Showing posts with label Lance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lance. Show all posts

Tuesday, February 1, 2005

Rising to the morning routine, simple pleasures

It is one of those crisp winter days this morning. We wake up, immediately turn on our respective computers, catch up on what's new or better said, more of the same, and as the sun comes up, we are drawn like a magnet to beginning the day. Husband goes about the business of morning preparations to go to work. I, on the other hand, mentally lay out the plans for my day. I send him off in our usual morning routine. What that looks like is stepping out on the porch into the bracing chill, calling for our dog Jake, to make sure he is around and not off chasing an adventure somewhere in the neighborhood, and locating our cat, Lance.

Jake, as usual, comes trotting out of where-ever he chose to sleep for the night, sometimes on the porch, sometimes outside. Lance is either inside, curled up someplace or outside and ready to come in. I give Jake his morning "treat" and he waits patiently, wagging his tail. He knows the routine...Daddy will go get in the truck and Mommy will give the dog a bone.

Our little entourage then waves Daddy off as he heads down the street and I take in the morning sights. I take a look at the sunrise to see what kind of day we will have, look over to the bay water to see what color it is this morning and how the water is moving or not moving. I look to the neighbors' houses to see who is up and about, who has left for the day. I check to make sure the cat has food in his dish and then am reminded to remember whether I fed the two beta fish last night. I often forget to remember to feed those two, as it's hard to have a relationship with a couple of fish swimming in vases. The two beta fish and the cat are inheritances, acquired when my daughter's family was finally able to move to Germany.

So quietly my own day begins. Which is exactly the way I like it to be, for the most part. I used to be part of that morning preparations to get ready for work and remember well that "morning rush" which I rarely enjoyed. The hair, the grooming, the make-up, choosing the clothes, putting on what I called the "uniform" constricting the flow to focus on the taskings as set forth by employer/employment. Rushing to the car, checking the time, flying down the road so we wouldn't be "late" and then arriving, stepping into the office, and that whole aura of 9 + hours and this place owns me.

This quiet and leisurely way to start the day is a contrast which I still relish and savor. As the sun finishes it's rise, I now know the tone of the weather for the day. I decide if I will open the blinds and curtains or let it remain awakening time a bit longer. Today it is sunshine, and light streams in, so the blinds and curtains are opened. We get a fair amount of rainy days here and sometimes I like to open the blinds where I sit at the computer to watch the rain fall and listen to it hitting the metal roof.

Lance isn't sure what he wants to do, and Jake has a strange gift to attend to outside. I closed up the porch last night, meaning to keep him in only long enough to eat his food, since he likes to share it with all the neighborhood dogs, and forgot to open the porch door last night before going to sleep. Jake then was rather locked in then last night, not his usual routine. So I know he could not have brought that hooved deer leg into the yard, yet there it is this morning. Where did it come from? Which dog brought it and now, of course, Jake is seriously interested.

Meantime the birds are busy on the metal roof making a racket and doing whatever they do on the roof. I take Lance outside to do his bird-monitoring thing and he is busy now prowling on the deck railing trying to keep up with the movement of the birds. And I thought I'd just blog about how our mornings begin. I'm so weary of blogging my other blogs and the war and the politics which have highjacked my daily life simple wonders in my own consuming focus to try to influence getting our troops home, thus hopefully ending some of the carnage and destruction that go on daily in Iraq. See how those thoughts creep in even as I write to the simple pleasures of my morning wake-up routine.Well time to start the day..............
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Thursday, January 27, 2005

My online Neo Pets = My many, many blogs, feed me, feed me.

Wow, been feeding all my other blogs, and overlooking this one. Well ya know, if the President would just shape up, I wouldn't be so busy with all the other blogs. Enough about that, see my other blogs for stuff like that. Here is where I try to post family stuff. Which is not to say that the war deeply affects our family, but once in a while, I gotta take a light break.....it's such serious business, the war, the troops, Iraq, our country.

So Lance, the cat, has made himself at home, is doing real well, adapting well and has rather taken charge of the house. Now Jake, on the other hand, is just still pouting over the whole business. We put a pillow and the food dish for Lance on top of the freezer on the porch. He likes that cause he jumps up there and can lord it over Jake, who looks at me with those sad eyes and an expression of "Why, Why, why me, what did I ever do to you?".

When I take ol' Jakers for a walk or better yet a drive, he is all excited once again and knows I love him best. Lance doesn't seem to know though, that Jake comes first, he thinks he comes first. Now Lance follows me around everywhere, including when I walk Jake...what kind of cat follows you around like a dog does? But no car rides for Lance. That is special only for Jakers.

