Author Archives: Mark P

Dusty

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We had to put our cat Dusty down Wednesday evening.

Dusty showed up at our previous house sometime around 2006 with his mother and two siblings. We gave one of the siblings away, but ended up keeping two. The trio became Chloe, the mother; Rusty, the sister; and Dusty, the brother. Rusty died a few years ago from feline immunodeficiency virus.

Dusty was diagnosed with lymphoma last week. His mother Chloe had been diagnosed with the same disease a couple of months ago. She had been eating like a pig but losing weight. The vet gave her a steroid injection, and it helped tremendously. She got a second shot just a couple of weeks ago. And then we noticed Dusty was not eating well, so we took him in. Same disease, and same shot. But the shot did not work for Dusty. A couple of days ago he became lethargic and refused his food. It got worse. On Thursday it was bad enough that we were going to take him to the vet, but I was tied up taking my aunt to the dentist. It was too late to take him in that day.

We considered taking him to the emergency veterinary clinic Tuesday night, but held off. Then Wednesday he was even worse. A doctor’s appointment kept us from taking him our vet, so we took him to the emergency clinic around 7 pm. After the examined him, they told us he was in the process of dying. We already knew that. So we made the only decision we could.

Dusty was probably the most even-tempered of all our cats. He tended to mind his own business. He didn’t roam, and he almost never had disagreements with the other cats. He was a little timid around me, less so around Leah. Like most cats, he spent a lot of time napping.

Sometimes he slept on the top step.

Sometimes his choices of places to nap and napping posture were comical.

His relationship with his mother was reasonably close.

This was taken a few years ago. More recently they tended to sleep in separate houses. A few days ago Chloe started sleeping with him again. Leah thinks Chloe knew something was wrong with Dusty.

We brought his little wasted body home, but it was too late to bury him. Tomorrow afternoon, after the rain stops, I’ll put him near Zeke and Lucy.

We know that Chloe will follow before too long. She’s doing pretty well now, but lymphoma is a death sentence.

Someone said snow

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Quick! There are two loaves left!

In these parts, when someone says, “snow”, everyone instinctively heads to the grocery store and buys bread and milk, and the Atlanta TV weather forecasters said the word. So, that’s what the bread section looked like at our local Walmart when we went there Friday night. After my peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch on Friday, I was down to one slice of bread, so I legitimately needed another loaf of bread. I don’t know how that happened, since loaves of bread typically have an even number of slices, and all of my peanut butter and jelly sandwiches consist of two slice of bread sandwiching peanut butter and jelly. You are welcome to count the slices of bread in any new loaf you have, but if you find an odd number, don’t call me. Report a defective loaf to the manufacturer.

To be honest, there are lot of other places in the store where the shelves are pretty sparsely stocked, but not because of impending snowy doom. It’s just the way things are today. We have been looking for several days for our cats’ favorite canned food (salmon pate with extra gravy), but the cat food shelves have been essentially empty since at least Wednesday. I would insert a photo of the canned cat food shelves I texted to Leah on Wednesday to show her the pitiful state of canned cat food in America today, but it looks pretty much like the photo of the bread shelves, so just refer back to the top of this post.

To be honest, on Friday night one of the store employees went to the stock rooms in the back of the store and brought out a case of our cats’ favorite food, so they are in no danger of starving.

To be honest, our cats were not really in danger of starving. We had plenty of dry food and at least some canned food already. I don’t know what other cat owners will be serving their cats over the weekend. Snow, I guess.

To be honest, when it comes to empty bread shelves, there were a few of the more seedy, grainy types of bread to the left of these shelves. Those are the type that no one wants during a snow disaster, and they are the type that I usually buy, so I can have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch on Saturday. And so, with salmon pate with extra gravy and a loaf of bread, we are ready for the blizzard.

