Happy Halloween

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I recently saw a news story saying that Halloween is the second largest holiday in terms of money spent, about six billion dollars annually.  It is right after Christmas in terms of dollar volumes.  Now I find that to be quite interesting!  October 31 has certainly morphed from just a little kid’s holiday into an adult holiday.  It does make you wonder why so many adults go all out for Halloween with decorations, elaborate costumes, parties, and bar crawls.  Of course, there is the old idea of any excuse for a party!  I suspect that much of the attraction of putting on a costume for Halloween may be due to the desire to slip into some sort of alter ego, at least for a period of time.  Why else would seemingly sane adults suddenly become the naughty upstairs maid, Darth Vader, a super hero, or even a presidential candidate for an evening?  It is reminiscent of the masked balls of past centuries at the English and French courts.  If no one knows who you are, perhaps you can get by with acting in ways you normally would not do.

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Historically, Halloween was the night before All Saints Day, the night when ghouls, goblins, and the spirits of the dead were thought to roam the earth. Over time All Hallows Eve evolved into the holiday we know today replete with lots of tricks or treats.  I think I was fortunate to have experienced Halloween as a little kid before the evening got hijacked by the adults.

In my childhood we didn’t have the plethora of ready-made costumes to choose from like you see today.  We actually had to make our own.  These could be fairly simple or elaborate, depending upon your creativity and your Mom’s sewing skills.  An old sheet could quickly become a ghost.  Highly popular among the little boys were hobos and scarecrows.  An old worn out jacket of your Dad’s and some black smudges on your face, and you were all set.  For girls it was usually the princess or the gypsy queen.  As for me, I was always the gypsy.  A long flowing skirt and a white ruffled blouse with elastic sleeves that you could pull down off your shoulders constituted the basic costume.  Add some of your Mom’s make-up and lots of dangly jewelry, and you were all set.  Oh, I was so glamorous and sexy!

When my boys were little, I tried a couple of times to make their costumes.  One year they went as ghosts with giant jack o’ lantern heads out of felt.  I thought they were quite adorable.  Unfortunately a few of my neighbors wanted to know why my kids were dressed as tomatoes!   I guess my felt wasn’t quite orange enough.  Another year we had great success with the head on the plate.   We covered a large box with a small tablecloth and cut a hole for the kid’s head to stick out.  Then we cut a large paper plate to go around the his neck.  Next we glued on some silverware, salt and pepper shakers, and a nice parsley garnish.  Finish with some ghastly facial make up complete with blood trickling out of the corners of the mouth, and you’ve got it!

In the days when I was a child, people actually felt free to hand out homemade goodies—popcorn balls, cookies, or caramel apples.  Today, any cautious parent quickly disposes of any treat not commercially packaged and intact, and many hospitals offer free x-rays of the little ones’ candy to ensure that it is free of needles or razor blades.  What a sad commentary on today’s society.  I don’t recall any sort of serious vandalism when I was little.  A trick might be turning over a garbage can or leaving a burning paper bag full of dog poop on someone’s porch, not wreaking havoc in the computer lab in the local elementary school.

So whatever your plans for Halloween, enjoy the evening and watch out for those evil spirits.  I have to run now and go plan my gypsy costume!

©The Eclectic Grandma, 2016

 

Blind Dogs See with Their Hearts

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In all the years of our marriage (Notice I’m not saying exactly how many!!), we’ve had six dogs, one miniature dachshund and five Irish Setters.  I guess you could say that this is the long and the short of it!  We’ve been very fortunate that all but little Molly lived to their normal life span in a relatively healthy manner, with only the ails and discomforts of old age.  Molly, Irish Setter number 3 (IS#3) died on Christmas Eve, the day before her first birthday due to a congenital cardiac anomaly.  So it has been somewhat of a shock to have a dog who went blind due to the complications of diabetmay-19-2011-096es, more on that insidious disease in an upcoming post.

Nothing makes me more angry than to see someone who abandons an old or ill pet, just at the time that pet needs you the most!  Getting a dog or any other pet is a sacred sort of bond of love and friendship between two different species.  This post is not about all the events leading up to the blindness; it is more focused upon the amazing strength and resilience of dogs.  After a lengthy and costly stay in doggie ICU, we came home with Mandy, IS #5.  She was 8 when she lost her sight.  We struggled with how she would cope and how we would cope.

Our house is on two levels.  To even go out to go potty, she was going to have to learn to manipulate a flight of stairs.  Whatever were we all going to do?  I’m the kind of person who copes best by reading up on a given situation and doing my research.  While I certainly would never say we have all the answers, we have come up with some helpful hints that might be helpful to you or to others who are faced with helping a blind pet to adjust and cope.

