My Sick Chicken Pearl

My lovely Pearl apparently has some kind of respiratory infection and is moaning and has "ruffled" feathers (not nearly as pretty as it sounds). I have put them all on an antibacterial that will hopefully do the trick. John the sometimes-surly chicken expert at our local farm store didn't think there was much to worry about. I trust him. Chickens are not the most robust animals on earth so there's certainly a chance she could die. I love my flock and really hope she gets better fast. When I got home from walking the dog I listened in on her and it didn't sound like she was still wheezing (which sounds like a low moan to me).

I have so much to post, a new survey to hound you with, and all kinds of fresh pictures and post-canning season reports to make but I must be off for my afternoon hours at the toy store.

I'll be back tomorrow!

Pearl Update: Her breathing has improved but she still has ruffled feathers. Tomorrow I do the most thorough muck out of their run to make it extra dry and "clean" for them. Hopefully Pearl will continue to improve!

Sweet Denial

I have a flood of things to say but nowhere to say them and no one to say them to. I keep writing posts and having to delete them because censorship forbids me to print straight from my head. Truths and revelations keep leaking onto the "pages" like fat ink being wicked into wet paper; feathering out until all the paper is covered in dark eerie cross-hatched lines. Although denial has been largely discredited as a positive method of dealing with anything, I think that sometimes denial is the ONLY way to deal with impossible circumstances. I was brought out of denial briefly over this past few days and it was excessively icky. So I'm going to carefully rebuild a protective shell of denial around myself and also not read anything serious.

This is one of my favorite discoveries at Dave and Doe's house. So creepy and so cool I am full of envy that I never think of things like this! Philip does which is probably why he is such good friends with Dave. Talk about a creative re-use of something that would otherwise be in a landfill or in a hoarder's house!

My dog's sister Lulu is the sweetest girl and so cute! One of the biggest transformations I've personally experienced is going from being frightened of dogs for twenty five years and then learning to appreciate and even like dogs, to becoming a person who understands what it feels like to love a dog. I get it now, I really do! Dogs are very cool animals. I can no longer imagine life without them.

Succulents are another thing I used to disregard and even, to some degree, dislike. Why? I see it now! Succulents have been grabbing my attention lately and I find myself getting tangled up in their enchantment. They have secret lives, I'm quite sure.

I love this little succulent garden and I believe I'm going to have to create my own version of it. I have a sunken container full of hens and chicks and another (as yet) unidentified strange beast of a succulent that both need company.

The best thing that's happened to me in a very long time is that I have an interview for the part time job I covet the most. I get the chance I've been hoping for this coming Monday. Let's just all hope I don't go mess up my chance at this dream job by being a spazzy dork beyond the pale.

Hope you all have a great Wednesday!

California

bad coffee does happen here

Melinda from Elements In Time wondered why I would complain about the heat wave in Oregon and then run off to California where it can only ever be worse. Good point. I don't miss the California heat and, frankly, I think Oregon has enough of it's own. We headed off to California to visit friends and family that we haven't seen in a year and a half. Friends' babies are losing teeth and turning into big kids. Pets have grown and/or died. Gardens are filling out. Homes are being remodeled...and it seemed that on the eve of starting a new exciting career as a Safeway checker, I had better get a vacation in because it's going to be very long time before we get to take one again.

So I managed to wing it which, as it turns out, is a very bad way to travel with a kid and a dog when most of the people you're visiting hate dogs and don't particularly care to do kid stuff. The air on the way down was heavy and hazy with smoke. The heat on the road was so uncomfortable that I wouldn't have minded having all my guts replaced with ice cubes.

This food, pictured above, is very fancy, very expensive, but not as tasty as it looks. We had it when we visited Mill Valley (more on that below) and ate at D'Angelo's, a Mill Valley institution. The food used to be a lot better than the decor, now the decor is a lot better than the food. That's what money can do for you.

When you are a delicate flower like I am you really need to have big hats and huge sunglasses. If I look suspiciously tired here it's because we slept in a very busy hotel room that (thankfully) allowed dogs but (sadly) made ours feel the need to alert us of strangers walking by every fifteen minutes through the night. It was a bit of a nerve wracking night due to the level of police activity and interrupting a very suspect scene near our hotel door in which snatches of conversation were heard. The kind of conversations that propel you into random kidnapping plots and violent crossfire.

