Putting it out there to the Universe

My little family of 3 is looking for a specialty kitten. Somewhere in or near St. Louis, there is a pregnant cat in a happy home. She is not feral, and has both people and other cats to keep her company. Her family is willing to have prospective kitten owners visit a few times while the kittens are growing. Her family will also understand that we want to wait a few months before having the kitten spayed or neutered.

Does that sound like a big request?

Here's the background. Yellow Kitty (deceased) became lonely when we moved from my mom's house into our own house. He had gotten used to having Lady to groom and play with. So we rescued Friday from the APA. How could we not, really? She was beautiful and playful and needed a home, or they would put her to sleep. It being just after Halloween, nobody wanted a black cat. Friday and Yellow Kitty got along great, but there were some problems. Friday was a feral kitten, and has trouble bonding with people. She just didn't get enough contact as a kitten. Also, she was spayed at 8 weeks. I think that was too early. I believe a cat can be spayed at 3 months, but no sooner. My Gods, let them grow a bit!
Anyway, it's been a few months since Friday became an only cat, and she needs a friend. We don't want another feral cat. We want one that likes people. When we had other cats in the house, Friday would snuggle with us more often. It was almost as if she saw how the other cats behaved, and thought maybe she should cuddle too.

Look, I'm sorry, alright?

I'm sorry for the nuisance, but I just have to blog about this. Bush has Thanksgiving dinner in Iraq. Is he perhaps thankful for their sacrifices? Or was he just looking for some good PR?
Note the info on the side bar. Bush went to Iraq, Senator Clinton went to Afghanistan, and the troops in Bosnia ate alone.
Most of the 1,500 "US Peacekeepers" are from the Minnesota National Guard.
And here I was thinking that the National Guard was designed to guard our nation.

The Post-Thanksgiving Trip To WalMart

I'd love to tell a story about fighting off hordes of middle class housewives to get to the last Nintendo Gamecube. I'd like to share how I beat them off of my cart with a display Christmas tree. I want to explain how I put the truck in 4 wheel drive and drove over the grassy knoll, because the lot was so full, people were parking in the lanes too.
Sadly, none of that happened.

I slept 'til 9 o'clock. I took time out for coffee. I stared out the window at the cold grey sky, and meditated. Then I was ready to face the mob.

I put on some (gasp) make-up. For some reason, you get noticed more easily with make-up on. Since I'm only 5'4", I need all the help I can get. Red hair not withstanding, I just don't stand out in a shopping crowd. As I was applying mascara, I called to L; asking if he wanted to come with. I was expecting an eyeball rolling "no", but he jumped at the chance. So off we went to WalMart.

On the way, I guided him in a shielding meditation. I get bad in shopping crowds, too much bitterness and desperation around me. L gets worse. He hasn't had the years of practice I've had. So I taught him the mirror shield. It's a good, basic shielding technique. You surround yourself with mirrors facing outward. When dealing with crowds, you put an extra layer of mirrors around your head.

So, shields in place, we turned into the parking lot... and saw plenty of parking. "Bonus!" I thought. We drove down by the garden entrance, pulled into a parking space, and went inside. It was a copper top kinda day, At the door, we crossed paths with a pair of redheaded twines (purposeful misspelling -pervs B gone!) and their mom, also displaying the melacortin 1 gene. I spied at least 5 other naturals. Ahhh, it's good to have company. Enough about the redhead cluster phenomenon, though. On to the shopping!

The store was crowded, but not as crowded as the day after Christmas. We rushed to the electronics department. We couldn't get down the games aisle, it was packed. But that was ok. We had Matt, the WalMart guy to do our work for us. Because we had arrived so late, they were sold out of the Game Cubes. But that was ok. Matt had noticed one, and only one, sitting in the returns cart. He fetched it for us with a smile.
That's right. My son got the last Game Cube in the store! Muahahahaha. I didn't even need to hit anyone.
From there we hit the center aisle, snagged the Lion King Platinum Edition for $11, and breezed on down to the sports department. I tossed a bow and arrow set into the cart, saying, "My cousin will love this," so that L wouldn't know it was really for him. Then we were back in the garden department. We grabbed the 6 foot fiber optic Christmas tree that L had been lusting over, and threw in some wrapping paper and tape for good measure. Every checkout lane was open, and there was no waiting.

Total shopping time: 25 minutes.
Total amount spent: $180 (the game cube wasn't the kind that was on sale, oh well.)
Buying everything on your list without killing anyone: priceless!

