Hoot's Happy Ending

When I got home from dance lessons last night, I changed into pj's, donned my hoodie - zipped to the chin, hood up - and ventured out into the cold to take Millie for her walk.

We began our usual circuit - down the back steps, between the posts of the half-finished fence, stop for pee break (her, not me), then around the corner of the porch to the front yard. In the evenings, I usually get the mail before circling around to the other side of the house, where Millie often poops near the holly tree.

Last night when I approached the mailbox from our sidewalk, I saw a dog across the street. I reined Millie in and fell silent, hoping not to encourage it to cross the road, fearing it might start a confrontation with my pooch or get hit by a car on his way across.

The dog came on over anyway. He gave Millie a cursory sniff and headed right for me, where he moved in quick for the kill - a doggy grin and a handshake to introduce himself. He was mellow and friendly, just the sort of dog I love to meet.

I'd never seen this dog before, but my first thought was that it might belong to my part-time neighbor Denise. He was an Australian Shepherd, and I thought I'd heard her say she had one. Maybe he had escaped out the door or wandered off earlier in the day.

So I cinched up on Millie's leash, and away we went through the dark past the tennis court and beyond.

I admit I was a little nervous, out there in the cold, in the dark. But Eutaw is a tiny town, and there wasn't a soul to be seen on foot or in vehicle. And I had two dogs for protection.

But as I got to Denise's house, I saw she wasn't there. And then it dawned on me that Denise's dog was a girl, and this one kept hiking its leg to pee on tufts of grass and clumps of leaves - a very boy behavior.

By now the dog was wandering off through the neighbors' yards, so I headed home, hoping he would do the same. But when we paused at the corner, he caught up with us again and sidled up to me. In the pool of light from the streetlamp, I pushed back the thick fur on his neck to look for a name or contact information.

On a bright orange collar written in black were the word "Hoot" and a phone number.

"Go home, Hoot," I tried, but he followed us back across the street into our yard.

Millie and I finished the circuit, and as I headed for the back steps, Hoot came, too.

"No, no," I said at the door. "Go on home."

I admit my tone of voice wasn't very authoritative. Understandably, Hoot didn't listen.

But I figured he would leave once we were inside. I've had dogs try to squeeze into my house before; I even had a pair of Labrador Retrievers climb into my car with me at a yard sale. But if they have a home to go to, they eventually just go.

Not Hoot, though. He stared at me through the glass of the back door, his eyebrows knitted together and ears pricked. Puh-puh-puh-please, his brown eyes said.

Millie joined in with a whine. "Let him in, Ma! It's cold out there!"

The thermostat read 38 degrees.

But I turned away. "If we leave the hallway, if he can't see us," I told Millie, "he'll go on home."

And when I peeked my head back into the hallway a few minutes later, he was gone. I relaxed a little, though my tense stomach told me all was not well.

Then Hoot came back. This happened several more times, and I started worrying about him in earnest. This was not normal behavior for a dog who so obviously had a family.

Finally, I decided to call the number on his collar, though it was 10 p.m. and I was afraid of disturbing someone's sleep. All I got was voicemail, so I left a message.

But I wasn't satisfied. So I called an expert - my sister. Resisting a possibly lost, lonely dog is even harder for her than it is for me.

She agreed with me that he sounded lost, especially when I told her his fur was caked with mud. He was obviously a house dog, since he seemed so convinced he needed to come in my house.

But I was afraid to bring him inside in case he really did belong to someone and might wander home at any moment.

Finally, I spread a towel out in the sheltered corner of the stoop and brought him a bowl of water and a jerkey strip. The next time I came to check, he was curled up on the towel.

Now I was convinced he was lost, so I called the number again and left a second message updating the owner on the situation. I told him he could call any time, but I didn't hear from him all night.

I went to bed with a heart full of worry for poor, sweet Hoot.

So when the phone rang at 5:33, he was my first thought. I sat bolt upright, instantly wide awake.

It was his shocked and happy owner, who said Hoot had disappeared Sunday afternoon. The puppy he was with had returned, and when Hoot was missing two nights in a row, they'd feared the worst.

I told him Hoot was on the back porch and I would bring him inside to make sure he stayed put until they could come get him.

Before we hung up the phone, I had to ask, "Where are you?"

"Boligee," he said.

"I'm in Eutaw!" I answered.

And we both marveled over how - and why - Hoot made it 11 miles from his house to mine.

After we hung up, I brought in Hootie, fed him some of Millie's food and shut him inside the bathroom for the cats' protection, just in case, though he'd shown no signs of hostility at all.



When a family friend came to pick him up an hour later, I was a little disappointed. I was hoping to witness the joyful reunion of dog and family, the doggy kisses and those brown eyes winking with satisfaction.

Still, I am filled up with joy for this small, miraculous thing. What if Hoot and I hadn't met on the sidewalk last night? What if we'd missed each other by moments, and he was gone, left to wander another 11 miles, or worse?

I couldn't be happier if I'd invented a teleporter. How precious to almost lose something and then get it back.



*In memory of Sophie and Toby, who were lost and never found.*

Pipe, Wire & the American Way

A plumber is coming to our house this week for an estimate, and I have Millie to thank for it.

For most of our bathroom project's long and varied life, Darwin has been opposed to hiring a plumber. We have copper pipe, but he studied the plumbers while they fixed a leak this summer, and he is convinced he can do the switcheroo (tub and toilet will need to change places) himself.

I'm convinced of that, too, but what I'm a little less certain about is how long it will take him to do it. Today marks 17 months since my first post about bathroom demolition. As I've said ad nauseum, I'm ready for this to be done. My goal is Valentine's Day this year - just one month away - and if it's possible for someone to spontaneously combust, missing that deadline and dragging this project on for more months and years might just be cause enough for my head to catch on fire.

Enter Miss Millie. The house training thing is not going so well. We read all the comments about crate training, we started Tivo'ing The Dog Whisperer, and I researched house training online. But nothing I've read seems to address what you do if you have to leave your pet alone for at least 9 hours at a time on some days. I thought we could have our neighbor's child walk Millie during the day, but then we met, and our hyper girl was a bit much for her.