Here are a few suggestions and experiences that we found to be helpful:

Trust your other pet’s understanding.  I’m sure Caley didn’t understand exactly what was wrong, but she sure knew something was different with her “sister.”  We call them sisters even though they are actually four months apart in age and not that closely related.  In doggie genealogy, I think they are second cousins or something!  At the very beginning, Mandy was terrified of the deck stairs.  I can’t say I blamed her!  She froze at the top of the stairs and refused to move.  Caley ran up the steps, barked at her, and ran back down.  After several rounds of barking and running up and down the steps, she finally coaxed Mandy down the steps.

Since we have two dogs, we put a bell on the collar of the sighted girl, Caley.  Especially in the early days, that jangling little bell gave Mandy auditory clues to help her navigate around the house and the yard.  Now, two years later, we probably could do without the bell, but I think we’ve all gotten used to it.

The next big problem was her walking into everything.  I found a great product called Tracerz (with the “z.”  That was not a typo).  Tracerz are little packs of dime-sized stick on disks that you stick around everywhere.  There are ones to put on obstacles, like furniture; there are some to stick on the tops of steps, on door frames, on doors, and so on.  To me, they all smell the same, but to a dog’s far more discerning nose, each category of Tracerz has a different scent.  For the first few days at home, Mandy must have had one big, splitting headache from walking into everything, but she caught on so quickly and understood the different scents that it was nothing short of miraculous!     No more walking into the television stand!  Now, two years later, she knows her way around the house so well that we probably don’t need them anymore.

Be alert for new little behaviors and clues.  When Mandy needs to go out, she gets a tennis ball and carries it around to let us know.  We keep a good stash of oversized tennis balls upstairs and downstairs, but she is very picky about which one she wants.  You can’t just hand her one; she has to pick it out, and she always picks out the newest one with ease.  “I do it myself!”  They say that when we lose one sense, the other senses become more acute.  In her case, her hearing has most definitely become more acute.  She hears the coyotes yipping in the distance or the arrival of the FedEx truck long before her sighted sister.

Trust their ability to learn and grow.  In Mandy’s case her vocabulary has made a quantum leap!  She knows “step,” “step-step-step,” “turn,” “the other way,” “careful,” “watch out,” “keep going,” and the ever useful “bump.”  I think she would have learned “turn right” and “turn left’ without too much problem, but we weren’t consistent enough, so now we just tell her to turn.  If she is heading in the wrong direction, we simply tell her “the other way.”  She makes cute little right angle turns on command, sort of like a little soldier.  Recently I heard our grandson downstairs with her guiding her to the steps.  “Turn, turn,” he told her.  “Step, step.”  We had never talked to him about how to help her; he just observed us and did the same.

We have almost two acres of heavily wooded yard, and she manipulates the entire yard with ease.  Sometimes I think she has some sort of doggie sonar as she weaves in and out of the trees.  Trust me, she also finds the pantry without any problem to woof for treats!  Every once in a while, she does get herself a bit confused about where she is, but she stands still and give a very distinctive bark.  “Come find me!  I need help!”

Do I miss those cute little black eyes?  Of course, but she is still our sweet little girl, she still has all the same facial expressions, and she still loves her walks with you.  I have to wonder if she understands what has happened to her, but she certainly seems to be a happy little one—if you can call a 105-pound dog a little one!  If you are wondering where the title for this blog came from, when Mandy first lost her sight, I found a great sweatshirt online with “Blind Dogs See with Their Hearts” on it.

©The Eclectic Grandma, 2016

Why I Hate Shag Carpet

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Today’s blog is a bit scatological.  If that offends you or if you don’t know what that means, you can feel free to bypass today’s read!  As I’ve noted on prior occasions, we have been blessed with a string of Irish Setters as part of the family.  Now one thing you need to know is that these dogs are a very, very active and high energy breed.  They rarely stand still for much of anything, including taking care of their business.  Other breeds stand still and do what needs to be done, and if they perhaps have an indoor accident, it is in one neat and tidy pile.  This is definitely not the case with Irish Setters. They have more of a step-and-drop technique.  I think it must be something embedded in their very DNA.  Now I don’t know if Gordon Setters or English Setters share this trait or not.  I’ll have to check that one out.  So cleaning up the yard or an indoor error is more tedious task when you own the Irish.

When we moved from Kentucky to Colorado in 1979, we bought a wonderful old house.  It had been built by a custom builder who was Jewish.  There were mezuzahs on all the outside doors, which we left in place for as long as we lived there.  We figured we’d take any help and blessings we could, Old Testament or New!  That family was Orthodox Jewish, so we actually had the obligatory two kitchens, which was quite nice.  It gave us a second sink for a mud sink, lots of extra cabinet space, and so on. However, the best part was a fully finished basement  with two bedrooms, a bath, a laundry room, a large shop, and a very large family room with a wet bar.  Our boys were 9 and 12 at the time, so the downstairs became their own private living quarters on through high school graduation.  They loved it, and it certainly gave us more peace and quiet upstairs.

