Cozy kitties

I love it when I catch my kitties being lovey together. It doesn't happen very often...and in fact seems to occur most often during the colder weather months. What looks like affection could very well be a survival instinct...body heat preservation!

But they sure look sweet, whatever the reason for this snuggle-fest. I wish they'd included me in it!

Read me like a book...

Today at my workplace's monthly staff meeting, all the newbies had to stand up and introduce themselves, then be subjected to a round of questioning by the other employees. Since I have only been working there for a couple weeks, I was one of the newbies. I had been warned that some people liked to ask awkward or embarrassing questions, so when it was my turn in the spotlight I was a little apprehensive. Turns out I needn't have worried, since all my questions were fun.

"Were you named after Meryl Streep or Merrill Lynch?"
(Neither)

"What is your favorite movie?"
(This changes seasonally; right now I'm partial to The Family Stone)

"If you were a novel and I were to walk into Barnes and Noble and find you on a shelf, which section would you be in?"

I loved  that last question. Loved. It. I loved it for two reasons:
1) I'm an avid reader and consider bookstores my second home
2) It's an out-of-the-box self-examination question, not of the typical "getting to know you" variety

I took a few moments to mull it over, then answered: "In the fictional literature section, because I'm a bit of a storyteller myself."

My answer was met with an enormous "oooooooooooooohhhhhhhh!!" from the rest of the staff, which made me laugh. Apparently my answer sounded very profound, when I was just revealing a quirky truth about myself!

Top 10 Notes to Self from Halloween 2012

1) If you want cool-looking jack-o-lanterns on Halloween night, don't carve pumpkins more than 48 hours in advance. I carved mine last Friday; one has already caved in and the other looks like a wrinkly old man. Not very impressive.

2) I think it's safe to say that Halloween is Spitter's least favorite holiday. Every time there was a knock on the door I could hear her growl from her hiding spot behind the couch. Poor kitty baby.

3) Never assume that the older kids will be mature and exercise restraint. One group of teens snatched handfuls until I said, "please take just one or two, I need to save some for the little kids." Emphasis included.

4) In my neighborhood, a few bags of candy ain't gonna cut it. Next year I'll need to remember to get several of the jumbo-sized bags if I expect to stay in business past 7pm. I had to turn away the sweetest little hopeful-eyed boy in a spider man costume.

5) Yes, I really did run out of candy before 7pm. I believe it was 6:48pm, to be exact. It was a total fail, even considering Halloween was on a weekday this year and most kids probably had to go home early to get ready for school the next day.

6) The sad thing is, I thought I had over-purchased. I was convinced I would have tons of candy left over. HA, boy did I turn out to be mistaken!

7) When in need of more loot, put on your creativity cap and ransack the kitchen. I weighed my options for appropriate potential handouts, and came up with sugar packets and/or Emergen-C.

8) Emergen-C packets look enough like Fun Dip that I figured I could at least trick the littler kids into thinking they were getting a real treat.

9) Older kids, however, can sniff out when you're trying to dupe them. Literally. When I was down to my last few pieces of the good candy and had to supplement my candy bowl with only only other pre-packaged items I could find, one boy (he was at least 12) picked up the packet of Emergen-C I dropped in his bag and SNIFFED IT.

10) If you run out of treat options and have to go into premature hiding, it helps with the feelings of lameness if yours is not the only dark house on the block. Several of my neighbors turned off their porch lights around the same time I did...I wonder if we're all newbies to the neighborhood who underestimated the surrounding population of candy seekers, or if there was a recent population surge that even the veteran residents weren't expecting??

Pre-Halloween festivities!

A recent Halloween tradition for my family is gathering at someone's house for dinner, a movie, and pumpkin carving. This year, the event happened my my little house!

Mom and I rented Coraline, but Ross vetoed that movie choice (he's very picky about the Tim Burton movies he likes). We ended up watching Hocus Pocus, a classic childhood favorite for me and Ross (the parents- mom, in particular- were less than enthusiastic, since we tend to end up watching it every year and Ross and I can recite the entire movie start to finish, haha).

