let’s call this one done!

Don't Pop That Pimple!

                 My phone rang at twenty after nine in the morning. When I saw on the caller ID that it was my oldest, beautifulest, much-adored sister, my heart sank. Who died, I wondered as I answered. It’s two hours earlier where she is and if she’s calling this early without me asking her to call, it wasn’t going to be good news.

          “Our sister is in the hospital,” Patti said.

          We have two sisters. “Which one?”

          “Phyllis.”

          “What happened?”

          “She’s got a very, very bad, life-threatening infection. She had surgery last night to remove gangrene tissue. She's on heavy duty antibiotics and is expected to be in the hospital for three or four days while they make sure they’ve killed off the infection."

          I wanted to call Phyllis. I wanted her to know that I was thinking about her and that I love her. But I didn’t. When people are in the hospital, they’re in there to rest and recover. I wouldn’t want to wake her if she’s sleeping or interrupt if one of the doctors or nurses was tending to her.

          Patti, the matriarch of our family, kept us updated on Phyllis’ progress.

Once Phyllis was home, I did call and talk to her a few times since this whole thing started. I don’t know if you’re gonna groan or laugh or ugh in disgust when I tell you what I asked her, but I’m gonna tell ya anyway. “Can I see it?”

          “You’re sick,” Phyllis said, but she showed it to me anyway.

Looking at the open wound made my knees hurt! It’s a very real physical response my body has whenever I see or think of someone else’s hurt or pain. A shooting, tingling pain that goes straight to my knees and lasts for a few seconds.

Then, this week, Phyllis called me. “I’m not telling you to write about it but if you would want to, it’s okay with me.”

          To say I was shocked is putting it mildly. After I picked my jaw up off the floor, I managed a reply. “It’s so deeply personal, I would never’ve thought to ask to share the story.” I do have a modicum of discretion.

          “I was thinking that what happened to me is such a fluke that it might help someone else.”

          “Well, okay then!” I agreed.

          “There’s only one thing. You can’t use any pictures.”

          I laughed.

          “So, what happened to your sister?” you wanna know.

          First, before I tell you, I want to issue a word of caution. Like I already said, this is of a highly personal nature and involves wounds and lady parts. If you’re on the squeamish side, you might want to skip it.

          Does that scare you?

          It scares me!

          Saturday. It was a Saturday when Phyllis noticed she had a pimple on the outside of her lady parts. It hurts, let’s get rid of it, she thought and popped it without giving it any further thought. It continued to bother her and she thought the core might still be in there. “I ended up trying to pop it three more times on Saturday. Twice I got stuff out of it but the third time it was only fluid,” she told me.

          On Sunday, exhaustion set in. Phyllis and her long-time-best-friend-life-partner-significant-other, Jim, took their daughter Rachel back to college then she climbed in bed and slept fourteen hours straight.

          Monday, she went to work but her pimple wasn’t any better. Pain and pressure convinced her there was still something in there that needed to come out. Expressing it wasn’t working.

          “I decided to try Epsom salts. I made a compress of a heavy solution with a heat pack on top. Ucky stuff came out and stunk really bad, but I didn’t think anything of it. And I slept another eleven hours.

I still had pain and pressure on Tuesday along with a super banger of a headache but I went to work anyway. When I got home, I used more hot compresses then crawled back in bed and slept for another eleven hours. I got up Wednesday, went to work. More hot compresses when I got home and I’m still really exhausted. So now I’m starting to wonder if this might be COVID.

Thursday, I called my boss. ‘I was exposed to COVID and need to get a COVID test.’

She said, ‘You’re vaccinated, aren’t you?’  

‘Yeah, vaccinated and boosted.’

‘You can come in.’

I went to work and got there about nine o’clock and worked until three-thirty. After that I went to a clinic near my home for my COVID test. They’re an urgent care center also. They weren’t busy. So, as I was checking in, I said, ‘Hey, can I see a doctor please?’