To be honest, we aren’t going to get a blizzard. There really is going to be snow, along with potentially ice, Saturday night and Sunday, mainly in the northeastern part of the state, where the mountains are higher and the air is colder. Road crews from Atlanta northeastward are busy scurrying around spraying the highways with salt in preparation for frozen precipitation. Here in the northwest corner of the state, we are at the boundary between nothing and a dusting. We will not get salty roads, but we are not worried. We are expected to get strong winds, which might blow over a few trees, possibly causing a power outage for us, so we might still freeze to death, even without snow.

To be honest, we will not freeze, unless it gets very cold and the cold weather lasts for a long time, because we have a wood-burning stove with about a week’s worth of dry firewood. But if the power outage lasts for more than a week, we might still freeze to death.

To be honest, we are unlikely to freeze to death even then, because there is more firewood around our property that I can get fairly easily, for some values of “easily”, and it is highly unlikely that it will stay that cold for that long. If it does stay that cold for that long, it is probably the end of the world, so maybe freezing to death would be a better choice than seeing what comes after the end of the world.

Although, to be honest, the end of the world might not look a lot different from the way it looks right now.

𝕬 π–›π–Žπ–˜π–Žπ–™ 𝖋𝖗𝖔𝖒 𝕾𝖙. π•―π–”π–Œπ–”π–‘π–†π–˜

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β€˜Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, in hopes that St. Dogolas soon would be there; the animals were nestled all snug in their beds… 

Hey, wait, what are you doing there, Mollie?

You can’t wait there in the kindling box, Mollie. Santa will never come down the chimney with you watching like that. Go to bed. Look, there’s Sylvester. Curl up like him in your bed.

And Sam, you and Zoe need to go to bed as well. Go on back to the bedroom.

Zoe, stop looking out the window. You won’t be able to see Santa there. He’ll come around the back of the house and land on the roof.

“Roof!?”

Yes, Zoe, the roof.

There, that’s better.

And you, too, Mollie.

It’s hard to see you there, Mollie, all curled up next to your mama, but if your mama is OK with you lying there, it’s ok with me. And Santa, too.

Now, everyone settle your brains for a long winter’s nap,

He’s chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf. I’m sure we’ll see him, if I say so myself.

Will he come to our house before we sleep? Let’s be careful and quiet, not making a peep.

Out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.
What to my wondering eyes should appear,

A little old furkid, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment it must be St. Dog.

He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
And his leash was all tarnished with ashes and soot;
A bundle of Dog Toys he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a pedler just opening his pack.
His eyesβ€”how they twinkled! his dimples how merry!

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And filled all the stockings; then turned with a jerk,

… laying his paw aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose;
He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle,
But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight,

β€œ … and to all a good night!”

We here on top of the mountain with everyone a holiday filled with happiness, rainbows, sun dogs, pink clouds, and good cheer.

Ghosts of Christmas past

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Once upon a time, long, long ago, the four of us gathered for a Christmas self-portrait.

That’s me on the left, with the chubby face, holding some book. My brother was in his hippie phase. I think this photo was taken some time around 1970, possibly a little earlier. I was clean shaven, a condition that has been pretty rare in the last 50 years. I would have been around 20. Henry would have been around 23. My father would have been around 53, and my mother around 47.

I found another Christmas photo from a little earlier.

This is Henry. Since I am not in the photo, I assume I had either not made my debut, or was too young to participate in the present opening. Since I was born in 1950, that makes this photo around 70 years old.

I was curious about the Radio Flyer, so I looked it up. You can still buy that very model today for $124.99.

That would have been $10 or $11 in 1950. Based on my mother’s budget from those days, that would have been a substantial expense for them. And that was not the only present under the tree.

It’s too late to thank them now.

Some sunrises

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We usually don’t get up early enough to see the actual sunrise, but sometimes I’ll look up while still lying in bed and see red or yellow light on the bedroom curtains. Then I get up and see what’s going on. These are the sunrises I managed to catch.

If it were up to me, I wouldn’t have curtains on the bedroom windows, at least no on the ones facing East. The hill falls away from the house on that side, and no one could possibly see into our bedroom.

But it’s not up to me. Leah insists on curtains. So we have curtains. And those curtains sometimes hide interesting things.