Now you are probably wondering exactly what this has to do with shag carpet.   That downstairs family room was carpeted with the infamous shag carpet so popular in the 70’s.  It was a dark, multicolored brown. I was never quite sure whether to vacuum it or mow it.  You could even buy wooden rakes to keep all of the shags standing up nicely and not getting packed down.  Casey was our first Irish girl, and from time to time she had a tender digestive system so to speak.  Remember, I did warn you that today’s blog was a bit scatological.

On one memorable occasion, Bill, Chris, and I has been out and about.  I don’t remember where Greg was.  Luckily for him he was at a friend’s house or something.  When we arrived home, a very sheepish Casey greeted us at the door from the garage.  Something was up!  A faint aroma wafted up the basement stairs.  Miss tender-tummy had had a very large bout of diarrhea.  Guess where she ran to in her moment of distress; you guessed it, the downstairs family room.  With total dismay we surveyed the family room with that awful shag carpet.  Her step-and-drop technique was evident everywhere!  Where did we even begin to clean this up?

Clearly this mess called for an assembly line sort of approach.  I was the Scout.  It was my job to find all of the dastardly little droplets.  Now, how to mark them for the rest of the team?  I needed little flags or something to stick in that thick carpet.  Ah ha, ruffled toothpicks!  Remember those toothpicks with the little colored paper on them for fancy hors d’oeuvres?  Luckily, I had a box in the pantry.  The Scout carefully made her way around that large family room carefully flagging each little error with a ruffled toothpick.  With hindsight I wish I had thought to take a picture of that carpet with dozens and dozens of brightly colored little markers standing up everywhere!

Poor Chris got the job of being the preliminary Picker-Upper.  He followed my trail of colored toothpicks armed with a trash bag and a roll of paper towels.  As soon as Chris did the initial scoop up, Bill followed behind with a scrub brush and a bucket of hot soapy water.  He was the designated Scrubber.  After what seemed like hours, the Scout, the Picker-Upper, and the Scrubber had returned that carpet to a far more hygienic and better smelling state.

Shortly thereafter we splurged on new carpet for downstairs, a close weave dense Berber carpet in a light beige color.  I don’t think I’ve bought any of those little ruffled toothpicks again to this very day, and I most certainly have not ever had shag carpet again!

©The Eclectic Grandma, 2016

My Jewish Cousins

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As I’ve mentioned before, I grew up in Dallas, Texas in the 1950’s.  Not only was I a transplanted Yankee; I was also a Lutheran.  A Papist among the Baptists and Methodists!  Lutherans, Catholics, and Episcopalians were all pretty scarce commodities in Texas in those days.  Surprisingly though, there was a fairly large Jewish population in Dallas.  Now my maiden name was Waldman, a good German Lutheran sort of name.  There were lots of Waldman’s of Jewish ancestry in Dallas, and they were all cousins and somehow related to one another.  Every time I met another Waldman, I was always asked if I were related to one family or another.  Our standing joke became that I was their adopted cousin.  I wonder what old Martin Luther would have thought about that one.  I suspect he would have approved.menorrah

Our next door neighbors on Willow Brook Road were a mixed couple.  He was Catholic, and she was Jewish, although neither was overly religious.  Being a mixed family, they celebrated both Christmas and Hanukkah.  I was always somewhat jealous—more presents.  They always had one or two Christmas trees in their house along with the Menorah for the Hanukkah.  Presents, presents, presents!

Their son, Ricky, was the same one that my sister and I used to pelt with little horse manure missiles until he cried.  In retrospect, probably not a very nice thing to do, but it seemed very appropriate at the time.  He was the dreaded smart-aleck and tattletale, so with the code of justice of little kids, we determined that he deserved it.  Ricky’s mother, Sylvia, was the prototype Jewish Mother.  Her son, Ricky could do no wrong, and oh did he know it! That may have been a contributing factor to our rather obnoxious behavior that I mentioned above.  A bleached blond, somewhat on the plump side, she had the proverbial heart of gold.  She also had a hot temper and a very colorful Yiddish vocabulary, and I learned many a phrase that a little kid should probably not be using, at least not in polite company.  I also learned to appreciate a lot of very yummy Jewish foods, although I never developed a taste for gefilte fish or the doughy matzoh balls!

Sylvia’s brother was a very prominent Dallas attorney who lived in Highland Park, a much more hoity-toity part of Dallas than our quasi rural area.  He had a daughter about my age.  In the strange ways of parents and adult friends, I was sent a couple of times to spend the night at their house.  Maybe they thought I needed to broaden my horizons a bit or that their wealth might somehow rub off on me.  Alas, I don’t recall her name, but I did enjoy those visits.  They lived in a two-story, red brick, colonial style house.  She had her own beautifully decorated bedroom with carpeted floors, twin beds with fancy bedspreads, and matching lamps.  I suspect these visits may have just imbued me with a little pre-adolescent class envy!  My wooden floors, space heater, and occasional scorpion just didn’t quite measure up!  We never became the best friends that some of the well-meaning adults may have hoped for, but the visits were a nice diversion.

