Our Little Lunatic

We had to take our cats to the vet. We've been getting friendly reminder postcards from the vet for months already and finally we gave in and made the appointment. Yesterday was the day - and it wasn't pretty.

We've been through all this before. Our cats hate the vet. They get nasty and vicious and practically fight for their lives against being handled. It doesn't help that there is always a wait before they can actually get on with it. There are invariably dogs in the waiting room. They hate dogs. Then someone has to 'handle' them. They hate to be handled - by strangers! "Who said you could touch me?" The part about shining a light in their eyes is OK but the business of pulling on ears in order to look inside, closely? Just not acceptable. Standing still on a scale? No. Combing hair out to examine? I don't think so. And don't even get us started on 'temperature-taking.'

So when all is done and we are safely back home, what does our little lunatic Maddie do? She takes it out on poor Frik. He smells odd. Surely he isn't the same cat that is usually around here. This must be a strange cat. We HATE strange cats. ArghhhHHHH!

Our normally sweet little Maddie hisses and spits. She growls. She chases Frik away. She stalks him. She leaps straight up in the air if she happens around a corner and finds him there. She won't share food. She won't share the bed. She won't even be in the same room. Frik is cowed. He doesn't know what to do but he really doesn't want to provoke her. He hides.

Mark decides it is time for Maddie to have a crazy pill. Tranquilizers. This just adds to the overall comedy of the situation. She is still crazy and angry, just in slow motion. She still hisses, but can barely lift her head to do so. If you put her down, she just wilts.

We're a pretty pathetic bunch here. We've been to the vet. How long the effects will last is anyone's guess.

Memorial Day

Yesterday we took a long drive - our Memorial weekend splurge - on the North Cascades Highway. It was a very long drive, through impossibly steep valleys, around immense rock peaks, past a million waterfalls dropping into a hundred rivers dammed into a dozen lakes. In spite of the dismal weather predictions, this weekend has been beautiful and warm and sunny, and the drive into the mountains was very much worth the high cost of gas to get there. But...

The Cascade mountains are spectacular - huge and craggy and steep. Everything about them is a superlative. Much of the mountain tops are so far above the tree line that they are just bare rock jutting out to the sky. There is snow on them, of course, but only where it can maintain a hold on the steep rock face, and below that the huge trees almost shine in technicolor in the late spring sun. I just can't seem to take a photo that records all that splendor. It is too big, too disparate in its lights and darks, too amazing to allow a focus on a single point. Even though the road has 'scenic pull-off' spots to tease the photographer into stopping, over and over, in order to train a lens on 'all that,' it didn't really offer a place to get a picture that does any of it justice.

With the disappointment of not getting the 'right' picture, today I'm remembering the little stuff - the oddities, funny and otherwise, of everyday observation: the brand name on the chemical toilets in one of the rest stops - Wizards of Ooze; the signs in the 'old west' town of Winthrop, at the end of the mountain pass, attesting to, for example, "Lydia E. Pinkham's Vegetable Compound for Prolapsus Uteri and Other Female Weaknesses"; the old guy who walked through the restaurant with his shirt tucked into his underwear (yes, whitey-tighties) which was, in turn, sticking out about 3 inches above his pants; the motorcyclists - a surprising number of whom are actually still alive to do this - who zoom around corners of winding mountain roads with their wheels planted right on top of the double yellow line and their heads (on top of their 4-feet-worth of 'sitting' body, leaning at a sharp angle into the turn) on a collision course with my front bumper... (Do we need to draw it out for them, so they can see the peril? Are their eyes closed that they can't see how far into my lane their heads actually are when their wheels are on the line?)

All this 'small' speculation following all this 'huge' spectacular scenery was brought about when Mark tried to find something to watch on TV on this Memorial Day afternoon. Besides the usual fare of crappy daytime TV (how could Jerry Springer STILL be doing the same show, and why hasn't his head exploded by now?) we are offered 'marathon' reruns of the worst of the Star Trek franchises, ad nauseum renditions of Hitler getting his ass kicked in old WWII documentaries, and women with fake nails and bizarre manicures measuring over-the-top glass baubles with wooden rulers and warning us that THESE won't last long. Or Poker - the ultimate spectator sport.