Snatches of conversation liberally peppered with bits like "...well, he's dead now..." and "...we took the money from under the door..." do not fill one with the warm fuzzies. The truth is, we haven't heard a lot of gunfire since we moved to a small town. Coming back to Santa Rosa is like entering a real metropolis of darkness and fear compared to where we are now. The funny thing is that when we lived here we didn't feel quite as vulnerable as we do now that we've lived in a quieter place in which we rarely hear gunfire.

Mill Valley is a place that Philip grew up in. I hate to malign it too much because the way it was when he was growing up was really wonderful and I don't want to be too negative about a place that was so good for him to grow up in. But it's changed in the last thirty years a lot. It's become a place of money and privilege. The cars are all shiny and new and sleek and very expensive. People do not engage in random acts of friendliness and most of the women have a very worked over appearance.

I have a lot fewer strong ties to California than I thought before we took this trip. I have a lot of unresolved feelings cropping up which is just about as annoying as drinking bad coffee in a land with good coffee leaking out of every crevice. I am uncomfortable traveling and am contemplating the attractive idea of NEVER LEAVING HOME AGAIN.

On the other hand, I just had a really nice day with old friends I love and superb cheeses from an excessively expensive grocery store so maybe there are benefits of travel after all. Plus we're staying in our friend's camper and it's like staying in a fort with good pillows. Now Philip, Max, and I all want one to park in our driveway so we can camp out together in it regularly and pretend to be in the woods. We are figuring out how we can create scenery to fix outside of the windows to simulate different places we might like to visit.

The charms of agoraphobia never shined so bright. Home is a great place to visit.

The Dead Body Show

Today, on our way to visit my mom in Portland, we saw a sign in front of a church advertising Vacation Bible School and I said something about vacation and bible school seeming like an oxymoron when Max announces:

"I would rather be hit by a bat than go to vacation bible school."

Dammit, I love my kid! We were laughing all the way to Portland after that.

My most recent DVD obsession is CSI New York. The dialog is decidedly cheesy. I mean, the characters are constantly cracking the kind of puns and "jokes" that generally make me want to hit them. When a victim has had his head sliced off they make jokes about him "losing his head". The only reason I couldn't see that one coming was my completely misplaced faith that NO ONE writes such cheesy lines anymore.

Having said that, I admit that I am transfixed by forensic science. It is important to me, since they are portraying very brutal crimes, that the perpetrators are nearly always caught. Otherwise I would not be able to watch it. I am glued to this program partly because ever since I was very young I was always aware of the places that one might find dead bodies and it is one of my deepest seated fears/beliefs that it is my fate to find one some day. Every CSI New York show begins with someone unexpectedly finding a dead body.

I estimate that at least once a day I see a spot, or a corner, or a landscape in which a dead body seems inevitable and I think to myself "don't look too closely or you will uncover something". Every time another baby is born my chances of finding a dead human being somewhere increase. It's a creepy way for a mind to work and I don't really like it. Why does my mind fixate in such a way? Who can say? Is it the mental illness? People often reveal an attitude that being mentally ill is just a question of mood swings and a kind of linear problem. My experience of it is that everything is turned upside down and even when on the optimal level of medication and under the best possible care, the mentally ill mind goes places that other minds try hard not to go.

Sometimes my mind feels like a camera snapping negatives of what might have been, what lives in a parallel universe, or what will happen soon. It isn't exactly reality. It's near reality.

Crime shows in which crimes are actually solved using really cool fast-forward science is magnetizing to me. Cheesy dialog or not, CSI is filled with crazy in-situ death scenes that their deluxe grasp on science inevitably tears apart into digestible facts. I wish I was in a lab finding out all the facts because it might feel like the universe was careening out of control a little less.

I will rent the whole CSI Miami franchise next, because my movie rental place has about ten seasons of it, but I wanted to see the NY ones first because I don't like warm weather and the Miami ones all look over heated.

You know how book stores sometimes have a resident cat? If I worked in the coroner's office doing autopsies I'd want Pippa to accompany me every day in the morgue just like she does when I write. She's in my lap right now and I love that every time I come to write a post she camps herself in my lap like a little familiar.

I'm suddenly remembering the year everyone died. During the time I worked at Wendy's (1988) I used to stop by a donut shop on Kearney Avenue on my way to work. I didn't often eat an actual donut since they always make me feel kind of sick but I would drink the appallingly cheap coffee and convince myself that all young fashion designers start off working at Wendy's. There was this incredibly sweet older lady that worked most of the hours I came in. She and I would chat, sometimes she would give me free donut holes. I don't even remember her name which makes me so sad.