I attended numerous Bar Mitzvahs and Bat Mitzvahs for my Jewish friends, and in the summer months I also often attended that iconic tradition of the Southern Baptists, Vacation Bible School, with various friends where we sang songs, learned Bible verses, and did little crafts.  My Lutheran upbringing was far more traditional and liturgical.  In 8th and 9th grades, we had the dreaded Confirmation Classes every Saturday morning for two or three hours.  Week in and week out we studied the Catechism, scripture, and various aspects of the church and church history, and woe be unto you if you didn’t do your weekly homework!

My parents were not great churchgoers themselves but faithfully dropped us off on Saturday and Sunday mornings.  I don’t know what they did while we went to Sunday School, Church, and Confirmation Class; I suspect they had a quiet cup of coffee somewhere or went to breakfast without us!  All in all, I had a very ecumenical sort of childhood.

©The Eclectic Grandma, 2016

 

The Letot Lions

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Have you ever stopped to think about why we do Facebook?  How many mindless hours have I spent scrolling through the endless stream of posts, hitting like, share, or comment?  Here’s a funny political joke–like, share.  Here’s another tear-jerker dog story–like, share, comment, “Hang the b*****d!  Here’s another motivational story–like.  This is truly a zero sum game. The more I like, the more of the same shows up!

Then, of course there are the pictures of everyone’s kids!  What a cute baby–like.  Jeez, what an ugly kid–like.  So you’re going on vacation?  Here’s a picture of your frou-frou drink, complete with paper parasol and that big plate of enchiladas you had for lunch.  I especially like the maps!  I’m at DIA flying to destination X.  A side note here, I never post my travels until I am safely home!  I figure I may as well put a flashing red neon sign on the front porch, saying, “I’m out-of-town; feel free to drop in and rob the house!”  We’ve even created new verb forms.  I can friend you, or in dire cases, I can unfriend you.  So, if I were to unfriend you, would you ever even know it? Ah, the pressure, the pressure!

Recently, I was sitting on the sofa, aimlessly perusing the endless stream of dogs, politics, and what not’s, when OMG (that’s Facebook for Oh My God!), there was a picture of my old elementary school, all boarded up, deserted and forlorn.  There was a somewhat sad notation that the old  “Letot School was torn down to  make room for the Letot Center, which assists young women who have been sexually exploited.  This center is the only one of its kind in the country.”  Red River Historian.
Letot School Boarded Up What a jolt!  Four years of my young life, fourth to seventh grades, were spent there.  Now, I don’t think I had thought about Letot since I “graduated” in seventh grade.  We were the Letot Lions, not that we had any sort of sports teams as I recall.  I even remember the first couple lines of our school song,

“We are the boys and girls of Letot School; we always work and play by the Golden Rule.”

How corny is that?  Looking at that boarded up building, I felt a flood of old memories come surging back.  There was the principal’s office.  That window was my fourth grade classroom.  Funny, the front steps used to be bigger.  They must have shrunk over the years.  The locales of our childhood are supposed to remain pristine in a bubble of time, not be ruthlessly torn apart.  What happened to the big live oak trees?

The wall was still there.  How often did we sit on that old wall, discussing life and our futures, as much as one can at age 10 or 11!  To the left of the school stood a restaurant owned by the parents of one of my best friends.  It was pretty upscale for those days, a steak and seafood kind of place.  As soon as you were seated, your waiter would bring a basket of little biscuits with honey butter and wonderful little cinnamon twists.  My family didn’t go there very often, a bit too pricey for us!  After school my friend and I would scale the wall and enter the back entrance of the restaurant where the cooks were baking the day’s supply of cinnamon rolls and little biscuits.  We sat happily in one of the big red leather booths, gorging ourselves on hot cinnamon twists and biscuits dripping in butter.  That was in the good old days before we discovered calories, diets, boys, and maintaining a slim, trim waistline!

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And that hallway, it used to be bigger too.  We were ushered into that corridor frequently for tornado and bomb drills.  There we crouched down with our arms protectively encircling our head and neck. Remember–this was the 50’s when the paranoia of the Cold War left everyone on edge. Perhaps those drills might have been helpful in the event of a tornado, but I have my doubts that they would have done much good in the event of the dreaded nuclear bomb attack!  In reality, I am not sure that Letot Elementary School in a semi-rural part of north Dallas was high on the prospective list of targets for those dastardly Soviets.

I remember on one occasion we all traipsed down to the auditorium to watch the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II on the only television set in the school, black and white of course.  How romantic– a real queen!  Now that was something that would make any twelve-year old’s heart beat faster.  We sat there on wooden seats (none of those padded seats for our tender little behinds!).  When I see Queen Elizabeth today, a somewhat portly, elderly woman, I recall that young, slender, dark-haired new queen, oh so many years ago.