For dinner, mom made an amazing homemade-from-scratch "traditional" chili (no beans and no tomatos, just the way I like it!). My dad contributed delicious cornbread, but after receiving several compliments he declared that it was jut "a box from Marie Calendar and some water." I made brownies, because they have been my family's dessert of choice for as long as I can remember and I am the family's brownie baker extraordinaire (though I admit, my brownies also come from a box).

After dinner and the movie, we headed out to the backyard for some pumpkin carving! Last year (or the year before that? I can't remember now) we carved 4 pumpkins, but this year we decided to share. All the fun, half the mess! My favorite part is that mom and Ross went out to get tea-light candles, and returned with vanilla scented Glade candles! It cracked me up!

My jack-o-lantern is supposed to be a cat, but upon closer inspection it looks like The Count from Sesame Street!

Happy (almost) Halloween, everybody! Have fun and be safe!

I scream for sherbet!

Today I treated myself to a free single scoop at Baskin Robbins, courtesy of the coupon I recently received in my email inbox (I signed up for the BR Birthday Club for the sole purpose of this once-a-year freebie).

As I sat outside in the it's-early-autumn-and-finally-cooling-off-in-the-desert late afternoon sunshine nice shady area, I sent this picture text message to my mom:

Me: "Happy birthday free scoop to me! Can you tell what flavor I got?"

Her response just a few moments later: "Rainbow sherbet, what else???"

My favorite ice cream has been Rainbow Sherbet since I was a little girl. It's so yummy, and any time I get a hankering for a tasty frozen treat, the deliciously fruity combination of raspberry, orange, and pineapple is my first choice.

And to say Thank You to Baskin Robbins for my free birthday scoop (or because I neglected to exercise self-restraint, being instead in favor of self-indulgence), I bought a quart of Rainbow Sherbet to enjoy at my future leisure! Yummy, yummy, yummy!

Gotta go, Dutch

I had initially intended to let Dutchie stay with me through the weekend and into early next week (to give the owners a decent window in which to re-claim her), but she had two altercations with my cats within 24 hours of her arrival on Friday. Even though Dutchie started it by chasing after them, I decided to be nice to her and let her stay in the house during the day instead of being stuck outside or alone in the guest house (she goes bonkers and gets destructive when left alone too long); this means my kitties have been the ones stuck behind a closed door. After two days of this arrangement and seeing how unhappy my babies are, I just can't take it anymore. It's not fair to my kitties to keep a dog here who chases them and barks at them, especially when the dog is only here as a favor to her own little self! No one claiming to be Dutchie's owner has come forward since Brad and I put up the posters on Thursday, so this morning I contacted the Valley Dog Rescue group and spoke to the director, who told me to bring Dutchie to PetsMart this afternoon because they would be there as part of an adoption event. I like this organization (and organizations similar to them) because they house adoptable dogs in foster homes instead of cages, and there's no risk of them being euthanized. Plus, they hold newly surrendered pets for 7-10 days and continue searching for the owners before officially putting them up for adoption, which gives Dutchie's owner more time to find her and get her back (if they want to, that is. It has been brought to my attention that she may have been set loose on purpose, given that no one appears to be looking for her. It's also possible she was stolen, which means we have no idea where she came from).
So now I'm back to just Shadow, who barely blinks at the cats when they venture out of hiding to come glare at him reproachfully. My hope is that, with yippie Dutchie gone, they'll rediscover some of their bravado. I miss my kitty babies, and I admit it'll be nice when it's just the 3 of us again. I like dogs just fine, but my heart belongs to those little feline furballs.

Communication is key!

Texted conversation from yesterday:

5:35pm Me (to brother): Burgers and beers* over here tonight?
5:36pm Ross (brother): Yeah! Dad never called you? We will be there around 7 or so.