One day she wasn't there anymore. She continued to not be there for several weeks. Her name might have been Vickie. I finally asked the person who was there what had happened to my sweet older lady friend and the person went almost white as a ghost and informed me that she had been stabbed to death while working her shift.

That kind of thing, even when you're a hardened urban chick with work boots on, can really cut you to the quick. Standing on the spot where someone died a violent death has a psychic impact.

The same year I had befriended (0r was befriended by) a cafe worker named Sean in my favourite coffee shop "Les Croissants". Sean was one of those amazing high energy guys that was living life to the fullest. My room mate James and I both loved him. I didn't love him in a blushy girlish way. Sean was obviously gay. And I have always avoided falling for gay men as it's a pretty useless exercise. He was wonderful though. He once took James and I into the cafe basement where his bosses were letting him store a bunch of crap he bought from locker auctions where you buy the entire contents of abandoned lockers. For Sean there was a thrill in bidding on unknown contents. You were allowed to see what was revealed in the locker by opening the door, who knew what treasures the rest of it might house?

He had tons of microscopes from his locker auctions, some ratty fur coats, and a lot of other junk. I didn't really see it as a great hobby but what I loved was Sean's great adventure. He talked about "Land's end" sometimes and I can't remember what that was about. It's just a fragment of memory floating into my mind right now, late at night. A fragment that made the events that followed seem somehow more poignant.

Just like the donut shop lady, Sean just wasn't in the cafe anymore. After a couple of months I got up the nerve to ask about him and the person I asked went a little ashen and asked me in hushed tones if I hadn't heard already? Heard what? Heard that Sean had died. I just froze inside. I asked how he died and I got some enigmatic answer so I pressed for more detail.

In painfully secretive tone, I got the information that Sean had died of erotic asphyxiation.

When I looked it up I couldn't pretend to be shocked. The weirdest thing is that that wasn't the last time that subject came up amongst my acquaintances. A person who approaches all of life as an incredible gamble is looking for a thrill. All I can say is that at least he went in the middle of a kind of joy. In the middle of the pursuit of excitement. No one who was honest could ever claim that he died a miserable old sod.

And no one can say he didn't leave something positive in the world behind him. He always made me feel seen and heard. He always made me feel hopeful and enthusiastic and his own joy was infectious. If I die soon, I hope to leave some of that behind too. In spite of all my down moments lately.

I won't die of erotic asphyxiation though. If a coroner claims that as my cause of death you can be 100% certain of foul play. Please remember that.

I'm pretty sure that was the same year that my friend Carrie* and I were doing some make-up gigs and we were riding with some band members to a biker bar on 14th avenue (possibly called Zeitgeist) when the driver of the car we were in crashed into the back of a van. It was very sudden and I remember worrying about getting busted since the drivers had certainly been drinking and so had under-aged Carrie and I. When the cops arrived it became clear quite quickly that the driver of the van had suffered a heart attack and died which is why we hit him. No one got busted and we went to the bar and had some mixed drinks that involved some more under age drinking.

I keep wondering if it counts that I discovered that the traffic obstruction near Philip's and my laundry mat fourteen years ago was a dead Asian guy in a car at the stop light. We would have called it in to 911 if we hadn't already heard sirens approaching. Somehow I suspect that the universe has a queer way of keeping score and I keep hoping that I have already paid my dead body dues.

Yet I know I haven't.

[[[ (That was a special message from Pippa)

All my life I have been a cat person. Then I got Chick. Chick is pretty much the most amazing lab mix dog that ever existed and having her is one of the biggest ironies of my life (having been afraid of dogs in general and black labs in specific my whole life). I used to consider myself a cat person. Now cat people are calling me a dog person. Can't one be both? But truly, if I could only identify myself with one camp? I will always need to have a cat in my life.

Or two.

Does that make me a witch?

I may not always need a dog in my life. Though I will always need Chick in my life.

We still miss Ozark.

But we also love our new (healthy) baby girls. It's so late. Time for bed. Some nights I just put it off. But tonight I can snuggle with my man, my dog, and two baby cats. Like a den of maladjusted sleeping thieves.






*Carrie, have you got any memory of this? Did I hallucinate this experience? Who was the band? It was one that played at "Uncle Charlie's", right?

Chicken Run

I miss our hens. I miss hearing them squawk, shuffle, coo, cluck, argue, and preen. A collection of noises that I find soothing, therapeutic, and charming. It's too quiet here. It's time to shake up the neighborhood and introduce them to their new existence living next door to the McMinnville hillbillies.