The one suggestion that seems feasible for the times we ARE home is to keep Millie with us at all times inside the house, so we can catch her in the act if she starts to poop on the floor (she rarely pees in the house). This morning Darwin had just brought her inside from a walk when he caught her getting ready to poop on the dining room carpet. He said, "No, no, no!" and that girl scurried away to the back door! He took her out, and she pooped outside.

Hmmm, she apparently knows where she's supposed to go, but she doesn't seem that interested in doing it when she's out there. I'll wait for AGES for her to poop, and she won't do it. She's too involved in sniffing out and digging up earthworms, diving after birds, or trying to drag me toward the neighbors' yard (and yellow lab).

Also, she has tons of energy and just really adores being outside. She'll sit at the window and whine, or even go to the door and whine, and I'll think she needs to do her business. So I take her out, and nope - she just wants to run and sniff.

It's pretty obvious to us that Millie needs a fence. When we'll be gone for long hours, we can leave her outside, where she'll have grass on which to poop, a little house in which to rest, and best of all - room to run, run, run. Having a fence will also be handy when we have kids one day to keep them from dashing off into traffic.

So we formulated a plan to build our own fence in the side yard made of roll wire and round posts to match the existing old, incomplete fence. The cool thing about this type of fence compared to chain link is it looks more old-fashioned - like a farm fence - and it blends into the background better than either chain link or a tall wood fence.

The fence will begin at the back corner of the house, connect with the old fence running parallel to the house, and then come back in to meet the front edge of the porch. It will encompass a roughly 500-square-foot area that includes four shade trees and lots of grass:



This weekend we measured and calculated, and Darwin bought two 100-foot rolls of wire and 18 treated posts. We'll be taking down an unnecessary and inconvenient bit of fence from the other side of the house and using its gate. We'll also be repairing some of the old fence. The total project will only cost about $230.



So what does this have to do with the bathroom? Millie's fence is a pretty urgent project, and, like everything, it will take up precious weekend time. Darwin will be working on it some this week, but it will still take up at least a full Saturday, probably a Saturday and Sunday. That sets our bathroom work back yet another week.

When Darwin flitted off to go hunting Saturday afternoon (and we had a belated Christmas gathering on Sunday), and we got exactly NOTHING done on the bathroom, I snapped.

I called Darwin and said, "Look, I'm calling a plumber to get an estimate." And for the first time, he didn't argue with me. He quite perkily said, "And then we'd only have to paint and drywall!" It's not quite that simple, but still - the plumbing is our last major project.

So the plumber will be coming one day this week. Of course, now Darwin is again saying how it's not a difficult project and he could do it and that sure is a lot of money. All before we've even heard the estimate.

I am usually the first to say, "eeek, can't we do that ourselves?" And I know I just posted about saving money. But some things are just worth it. Our time is worth something, too. And having something complete would do wonders for us both. I doubt hiring a plumber is something we would regret while we soaked in a delicioiusly hot bath or brushed our teeth at our new sink, or you know, did other things on our toilet.

So for now I'm voting pro-plumber, if the price is at all reasonable.

And I'm excited about the fence. I can't wait to chase Millie around inside it.

New pictures of Millie!

Wounded Knee

I had a non-dog-related post all ready to go, but I just have to relate this one story.

Yesterday while I was at work, Darwin took Millie out for a walk on her new 16-foot retractable leash. She was sniffing around the fig tree (on the side of the yard she prefers for doing her business), and Darwin held the plastic leash handle loosely in his hand.

Suddenly, Millie caught a whiff of something interesting and took off, jerking the leash right out of Darwin's hand. The leash immediately retracted, and the plastic handle bounced on the ground behind Millie. She freaked out and started running around the fig tree in circles, with the leash handle in hot pursuit.

Our girl is a speedy little devil, especially when being chased by a bouncing pink plastic object, which is why I've been terrified she'll get loose. Once she starts running, there's no catching her.

But in this case, she was too afraid to take off for the treeline, the highway or the neighbors' dog. Darwin watched her careen around the fig tree and realized there was only one way to stop her. He bent his knees, stretched out his hands, waited till she rounded the tree one last time, and ... dove!

His knee struck a tree root, and pain shot down his leg. But still his outstretched hands reached for the pink handle, grasped and caught!

Millie kept running and then stopped short at the end of the leash, on the other side of the fig tree.

"Millie," Darwin gasped, clutching at his knee. "Millie!"

She perked her ears, wagged her tail and trotted over. She licked his face. She was totally unphased.

Darwin didn't tell me this story until I got home last night. He knew it would frighten me less in person. With her there wriggling in my arms, I could laugh with him and call him Wounded Knee.

I choose not to think about what could have been. I love this girl so much already.

The Importance of Being Millie

I introduce to you the newest bundle of joy in the 1902 Victorian household:



This is Millie, getting her first bath.

Millie came to us, and to her name, in a roundabout way.

A co-worker of mine found a pup her neighborhood a several days ago. She put up flyers, called the local shelter and checked the missing pets page of the shelter website. Meanwhile, she and a neighbor passed the pup back and forth, while their husbands said, "We are absolutely not keeping this dog!"

Then on Sunday my co-worker sent an e-mail around the office titled, "Christmas puppy needs good home!"

The thing that first attracted me to the pup was her name. They were calling her Roxanne. I love the song "Roxanne" (and its derivative "El Tango de Roxanne" from Moulin Rouge). I also love Chicago, so having my own little Roxie Hart sounded just perfect to me.

I promptly called Darwin and proposed we adopt this pooch. We've talked about getting a dog one day, but it's always one distant, magical day when we'll have a fence and the ever-elusive "more time."

Darwin said this was not that day.