Not ever in a million years would I actually think about seeing a doctor for a pimple down there, but a little part of me goes man, this bitch hurts! Maybe the doctor can get it popped for me. I had my COVID test, which ended up coming back negative, and the doctor was actually waiting for me.” Phyllis paused to collect her thoughts and in my mind’s eye, I can see her beautiful face. “Went in, undressed, she looks at it and says, ‘Oh my God, we can’t help you. Get your ass to an emergency room.’ Those weren’t her exact words.”

Our family has been living with this for weeks now and I’ve had a chance to mull it over and come up with a few questions. I interrupted her story and asked, “Did she say what it was?” Another question pops in my head. I wonder what it looks like at this point. Phyllis is answering, ‘No.’ to the first question while I’m asking, “What was she seeing?”

“I don’t know. But she said I had to go to the emergency room.”

“Okay. So, you go to the emergency room?”

“I went home, took care of the garbage, Jim came home and took me to the emergency room and dropped me off.”

To let her know I understood she’d have to undress and get up on the table, I asked, “And what did they say after you got undressed and got up on the table and spread dem little legs apart?”

“They said, ‘We need to do a CT scan.’”

“I’m not sure what a CT scan would tell them.”

“It told them there was a lot of gas building in that area, which is one of the signs of Necrotizing Fasciitis. I guess the gangrene was visible to the eye.”

“Gangrene?”

“Yep. I’m guessing Necrotizing Fasciitis and gangrene go hand in hand.”

That makes sense to me because I know necro means death and gangrene is flesh rot.

“They said, ‘We can’t do anything about this here. We don’t have anybody of that skill level.’ So, they checked around. There were four possible hospitals that had OBGYN oncologists. The first hospital didn’t have anybody available for the emergency surgery. The next choice was University of Minnesota Hospital. They had both a surgeon and beds available.”

“Did they transport you or did you transport yourself?” I asked thinking Jim would drive her.

“They took me by ambulance.”

“Did Jim get to go with you in the ambulance?” I asked.

“Peg! That’s a silly question!” you say. “If Jim goes in the ambulance with her, who would bring the car‽”

I know, right! All I could think about was my poor sister in the grips of needing emergency surgery and having to go to another hospital and I so wanted her not to be alone. To have support and comfort from somebody who loves her.

“No. He drove — actually he wasn’t there.”

I didn’t pick up on this earlier when she said Jim dropped her off. I thought he dropped her off and went to park the car. I was surprised. “Oh!”

“’Cause I had sent him home. You can spend hours in the emergency room and nothing’s going on.”

That’s just like my sister. Thinking about someone else before herself.

“Before they transported me, and while they were still thinking they were going to send me to the Methodist Hospital, I’d called and told him that’s where they were going to try and take me. He drove to Methodist Hospital and they said, ‘No, we don’t have her,’ so then he got back in touch with the emergency room here and they said, ‘Oh, yeah. We sent her to U of M East Bank. He drove the whole way out there and they wouldn’t let him in.”

“Oh my. COVID restrictions?” I wondered.

“Visiting hours were over. This was like midnight — one o’clock.”

When Mike had his surgery, they let me stay past visiting hours so I could see him. I’m thinking due to the nature of this situation that they should’ve let him in anyway—but they didn't ask me!

“They immediately prepped me for surgery,” Phyllis said.

“How long did it take?” I asked.

“I don’t know. I was out.” Phyllis continued, “They removed a patch of flesh from the left side of my lady parts that measured sixteen and a half centimeters, by five and a half centimeters, by five and a half centimeters.”

“Wowzaa!” That sounds like a lot!

Phyllis converted that to inches for me. “It’s six and a half inches long by a little over two inches wide and deep.”

It makes my knees hurt just thinking about it!

“They kept it packed and every time I peed it got wet and they’d have to repack it. OMG! That hurt so bad! They pumped me full of intravenous antibiotics and sent me home three and half days later with oral antibiotics. And they’re keeping a close eye on it to make sure no infection restarts.”

“So, why did you get this Necrotizing Fasciitis?” I asked.

“They’re guessing I got it because of my lower immunity levels due to my MS and diabetes. They said if I’d’ve waited even one more day, it would’ve been a lot worse. In fact, I could’ve died.”