Oh, totally random (before I forget again): I keep meaning to say that the owner of the Burnside B&B (Liz) was fabulous and I adore her and she cemented her charm when she asked me who Martha Stewart was. How cool is that? Yes, some people don't even know who she is.

Back to the hens...we can't just bring the hen house over and let them roam the yard because the dog will kill them. So a run has to be built first. Although I have yet to see evidence of skunks or raccoons in our own yard, we know they are plentiful in the McMinnville neighborhoods and aside from dogs they are the most serious predator of chickens. Fortifications must be built that cannot be breached by digging or unlatching or climbing in via tree branches. For this reason, building a chicken run is a little bit like building a tiny Fort Knox. Burying chicken wire down in the dirt several inches is a good tactic. Covering the roof of the run is also smart, the other threat is chicken hawks. Yep, hawks that steal and eat chickens.

Because we live in a suburban area, there are set back rules for keeping chickens that we must adhere to. This is predominantly why we are building our chicken run right up against our lovely porch. Normally we would probably find a different spot for them.

All of our animals were intrigued by Philip's mysterious undertaking. They camped out around him, got in his way, perched themselves importantly on the tools, and generally tried to be as unhelpful as possible which is cake to cats and dogs.

Even our neighbor's puppy got in on the act. Chick dug a hole for her under the fence and I didn't discover it until I saw Chick run by twice in one direction...after my double take I noticed that the extra Chick was actually a Rottweiler puppy. This forced caused me to finally meet our neighbors over the back fence. We've agreed to let our dogs be friends since none of us can honestly figure out how to stop a determined black lab from digging her way to China if that's what she wants. Riley is very sweet, super soft, and more spazzy than Angelina on a farm.

Life is good here. We've discovered that we are much too poor to have our house up on the market but much too poor to pay for two mortgages so our friends Anna and Mitch are going to rent it because they really like the house and are supremely tired of living in a rental house with raw sewage leaking into their basement. Yeah, I don't blame them. We are all super happy with this outcome, though it's been a slightly bumpy ride working this all out. (Sorry for all the ups and downs Anna!!) (They've been very kind and patient with me.)

We are also too poor for me to lounge around here all day eating bon bons (locally made, obviously) so I'm looking for a job. I was really depressed about the prospect until I saw that our local library is hiring. Don't get your undies in a bunch over it, I'm sure there's a lot of competition for the position, but I got a glimpse of how working again might actually be exciting. I was beginning to imagine the drudgery it must be to pump ever more expensive gasoline into giant trucks all day when I saw this little light. It may be a long shot, but this is a job that I am ideally suited for, that I have secretly dreamed of even doing even after graduating from FIDM with my associates degree in fashion design.

Libraries are magical places. There were times in my childhood when I spent more hours talking with the librarians than I did my own parents. There are few places that hold as much promise of attainable knowledge and no other place in which you can broaden your experience of the world without leaving town. They smell of books; they represent the ultimate in organization of information; the human imagination is represented in thousands of ways and celebrated nowhere else so thoroughly than in public libraries...all for free.

Reality is a funny thing and who can say what it will look like tomorrow, but today is Sunday and we are all going to go for a bicycle ride together and I am going to dream yet another impossible dream.

Kitten Candy

I cannot describe how tough it is to capture these girls well in pictures. Like all immature mammals they are in constant motion and my poor camera doesn't stop action well without a flash and the flash distorts the light and washes them out.

All I want is for the entire world to know how flipping cute they are.

Constant motion. Playing. Crying for food. Playing some more. I can't wait to let them out of their forced containment to explore the world because I just know that watching them will be a great big kitten candy extravaganza. Unless Chick really does think they're more promising as delicious lunch meat than as amusements.

I could just about eat them up myself.

This Cute Could Kill You

The vet says TWO MORE WEEKS OF QUARANTINE. The ring worm is almost gone but almost isn't good enough to set these babies free in the house. He did say, however, that on a warm sunny day like this we could let them play outside for a little while. He just doesn't think it's wise to risk infected hairs dropping all over inside where we are most likely going to come into contact with them with our skin. So, they got to romp out in our back yard for a little while.

Their cuteness very nearly killed me. What kept me hanging on was the arrival of my "North and South" DVD. I finally got to see the proposal scene and I have to say that the train scene is still the best of all time. However...back to the cuteness factor...

The vet says they are doing way better than when they first came in two weeks ago. They do have a trace of the round worm left so obviously they still have a couple of issues. But their big bellies are just good old fashioned fat baby bellies and not distended at all. Their eyes are clear (no conjunctivitis) and they are spunky and did I mention the cute.