Happy Thanksgiving

My son should be a stealth bomber when he grows up. I've actually begun to think of him as "The Stealth Bomber" on mornings like this. See, what he does is "stealthily" open his bedroom door and "stealthily" creep into the hallway and "stealthily" hover by my bedroom door, waiting for me to wake. Of course, it doesn't work that way in reality.
What really happens is I wake up because I feel my son pressing on my mind. I was sleeping, my shields are not in place, and he's my son; so I'm aware of every little nuance of L-ness outside of his room.
The second he heads for his door, I can feel him testing if I'm awake. It starts as a light pressure in my head. By the time he's made it to the hallway, it's grown to a full-blown invasion of my senses. I can feel him breathing. I pick up little snatches of thought. "...quiet...I want... it's important... important enough?... shhh... I really do need..."
If I ignore all that and feign sleep, he begins making real noise. He will say what he wants aloud, but so quietly I can't catch it. What I hear is mumble mumble mumble, followed by an expectant pause. He will shift his feet, sit down in the hall with a sigh, knock quietly on the bedroom door, and poke his head in my room.
I always love that one, because by then, I'm waiting for it. His peek into the room is met by my staring eyes. This particular morning he needed to play Sim City, and it didn't auto-install so he was stuck. Gods, I love my son.

It is proving to be an interesting morning

Last night I set the alarm for too-early-on-a-vacation-day, and put myself to sleep with visions of stuffing dancing in my head.

This morning, I woke before the alarm. I woke because my son used the bathroom. No biggie, I think. It's only 15 minutes 'til the alarm goes off. He was just my pre alarm. I lounged in bed until the alarm went off, and even hit the snooze button. I was living on the hopeful side.

I switched the alarm off a few minutes later, got out of bed, and realized my hubby was trying to wake himself too. I petted his back and told him he didn't have to get up. After all, it only takes one person to prep a turkey, and the rest of the cooking would be done later in the day. to tell you the truth, I was really looking forward to doing the whole Thanksgiving dinner myself.

So, I installed Sim City on my son's computer and fetched the turkey from the downstairs refrigerator. 5 days ago, I had set the bird on an empty pizza box in the fridge. There was a method to this madness. If the turkey bag had a hole in it, the pizza box would absorb any juice that might leak out. This would save me endless cleaning troubles. I was being prepared, you see.
The bag was hole-less, and the pizza box was nice and stiff instead of soggy and pink. Woo Hoo, I thought. For once, I'm going to have a mess free thanksgiving morning! But when I pulled the turkey out, the bag caught on the pizza box somehow, and tore a tiny little hole. I found that I had cold pink juice pouring on the floor.
I plugged the leak with my finger, rushed the bird upstairs (while trying not to trip over my skirt) and dumped it in the sink. Then I cleaned up the mess. You would think the Honeysuckle company would use sturdier bags.
Actually, they do use sturdy bags. I had a tough time cutting the rest of the bag, although that may have had something to do with trying to cut the bag, but not the bird. Meanwhile, the cat is prowling under my feet, meowing and looking hopeful. She does this whenever I have meat around. I always throw her a scrap or two, and she always sniffs it and tries to bury it. But if I toss it far enough away from my prep space, I don't have to worry about stepping on her.
I decided I'd offer Friday the liver. She might really like it. I gave her some chicken liver once, and not only did she eat it; she licked the floor afterwards. I opened the giblets bag, and there was no turkey liver. (sigh) I offered Friday the kidneys on a plate instead. She sniffed the plate and reached out her paw to bury the kidneys, so I snatched the plate away from her.
Meanwhile, some buttwipe is squealing his tires through the neighborhood. At 9 o'clock in the morning.
So the turkey is in the oven, the giblets are simmering their way to broth land, and I have a good half hour to blog before decorating the dining room table. I'm blogging away when Hubby's cell phone rings. One of the servers is down. He'll have to go in to work and fix it. I can imagine him harvesting bits from less important computers as I type. My poor hubby.
Yes, I believe this will be an interesting day.

I'm a patriot, take II

I don't like George Bush. I don't like our predominantly Republican Congress. More accurately, I'm nearing a point of 'fight or flight' mentality. Other countries are looking good to me. I have awakened in the middle of the night from dreams of Bush getting re-elected. I've studied enough history to see how quickly a country can go from free to hell. All it takes is fear. Right now, Americans are afraid they will lose their jobs and be unable to find new ones. They're afraid their teenagers will be gunned down by a crazy student, teacher, sniper, or pack of ravenous wolves. They pray for the rapture to take them away. They would rather have the world end, than look at their fear.
At least, some of them would.
Some, but not all.
Some Americans face their fears, tackle them like the intruders they are. Some Americans write their congress people, sign petitions, protest, or just plain blog. There's a stealthy flow of information circulating the net, undermining the media; Thanks to an educated and inspired few.