This did not surprise me at all. With all that poison in your system, your organs’ll start shutting down. She was only a day or so away from that happening.

“And my blood sugar was so high I could’ve gone into diabetic shock.”

Phyllis has no appetite and has lost fourteen pounds.

“Not the way I want to lose weight!” I told her.

One thing I do want to do is lavish her with love and gifts. I’m so thankful that she’s still here, on this side of heaven, and getting better. I want to get a ginormous box and heap it full of love and hugs and kisses. Tape it shut and ship it off to her. Will the post office feed me along the way?

In closing, Phyllis has a word for you.

“Don’t pop that pimple!”

Copper Dreams

           I painted the book box that had the bricks and butterflies on it. I used red, yellow, green on the leaves, and orange as my undertones, then highlighted everything with metallic copper paint. I’m calling it Copper Dreams.

          Then a thought strikes me. Oh Lord! Now I’m naming them! I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing but at least it gives us a way to talk about a particular book box if you so desired.

          If you’ve seen my boxes in real life, you’d know the pictures don’t do them justice. And the pages of this one look more orange than they really are.

I’m making a new one. This one is going to have a dream catcher on the front. I’m waiting on a mold to come in the mail. I sure hope it wasn’t on that Fed-Ex truck that burned up on the highway this week. Did you see that?

          My lid warped.

          “Wet it and put a heavy weight on it,” Mike said.

          I haven’t got anything to lose so that’s what I did. It’s still under its weight and will stay that way until Monday. That should give it plenty of time to dry. Worse comes to worse, I’ll take it off and make a new lid — or make a whole new box! I wouldn’t give a bad one away. And that’s about the only way I get to keep one.

          I’m working on a glass piece this week, too.

          Okay, that’s a lie.

          I finished a glass piece this week. It was the first project I did using my new-to-me Taurus 3 Ring Saw.

          I’m really excited! Having a saw opens up a whole new world of possibilities in glass making. I can cut shapes with a saw that I could never achieve with just a hand-held cutter and grinder.

          “What did you make?” I know you wanna know.

          I can’t tell you. Not yet anyway. It’s a surprise for Valentine’s Day for a very special and dearly loved person in my life. Besides, it’ll give you something to look forward to later.

          But aren’t you proud of me for not waiting until the last minute to make something? I know I am!

          Credit where credit is due?

          Blackie helped. He found the ends of my copper foil tape very very irresistible. No matter what I did I couldn’t keep him from grabbing my tape. I was considering kenneling him, that’s how bad it was.

          Finally, I moved it out of his reach. He wasn’t deterred, no sirree, not one bit. Instead, he just found something else to play with. Like say, the napkin collection I brought in from the glovebox of the car. I spent five minutes straightening them out and stacking them up so we could use them at the table, I’ll be darned if I was going to let him knock them all over the place!

          After he forced me to clear the table, there was nothing left to play with but my tape. In an effort to get some peace from this persistent helpmate, I tore off the spent paper backing and gave that to him. He happily played with it for a few minutes.

          Then he got up, taking it in his mouth, and jumped from the table, dragging the paper behind him. 

          Where’s he going? I wondered. With camera in hand, I followed.

          Uh-huh. See! What did I tell you! Blackie takes things for Bondi!

          “Peg, she might swallow bits of it,” Mike pointed out.

          “I’m not sure it would hurt her,” I said. He’s always spoiling her fun. But did I really want to be picking up little bits of paper after she finishes with it? No! So, I took it away.

          Blackie can’t tell the difference between spent foil paper and that with copper foil on it still. Yep. I left it on the table unattended! I won’t do that again.

          One more thing about Blackie. His poop test came back. It was negative for parasites. I’m having a really hard time believing it. He stinks — and he shouldn’t. His poop is mushy and stinky — and it shouldn’t be. And by stinky, I don’t mean just the run of the mill cat poop stink, which is bad enough. It smells sick. I just can’t believe it. Was his poop mishandled? Did they actually run the test? I don’t actually believe that every single sample is tested no matter what. I’ve worked with people in a factory setting before. If someone is having a bad day, or running behind, and pissed at the world, I can see them tossing a few in the trash and marking ‘no parasites’ on the paper and sending it back. “I get paid the same, whether I do a good job or not,” is something I often heard. I’m not so naive that I can’t believe something like this can’t happen.