You know what's not cute though? Full grown women who wear candy scented perfume. I don't think it's cute when women try to smell like bubble gum or icing. Now, I am sure that there are some of you out there who like to wear food type scents and while I think that's just fine (because who the hell am I anyway?!) I just needed to say that it isn't cute and it kind of weirds me out. Especially when women wear a perfume called "Child".

So, yes, I'm talking about both the Simpson sisters now. What's up with them and their little girl obsession? I wonder if either of them have ever thought of growing some vegetables? Or some herbs? Do you think they grow tomatoes every summer?

Now I have to add that their father, Joe Simpson, gives me the ever-lovin-creeps and I wouldn't let him near a daughter of mine if I had one. Especially not if she had some boobage and was teen-aged. The man is a total pimp to his own daughters and it really freaks me out.

OK. You know what's sad? This is all old news. I didn't just read a gossip magazine. I did, however, just flip through the first fashion magazine I've looked at in two months. I have a bunch of them stacked up, waiting. I haven't wanted to look. Normally, no matter how unfashionable and frumpy I am I still love to look at fashion. I suppose I had the Simpsons on my mind because there was something about Ashlee's favorite things. One of them being a perfume called "Child" that she wears when she goes out and wants to feel sassy. Dudes: that's SICK.

My In Style is coming up for a subscription renewal and I kind of think I'm not going to renew. I love that magazine but my heart's not in it right now. I wanted to reduce the number of magazines I get anyway. I have been subscribing to four. I only want to renew Elle because it has the most relevant and interesting fashion coverage (more indie designers featured, more ecological talk, better writing, plus the good horoscopes.)

I don't really know what's going on but I guess it's a new chapter in more ways than I realized. I am much more interested in having great garden and herb books. I'd much rather bury my nose in books about roses and cooking. I'm sure if there was a magazine devoted to what celebrities are making meaningful ecological choices and which ones are growing their own (I mean- and getting their own hands dirty doing it) then I'd be pretty interested in reading about it.

It's gorgeous outside but I need to rest my back and do a small amount of cooking. So I'm not going to garden out there. I would like to start some lettuce and cilantro seeds. I'm dying for cilantro. As it turns out, it doesn't freeze all that well. It's OK. There's nothing like a big lush fresh bunch of cilantro to perk up almost anything. Yum. Wow, this post has become incredibly random. I was just going to post about the cuteness that is killing me over here. Here I am wanting to tell you all (because I know you want to know) that I want to try pressure canning some corn this year.

I kind of wish I had something scintillating to say.

Well, I hope you all have a great Saturday and if it's sunny for you? Good God! Get off the damn computer and go enjoy it!!!

Kittens-R-Us

Pippa seems to be a pretty laid back gal. She has started knocking a purr around in her ribs every time I pick her up even though she can still only manage a tiny squeak noise for a meow. She's tinier than she looks in the pictures. She's so tiny that that seems to be all I can talk about all day long. Is this the kind of thing midgets have to put up with? She has really long fur that will be even more gorgeous than it is now when she's done revealing all her bald spots as she is bathed and treated for the ring worm.

Penny is becoming more playful and was feeling well enough today to chase her own tail around and pounce on Pippa who just looks at her like she is the worst kind of spaz. She also has gorgeous fur if you discount the many many bare patches, which, like on Pippa, are multiplying as she's being bathed and scabby bits come loose. She's sweet too and would really like to get out of the confinement of the tub and crawl around on us.

These are the babies getting a bath at the vet's office.

They don't love this exercise in personal hygiene. As far as they're concerned, that's what tongues are for.

Here are some highlights of our kitten adventures for the last couple of days:

• All houses should be designed with bathrooms that have good ventilation and (preferably) windows that let air in just in case you ever need to store sick kittens in your tub who have nasty poop.* Ours does not have this fine feature and Max has let us know that we need to step up our efforts to improve the odor of the main bathroom.

• Like all babies, kittens poop, pee, sleep, and eat...all day long. Also like babies, they make messes with poop whenever unsupervised by a mother of some kind.

• The meat baby food that people feed their children is surprisingly disgusting as well as being very expensive. I got some for the wee cats because I thought it might be easier for them to digest than the regular wet cat food that is full of creepy crap. I love baby food jars. The babies love the smelly pink pureed meat. So in the end it works out.

• The babies are on the following medications: medicated shampoo for the ring worm, internal medicine for the ring worm, anti-diarrhea drops, internal parasite medicine, and ear mite drops.

• Two things they don't have: conjunctivitis or upper respiratory infections.