Our small village entertainment: We threw old bread out for the birds, well, okay, the crows then. There are a lot of crows that live around here and they won't let the smaller birds get to the bread. We threw out three loaves, not torn up. So Jake goes over and sniffs them and decides they are not edible for him. But he somehow thinks they are his, so he sits down in the road and stands guard. The crows won't come down with Jake sitting right there. We are watching out the windows, and it's getting pretty amusing as Jake takes his job of guarding the bread loaves very seriously, it seems.

Along come some of the other dogs that live on our street, sniff the bread and decide it's not for them either, and walk off. Jake continues guarding the loaves. The crows hover all around but won't fly down to snatch the bread. After a while, another stranger dog (means doesn't live around here) came along, sniffed the bread, decided it was for him and picked it up in his mouth and walked off with it. Well Jake is seriously offended and puzzled and looks at the stranger dog and then back at the loaves and is confused about what to do. If he leaves his guard spot the crows will fly down, but he also wants to retreive the bread loaf from the stranger dog.

In his confusion, he decides to get up and go after the stranger dog, and the crows start circling downward. The stranger dog drops the loaf about 50 feet down the road, decides he doesn't want it after all. Jake, meanwhile has drifted over to the neighbor's place across the street as one of them has come out of the building and Jake knows they give him real and fun food treats. While he is over there begging for a goodie, the crows then spot the loaf the stranger dog dropped and see that Jake is occupied, so they swoop down and start having a feast. We are watching out the windows, laughing and being thoroughly entertained, wondering what Jake will do when he turns around and sees the crows are at the bread loaf.

Sure enough, Jake turns, sees the crows, dashes after them and chases them off, picks up the bread loaf and isn't sure what to do with it. He wanders back to the other two loaves, wanders back to the neighbors with the loaf in his mouth, wanders back home, just carrying that loaf of bread and not sure what to do with it. He decides then, that the best thing to do is to bury it. So he digs a hole and buries one loaf. Meanwhile the other two loaves are sitting on the road and the crows are still hovering, waiting. We are by this time laughing as we watch from the windows as this drama of nature unfolds. Lance has taken an interest by now and has been running from window to window trying to keep up with the birds.

It had all the markings of being a long afternoon's entertainment for us dull, boring people in our dull, boring village. The neighbors decided to take a walk, and Jake usually accompanies them, so he was delighted to go for a walk, and after all that careful sentry work guarding the bread loaves from the crows, he just walked off as if it never happened, and the crows then were free to feast. But no, two more stranger dogs came along, sniffed and decided to eat the two remaining loaves which they proceeded to do in short order, leaving nothing for the crows.

And that is life in the Village.

Now, about me and my blogs. I have, let's see now, 8 blogs at blogger, and 6 blogs here at blog-drive, 1 blog at live journal, 1 blog at blog city, another blog at bloglines, another at msn spaces, so that is 18 blogs. Plus I have also a few websites that I have built. And I have a list of about 6 more places where I could build other blogs. So ...... that is tooo many blogs, for sure, and I have to feed them all. That is why I call them my online neopets, cause I have to feed them and some get fed every day and some don't get fed for weeks at a time and lately, some don't get fed at all.

Lastly, let me recommend 2 movies for ya to watch. 1) Open Waters, it's an independent film and very unusual...different and we enjoyed watching it. 2) The Village, M. Night Shymalan which we enjoyed watching this one because the ending surprised us and it's nice to be surprised. There wasn't much in the way of clues along the movie to tell us what to expect for the ending, which is why it was a surprise. We liked it. Now, if you watch these two movies, let me know what you think, ok?

Till next time.............this is Gram offering up a gem.......
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Saturday, January 1, 2005

New Year 2005, we quietly again rang it in

Happy New Year, 2005! Well, guess we are getting older, we fought to stay awake till midnight this year. Quiet at home, watched the annual showing of series The History of Sex, and another channel was showing Law and Order episodes back to back. We are dorks when it comes to New Year's celebrations, have been for good many years now.

I did have a nice hot chocolate spiked with Peppermint Schnapps, yummy and warm tummy. Our young family neighbors did fireworks and poor Jake, he just can't take it! Broke the door down trying to get inside, scurrying around trying to get his big dog body under the bed or computer station. I let him go into my closet, which has space for him and is his haven in the fireworks storm.

Lance, on the other hand...hmmmm, BAD CAT. Seems he does like his home here with us but hasn't let go of his bad cat problem, with not using litter box. Surprise, surprise, we found the evidence and spent some time scouring and cleaning and now Lance will be banished to the outside for awhile, till he learns where he is supposed to take care of business.