But I have my ways of persuasion. At dinner Monday night, I cheerfully talked about what we could name her. After all my love for the name Roxanne, I'd come to realize that it didn't mesh well with Alistair and Henry - too modern. I needed something old-fashioned and ladylike, so all through dinner I threw out suggestions like Thomasina, Josephine, Penelope, Ruby and Lucinda.

Darwin refused to participate, but by the time we got home that night I had come up with a new plan. We could take her home on a trial basis, I suggested. Keep her a week or two and then if it didn't work out - if the cats waged war on her or something - we'd find her a new home.

Still, Darwin refused. "Don't bring that dog home," he said sternly.

"You know you want a dog," I wheedled. "Every time we see one, you get all misty-eyed."

He gave me a withering look.

"You know you'll love her," I said. "I'm doing this for you!"

"Don't bring that dog home," he repeated, and kept repeating it at every opportunity that night and the next day.

I pretended not to hear him. I explained how they'd be bringing her to me that afternoon. I suggested more names.

By the end of the day, I'd beaten him down. Defeated, he stopped even trying to talk me out of it.

When I arrive home with the pup, Darwin came out to help me get in some stuff. I opened the car door, and the puppy wiggled and lurched until I released her into his arms.

"Oh, good girl!" Darwin said in his baby voice, "That's a good girl. Quit kissing Daddy!"

And I knew he was hooked.

When Darwin set her down inside the house, Henry puffed up to twice his size and skated sideways away from her. Alistair, usually the mean kitty in the house, merely sniffed her and - fascinated but still cautious - chased her, at a safe distance, as she explored the house.

Not 10 minutes later, Darwin had christened the pup Lily, and I was too thrilled by his unexpected reception of her to argue. Anyway, it was a nice name and old-fashioned. It would do, and it was clear Darwin had adopted this girl as his own. Who was I to come between a boy and his dog?

Wednesday I took her to work with me, where she was received with oohs and ahhs. In my office, the dog lovers vastly outnumber the cat lovers, so I felt like I was being welcomed into the club.

Then I took her to the vet, where she got her shots and I learned she is about 5 months old (pretty much what we'd suspected), about 9.5 pounds and possibly a mix of miniature pinscher and/or some kind of terrier. Next month she'll go back for more shots and then after that she'll be spayed and possibly microchipped. Anyone done the microchipping thing? I'm not sure about it yet.

We had a ballroom dancing lesson scheduled for that night, so I got it moved up to the afternoon, and the teachers (fortunately dog lovers) let her run around the studio while we practiced our rumba.

Back at home that night, the cats weren't responding well. Lily wanted to play, but they interpreted her bounding leaps onto their backs as something more hostile. Henry retreated to the dining room table and growled every time she scampered by. Alistair hung around near her and engaged in a few play/battles that always ended in me coming to his rescue so he could struggle away and hide under a chair.

Thursday morning I woke up and got dressed for work, but the thought of leaving the three of them alone together all day made my stomach twist. What if the pup hurt one of the cats by accident? She's only playing, but she doesn't know that cats don't enjoy the same kind of rough-housing dogs do. They needed me there to break up altercations and to teach Lily not to leap on the cats. It hadn't occurred to Alistair yet to use his claws, so she wasn't a bit afraid of him. Besides, Henry might never leave the dining room table!

So I ended up taking a vacation day yesterday instead of the one I planned to take next week. Today Darwin is off and will be for the next week, so we'll have plenty of time to get the animals acclimated to each other before we leave them alone together for long stretches of time.

Since I was home, I invited my sister (home from Atlanta for the week) to bring her dog Lewis (a Shih Tzu) over for a play date with our pup. The two of them chased and wrestled and had barking contests all day.

At lunch time, we put them in a room together and walked to the square to have lunch at our friend’s restaurant. On the check-out counter was the local newspaper, folded open to a photo of our neighbors Michael and Larry standing in front of their huge Christmas tree, one of them clutching a tiny Chihuahua.

We brought the paper to our table to read while we waited. Being a photojournalist, my sister always notices the photo credit and caption.

"Their dog's name is Lily, too," she said, pointing to the tiny black and white in Michael’s arms.

To say this was bad news would be putting it lightly. I pride myself on originality in naming or at least try to avoid the totally generic and expected (kindly ignore the name of this blog, which is anything but original). I obsessively read the name blog The Baby Name Wizard, which follows naming trends, with the goal of naming my future child/children something meaningful and old-fashioned, yet not old-fashioned-turned-fashionable. (There go my favorites Harper and Emmett, which have tragically skyrocketed this year.)

So to have my dog, my furry child, share the name of a neighbor’s pet was unthinkable. It had to be changed.

The sad part was our pup had already been called who-knows-what in her early months of life, Roxanne and Puppy for several days, then Lily for a few days. She already seemed to know her name, and I hated to change it again.

So my sister and I went to the trusty Name Voyager tool and looked for names that sounded similar to Lily. My sister’s genius suggestion was Millie, and when I plugged it into the Name Voyager, I found that Millie was actually more popular 100-120 years ago than Lily, AND it has experienced no resurgence in popularity. Best of all, when called out in a high-pitched voice, Millie sounds almost identical to Lily.

When I told Darwin of the situation, he promptly agreed to the switch, and from then on our girl has been Millie. It has taken more adjustment on our part than Millie’s. Also, it’s hard going from having only boys to including a girl in the mix. We keep mixing up our pronouns, and we have to alter our usual all-encompassing phrases (i.e. “Bye bye, big boys!” becomes “Bye bye big boys … and girl”), even though the animals don’t know the difference.

Of course, having a dog – a puppy in particular – brings many more changes. Millie must be walked a few times a day and scolded when she eats from the cats’ bowl. She sleeps between us in our bed – last night under the covers pressed up against my thigh – and follows us around everywhere. She bounces and leaps, tears up paper, chases Henry onto the dining room table, bites a little too hard when she’s excited, and carries off my slippers while I’m in the shower. She sometimes has accidents, especially when left alone, even for only a few hours.

But Darwin is home this whole week to work with her, and there are signs that the cats are adjusting. Henry is spending more time on the floor, in chairs or on the ottoman instead of huddling in fear on the table. Alistair will lie beside her on the couch and only hiss grumpily when she touches him.