• Angelina Jolie is pregnant again and I can't really say why, but it depresses me. Oops, that's not a kitten highlight. See how I hunger for these scraps of useless gossip? I just read the headlines now in the grocery store.

• Everyone in our veterinarian office thinks that Pippa and Penny are both going to be fine. And I want to point out that I am not the only one running around saying "She's so TINY!".

*It didn't take stinky kittens for us to notice how unfortunate a design a windowless bathroom truly is. It's not rocket science to deduce that a place that collects moisture and in which people routinely eliminate is a place in which air should circulate. I'm a big fan of good ventilation.

Sudden Family Road Trip

We rarely go on outings as a family. Mostly this is my fault. I do not travel well with children. I used to love to travel or take drives with Philip but since having a kid I find it's a nightmare to anticipate all the things we'll need for Max and Max is not a child who takes it lightly when you've forgotten his essential toy that you didn't even know he had or left behind his favorite snack.

So I avoid going to far afield with my kid and husband. I find it's less stressful to be close to home. But yesterday I got a sudden urge to go run amok on the beach. I don't like beaches where dogs have to be on leashes. Pacific City is perfect because there's a giant vertical dune that the kid and the dog love to scramble up and down and Chick can run free of restraint. So everyone gets lots of fresh air and exercise. When we're done there's a restaurant with award winning beer and fantastic fries.

Our car hasn't been working for two weeks so it was uncertain whether we would be able to do this sudden family road trip. In my opinion, Sundays are not generally lucky days, so I wasn't holding my breath for a happy outcome.

Apparently you need to give cars oil if you want them to start and run.

Here are some highlights of our road trip to the beach:

• Stopping at the side of the road so that Max could carve his initial in the snow with hot pee. I still find it incredible that I made this strange man-creature in my womb, a creature that feels compelled to make armpit farts and enjoys peeing as though it was a sport.

• Seeing a car suspended in a tree somewhere near Grand Ronde. I can't imagine how the hell anyone was able to hoist it up there but it's quite amusing. Except for the patriotic way it's painted. Cars in trees: Oregonians are so wacky!

• Watching the dog and the kid run like wild things as soon as they hit the cold wet sand. A boy and a dog have a lot of energy to expend and expel, they sometimes look jet fueled. There's a joy of spirit that exudes from them when they are allowed to express themselves without restraints. I can barely make it up the dunes one time but these two can run up it like it was paved in tarmac and not slippery sliding sand.

• Discovering a dead seal. They're big. And pretty skanky when they've been dead for a while and pecked at by seagulls. I kept walking right past it because I could see in the briefest glance that the image of a dead seal wasn't the last one I wanted in my head before dinner. Life with a boy means that you will get all the gross details of life and death whether you want them or not. What could be more fascinating than a decaying water mammal that the seagulls have toyed with? Max had to poke it and then talk about it for the rest of the night. "Remember when we saw the dead seal and I poked it and it jiggled? I wish I had touched it!" Ugh.

• Agreeing as a family, over french fries, that none of us wanted to live at the ocean because of the tsunami potential and because it's always windy and when it's bright it's unrelentingly bright (the kind of weather that makes me exceedingly angry). We decided that the beach is a great place to visit but we're happy living inland in our small town that's not so small it's without amenities but not so big that it's noisy and hideously packed with people. We decided, as a family, that we're very happy with where we live.

Coming soon: I received in the mail the most amazing gift I've ever been given...I have yet to take good pictures of it but when I do I will post it! Just to whet your curiosity I will tell you that the person who sent it is none other than Pam from Pam Kitty Morning, so you know it was something amazing!

The Story Of Our Dangerous Pet

One night in 1994 I had a dream in which I found a kitten and in the dream I knew his name was Ozark and in this dream I also knew that this was supposed to happen in real life. I woke up and told Philip that it was time for us to get a cat. The cat had to be orange and we had to name him Ozark. This is when Philip truly got that he had married a mad woman, but because he is always in need of more sleep he said "sure" and rolled over and drifted off into his own cat-less sleep.

Interestingly enough very shortly after this dream I had, a friend called up to invite Philip and I to come look at a large gathering of semi-wild kittens which were the shameful result of her boyfriend's mother's habit of feeding feral cats in her back yard but not getting them fixed. My friend tried to reason with her boyfriend's mother about how she either needed to stop feeding all the strays in town or she needed to take proper responsibility for them. She was feeding approximately 15 feral cats. Many of them were females having kittens.