An Interesting Sight

Every morning, I drive past the fire house. Every morning (unless it's raining) they have the flag up. If you can see the sun, you can see the flag. Except this morning. Today, they didn't put the flag up until I was driving home from dropping L off at school.
I turned off of Holly Hills, onto Michigan, and spotted one of our firefighters just beginning to raise the flag.
A motorist had been driving toward me. When he saw the flag being raised, he stopped dead. He sat in the middle of the street, with a slight smile on his face, watching the flag go up the pole. I noticed this as I drove past the fire house. At about the point where I was level with the other driver, it clicked. He was showing respect. And I, like a damn fool, was not. A line of cars came down Michigan, and every single one of them drove around the man watching the flag.
The flag-respecting driver didn't make anyone wrong for passing without stopping. He was doing what he wanted to do, and nobody else mattered. I thought his simple gesture was really cool.

I told the Hubby-Man about it when I got home, and he took all the magic out of it.
He said, "He must be former military." He explained that in the military, whenever the flag is raised or lowered, everyone stops.
Mystery solved, but I still think it was neat.

This always happens

I stop reading the news for a few days, and newsworthy stuff happens.
The 4th amendment guarantees us the right to be secure in our persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures. Warrants shall only be issued upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and the warrant must particularly describe the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

As if that weren't enough, the 5th amendment covers that again with, "No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law."

So WHY did a joint House-Senate conference committee approve a provision in the 2004 Intelligence Authorization bill that will permit the Federal Bureau of Investigation to demand records from a number of businesses--without the approval of a judge or grand jury--if it deems them relevant to a counter-terrorism investigation?
Do they think our Supreme Court is underworked? Do our congressmen not understand the constitution? It's not like it's a large document. You can breeze through it in less than an hour. It's not like a proper warrant is difficult to obtain, either.
The provision is absolute rubbish. Our congresspeople should not waste their time on it.

a Bit of Writers Block

I'm in the middle of writing the tale of how my sister's hand got caught in an escalator, and I keep getting distracted. I wrote out the first block last night, and it flowed beautifully out of my fingertips. It was getting late, so I stopped after writing about the nurse pouring iodine on my sister's hand. It seemed like a good place to take a break. I had a nice little cliff hanger in my drafts page. "They took my sister to the nurses office and poured iodine on her hand. I sat on a chair in the dimly lit hallway, listening to her scream."
Isn't that picturesque? Now, this morning, I was committed to finishing the tale. I played with L, had breakfast, watched some cartoons, then (finally) opened up Blogger and got to work on the happier part of the story. The part where I get a gimpse of the legal system, as we sued the store; and the part where my sister goes on to be a Physicians Assistant -with full use of her hand.
The problem is, my memory is a bit blurry about the hours after the incident. I remember the dry details, but not any of how I was feeling. I can't remember little things, like what the nurse said to my mom about the accident. Things don't start getting really clear until the moment we saw the cab pull up to take us to the hospital. The rest is just bits and snatches.
It's frustrating.
I feel like I'm cheating my readers because I can't remember every emotinal detail. I know I could make stuff up that would go well with the story. I know they would never know... but it seems so dishonest.
So here's my quandry. Do I write a good story, or do I tell it like I remember?
I'm going to have to go with the tell-it-like-I-remember side. Perhaps my readers will be interested just because it's the only place where my memory is that spotty.

This week's Friday Five
Is a toughie. I mean, listing 5 things in a category??? I'm lucky if I have 2 things I want at a time. (sigh) but I'm going to tackle it anyway. :)

1. List five things you'd like to accomplish by the end of the year.
*massage enough people to pay for L's school. That's 10 measly full body massages, done in your home, for the reasonable fee of $30 per massage. With Christmas stress leering at you, it's a bargain!
*Find a great gift for the person I'm secret santa-ing.
*Decrease my wrinkles a little bit. (can I do that without smearing stuff on my face?)
*Take my coat to the cleaners.
*Find a good Christmas tree.

2. List five people you've lost contact with that you'd like to hear from again.
Tough one, this. If I'm not talking to you, there's a reason ;)
*Nikki
*Jon
*Barry
*Blaine & Gina
*Cara in St. Charles

3. List five things you'd like to learn how to do.
Only 5? I can't do it. I want to learn almost everything.

4. List five things you'd do if you won the lottery (no limit).
*Donate to every charity that has helped me and my family.
*Build a castle
*Open a coffeehouse
*Pay off our debts
*Pay my friends' mortgages

5. List five things you do that help you relax.
*Blog
*Play games
*Read
*Meditate
*Smoke (cigarettes)