We got her a pink retractable 16-foot leash that she likes much better than the cats’ leash, so she’s better behaved on her walks. We still don’t know what we’ll do with her when we both go back to work full time. I hate the idea of crating a dog with so much energy, or even shutting her up in the bathroom, but my sister (who has two dogs and once worked at a dog daycare) says maybe having so much space in the house is detrimental to her training. A dog generally doesn’t want to go the bathroom in his/her “home,” but Millie has plenty of room to get away from her living areas and find a convenient spot in the house to do her business.

My sister suggests we leave her in the bathroom while we’re gone until she’s fully trained. She also says Millie seems to have a lot of anxiety about being away from us, which we think is the cause of the accidents when we leave her alone even for a short time. Maybe when she begins to feel more comfortable and confident that we WILL be returning to her, she won’t have those accidents anymore.

Though we both grew up with dogs, we’re newbies to this having-our-own-pup thing. Any tips from you experts out there?

More photos of Millie

Cat in a Hoodie

This is something you don't see every day: a fluffy orange cat docilely posing in a red Old Navy hoodie with kangaroo pocket and cut-off sleeves.

It had sleeves, but they came down over his elbows and restricted his walking. Then we tried rolling them up, but they were too bunchy under his arms. So I had to get all teenage-redneck-circa-1985 on it and cut off the sleeves.



In spite of what his facial expression might tell you, Alistair doesn't seem to mind wearing the hoodie. I swear, it's for his own benefit. It's cold in the house, and he loves to snuggle on and under blankets in front of the space heater. So why not give him a portable warm fuzzy, right?

Okay, and I admit, part of the reason I dress him in clothes is because he reminds me of that fat orange cat in the tiny T-shirt that Fievel befriends in An American Tail.

It's not easy finding clothes for cats, you know. Sure, dog clothes are everywhere, and technically even this hoodie is made for a dog, but it's hard to get a decent fit. The small is too small, the medium is too large, or Alistair can walk right out of the gaping neck opening.

Maybe the dearth of cat clothes is because most cats are like Henry. We don't even try with him. He would be scarred for life.

But Alistair is pretty easygoing. He didn't resist his fluffy jingle bell Christmas collar, his hoodie, or even the time I put him in a pink cable knit sweater with a pearl necklace attached. Though he did pitch a royal fit when we put him in a Santa hat. Guess he's not a fan of Old St. Nick.

Here he is looking all gangsta with the hood up:



I don't leave it up for long because I can't tell if he likes it or hates it. He seems neutral toward the hoodie itself, but I don't want to push my luck.

The Curious Incident of the Roach in the Night-Time

A strange and horrible thing may have happened to me Sunday night.

I've been sick with strep throat and a sinus infection for a week now, and all day Sunday I couldn't stop coughing. Every few minutes, hackhackhack. Every two hours, swig non-drowsy Robitussin.

Come bedtime, I offered to sleep on the couch so I wouldn't keep Darwin awake all night. (He needed his sleep for a rough day at work.)

I wanted a sheet from the hall armoire/linen closet, but I made Darwin pull it out and shake it because - cue foreshadowing - I've seen a roach in that closet before.

The sheet was roach-free, so I spread it out on the couch, tucked it into the cushions and made myself a comfy bed with a quilt and two pillows from the guest room. I turned off all the lamps but one, took a hefty dose of nighttime Robitussin, aimed the space heater at my feet, and arranged all my necessities - Kleenex; the TV, Tivo and heater remotes; a cup of water - within easy reach on the coffee table.

Soon, the cats settled together on the quilt behind my legs, and I caught up on the Grey's Anatomy and Ugly Betty that had been Tivo'ed while we were out of town for Thanksgiving. Then the nighttime Robitussin kicked in, I turned off the TV and drifted off to a comfortable, non-coughing sleep.

Some time later, I was awakened by a cat leaping off my legs. I groggily searched the half-lit room with my eyes and found Alistair darting out from under the coffee table, chasing an inch-and-a-half-long black roach, one of the awful wood roaches we have here in the South. The roach skittered under the ottoman 2 feet away.

Normally, a roach sighting so close to my sleeping place would send me into a minor panic. I would jerk upright, shudder in terror and revulsion, and begin the task of hunting down the roach. I hate killing roaches or any insects, hate the crunch, the squish of white or green guts, the slimy residue on the floor or shoe or both.

But if there's a roach nearby, I can't rest until I've at least tried to kill it, or coaxed the cats to do it. Otherwise, I'll worry constantly about where it could be, where it could turn up next.

Only this time, there was the Robitussin. It made me say to myself, "It won't bother you. The cats will get it," and I was already falling back asleep as I thought it.

The next thing that woke me was a tickling sensation on my forehead, then my nose, my chin. And I knew what it was.

I opened my eyes and saw the roach crawling on the back of the couch. Had I swatted it there? Had it crawled there?

Henry was standing on the arm of the couch beside my head, following the roach with his nose. He reached out and knocked it down, and it fell into the crevice between the cushions.

Again, my normal reaction would be to leap up, probably even to shriek. But the Robitussin made me say, "It's under the cushion now. What can you about it anyway? It won't bother you again."

I screwed up my face and wiped it with the edge of the quilt, thinking about things I'd read about roaches and all the germs they carry on their feet, but my eyes were already shutting, sleep was already creeping back over me.

Then - then! - I woke again. I could feel the roach crawling down into the neck of my nightgown. Henry was still there beside my head. Was this real? I grasped at my nightgown and felt a horrible, solid, crunchy little body on my chest.

This time I did jump up, faster than I've ever jumped before, and wiggled and jiggled and shook my nightgown. The black creature fell into a crease of the sheet, and I leaped backward. I looked at Henry on the arm of the couch, Alistair behind him, both alert, necks outstretched, noses wiggling.

When I looked back at the crease of the sheet, the roach was gone.