Behind the school was the playground where we went out for recess once or twice a day to burn off a little of that excess energy.  Everything about recess was politically incorrect in those days.  The merry-go-round was dangerous, and the jungle gym was truly a hazard.  We played cowboys and Indians.  Some days you were the cowboy, and some days you were the Indian.  We frequently played a rather brutal game of King of the Mountain on an old dirt pile.  When we chose up for teams, for games like Red Rover or kickball, sometimes  you got picked first, and other times you were last.  You know what; we survived!  We learned that life isn’t always fair and that you don’t always win or get picked for the team.
Letot Elementary
On one level we all know that nothing is constant, except in our memories.  Goodbye old Letot, gone but not forgotten!  As one of my favorite novelists said, “You Can’t Go Home Again.”  Thomas Wolfe

©The Eclectic Grandma, 2016

I Love Fall

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I am one of those people who really enjoys the changing of the seasons.  I think that is why I could not live in a locale where there really isn’t a seasonal shift in the climate.  As you know, I “mostly” grew up in   Texas as I like to put it.  Now Dallas doesn’t have much in the way of seasons.  Fall and summer are both colorless and hot and humid.  Winter is pretty much non-existent, except for the occasional ice storm or on very rare occasions, a touch of snow.  Two or three inches of snow are enough to bring that major city to its knees.  Now in my little mountain community, we measure the snow in two to three feet, not inches, and the kids up here rarely ever miss school for a snow day no doubt to their chagrin.

Spring was perhaps Dallas’ only redeeming season.  Spring in North Texas is truly beautiful with blooming azaleas, rhododendron, and forsythia everywhere.  We would often drive along Turtle Creek in Dallas, just to witness the breath-taking pinks, purples, and yellows of those flowering shrubs.  The only other state I have lived in that rivaled Dallas for springtime was Kentucky.  Like Texas, it didn’t have much of a fall, perhaps a bit more winter and a greener summer.  Springtime was a riot of flowering trees, the Dogwood, the Redbuds, and the gorgeous Tulip Tree.  No wonder they always run the Kentucky Derby in the spring.

Now I do love winter.  We’ve lived in three big time winter areas—Buffalo, NY, where we learned about the famous lake effect snow, Maine where our mailbox and newspaper box quickly became just a hole dug in the snow bank at the end of the driveway, and of course, the Colorado mountains.  The measure of a big winter for us now is how many times we have to have a front end loader in to make more space for plowing the driveway.  Growing up in Texas, I never in my wildest imagination would have thought that I would have my own plow truck.   If you trust the Farmer’s Almanac, we are supposed to have a very cold and big winter this year.  I guess we will see.

Luckily we enjoy the quiet and beauty of the snow, plus we indulge in lots of skiing and snowshoeing, followed by a nice hot toddy in front of the fireplace, although I do have to admit that by late April we are usually getting pretty weary with the endless snow.  At times we even have to shovel little paths in the back yard for the dogs to get out and about to do their business.  We call these the P-trails!

Summer is pretty marginal for me as I really don’t like hot weather at all. I can get my fill of hot weather with an occasional trip to a Caribbean island to soak up a little sun and sand for a few days.  Luckily we don’t get much summer up here; however, fall remains my favorite time of the year.  I was one of those strange kids who always looked forward to the start of school right after the Labor Day weekend.  Heading back to school was always fun—all of those empty notebooks and tablets just waiting to be filled!  It always seemed like fall should be the beginning of the year, not cold, dismal January.

Fall in Maine was quite beautiful, with the brilliant red maples, but fall in the mountains remains my favorite.  As I write this in mid-September, we have already had one hard freeze, a preview of coming attractions.  The hummingbirds have abruptly departed.  They always seem to know exactly when to head south, often hitching rides on the backs of the Canadian geese.  The bears are feeding voraciously, getting ready for their own long winter.  We have a somewhat aggressive cow moose with a yearling calf in the neighborhood. To all of you selfie fans out there, don’t ever try for a selfie with a moose!  They are notoriously bad-tempered and have poor eyesight, a bad combination.

The aspen trees are turning to golden yellow with an occasional touch of orange in them at a speedy rate. You can see them changing on a daily basis.  There is that unmistakable feel of fall in the air, that undertone of crisp coolness even as the warmth of the sun continues a bit longer!  We even have the occasional rainy afternoon with a gray drizzle, something we don’t get too often here in Colorado.  Like many things in life, we have to savor these beautiful fall days while we can before those first few snows start up on October.

©The Eclectic Grandma, 2016

 

Smokey Died Today

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Dateline:  August 12, 2016

Last Saturday marked two years since my Mom died.  If she were still alive, she would now be 93.  After her death, my sister and I decided that we would tilt a glass or two of wine on her birthday rather than on her death day in remembrance.  Nonetheless, it is hard not to recall that date when she left us for good.  One of the loneliest feelings is when you suddenly realize that you are now an adult orphan with no living parents.  You are now the older generation as the endless cycles of life continue to roll forward.

How often do you miss calling her to tell her the little news of the day?  The Rufus hummingbirds arrived today.  There was snow on the Indian Peaks this morning and on and on.  She was ready to go, frail and in pain, but we weren’t necessarily ready for her to leave.  One of the last things holding her back from that big crossing over was her worry about her two beloved cats, Scooter and Smokey.  Once she knew that they were both well placed, she felt free to leave.