          I love Blackie. He’s a good cat and affectionate. I just can’t stand to be around him sometimes.

          I just don’t know what to do about it. 

          We had snow. A few inches last week. Not enough for Mike to get the snowblower — snowthrower out for. I don’t know what the difference is. I’m just gonna call ours a snowblower.

I wasn’t sure how Bondi would handle the snow. For our Yorkies I had to shovel paths through the yard for them so they could do their business.

          Turns out, Bondi stayed close to the building where there was little snow or just relieved herself in the grass under the awning where the snow didn’t reach. She didn’t go up on the snow at all.

          Monday, we got seven inches of the white stuff!

          Mike was up early and out with the snowblower at first light. If it were me, I don’t know that I’d be all that anxious to get out there and get it done. But since Mike’s doing it, I let him do it when and how he wants.

I took a few pictures and went back in where it was warm. 

After a bit the door opens and Mike sticks his head in.

“Peg! Can you come and help me for a second?”

“What?” I asked when I got there.

“Can you tip it back and pull the handle?” he asked.

Tip it back so he could see inside without bending over too far, pull the handle so he could see if the auger was turning. Sometimes he breaks the shear pins.

          “Okay,” he said. I let off the handle and set it down. “It’s not working very good.”

          “It’s probably all that snow clogging it up.”

          Mike used a broom handle and knocked the snow out.

          Bondi slipped out the door behind me. We don’t normally let her run loose but I didn’t worry. With all the snow I didn’t think she’d go far. Luckily, when I called, she came bounding back. She was ready to go in.

          Mike came in and warmed up and let it warm up a little outside before he went back out. He made a path for me to dump my litter box detritus in the weeds. He made a path around the house for the Kipps should they stop and visit. He made a path to the burn barrel. He made a path to the mailbox. And he made a path through the yard for Bondi.

          He’s a good husband and a good doggie dad.

          Bondi explored her pathway, then jumped up on the snowbank and did her business.

         Geesh! 

          Mike came out in the kitchen while I was working on this blog.

          “Here’s your pictures,” I said and scrolled back up to show him.

          Mike looked over my shoulder and said, “Uh-huh.” Then, just to give me a hard time asked, “Did I give you permission to use my pictures?”

          “Yes! When you married me you gave me carte blanche!”

          “What’s that?” he wanted to know. Actually, it was probably my pronunciation that threw him more than not knowing the meaning.

          “It means you give me permission to use your pictures whenever and however I want!”

           You have to go into a marriage with a writer with your eyes open. You know what they say. Don’t annoy the writer. She’ll put you in a book and kill you off. So, okay, I don’t do that kind of writing, but I still enjoy the analogy.

          Bondi has been spending time at the kitchen door, watching birds at the feeders. And yes, those are nose prints all over the windows. They’ll get cleaned off in the spring, when it’s not so cold.

          Sometimes she barks to go out. After chasing the birds away she’ll snoop around under the feeders. You know what she’s looking for, don’cha?

          Bird nuggets.

          At least she doesn’t eat her own, that’s all I’ve gotta say.

          Bondi, by the way, weighs ten pounds. Mike had me weigh her this week.

          I had icicles hanging from the awning.

          I broke one off and gave it to Bondi.

         It was too heavy for her and it broke when she dropped it. She nosed around at all the pieces until she found one she liked and took it to her burying spot. She rolled it around in the dirt but didn’t bury it — and she didn’t bring it in the house either. Maybe she’s saving it for the next time she goes out.

          We woke to bone-chilling cold here on Saturday morning. Minus 16. 

         “Minnesota cold!” I told my peeps in my morning love note. My beautiful sister Phyllis lives in that cold northern state and has had temps like this weeks ago!

          “Holy sh—,” err, I mean “Holy cow!” I said when she told me.