I grabbed my pillow, stuck my feet into my slippers - half afraid a roach would be hiding inside them - and marched myself into the kitchen, where the nighttime Robitussin bottle waited on the counter. I didn't want to wake up Darwin with my coughing, so I knocked back another large swig. It had been two hours since my last one.

In the bedroom, I announced, "Henry chased a roach down my nightgown." Darwin laughed and rolled back over.

As I lay there in our bed, trying to figure out the timeline of roach events, my stomach began to feel funny. My head, too, come to think of it. I felt paranoid and strange; I lifted my head from the pillow, and the room was spinning.

Maybe the second dose of Robitussin hadn't been a good idea. I crawled out of bed and stumbled into the kitchen. The back of the Robitussin bottle said, 4 tsp. every 4 hours. I had noticed the 4 tsp. but not the 4 hours - I was still operating on non-drowsy Robitussion time, 2 tsp. every 2 hours.

Feeling dizzy and nauseated, I dragged myself into the bathroom and leaned over the toilet. I spit and spit but never threw up.

Miserable and shaking, I finally gave up. I washed my mouth and face, drank some water, and went to bed. Somehow, I fell asleep again.

In the morning, I tried to explain to Darwin what happened with the roach, but in the light of day it didn't quite add up. It was like trying to explain a dream, only I was certain it wasn't a dream. Or at least parts of it weren't a dream.

I began to think the part about the roach falling into the crevice between the cushions couldn't have happened. My view of it wouldn't make sense unless I wasn't on the couch at the time. So I decided maybe I felt the roach crawl on my face - *shudder* - but didn't quite wake up, dreamed the part about the cushions, and then fully woke up as the roach made its horrible way into my nightgown.

That part I'm almost certain really happened. I can still feel the horror and the tactile sensation of touching that awful shape under the fabric of my nightgown. I can still see the cats, staring with me toward the crease in the sheet. The roach could have skittered away. It could easily have happened.

But I felt so crazy that night, so sleepy, Robitussin turning my brain into a lava lamp, liquid blob-blobbing in the orange half-light.

So was it real? Do I even want it to be real?

Maybe I prefer to believe it was only a vivid, awful dream. And the tickling I felt was only Henry's whiskers and questing nose - not a roach's grotesque black legs, tracking their hideous way across my face.

He's At It Again

About this time last year, we had an ongoing battle with our cat Henry over where was an appropriate place to pee and where was definitely, absolutely not.

Blog commenters and many resources on the web told me he probably had a urinary tract infection, so we made a journey to the vet in town. Henry hates riding in the car, so that was a fun time. Then we had to pin him down twice a day for two weeks and massage his throat into swallowing antiobiotics.

As we'd been told, once they start peeing outside the litter box, it's hard to break them of it entirely. Henry's occasional "accidents" took on a more determined quality - he peed on my coat and anything else of mine I left lying around, and whenever he escaped into the office (where I'd first caught him peeing behind my desk), he immediately, determinedly peed on the first object he could find.

So we also made some "lifestyle changes." First, no more clothes or plastic bags (his favorite target) lying about the house. He was no longer allowed in the hall bathroom or the office, his two favorite pee spots, and we thoroughly cleaned the carpet beside the chair in the living room.

To make Henry's litter box appealing to him again, we got a second, larger litter box (apparently, you're supposed to have one per cat) and established a better routine of more frequent scooping. We also used a special, expensive herbal litter that's supposed to attract Wandering Pee-ers.

All of that seemed to work, mostly, and we gradually weaned him off the special litter. We relaxed and left the bathroom door open again. For a while, things were good. We still suspected him of occasional sneaky transgressions - I'd catch a whiff of something and travel around the living room floor on hands and knees, sniffing - but could never find anything definite.

Somehow a year passed this way. Then, suddenly, it started again. I brought a plastic bag out of the office and found pee on it the next day. Then I went to wipe my face on the hand towel in the bathroom and was hit with the unmistakable aroma of cat pee. Darwin felt angry; I felt like weeping. And washing my face. Twice.

This weekend, I caught him in the act of peeing on my bath towel, which was draped over the bathroom counter. Then this morning while I was getting ready in the hall bath, Henry strolled right in and peed on the bathroom cabinet.

There was none of that pitiful mewling or pained expression from the time I caught him last year, the time that persuaded me to take him to the vet the very next day. Maybe he is defiant. Maybe he is spraying instead of peeing. Or maybe it's just still in an early stage of UTI.

I don't know, but it's back to the vet and the special litter he must go. And if anyone has helpful, practical suggestions, I welcome them.

However, if you - like the belated commenter to last year's Henry UTI post - think I should "keep the house, get rid of the cat," feel free not to comment. That is one solution - along with, "put him outside" - I will not consider.

Bath towels and even furniture are disposable - animals are not.

Love, Ferret Style

We've replaced one house guest with another. This new guest is of the furry and ferrety variety.

We are babysitting my boss's beloved pet ferret Lucy while he and his family are at the beach this week. She has a cage, but they let her out for extended romps about the house. Since we have two large, unfriendly felines in our house, Lucy can't have the same freedom she's accustomed to. We put her cage in the front bedroom (which the cats aren't allowed in anyway) and let her out for playtime when we can.

Her presence in the front bedroom made me notice what a total wreck it is. Since we have four bedrooms and only actually use one of them for sleeping, the others have become depositories for various types of junk. The back bedroom is the cats' room. It features two litter boxes, various scratchers, indoor-outdoor carpet, and chairs in front of each window so they can partake in the scenic backyard views. The second-to-back room is the guest room. When we don't have guests (okay, and even when we do), it's where I stash all my eBay stock. The third bedroom is ours.

Then the front bedroom is the leftover spot. It's where we stack boxes that have never been unpacked, our winter bedspread and pillows, extra furniture, luggage, light fixtures waiting to be hung, and rugs waiting to be unfurled. This is the room that may or may not one day be a nursery.