Scooter went to live with a friend of my sister.  He is in a bustling household with two other kitty playmates and three young children.  Always more playful and active than Smokey, he seems to be quite happy in his new domicile.  He loves the kids, and they love him back, and he thoroughly enjoys having two other furry friends to play with!

Finding a new home for Smokey proved to be a bit more challengingSmokeyg.  You may be asking why we didn’t just take her.  With two 100 pound Irish Setters, a large coyote population, an occasional mountain lion, and even a couple of beautiful lynx, our household was simply not an option for an elderly arthritic kitty.  Our doors stand open almost year round with the walk-through type of hanging screens.  We finally just gave up on traditional screen doors as the dogs viewed all screens as walk-throughs anyway!

So Smokey went to live with the wonderful people at the Evergreen Cat Lodge.  This lodge just for kitties does boarding for private guests as well as housing any number of potential adoptees and special needs cats.  Now I am not a cat, but if I were, this is definitely where I would want to go for my vacation!  This place is the Waldorf Astoria of cat boarding.  Every guest has his or her own little room with large glass windows and doors, complete with snuggly chairs, perches, and a private covered litter box—a little touch of feline privacy!   About 40 sq. feet per cat, I would guess.

As a more permanent resident, Smokey had the run of the place.  She found a couple of favorite chairs and hiding places and soon let the other cats know if they dared to get in her spot!  As her arthritis got worse and her kidneys started acting up, she was moved to a more privileged spot in the owner’s private den area where her food, water, bed, and litter box were all within easy reach.  I have to admit I didn’t stop by very often after the first couple of months to visit.  I wasn’t sure how well she even remembered me, and seeing her was a painful reminder of my own loss.

On Friday, August 12th, Susan emailed and called to let me know that Smokey was near death and did we want to have the vet put her down or let her go on her own.  She didn’t think she was in any pain, just slowly shutting down.  After a brief discussion we agreed to let her go on her own terms and not have the vet speed up the dying process.  She always hated riding in the car anyway, and I hated to think of her last moments being filled with an anxiety-provoking car ride.  I told Susan I would stop by on Saturday for a final good-bye visit, but Smokey didn’t wait that long.  Susan called later in the afternoon to tell me she was gone.

We’ll pick up her ashes when they are ready and spread them on the hillside behind the family cabin here in Colorado where we spread our Mom’s ashes two short years ago and our Dad’s oh so long ago, almost thirty-five years now.

Good bye, Smokey!  I hope you are happily purring on your Mama’s lap in a better place.

©The Eclectic Grandma, 2016

 

My Muse is Back!

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My Muse is back, and quite frankly, she is a pain in the ass!  I’m not sure where she has been hiding out for the past six months or so, perhaps an around the world trip or something along that line?  Other writers have nice docile Muses, who sit quietly beside them while they compose on the computer, somewhat reminiscent of playing a duet on the piano.  Not mine!  No, she comes screeching in promptly at 1:40 AM every night.

“Lynn, wake up.  It’s time to get to work!”

“Go away. I’m sleepy.”

“No, we have work to do!”

Then for the next couple of hours, she plies my weary brain with endless words, a virtual stream of consciousness.  If I weren’t so lazy, I would get up and go downstairs to my PC to get all of her word smithing down on my computer.  Instead I keep reassuring her that I’ll remember everything in the morning.

“I’ve got it.  Now let’s get some rest!”

“Are you sure?  Let’s run through it one more time.  We need to be sure you’ve got it all down!”

“I told you, I’ve got it!”

“OK, see you tonight.”

Finally she departs to whatever netherworld she inhabits when she is not busy tormenting me, but I’m sure she’ll be back right on schedule at 1:40 AM the next night.  It is now usually about 4:00 AM, and I try to catch a few hours of greatly needed sleep before my two four-legged redheads decide it’s time to start their day.

Then it is time to put the girls out for their morning business.  They, of course, have to check out the entire yard just in case we have had any nocturnal visitors, like a bear, that dared to enter their domain!  By now, the birds have also figured out that I’m up.  The hummingbirds dive bomb me eagerly as I hang up their feeders, and the rest of the feathered crew sit on the deck railing awaiting their turn.  A few of the bolder chickadees even land on their feeder to grab a sunflower seed as I carry it across the deck to hang it in the big pine tree in the corner.

Now it is turn on the coffee, feed the dogs, bring in the paper, and give Mandy her insulin.  Another day, another morning.  If you happen to see my Muse, tell her I got it!

©The Eclectic Grandma, 2016

A Political Rant from a Gun-Toting Grandma!

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I feel like a modern-day Jonathan Swift, and if you have forgotten who he was, dig out that dusty old English Lit book!  When I first started my blog almost two years ago, I forewarned everyone that I might cover a wide range of topics.  That’s why I call it the “Eclectic Grandma,” a little bit of everything.  Thus far I have steered clear of politics, but today I have to make an exception.