So reversal last night, Jake inside and Lance outside. Too funny. I have 2 traumatized pets, wouldn't you just know. Both need "special" attention for their fears. Jake, mostly okay, till the fireworks or gunshots go off and he is immediately cowering and terrified. Lance, traumatized by loss of his owners and home for years and so has developed behavior problems.

We watched, again, on tv, the firework display at the Seattle Space Needle. Just gets bigger and better every year. This year, with that many explosives all around the Needle, I wondered if it was gonna blow up! Guess they know what they are doing, and the Needle still stands. The same Needle I saw iwhen I was a child in the 1964 World's Fair that was meant to be temporary and has become the permanent landmark of Seattle. Awesome!
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Tuesday, December 28, 2004

Lance happy, New Home for Nutcrackers and other stuff

So Lance, the cat, is happy here. We have bit of a routine going now. I made a place for him on the porch where his food and litter box are conveniently close by but he doesn't have to stay outside. He is in the house mostly, but I put him out regularly and at night time he can be inside, sleeps on our bed.

He is adjusting to the new routine, I think, as he will now indicate to me when he wants to go outside. Jake, our dog, still isn't happy one little bit about sharing porch space with a cat, but sullen as Jake is, he is also adjusting.

My collection of nutcrackers are Very Happy in their new home, and I love the lighted cabinet that sets them all off. They are close by my computer to keep me company, and as the sun goes down, the lighted cabinet also works as a sweet bit of night light.

Sweetie, with his new computer for Christmas, was off work an extra day. He is obsessive about the puter as I am, so we spent a leisurely day, him on his puter, me on "mine". He sits a room across from me where we can both see each other and talk to each other and it is sooooooooo coool. We really are a couple of geeks.

The tsunami news is continuing today, as the death toll rises, and it is so tragic. I was talking to Sweetie, and telling him if we get an earthquake/tsunami here in tsunami county, I'm not sure we really know what to do. From what I hear, there are sensor warnings set across the Pacific Rim = Alaska, Canada, US west coastline and the down the Pacific islands. Supposedly these will signal a problem and the Sensor Watch Center in Palmer, Alaska would send out warnings. Okay...but to whom, and how? On the radio, tv, internet, ham radio? I mean, if I don't have radio or tv on, then how would we know?

So I guess the rule of thumb is if I feel the earth start shaking, I'm to get in the car and get to one of the tsunami direction signs towards high ground. Hmmm, okay, both routes out of here go directly by the water/bay and river. Wonder if I can even get out of here if there would be a tsunami.

Then, we are likely supposed to have an emergency kit with water, raingear, blankets, food. I guess I better get busy and make us an emergency kit to keep in the car. I really think Sweetie and I ought to take this bit more serious and do some more specific planning for what to do .... in case ....
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Friday, December 24, 2004

Lance is Back! Sitting on my lap as I type.

Well, we "placed" the cat Lance, who was "fostering" with us about 2 months ago with my other daughter's family. The "placement" just didn't work out so she brought him back here to us. I'm not disappointed either, as I got quite fond of Lance, so here he is sitting on my lap again as I type.

The trouble with the placement was that my daughter's family has another cat, Georgette, who is kind of a mean cat, but not to them and she and Lance just never did hit it off. So ol' Lance developed some bad behaviour problems, ie, not using cat box at all and staying in his safe zone which was a very limited space. He got fat cause he wasn't running around, just staying in his safe zone under the kitchen table.

I'm gonna have to break him now of his bad behaviour with not using kitty litter box plus run him around outside to work off some of his body weight. They tried, bless their hearts, they tried everything they could think of to get Lance comfortable, but he just wasn't "taking" to the placement at all.

Since they were coming here for a holiday visit, they brought Lance along on that 7 hour trip. And I knew they were bringing him. But I didn't tell Sweetie, cause I knew Sweetie would not want him back and I was trying to figure out a way to tell him I agreed to take Lance back. I couldn't find a good argument or logic for my case, so when the kids arrived and Lance came bounding in, Sweetie was pleased to see Lance. Cause he thought Lance was just along for the ride and they were going to take him back home with them.

They were sorta surprised at how receptive Sweetie was, until he learned Lance was staying, then they were surprised at how Sweetie lost his composure and couldn't find the words. I had to explain to him that I knew but hadn't told him, and they thought I would have told him. Sweetie went off to bed, he just didn't know what to say!

Now it's been 2 days and nites, and we set Lance up on the porch till his cat box behavior can be corrected. Jake, our dog, is very unhappy about it and is pouting big time now. But Lance is so happy to be "home" again and bounding about the house. They told me that he is a completely different cat here than when he was at their house and it is very apparant that he likes it here much better. And I like having him "home".
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