And now it's got a baby. Lucy likes to hide inside a rolled rug, nudge a ball with her nose, steal socks and pull them inside the rug with her, chase and bite feet. She's got a weird ferrety smell, she yawns massively when you wake her up, and she can get pretty vicious with Elmo.



All in all, she's pretty cute and a low-maintenance houseguest.

The cats disagree, of course. Henry is deathly terrified of her. Ever since she arrived Friday night, Henry has been slinking about the house looking around corners and over his shoulder, or hiding behind the couch. I brought her out to show him so maybe he'd view her as a rodent rather than a threatening beast. That didn't work. The fear only increased.

Meanwhile, Alistair (resident mean-cat) sniffed her briefly and then flopped himself on the floor across the room and gave me a look that said, "So what?"

I tried again yesterday, only this time I carried the cats individually into Lucy's room to let them watch her on the floor playing. Surely then they'd see how non-threatening she is. Nope. Henry froze with terror in my arms, and Alistair mustered his customary hissy attitude.

So I've given up on the cats and the ferret becoming fast friends. I guess it's for the best anyway. A ferret loose in a big, old house is probably not a good idea - too many places for a squirmy girl to hide.

Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head

Last week was not my best ever. It started off bad on Monday when I had to take our cat Alistair to the vet. We discovered by accident that he had seriously gross & painful-looking tooth/gum problems that needed to be remedied before they escalated to something worse.

Alistair hates people in general, but he especially hates the vet. He growled and hissed, which is all par for the course whenever he meets a stranger. They had to sedate him to scrape his teeth and do his yearly checkup, so I had to leave him there overnight. This upset me because I kept thinking what if the people I loved dropped me off in a strange place without telling me why, and I didn't know if they'd ever come back? I cried, and my stomach was in knots that whole day and night and next day. He's my baby, ok?

Because he is not the friendliest cat (did I mention that?) they had to both gas him and inject him with sedative. Then the gums were worse than they thought, so they had to laser them to stop the bleeding. While he was out, they did his yearly checkup, which involved giving him every shot in the known world.

Needless to say, when I picked him up from the vet, he was not in the best mood. The last time he was sedated (when he got neutered), he was all wild-eyed when I picked him up, but his face calmed down when he heard my voice. This time he showed no sign that he recognized me or my voice. Or maybe he did and he was pissed I left him at that wretched place.

All I know is I was one worried kittymom. I kept thinking, "What if his personality somehow got wiped out? What if he never remembers me?" Pretty silly, I know, but I just wanted to cuddle my baby and he wouldn't let me and it sucked.

Once we got home he calmed down a lot, though his kittybrother Henry was still terrified of him. Alistair spent most of the night sitting straight up, staring glassy-eyed at nothing, and wobbling slightly. Meanwhile, I cried some more. Maybe it was hormonal.

Fortunately, next morning Alistair was back to normal, purring and rolling around wanting to be petted. My baby is ok! I went and bought a kitty toothbrush and toothpaste, and however ridiculous it sounds I will be brushing his teeth from now on, because I never want to put him (or myself) through something like this again.

But my best week ever wasn't over yet. Just when I started feeling somewhat normal again, I got sick on Friday. I won't go into the details, but it wasn't the sweet little cough-cough/fever kind. Fortunately, I woke up pretty much better on Saturday and then we headed up to our friends' house. The four of us had tickets to the NASCAR race in Talladega on Sunday.

I am not a NASCAR fan, which probably surprises no one who reads this blog. I've never understood the appeal of watching cars drive around in a circle 200-some-odd times. Darwin, on the other hand, is a fan of pretty much anything that involves loud engines, so he likes it. He wanted to go, so I was taking one for the team.

But by race time, I had somehow become revved up for the event myself. There's just something irresistible about being in a huge crowd of people, all excited about the same thing. It gets your adrenaline pumping - maybe because there's always that slight chance the crowd will go insane and begin trampling folks.

Besides, the people-watching alone was worth the ticket price. I've never seen so many overbaked, age-resistant women in my life. Of course, I've never been to California.

Yet our racing adventure was not to be. The day was surprisingly windy, cloudy and cold for the last day of April. The rain held off until the moment the race started. We dashed in under the bleachers and stood huddled together next to a chain link fence, watching the dryer trucks drive slooooowly by on the track and trying to keep our plastic ponchos from billowing in the wind. This went on for two hours before the race was finally called. Postponed until the next day. You know, when we had to work.

Did I mention the tickets are non-refundable? Thank goodness for people-watching. We had more fun in that vein while waiting in traffic on the way out. A lady in tight shorts and an even tighter tank top began dancing beside her van, undulating her belly wildly and twirling her faux-blonde, waist-length ponytail around her head like a lasso. Some dudes walked by with Mardi Gras beads, and I don't have to tell you what happened next. MY EYES! OH MY EYES!

Still, seeing a trying-not-to-be-old lady pop her boobs out of her tank top wasn't enough to kill the disappointment. Darwin was devastated, our friends were devastated - heck, I'm devastated.

The race is going on right now, and we're not there. I heard from a sports reporter friend that probably 100,000 people came back today. The sun is shining, so there's probably lots more boobie-flashing and beer-funneling going on. Too bad we're not there to see it.

I have high hopes for this week. I'm starting ballroom dancing lessons on Tuesday, I'll be attending a wedding on Saturday night (the good kind that serves alcohol), and on Sunday I'm leaving for our annual work beach retreat. This one's got to be better than last, right?

Midnight Visitors

Good news! A simple can of WD-40 has eliminated many of our door-related problems. Last night my sister stayed with us, and that inspired us to get rid of the squeeeeaaaking problem with the guest bedroom door (and others). Ha! Who knew the solution was so straightforward?

Sadly, even WD-40 couldn't make the door shut properly. My sister spent the whole night hearing the cats' attempts - often successful - to open it, then feeling the arctic blast from the hall creep into her warm room. Once inside, Alistair curled up with her on the bed but Holy Terror Henry spent the whole night knocking things over. Even putting a heavy box in front of the door didn't stop them, so finally she gave up.