I told her I would only come up if she could confirm whether there was an orange kitten in the lot of them because I was determined that the cat must be orange and we didn't want to drive two hours for anything less.

She got back to me to say that there was at least one orange kitten there. So we went. We met Ozark. Ozark was the member of a three kitty litter who we realized (over the course of several hours of observation) was abandoned by their mother. No mama cat nursed them or came to see how they were doing. This litter was distinguishable by the fact that they were the only three kittens with orange on them. There were thousands (OK, maybe twenty) frisky semi-healthy looking black kittens and it must be said that our good sense told us to pick a healthy kitten.

But we saw Ozark by himself trying to get at some water. We saw him not get a scrap of food when the gravy train arrived. He was the smallest and sickest kitty there. It's true that I'm a sucker. I couldn't leave him there. He was tiny and had no mama and didn't seem healthy.

So we took his mewling self home with us and we promptly fell in love. We immediately took him to the vet where they ripped us a new one for removing a 5 1/2 week old kitten from his mother. Which made us angry because we would never have taken such a tiny kitty from it's mother before it was ready but we were sure that this kitten would have died if we left him. The vet told us that Ozark was very sick and too young to be weaned and had a 50% chance of surviving the parasite in his stomach, the upper respiratory infection in his lungs, and the infestation of fleas. Which confirmed our gut feeling in the first place.

Ozark is the feistiest scrappenist kitty that ever lived. Although he loved us and would snuggle with us and fall asleep on us and all good kitteny things, he was not particularly affectionate with anyone else. In fact, he quickly got a reputation for being a cranky cantankerous and combative cat.

He is famous for inviting strangers to touch his unbelievably soft belly and then attacking them when they made contact with his fur. When introducing people to Ozark we would always provide ample warning, which many people immediately ignored. It goes something like this: "This is Ozark. He looks cute, he'll sidle up to you, he'll invite you to pet him, but don't fall for it because he will almost certainly scratch you." Or "This is Ozark and he wants to kill you because he finds all humans annoying." Or "Watch out, the orange guy is dangerous." And most importantly "Never ever pick this cat up."

For some reason people often interpreted our warnings to really mean "While Ozark will harm most people- you are clearly special and this warning is not meant for you." Or "Please, pet the cat!" And best of all "Pick the cat up because he only scratches the eyes of people who aren't YOU."

It's amazing we've never been sued. We have a special knack for having pets and kids who come with warnings. We don't care. We've always loved our special needs cat.

In spite of his vicious reputation (his vet files are stamped with the giant red letters: "W A R N I N G", he managed to deal with the "thing" pretty well. Once he finished having a midlife crisis over it.

Ozark with "the thing" that changed his life. This is back when I had a pretty tidy house and even had houseplants. Ozark let us know that "the thing" was barely tolerable to him. We expected Max to be mauled by the cat and were expecting neighbors to report us to social services for keeping a dangerous animal near our kid. Shockingly, Ozark has rarely scratched Max. He has endured a lot of indignity at Max's hands that he would never have taken from anyone else.

Ozark was neutered when he was four months old. We hoped that this would help him to mellow out. Which, obviously it didn't. Ozark not only fought with people, he also fought all the time with cats twice his size. He's spent many an evening at the pet urgent care getting wrapped up or examined for puncture wounds. We really didn't think he'd live to be seven years old.

The scrapping is why he has FIV. Vaccinations for FIV are relatively new and he had already been a fighting trouble maker for many years. We didn't realize they were giving vaccines for FIV until we found out he already had it. It is lucky for him that he has not been fighting in the past two years or we would have had no choice but to euthanize him for the safety of the neighbor cats because it is impossible to keep him inside. He's mellowed quite a bit in the past two years. He still comes with warnings though. Because this is a cat who will take on raccoons.

We take him to the vet today. Maybe we'll come home with a miracle in our pocket. Maybe this decline he's in right now is something fixable. I'm not holding my breath. It's weird though that Max and Ozark have become so close in the past two years since we moved here. Ozark sleeps with Max every night. Max is very gentle with him and doesn't try to sit on him like he does with the dog. Max loves that Ozark doesn't eat his toys. Although Max is a pretty fastidious person in some ways and one way is that he really hates that Ozark frequently vomits in his room. Yet if Ozark wakes up and leaves Max's room (which means we have to let him out, he wakes us up by banging on the door) Max will wake up and not go back to sleep.