5:36 Me (to dad): Burgers and beers over here tonight?
5:37 Dad: Yes. I thought Ross contacted you. He's coming over and we'll be to your place 7-730 with food and drink.

Naturally I ratted them out to each other with plenty of "HAHAHAs" and exclamation points. I'm glad I said (I mean texted) something, otherwise I would have been in for a surprise!

*Burgers and Beers has become a longstanding dinnertime tradition on Friday nights. Sometimes we go out to restaurants, but lately the preference has been to meet at someone's house with takeout (Carl's Jr. is a fave) and watch a movie (or trashy reality tv). I love being part of a family of homebodies!

Animal House

I was going to just do an "Update" to the previous post, but the story of getting Dutchie settled in is too funny not to be given it's own post.

This is "Dutchie," the sweetest Boston Terrier I've ever met (okay, she's the only BT I've ever met, but she's setting a good example).

Crappy cell phone pic of cuddly L'il Dutchie

Brad brought her over just a little bit ago, and for a few minutes it was dog mania hilarity: picture two dogs on leashes, the bigger one standing stoically while the little one ran circles around him and the legs of the two humans. At one point I was caught in the middle of the tangle of leash lines and tried to step over them so we wouldn't have to play London Bridge again, but Brad did a little sidestep at the same time, which nearly resulted in very painful experience for him. I apologized for nearly kneeing him in the family jewels, then tried not to burst out laughing as he leaned around me trying to keep himself from getting caught in the crazy tangle.
"I'm sorry!" I gasped, to which he replied, "we're a mess!"

We finally got everybody untangled, and Brad took off to get to the airport. As for the rest of us, Dutchie is sleeping next to me on the couch, Shadow is resting nearby, and Bootsie and Spitter are hiding in the "office room" and may not resurface till bedtime (I use quotes because it's really just a storage space right now).

Brad has been in contact with a woman who offered to take Dutchie if her owners don't show up in several days. I don't want to give Dutchie up to hastily in case her owners are out of town or something, but at the same time 4 animals and 1 me is not the best ratio! Maybe the woman who offered to take Dutchie would agree to be a second doggie fostermama, with the option to adopt if the owners still aren't found after a while.

My family is supposed to come over for dinner this weekend...I'm tempted to put a sign on the door that says "Welcome to the Animal House: Enter at your own risk!"

The dog days of summer

At one point in time I operated what basically amounted to a home-based kitty hospice.

Now I have apparently switched businesses to some sort of canine halfway house for foster dogs and runaways.

One the same night I got Shadow back (Wednesday), I was asked by a shar pei rescue group if I knew anyone who could house a shelter dog for a day (Thursday), until transportation arrangements could be made to send the dog to its new owner in CO. I wanted to take the dog myself as a pay-it-forward sort of thing, but I wasn't sure how Shadow would react to having another dog around after the stress of his ordeal. Since it was such short notice I wasn't able to ask around as much as I wanted to, and there was no news on him today so I don't know the ultimate fate of that pup.

But the universe seems to be determined to take me up on that pay-it-forward business: yesterday afternoon I discovered that my mom's friend, Brad, had found a stray dog the night before; he had been out walking his own dog when "Dutchie" (the name my mom randomly gave the runaway) came flying up the sidewalk, friendly as can be, but with no collar and no owners chasing after her.
Given that I just went through the Lost/Found Pet ordeal with Shadow, and am a frequent pet-sitter for Brad's dogs, Brad enlisted my help to find this pup's owners. He took her to the vet to check for a microchip first thing, no such luck. Then he printed out some Found Dog flyers and we drove around posting them in his neighhorhood. The pup is a small breed (boston terrier) who is clearly well-fed, so hopefully she didn't get very far from home.
Brad has to fly to Australia on a business trip today, so if "Dutchie's" owners aren't found by the time he has to leave for the airport I agreed to take "Dutchie" for a little while, in the hopes that her owners will come looking for her. If they don't, Brad wants to take her to a Boston Terrier rescue group. Neither of us can stomach taking her to a shelter...she's such a sweetheart, and AZ shelters are heartbreakingly awful.