This is the very reason our little monsters don't get to sleep with us anymore. I love snuggling with them, but I love my sleep more. Sleep is my friend.

Sleep is my sister's friend, too. No wonder she doesn't spend the night often. :)

P.S. We saw King Kong and The Family Stone this weekend. I recommend both, particularly King Kong. But don't get the large drink - it's a looong movie and you won't want to miss anything to run to the bathroom.

Picture Day!

These pictures don't have a cohesive theme, so I'm lumping them all in one post instead of stringing them out into several appropriately labeled one-sentence posts. Included are pics from times past I never got around to posting.



The glow of the Christmas lights welcomes UPS delivery men to deposit packages on our porch (hmmm, unfortunate wording there).



Darwin considers the philosophical consequences of cutting limbs away from the power lines.

After I took eight million trips to Hobby Lobby for the proper size mats, the Redoute botanical prints (half of them anyway) hang triumphantly in the dining room.



The 1930s bedroom armoire is locked with a key because that's the only way it will stay closed. This key causes visitors to believe we have secret sexual items hidden away inside. I neither confirm nor deny.

Darwin cruises on the Rustmobile.

I tried to wear this replica of a 1904 swimsuit, tights, slipper and cap on Halloween, but sadly it did not fit.



The Super Scratcher gets Henry all hot and bothered.

Alistair brings gifts to all the good boys and girls. However, he hates boys and girls, so he considers them all bad and keeps the gifts for himself. :(

Cardboard Window Treatments

Last night as I sat on the couch with my smoochies (thats code for "cats" at our house), I had a moment of inspiration.

The living room has three windows, one directly behind the sofa. I noticed as I curled up under two blankets and two cats, my shoulders still kept getting chilly. You know, as if they were being hit with an artic blast from behind.

Suddenly, I realized the WINDOW was to blame. Duh. Then I remembered the first winter of our marriage when we lived in a little shack with gas space heaters. The heaters were both in the living room (handy, huh?), and Alistair would misbehave at night, so we had to shut the bedroom door. Then we would just about freeze to death. Every time the wind blew, you could feel it coming through the windows.

Finally one night we got fed up, and because we were broke and it was the middle of the night, we used DUCT TAPE to attach flattened cardboard boxes over the windows. Then we tacked up blankets over that. Very chic.

Remembering this charming arrangement gave me the idea to get a set of heavy drapes for the winter. Why didn't I think of this before?

Today, I ordered velvet drapes in "Cappuccino" from Target. Hey, free shipping, and they're MUCH cheaper than the Pottery Barn versions, even the Pottery Barn via eBay versions. They're shorter than I wanted, but they'll do.

The living room is the place we spend the most time in the evenings, and I think covering up these three enormous windows will warm the room up considerably. Especially while we figure out what to do about insulating. Hey, if it blocks enough cold, we might be able to put off insulating until next year.

Ah, the Smell of Pee in the Morning

After our master bathroom demo, we decided to tackle the half bathroom. I know it's hard to imagine getting rid of something as attractive as '70s green carpet in the bathroom, but that's exactly what we did.

We've noticed a damp smell in there now and then over the past few months. Then when we got home from Gatlinburg, we discovered that our cat Henry had decided to pee on the guest towels in a tray on the counter. Removing the offending towels and tray and cleaning the countertop didn't take care of the smell entirely.

So we decided to remove the carpet, which had always been our intention eventually. Underneath the carpet is a layer of plywood, as expected. I begged Darwin to take up a small piece of the plywood to see the condition of the original wood floor underneath. But underneath the thin plywood was another layer of plywood. We believe that under THAT is the wood floor, and *gasp* Darwin actually agrees with me that we should restore the room back to its original floor.



This is a half bathroom so not used for typically splash-happy occupations like bathing. We figure the wood floor will be fairly safe in there (while in our master bathroom we plan to tile).

Removal of the carpet took care of the truly horrid pee smell, but the damp smell grew worse. Then we noticed two water-damaged areas on the floor, on either side of the wall next to the vent pipe.



We don't know yet what could've caused this, but Darwin sprinkled baking soda around the floor in the toilet corner, and the damp smell has ceased ... for now.

The rest of the work in this bathroom will have to wait until we at least get the toilet restored to working order in our master bath, which will have to wait until the demo is finished and the floor tile installed. We don't want to have two toilets out of commission at once.

Of course, we could take Henry's route and pick any convenient spot to do our business. Yep, he peed beside my desk this morning on top of a plastic bag. This is a new - and very unwelcome - activity for him. What is wrong with my cat?

Picture Day

I've been in withdrawal since my digital camera rolled over and died. To get my photo fix, I've been using my film camera (Nikon N60), and I just got back a CD of photos of our recent reno projects. So today let's have a slide show.

The famous dining room project

My test colors, Billiard Green, Dark Mustard and Empire Gold:


The winning color, Dark Mustard:


I like the way it turned out, though the right wall really needs some art. I'll get to that later.

The master bathroom tile-bashing fiesta

Henry likes to help. Don't worry, once we got started in earnest, we shut the cats out of the bathroom, so they wouldn't slice up their little paws like I did my feet and hands.



So far, so good:


A discovery

When Darwin was edging the front sidewalk, he found that the bricks along one side extend further, and he uncovered bricks on the other side, too. Nice!


And now that I've pictured you to death, I have some news. Last night when I went to pick up said photo CD, I got sucked in by the shiny camera display cabinet. My sister, a newspaper photographer, had recommended the digital Canon Rebel, since it's quite a bit cheaper than the Nikon version. I was all ready to buy it until I asked the fatal question, "Why is the Canon cheaper?"

Then the salesperson (a very nice lady) showed me the differences between the heavier, sturdier Nikon with the awesome lens and the Canon. And, being a sucker and an impulse-buyer, I bought the Nikon D70.

I wouldn't have bought it, except they had a 0% for 12 months thing, and I LOVE 0% for 12 months, which is a great deal if you actually pay it off in 12 months (we always do).