Even with a miracle in our pocket we know that Ozark's time here is limited. Such is the nature of FIV. So I thought I would say here, before he's gone, how much we love him. I've been sitting with him and petting his bony back and putting my ear to his side like I've done since he was five and a half weeks old to listen to his enormous purr. I've never met a cat with a louder purr than Ozark's.

Although Ozark has been quite a bastard and has made me want to strangle him, I can honestly say that I think he's one of the best cats ever. Whether we get to keep him for a few more moths or only for a few weeks, or mere days, we will forgive the peeing and the attacks on the dog and love him til it's time for him to go.

Update: Back from the vet now. He either has a kidney infection or kidney disease. If it's an infection there's a chance he can live quite a bit longer if he responds well to antibiotics (FIV can make it hard to treat infections) and if it's kidney disease then he will slowly die and we will give him fluid injections and potassium pills for however long he lives to help him feel his best. The vet says that kidney disease isn't painful (someone here was just telling me that.). We will find out on Monday or Tuesday when they get the lab results. Fingers crossed!

Good Dog, Don't Worry, I'll Eat Your Fleas For You.

Pets, people, kids, fleas, bones, dust, crumbs, fur, laundry, papers, receipts, flies, infirmity, FIV, poo samples, scabies, bills, litter, piss, mildew, dishes, Legos, lint, scraps, farts, fruit, fights, weeds, drool, barking, machines, whir, crowding, noise.

Ah, the delights of living in a free country. What wonders life is filled with day to day. I'm glad I'm not missing any of it. Aren't you?

If you aren't blessed with the same plenty I am, just let me know. I have an extra poo sample collection device I'd be happy to send you.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

This is our old pear tree being revived by Philip's cunning skills with the pruning blade. I love this picture because it really does make it look like we have a farm. Well, we do, it's just a micro-mini farm. Almost as small as a micro-mini skirt is, can you see my yard's underwear?* This pear tree reminds me of the aged plum tree we had in my yard when we lived in Ashland. There was a rickety bench around the trunk where I would sit and watch our chickens scratch and chatter.

I loved that plum tree so much that when my parents chopped it down (because it was dying) I was crushed. I wrote, (if you can believe this) about a hundred poems and pieces of prose dedicated to this plum tree over the years. I mean, I was still nostalgic for it when I was eighteen years old and living in San Francisco. Is that madness, or what?

This pear tree has got life left in it so hopefully we'll have it for a long time. I have decided not to be too attached to this house since we have yet to make a steady income and the clock is ticking. I don't want to be devastated if we have to sell it like our last house. Yet, I have to say that it seems so right to have landed in a humble** house with an aged fruit tree in the back forty(ft). If we start to do well by this summer, I think I will put a bench around it's trunk. Putting one there now would seem like an arrogant act of self confidence that I will be here a long time. I don't want to attract the attention of the evil eye with cocky behavior.

There are two colors that I am not famous for loving: coral and salmon. However, these coral tulips have completely charmed me. It's a beautiful lush clump at the base of the pear tree.

I can understand how tulips became such a commodity in the seventeen hundreds. (Or was it the sixteen hundreds?)

This is Ozark the grumpy old cat. He was born fighting feisty and has never changed. Well, he's a lot slower now and sleeps all the time. So I guess he's changed a lot. But he still lets us know he hasn't stopped fighting with the world. We've had him since he was a sick five and a half week old kitten who had a fifty percent chance of living.

Portrait of Chick: the dog I never saw coming. Isn't it just like life: the type of dog I was most scared of all my life becomes the dog I love the best in all the world. I didn't even know I had it in me to love a dog at all.

I was trying to delete this picture because it's almost the same as the one above except not as good, but Max intercepted and insisted that I keep it here. I obliged him because I couldn't think of a good enough reason not to. So here she is again.

Here's my research project for today: find out how come I can't find any seeds for Chipoltle chilis? Are they called something else before they're dried? (The way a Pablano becomes an Ancho after it's dried.) Does anyone know? I grew enough Cayenne last summer to last through another year, so I don't need to grow any this year. At $24 per pound for the dried Chipoltles at my local health food store, I thought maybe I'd grow a few. I also might grow some Jalapenos and Serranos. I don't eat sweet peppers so I don't grow them. I also don't eat peppers that can be described as being "hotter than the hinges in hades". A Jalapeno is fine for me, thanks.

Max is calling. Spring break you know. So I'm off to wrestle with the monkey and his idea of fun stuff to do.

*I realize that many people don't even have a yard, I'm not unthankful for what I have. I just hope I get to keep it is all. I have dreams of bigger property, but I really do count myself lucky to have what I already have.

**Architecturally devoid of any interest.