An open letter to Jeb Bush, John Kasich, Ted Cruse, and several more of you:

I have to tell you I have lost respect for all of you!  When this seemingly endless political campaign started, all of you took an oath to support the party’s candidate.  Of course, never in your wildest dreams did you think that Donald Trump might end up being that candidate.  You were more worried that he might be the one to rock the boat.

Now Trump wasn’t my first choice either, but my first choice wasn’t nominated, so I am supporting Trump.  He is somewhat brash and politically incorrect, but his cardinal sin is that he is a political outsider.  It wasn’t his “turn,” was it?  After the last two dismal presidential elections and the exceedingly poor choices of nominees by the Republican Party, you would think the establishment would have learned its lesson. No wonder the American people are weary with the shenanigans of both parties!

I hear Trump getting criticized for modifying his position on various topics.  I don’t think many of us have held perfectly formed beliefs for our entire lives.  We all have a responsibility to continue to learn, to assimilate new data, and to modify our stance as we incorporate new information into our frame of reference.  I would rather have a leader who listens to reason and modifies his views than one too rigid to change and evolve.

One of the two major party candidates is going to be the next President, sorry Libertarians, Green Party, and some other fringe candidates!  Staying home and not voting is not an option.  That is simply making a choice by omission, rather than by direct intention. The Democrats would like to paint all Trump supporters as uneducated white males, so permit me to give you a brief summary of myself.  I am female (the Eclectic Grandma, right?).  I am Christian, conservative, pro-life, and a supporter of gun rights.  I also hold four college degrees, am reasonably proficient in French, Spanish, and Latin, and at the risk of sounding immodest, have a pretty high IQ.  I have traveled to and/or worked in over thirty countries, including extensive work experience in the Middle East, Africa, and the Far East, so I don’t think I’m some uneducated dummy!

So for whom do we vote?  I heard a great suggestion on the radio the other day; make a list of the most important considerations to you in the upcoming election and then determine which candidate has the greater likelihood of supporting those issues.  Well, here are my core issues:

  • Religious freedom.  While I am not overly religious in the traditional sense, I do consider myself to be a Christian.  Many of my ancestors arrived on this continent in the 1600’s, coming to this country to escape religious persecution in England, Scotland, and Europe, and I strongly support the Judeo-Christian principles upon which this country was founded.
  • The Constitution.  I am appalled at the lack of knowledge so many people have about our Constitution (and American history in general while we’re at it!).  The US Constitution is one of the most perfectly and carefully crafted documents in the history of mankind.  If all of this sounds like Greek to you, I would encourage you to enroll in the excellent, free online course, Constitution 101, offered by Hillsdale College. (online.hillsdale.edu)
  • Second Amendment.  Of course, the Bill of Rights is part of the Constitution, but the Second Amendment to the Constitution warrants a special comment here.  Our forefathers recognized the right of a citizenry to arm and protect itself.  I am so tired of the constant squawking for more gun control every time we have an incident of any kind.  Perhaps we should look at the underlying problems in our society, not at the many thousands of us who responsibly own and use guns (and by the way, I’m a damn good shot!).
  • A Strong Military.  It breaks my heart to see how the current Administration has decimated our military and ignored our veterans.   My ancestors fought in the Revolutionary War to help found this country and the Civil War (more properly called the War Between the States) to help preserve it, and my father and uncles fought in World War II to defend the world against unspeakable evil.  We are the hope of much of the world, and our leadership is sorely needed.  I don’t want to see the US become a second-rate nation.  We need American exceptionalism!
  • Strong Borders.  Now we start getting to a touchier subject!  We can only survive as a country and offer safety and security to our citizens when we protect our borders and monitor who can enter our country.  Does this mean building a wall?  I don’t know, but clearly people who enter our country should do so in a legal, controlled, and monitored fashion, not slipping over the border in the dark of night.  This leads me right into my next topic.
  • Limited Amnesty.  Do I agree with some sort of mass deportation?  No, unless you are a convicted criminal, then bye-bye!  By the same token, I also do not favor a path to citizenship for anyone who entered the country illegally.  How about a permanent legal resident “green card,” but no path to citizenship or voting rights?  Most of those who support amnesty care only about trying to enroll a bloc of potential voters.  Want citizenship?  Then leave the US and apply to re-enter as a legal immigrant like so many others have done before you and go to the back of the line!
  • Lower Taxes.  I am still working at an age when most people would be happily retired.  Of course, in all honesty I would probably be bored to tears if I weren’t working, but I am working for my own family and lifestyle, not to be a little old lady supporting a bunch of people sitting around on their you-know-what’s!
  • Less government intrusion and regulation.  I’m sure that I’m probably inadvertently violating some regulation or other every time I get out of bed in the morning.  The State of Colorado just passed a law allowing people to collect up to 110 gallons of rainwater to water their lawns and gardens.  Isn’t that sporting of them?  I suspect that God, the Universe, or Mother Nature (whichever term you prefer) is having a good laugh over that one.  And this doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface on federal regulations.