          She shrugs. “It’s Minnesota.” Like it’s normal for them.

          My more-protected kitchen patio only registered zero.

          I don’t think our furnace shut off once during the night!

          Our outside girls, Callie and Sugar, were warm and snug in their cat room. Thanks to Mike putting a heating run over there, it was 50 halfway up. The floor stays colder due to the cat door but the cats have shelves with beds they can get up on. 

          Have you seen the commercial for Dupixent?

          “Peg, look! There’s a tree right behind that van in the middle of the road!” Mike said.

          Leave it to Mike to notice.

          “Yep. I see it.”

          “Why would they plant a tree there?” he asked like I’d know the answer. Let me ask you. What’s the deal with the tree?

           Mike had an appointment in Sayre to get the results of the test he took last week.

          “Everything looks good. We’ll see you in six months,” Doc said.

          I took road pictures for you.

          Our pretty little creek tucked in under a blanket of ice.

          We pass this place every time we go to Wysox, Towanda, or Sayre. I wonder what he did to his house. 

          I know you’ve seen a lot of these places before, now you get to see them covered with snow.

          Claverack pond.

          We were coming down onto Route 6 from 220 when I saw someone had sprayed graffiti on the overpass. We make the turn and as we get closer, I realize my mistake. It’s only the shadows cast by the trees. I can’t read tree graffiti, I thought.

          I know. You don’t have to tell me. I’m silly.

          Frozen bales in the winter sun. 

          Our beautiful Susquehanna. 

          Mike got Bondi a new squeaky toy. I made the mistake of squeaking it when I took it out of the shopping bag. From then on out she wouldn’t stop jumping against the counter, wanting her new toy which sat on top. I showed her who the boss was. I made her wait until all the groceries were put away, then I gave it to Mike.

          Several times every day Mike plays fetch and tug o’ war with Bondi. They both really seem to enjoy the games. Eventually Bondi stops bringing the toy back.

          “Bring it back,” I hear Mike tell her. “I can’t throw it if you don’t bring it back.” I’m guessing she’s totally ignoring him because then I’ll hear him say, “Okay. I’m not playing with you anymore. You cheat.” And I hear his chair squeak as he sits back in it.

          So, he got her a new toy and they set to play. A half hour later Mike says, “She broke it already!”

          “What do you mean she broke it already?” I asked.

          “It won’t squeak.”

          I got the toy and sure enough, it wouldn’t squeak. I set it down in front of Bondi and attempted to take a picture. She wasn’t over the infatuation of a new toy and this is the least of the blurry shots I got.

          Then I picked a toy from her toy box. This is one we bought for Itsy more than 15 years ago and it still squeaks just fine.

          “It’s got thicker plastic too,” Mike says.

          And Bondi doesn’t play with it near as much either. Although she does play with it sometimes, she much prefers the softer plastic squeakers. 

          Just the other day I was thinking about Ginger. About how she would get in my lap and lay there for as long as I sat still. I was missing that. Bondi only ever wants to curl up in the chair behind me and I end up sitting on the edge.

          A couple of days ago she asked to be picked up. I did, scooted forward on my chair, and put her behind me. Instead of settling down like she usually does, I felt a little nose push the back of my arm. I picked up my arm and Bondi crept into my lap and scratched to be let under my lap blanket.

          Sigh.

          I’m happy. 

          I have a little room left so let me tell you about a small book I read. A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park. It’s about an eleven-year-old girl in 2008 who had to walk two hours from her home to a pond to get water for her family. She made the four-hour round-trip twice a day, every day. Sometimes, if she had to take her little sister, it would take her longer to make the trip.

          The story alternates between her and one of the Lost Boys of the Sudan, a refugee and orphan from the war in 1985. The boy eventually came to America, went to college, and raised money to dig wells for his people.

          And that’s how these two met. He was digging a fresh water well for her people, too.

          And because the little girl no longer had to make the long walk to water, she was allowed to go to school.

          We take water — and school — so for granted, don’t we? And can you imagine being eleven and having that responsibility?

           Let’s call this one done!