Yep. An American holiday.

(To our credit, we tried to go berry picking today but the berries aren't ripe yet.)

Photo of the Day

I am obviously fascinated with close-up shots of things, but this one was just too much fun not to share - from our woodsy walk today:

More ramblings about flowers

I have flowers in my garden! I don't know why that always surprises me, especially since I actually put some of them there myself, but it does. It's not that I have a black thumb, necessarily, but my gardening habits are probably more haphazard than they should be given my sometime-obsession with flowers. Mark would say he is the gardener - and has the blue ribbons to prove it - but I always take some credit for selection and placement and picture-taking at least.

Anyway, I guess the real surprise is in how many of the flowers just show up. I was thrilled last year to find a lilac blooming - however sparsely - and am even more surprised this year to find another one - on the side of the house that we really never see! One is purple, the other is white, although the pictures don't distinguish that very well. I thought things would do better this year with some fertilizing and weeding last year and this spring, but the very late snow we had just a few weeks ago really nipped things in the bud. Still, some survived. The flowers are attracting bees, which is a very good thing, since bees are having a hard time surviving just now. So far nothing is attracting slugs, but that can only be a matter of time and rainfall.

Last weekend we attended a seminar on growing vegetables in the Northwest. It is generally cold and wet here and they tend not to do well without some extra care, we discovered. We ordered some raised bed planters and bought a well-started tomato plant and some carrot seeds etc. There was considerable negotiating involved since I don't actually LIKE many vegetables and would just as soon use the space and funds for flowers, but Mark needs his 'farmer satisfaction' too - so we are getting started. The sunflower seedlings that we also planted will go in there too.

We're well on our way!

(Do you see the bee in the rhodie flower?)

From one extreme to the other

After an interminable winter we now have summer. No spring. Just summer. Next week we are expecting to go back to winter. In the mean time, our river is flooding from the sudden snow-melt and we are wondering if we will be stranded at home for a while until the waters recede. (A year and a half ago the river flooded so badly we couldn't get home - all access to our town was cut off!)

Why can't we have a happy medium?

Why can't I stop talking about the #%**!#^# weather?

Advice columnist

I've decided I should be an advice columnist. I think the job probably calls for someone who has lived long and well, has a sense of humor and is at least moderately observant. And inquisitive. Someone who likes people. Someone who isn’t judgmental or overly prudish. That’s me! (Well, I suppose that is open for debate, but believe me, my advice would be too.)

I could write a manual on marriage, surely! With 2 failed, and one successful, marriages under my belt I am eminently qualified. (You one-marriage types can scoff – but I’ve made ALL the mistakes, AND learned from them – which hopefully is more than you can say!) I’d advise people to marry people who love them. To realize that they have to keep endearing themselves to their significant other even long after they are “sure” of the relationship. I’d help people understand that they can’t hold someone else – even their spouse – responsible for their own happiness; and that if they want to stay in love they need to keep practicing the things that they did when they were first falling in love. I’d encourage hand-holding and eye-gazing and a lot of laughing. I’d recommend that they find a way to make oddities endearing instead of annoying. I’d encourage partnerships and shared responsibilities and “we’re in this together as a team” attitudes. Partners should be each other’s cheerleaders, not critics. And they should be generous in giving what they know their partner wants and needs.

Health and fitness! Another brilliant area for me to give advice in!! I may be overweight with high cholesterol but I have, in my lifetime, lost literally hundreds of pounds and walked or hiked thousands of miles. I’d advise people to forget about trying to lose weight and instead adopt a new passion for something that would compensate for whatever is causing the extra pounds. Instead of a ‘negative’ goal – have a positive one! Get out and walk in the evenings in order to enjoy the neighborhood, have uninterrupted time to think or to talk with your spouse (see above marriage advice) and enjoy the fresh air. You will probably also lose weight but if the weight loss is just a happy accident and your goal is really to have a good time, you are much more likely to keep with it. Or do something with your hands – I took up quilting at one point – that would mean that you couldn’t be snacking at the same time. Indulge in fresh, elaborate salads that have so much good stuff that you don’t even need the dressing. Go for the ‘up’ side, never the downside.