I feel a little (ok, a lot) guilty for spending so much money, but it is a terrific camera. And my sister has the same one, so she can teach me all its nuances. And it's the same one the magazine I work for owns, so I'm already familiar with it, and I can borrow the flash and telephoto lens if I need them.

Expect to see photos on my blog again often. And, now that I have a higher-megapixel camera, I hope to take some photos and frame them for my walls. No more empty, artless expanses of Dark Mustard.

We Survived!

And, almost as important, our house survived, too! We got a lot of wind and rain, but our property suffered nothing more than a few twigs and leaves knocked off the trees. Even the tomato plants are intact.

But, just after the guests of our impromptu hurricane party left, we lost power at about 9:30 last night. It was great fun showering in the dark this morning. And I had no service on my cell, so I didn't know for sure if I'd have to work today (I do).

I stepped outside this morning to see if the service was better, and there were our new guests hanging out on the workshop porch like they owned the place. An orange and white mama cat and her two kittens - one gray and one orange. The orange kitten reminds me so much of our Alistair when he was a baby. He's the boldest of the three, always the last to dash away under the workshop when we approach. We've been leaving canned catfood out for them. I have high hopes of befriending at least the orange baby.

Believe it or not, we actually got something accomplished on the house yesterday. We sanded the drywall repairs on the guest bathroom wall and then painted the room yellow. I bought this fancy faux finishing kit with a double tray and double sponge roller. But the two shades of yellow paint I bought were a little too close in color, so you can't really tell it was faux finished at all. Oh well. At least it's not that dingy peachy-off white color anymore.

Again, I sure wish I could show you a picture. :(

Alistair Befriends the Footstool

It's funny how moving a piece of furniture into a different room makes the cats think it's a totally new object, worthy of long periods of sniffing.

When I brought the footstool into the dining room to take its picture, Alistair came around immediately.



Later, Henry was seen lounging on it, his considerable backside hanging off the edge.

Made in Iran

The two vintage Persian rugs I bought from eBay arrived Wednesday, but because of our Episcopalian adventure, I didn't get to de-package them until last night.

The big boys were very interested in the rugs right from the start. Anything new in the house - or at their eye level - gets a thorough sniffing right away.



Alistair quickly got bored, but Henry is in love. Like me, his favorite is the purple one. He wouldn't even leave it alone long enough for me to get a photo without him in it.



The purple is even more beautiful in person. The other is more faded than it looked in the eBay photos, so I'm not totally happy with it. But the first is so pretty it is worth the price of both, which were really cheap but were expensive-ish to ship. When Darwin asked me how much they cost I said 2495 and let him assume for a moment I meant $2,495 instead of $24.95 just to see the veins pop out on his forehead. I'm evil.

Either way, I feel all fancy-pants because I now own rugs ... other than bathmats.

I haven't decided where to put them yet, though I'm thinking the master bedroom for the purple one. I was originally planning to buy a huge rug to go under the bed, but then they all had such pretty center patterns that I didn't want to cover them up with a big stupid bed. So I think I'm going with runners like these instead.

Sadly, if I put the purple rug in the bedroom, Henry will no longer have access to his favorite new friend. Maybe that's for the best. The boy does have a shedding problem.

In other news, my turn-of-the-century Moroccan slippers (aka, impulse buy) arrived this week also. They are delightful.

House Cat

Lately, Henry has been expressing his love for old houses by napping on the latest issue of Old House Journal.



Admittedly, this cat seeks out anything paper or plastic to nap on, but I prefer to believe he has a special affinity for old house publications.

The cats do love this house. It is more than twice the size of our former house (a 1967 ranch), and we don't keep all the bedrooms closed off like we did there. For kitties who are not allowed outside, this feels like a whole new universe.

Playing Attic Tag

The door to the attic isn't fond of being shut. It likes to open itself - or fail to latch properly in the first place. After Darwin took the old vent hood up there, the attic opened itself, and Henry decided to go for an adventure up there. We had some tense moments chasing him all over the attic, his muscled panther body crouching low as he balanced on the ceiling beams.

Finally, we caught the tricky devil. Guess we'll have to be more stern with the attic door from now on. Once the cats discover a new place they're not allowed to be, they become determined to be there. Alistair discovered the back porch - thanks to another of those silly, self-opening doors - and has been hanging around more than usual as we enter and exit.

Also, in the attic I found something! A poker or something from a wood stove.



It had apparently been hanging there on a nail all this time, and I just now noticed it. I think it's because I had been looking at antique woodburning stoves on eBay last week and saw the little tools that belong to them. Before that, I wouldn't have known what this spiral-handled tool was. As it is, I'm not sure how old it might be. Perhaps it even belonged to the house's original wood stove?

Speaking of heating devices (OK, so that was a rough segue), I also removed the cast iron summer cover on the entry hall fireplace to peek at what's back there. The fireplace was surprisingly shallow with a metal basket for a single log. Lots of ashes and some leaves.



The only two of the fireplaces that don't have original tile on the surround are the same two that don't have a cast iron cover. They also appear to be deeper than the others, with a full-sized opening instead of this little one-log thing.

I don't know much about fireplaces. What does it all mean?

Entering the 21st Century

This was an eventful week! Lots and lots of unpacking (all done by yours truly). We're down to about 20-25 boxes, most of them containing the Fiestaware I haven't figured out where to put yet.



We bought a dishwasher and microwave (both of which were conspicuously missing from the kitchen), though they haven't arrived yet. Darwin has washed dishes by hand so far ... I refuse! I refuse!

Our satellite TV system was installed on Wednesday. Ten days is a long time to live without TV, though it was kinda fun "roughing it." How was I supposed to plan our house without HGTV to inspire me?

This morning, Darwin finally had a chance to install a phone line in the office, so I could set up my computer and DSL and upload all the many, many moving photos I took, including this one:



Mom and I went last Sunday to buy a new comforter, and Alistair promptly propped his regal self up amongst the pillows and took a long nap.



Guess we know who rules this house!