Cats, Dogs and other critters
Fire and brimstone coming down from the sky! Rivers and seas boiling! Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes! The dead rising from the grave! Human sacrifice! Dogs and cats, living together! Mass hysteria! His name is Nemo, and we think he thinks he is a cat. We think the cats think he is retarded, and… More »
Or, how many sleeping cats can cram into a single small animal bed?
Connor, the middle-aged Malti-poo is at the veterinarians office today, to sort out why he has been throwing up for the last day and a half, has no appetite and is terribly lethargic. The bill for his treatment will be an unexpected expense for me … so anyone going to my book blog and purchasing… More »
It has happened to us again; we came home from morning walkies on Thursday with an extra dog, to the bafflement and apparent disgust of the Lesser Weevil and Connor … who seem to be getting over it, even as I write. The current canine find is small, attractive, and relatively well-behaved and seems to… More »
We live in a fairly OK suburban neighborhood on the north-east side of town – working class to middle-class, well-kept small house, with lots of military and retired military, being convenient to Randolph AFB, Fort Sam Houston and Brooke Army Medical Center; mostly owners and not many rental units. A solid, but not upscale neighborhood,… More »
Sigh – it’s happened again. Blondie, the Queen of All Yard Sales, went out prospecting last Saturday morning to the neighborhood on the opposite side of Stahl Road, and returned with a very cute stuffed bear (practically new!) who sat in his own (cheap but cute!) upholstered armchair, which was for sale for the OMG-have-to-have-it… More »
It was shaping up not to be a very merry Christmas for us, under circumstances which at first appeared even more strained than last year, when I was still working at the hell-hole job – a job which brought in a regular paycheck, but earned under circumstances which . . . well, least said, soonest… More »
There is a dog park, hidden away in the back forty of McAllister Park, a sprawling public park/semi-wilderness area in Northside San Antonio. It is formed by a large fenced area, about half an acre of trees and shrubs, dotted with benches, a pavilion with a concrete table and benches under it, a couple of… More »
What do you call a little doggy who is the result of a cross between a chihuahua and a Shi-tzu? (and what would you give to have not been present at that moment, the barking would have been deafening!?) Blondie and I spotted one, in Fredericksburg last weekend – kinda cute, actually. But small, and… More »
And other animal adventures … Jezebel the kitten has now achieved a whole three pounds, weight-wise. We have had begun weighing her on the bathroom scale, rather than the kitchen scale which only goes up to two pounds anyway. Of course, to us who see her constantly, she looks about the same as ever: a… More »
Owing to a particular circumstance – that of Blondie’s boss having a pair of sons who were very into 4-H activities this past year, both of whom raised prize-winning pigs – our freezer is filled with the most delectable assortment of pork products. It seems that part of the whole scheme for students of the… More »
Short for Jezebel. About five inches tall at the shoulder. Eyes: muddy gray, will possibly turn green when mature. Overall color: mixed hues of black, several shades of brown, tan and pale orange. Weight: 2 lbs. Approximate age: 6 weeks. Temperament: carefree, affectionate and playful. Breed: Short haired American domestic feline. (I am guessing about… More »
My pet-loving neighbor, Judy, claims that the very best cats have something of the qualities of dogs in them; they are friendly, curious and open to all kinds of adventurous interaction with other species. Sometimes such cats as these like water, are perfectly agreeable to walking on a leash and display a fondness for dog-like… More »
Meek the cat had to be put to sleep this week. He was one of Blondie’s cats, the other being Sammie From Across the Road – like Sammie, he took a look at my daughter and fell into deep, abject adoration. Unlike Sammie who did have a home (although it was overrun with small, yappy… More »
I know this probably sounds silly to many of you, but we need your prayers. Our Hemingway Cat, Miko, has managed to somehow open a gaping wound in her chest. I’m taking her to the humane society to see what they can do for her, but I’m pretty sure she’s septic and quite frankly, we… More »
Pippin and I don’t play “Fetch,” we play “Catch.” Hope at least some of our readers have spring weather to enjoy. We’re certainly enjoying ours!
There’s one terribly inconvenient and sort of disgusting thing about daylight savings time… well, aside from the bit about setting the clocks ahead one hour. The additional daylight in the evening is nice, very nice. Nicer when I was working until 5 at various corporate hellholes, and usually arrived home after dark throughout the winter… More »
‘Villa Junque’ (pronounced in Spanish as Hoon-kay’) – sounds so much better than ‘garage full of junk’, which is what mine has descended to, what with Blondie enthusiastically collecting ‘stuff’ for her eventual first apartment/house/place of her own. A couple of years ago, I saw a tee-shirt/sweat shirt with “It isn’t an empty nest until… More »
Topmost on my list of such thoughts is – oh, god, it’s good to be home! It’s good to be able to sleep in ones own bed, to stretch out and not have cold feet, cold hands, cold-whatever-body-part-winds up pressed against the side panel of the Montero and is just a thin sheet of metal… More »
OK, so we arrived after an epic drive of about 20 hours, and three stops to cat-nap uncomfortably in a car full of dogs, Christmas gifts and luggage – variously in Lordsburg, someplace about two hours farther west than that, and a rest-stop in the mountains above Tucson. Look, when it’s too cold to sleep,… More »
…or at least that portion of it encompassed by the inside of a small tract house in a north-side San Antonio tract house. Yes, the Meek-cat, whom Cpl/Sgt Blondie brought home from her workplace is adjusting to being a sheltered and protected indoors cat. His fur already seems to be thicker and plusher, thanks to… More »
There may be a chance – albeit hopefully a distant one – that at some point in the future either Blondie or myself will be taken away by kindly attendants in white coats while horrified animal control authorities remove a zoo of cats and dogs from an unspeakable house as neighbors gape in horrified disbelief… More »
There must be something in the water, or a phase of the moon. One of my neighbors blames it all on the comparatively wet summer – another sign of global warming or cooling or whatever. A co-worker from the radio station blames it all on that old devil, the sex drive. Whatever the rationale, it… More »
Such an occurrence is popularly said to be a sign of the impending apocalypse, or global wamening (or coolerizing or whatever the current cause for hysteria is) or even just something like another Michael Bay movie. Wait, there is another Michael Bay movie out? No S#*t?! Well, just goes to show you, there might be… More »
Ok, so this is one of those sort of weeks… although I did get a dividend check from the auto insurance company; a paltry sum but actually very welcome nonetheless, and another agent sent the usual SASE reply saying she is intrigued and can I send her the Whole Entire Manuscript, Please…getting a print of… More »
Blogging at a minimum this week due to a confluence of other literary demands, and just no enthusiasm for writing about something suitable for here. The WOT is the same old mouthful of well-chewed gristle, ditto for the prelim-presidential-campaign… jeeze, if I feel that way about it now, I’m going to be hiding in a… More »
Wherever the globe is warming, it isn’t around here. Spring has been mild, and rainy. Some days the temperature climbs up into the eighties, but not for long, and the nights are cool. A storm-front went through this week, threatening high winds, and several hours of thunder-and-lightening starting around midnight that sounded like a WWI… More »