Hmmmmm.

Careers!!! I’m good at this. I’ve always given advice about careers but I don’t think anyone has ever taken it. I have professional training and everything. I’ve taught the subject, for goodness sake. Made up the worksheets. Designed the process. Oh well. People don’t really want advice about this. Nevertheless, I have two important pieces of advice that I’d be compelled to share. 1. In spite of what everyone says when you are young, in the absence of a substantial trust fund you really have to find a career you can make enough money in to meet your basic needs. 2. It really should be in an area where you actually have some talent, skill, training and interest. This last part means knowing who you are first and foremost, and then really understanding the requirements of the job (training requirements included!)

I’ve probably already disqualified myself from the whole ‘cooking advice’ arena – having previously confessed to a lifelong difficulty with chicken roasting… although I have managed to perfect the art of chicken tacos, and I make a mean blueberry pie. My best advice here would be to keep cat hair out of things and to wear your reading glasses when trying to discern whether they are calling for a teaspoon or a tablespoon of salt. (Whew! That was a mistake!) Oh – and garlic cloves are the small sections, not the whole ball of stuff. If you have bought fresh garlic at the store you are in possession of many cloves of garlic, not just one. Wait, THIS really is my best advice about cooking: stick to recipes that you’ve actually tasted, from when you went to someone’s house for dinner, not to recipes that you see in a magazine or cookbook. Tried and true – that’s the ticket. I don’t usually follow that advice actually, but some of my favorite things (chicken chalupas, ‘orange stuff,’ Jean-Brown-chocolate-cake and minestrone soup) are recipes from friends.

Beauty secrets? Fashion? From someone who can’t even see well enough close up to manage her own eyebrows? (It’s a good thing that they, like the hair on my head, are getting thinner as I get older!) Maybe not. I am of an age where I can’t tell what is in and what is out. I’ve worn my hair the same way for many years, not because it is a stylish ‘do’ but because it is the only way my hair can go. I have no idea if I stand out in a crowd as an object of ridicule and amazement by the younger folks, or just blend in to the wallpaper (my goal, actually.) So no, I have no qualifications for fashion or beauty advice beyond the typical advice to mothers-in-law, which is to wear beige and keep smiling.

OK, there may be some weak areas, but I think this thing has potential, on the whole. I’m going to hang up my shingle.

Life... going on

Todd and Laura are coming to visit this weekend from Portland. I am SO excited to be able to spend some time with them - and on Mother's Day besides! It's been years since I had my son around on Mother's Day. Someone asked me how long it's been - and I couldn't really say. Life goes on and some aspects of it are foggier than others.

Another family birthday this week (Mark-the-younger - Happy Birthday!) and a graduation give me more pause for thought. Young Mark is the youngest of the 'first' generation of grandchildren (many of whom already have children of their own) and he is turning 21. Officially an adult. Ryan has completed his course requirements and will be awarded his Bachelor's degree this weekend as well. (Congratulations! Well done!!) They are all, certainly, well 'launched.'

So I looked back in my pictures to see if I had one of all 10 of them together. No such luck. There is a considerable age spread among them, and by the time young Mark came along, the older ones weren't posing for potentially embarrassing pictures. But I have one with everyone but Mark - and it should be sufficiently embarrassing for almost all of them! (Not sure what ANY of them were thinking at the time this was 'snapped' but whatever it was, it certainly wasn't Posterity!)

In honor of Mother's Day, upcoming - have a happy time together, wherever you are.

Back in the Saddle

All physical evidence to the contrary, I am declaring this very long winter to be over. We are officially 'back in the saddle again' with weekend outings and hiking. Enough is enough.

Never mind that our excursion to check out our favorite low-mountain trail on Sunday resulted in us driving right on by the snow-ladened parking lot. Never mind that our trip over the pass included 8-foot-walls-of-snow-plowed-up-against-the-side-of-the-road scenery. And don't even remind me about getting rained on while wandering around the Saturday Farmer's Market looking at flowers and produce. (Well, not actually a lot of produce, as such - mostly just early asparagus. And still only tulips for flowers.)

Spring is slow in coming. But I sure am done with winter.