I could probably go on and on, but you are no doubt getting weary with this. This is my list; yours may be completely different, and that is fine.  Just take the time to give it a little serious thought, and by all means exercise your right to vote!

To bring everything full circle, Jeb, John, Ted, and the rest of you (and I might add Mr. Romney and Mr. McCain to this group!), it’s time to put aside your sour grapes, self-righteous anger, and thwarted political aspirations, and be a real man!  Support publicly and actively work for your party’s candidate and help him to a victory in November.  If Trump loses, it may be too late to turn our country from a downward spiral toward greater debt, bigger government, more socialism, and becoming a second-rate country!

©The Eclectic Grandma, 2016

Things That Go bump in the Night!

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“From ghoulies and ghosties,
Four leggedy beasties,
And things that go bump in the night,
Good Lord, deliver us!”
                 Old Scottish Poem

From the earliest days of the human race, mankind has sought warmth, comfort, and safety in the light. The light might have been found in the flickering of a campfire of wood, holding the dark shadows and unseen dangers at bay during a long night. I’m not sure we have changed all that much today as we keep a flashlight beside our beds or rely on bright spotlights to penetrate the darkness around our homes.

Early Sunday morning we had an encounter with the things that go bump in the night. The “girls,” as we refer to our two elderly Irish Setters, woke me up about 4:00 AM to go out. Even doggie bladders aren’t what they used to be! Sleepily, I headed down the carpeted stairs as it was easier for them to manipulate those stairs rather than the deck stairs which were slippery from a few random rain showers during the night. As soon as I opened the door, and they bolted out, I knew something was wrong!

Both girls rushed out and immediately started a frenzied barking and headed under the deck. A shuffling and snorting confirmed my worst fears; there was a bear under the deck! My maternal instincts immediately kicked in. I certainly didn’t want the dogs hurt by those long claws or sharp teeth. I yelled for Bill, upstairs blissfully sleeping. My tone of voice must have told him all he needed to know as he came down the stairs at a breakneck speed.

We stepped out on the downstairs patio. Both dogs were still barking vigorously, and a low growling from under the deck confirmed yet again that we were not alone. Luckily the dogs responded to our somewhat shrill calling them and paused long enough for Bill to grab them both by the collars. With another loud snort, the bear took off down the hill toward the back fence and disappeared, leaving all four of us feeling the after effects of a major adrenaline surge.   Like our ancient ancestors, we could only take comfort in the bright light of our two motion sensor spotlights; the darkness beyond was an impenetrable expanse of unknown and invisible dangers. Even the beam of the flashlight only revealed total darkness beyond its feeble light.

We haven’t had a nocturnal visitor in several years, but we always try to be very careful. We do put out bird feeders, but bring them in every night at dusk. The seed that spills to the ground we keep raked up and discarded, but something must have still smelled enticing to our furry, black visitor. We keep the trash locked—all the little things that are supposed to discourage the always hungry bear population.  Now I need to add the extra step of shining a flashlight under the deck before any middle of the night potty breaks.  This will be our routine until the snow falls again, and the bears head off for that long winter’s nap.

The saga doesn’t end there, however; about 11:00 Sunday morning in bright daylight, our visitor decided to pay us a daytime visit! I was opening a new role of power towels, one of those mundane little chores, and Bill was outside chopping weeds when Mandy, our little blind girl, suddenly started barking vigorously. I do think her other senses have heightened since becoming blind; she always seems to hear or smell things before Caley does.  All of a sudden, chaos prevailed! Bill yelled, “The bear is back!” Both dogs started carrying on wildly. The bear was climbing the fence. I quickly grabbed my pistol and ran out on the upper deck. I fired a single shot into the air.

It was one of those rare moments when the world stood still for a few seconds. The bear stopped in his climbing of the fence. Both dogs stopped barking and looked around, no doubt wondering what was going on. Even the birds and the ever-chattering squirrels hushed up. Bill, who has a knack for understatement, asked, “Was that you?” At that moment the bear took off across our neighbor’s back yard. Apparently we were too noisy for him.

Since I do most firing of my gun at the shooting range with ear protection on, even I had forgotten just how loud a shot can ring out. It is funny how certain things become so automatic with repetition. Flip off the safety, pull back the slide, and fire. It reminds me of how quickly I could jump into doing CPR for a cardiac arrest situation back in my ICU nursing days. With training, some things just become so programmed into our behaviors that we don’t even have to think about how to do them.

In about an hour though the bear decided to make one more try to get into the yard. Bill yelled at him, and Caley tore down to the back of the yard, barking wildly. At this point I think he decided our house was just way too crazy for a hungry bear. Although a black, furry, three-hundred pound visitor is always a little intimidating, I definitely think that seeing your adversary in bright daylight is preferable to that ominous snorting in the darkness. Beware of “things that go bump in the night!”