I can't believe that in less than a week I, the quintessential cat lady, have become the temporary foster petmama of 2 wayward dogs. What am I getting myself into?

My kitty babies have been largely avoiding Shadow since his return...let's see what they do with a dog who is their own size! Shadow and "Dutchie" met yesterday afternoon (Brad brought her over and we kept both dogs on short leashes) and they seemed to get along fine, but I will probably keep them separated if I can't be around to supervise.

I really must say, it  sure seems like my life has gone to the dogs these days (literally!).

There's a Shadow in the house!



Well. So, Shadow went on quite an adventure barely an hour after arriving at my house on Saturday evening. He slipped his collar during a walk around my neighborhood, and though two young boys, a friendly father and his 8 year old daughter, my own dad and brother, and I chased him around the neighborhood for hours, we were unable to catch him. When the sun went down and we lost sight of him, I admitted defeat for the night and went home completely crushed.

 

I don't feel like rehashing Shadow's ensuing "adventure" (or in my case, gut-punching ordeal) in detail here on the blog, but I do intend to write the whole thing out, especially the end when things got good. The important thing to know is, Shadow is back safe and sound, thanks to the above-and-beyond efforts of lots of people. From Sunday through Tuesday my days were spent communicating with an incredible network of dog lovers, all of them strangers who heard about my lost dog situation from the various alerts and notifications I posted on the internet (I never even got the chance to put up my paper posters, of which I had printed over 50...but I ain't complaining!).

On Wednesday afternoon I got Shadow back and found a new hero. A good samaritan named Steve chased Shadow ON FOOT after he, two young women, and my dad helped me track him by car nearly 5 miles away from where he had first disappeared...I will never know how Steve managed to get the choke chain around his neck, because I was still in my car, idling helplessly in the parking lot Shadow had disappeared into, while Steve pounded the asphalt with a speed that (in my opinion) is worthy of the Olympics. I can only guess how he managed to wrangle Shadow, but whatever he did, I say he should join a rodeo if the Olympics don't work out.

 

The important thing is, Shadow is back, he's unhurt, and he's safe. He walked back into the house (on a leash!) yesterday just two hours shy of exactly 4 days (96 hours) from the time he left it (on a leash). It was probably the longest walk he's ever been on in his 5-ish years of life...and he's not going on any more while he's here with me! He'll have to settle for exploring my nice and secure backyard. Last night when we went out for our nighttime potty break, he lifted his face in the air and sniffed and sniffed...I wonder if he could still smell traces of his adventure in the neighborhood, or if he was just glad that he wasn't smelling hot asphalt and car exhaust anymore!

After taking a nice big drink of fresh water

Several people who know the full story have put in their two cents: "Meryl, you have to write the whole story." "Meryl, you know you could get that published, right?" "Meryl, make sure you record every detail of your experience, it's gonna be a novel someday."

This story is definitely one for the books, so look for it on the shelves in the probably-still-pretty-distant future! In the meantime, I know a boy who's gonna need a lot of rest. As for me, I'm  just happy that my days will no longer consist of continually refreshing my browser on every Found Dog listing on Craigslist and beyond, and hopefully now my phone will stop ringing every 5 minutes! Speaking of which, I guess I better change my voicemail so it no longer talks about a lost dog.

And of course a HUGE "Thank You" goes out to Steve, Lindsay, Lisa, Jere, G.G., Dennis, and everyone else whose names I either never got or just couldn't hold on to in the rush of events that made it possible to bring Shadow home. Every single one of them made it possible for Shadow to be found, and I am eternally grateful. And I am so deeply humbled by the fact that they all acted out of the kindness and goodness of their own hearts; if anything good can come out of a lost pet, it's being able to witness a community of strangers coming together purely out of love for the animal. If every action taken, word spoken, and deed accomplished had that much love infused within it, we'd live in a completely different world. Don't you agree?



Sleeping off his wild adventure