I have a new pet

I love animals.  While I don't have enough time or money to care for as many animals as I would like, I have indulged in a little extra fun with outdoor critters the past couple of winters. 

My indoor cats can be a little finicky and turn up their noses if they don't deem their food fresh enough.  I hate to waste the food, so I stick it in a jar and store it up until winter.  Then I'm naughty and put it out for the neighborhood critters to eat, along with a bucket of water that doesn't freeze.  I'm sure the naysayers think I shouldn't put food out, but I love watching the security cameras and seeing who comes for a nibble.

At first, I was only trying to help out the neighborhood cats that roam freely in the winter.  As time went on, a kaleidoscope of colorful kitties was followed by rotund raccoons, fluffy bunnies, itty bitty mice, and cuddly oppossums (my favorite).  Winter 2024/2025 was a cornucopia of cute critters!

This winter, however, has been different.  There haven't been as many kitties.  My raccoon boys are back and more rotund than ever, but they haven't been coming as often.  During the day, I now have grackles fighting over the food.  Ugh.  They are dirty birds!  They poop where they eat.  And, they poop on my car.  Poop.  On.  My.  Car.  Cat food poop, falling from the sky.  I do not love grackles. 

Lately, I've had new entertainment.  A hilarious little mouse has been zooming from the woodpile to the feeder box and back again.  He steals as much food as he can every night, sometimes all of the food, if no one else stops by.  He is so fast!  He practically flies across the sidewalk and jumps into the Pyrex pan I use as a food dish, with his fat little butt hanging off the back of the dish.  But the more videos I see, the more I realize that he's definitely longer than a mouse.  He must be a vole or a shrew.  Weeks pass.  I have a niggling in the back of my brain that something isn't quite right about him. 

Tonight, the security camera alerted me that my little guy was at it again - scurrying around like The Flash.  I grabbed the binoculars, thinking a different angle and a closer view would help clear up the confusion over my "wonder rodent."  Hmmm.  That's a big rodent.  Next, I dug out my DSLR, zoomed in on the feeder from inside the house, and took a bunch of rapid-fire pictures of The Flash.  Reviewing the photos, I noticed that his body (minus his tail) is almost as long as my Pyrex pan, which I later measured at about 8.5 inches.  I did a bunch of Googling with plenty of descriptions, pictures, and measurements.  I was still in denial of what the evidence was telling me.  I decided to go outside and ask him what he was.  Maybe he would be so busy gathering food that he wouldn't even notice me.  There's nothing like meeting someone in person to size them up.  

I quietly walked out and stood near the feeder.  Nope, he knew better than to fall for that.  I started talking to him, but he still didn't answer.  I turned on my phone light and shone it under the woodpile.  

"Oh, hi!  There you are.  Yep, you are big."

For the past few weeks, I have been feeding a rat.  I have a new pet.  I have a pet rat.  

To pill or not to pill the kitty

Miss. Blue, one of our four kitties, needs meds twice a day.  My husband usually does it; however, he is out of town this weekend, so the duty falls to me.

Because Blue has special needs, she has her own room from the other kitties.  She has everything a girl could want – food, drink, a heated bed, an exercise area, a bathroom, soothing music, and a kitty night light when she goes to bed.

Blue is also a scaredy cat.  Even though my husband has been a loving daddy for almost 14 years, Blue is still skittish and afraid of being picked up.  When I moved in, she did not come near me until I started feeding her.

I tried to butter her up tonight by opening the door and greeting her warmly.  Blue saw right through my ruse and went on high alert.  As soon as I got close, the chase was on.  We also store stuff in that room, so she squeezed her body into every nook and cranny she could find.  It is amazing how cats can go from solid to liquid in the blink of an eye!  I kept shoving stuff out of the way so she would be forced into the open.  It didn't matter because she is really spry for 14 years old and lightning fast.

I had a towel I hoped to wrap around her so she would not scratch me.  That made her even more scared.  I put the towel aside, pried her Velcro claws off the floor, and picked her up.  She thanked me by slitting my wrist, my finger, and my arm.  She leaped out of my arms and ran to her cat door, pushing on it so hard that she shoved her way through it even though it was barricaded on the other side to hold it shut.  

I took a few moments to collect myself and straighten up the mess I made in her room.  I walked out of her room, truly defeated, and there she was – sitting like a boss.

I trudged upstairs to the bathroom to clean and disinfect my wounds.  When I returned to the living room, Blue was there again, like the queen of her domain, regally staring at me.  I walked over and flopped on the sofa to continue watching a movie.  After a couple minutes, Miss. Blue hopped up next to me and demanded pets.

We both live to fight another day.  No pills were hurt or given in the making of this story.

 

It's funny how the brain works

 Earlier today, I was taking a break while working from home.  I went to the kitchen to get a snack, but when I returned to my office, I realized I didn't have my glasses.  No biggie.  I figured I'd get them the next time I took a break.

But when I went out later, I couldn't find them.  I looked all over the place.  I went back into the office and looked around, to no avail.  

I hopped into my work chair and decided to see if my husband would help me look for them when he got home.  

My gaze drifted down to my desk, and that's when the case for my glasses caught my eye.  Noooo.  It couldn't be that easy, could it?  I picked up the case and cracked it open.  Yep.  There they were, nestled RIGHT WHERE THEY WERE SUPPOSED TO BE!

I immediately started muttering to myself.  (I do that a lot.) "So.", I said.  "So, so suck your toe, all the way to Mexico.  When you're there, cut your hair, and shove it down your underwear."  What?  Where in the world did THAT come from?  I can't remember where I put my glasses a half hour ago, but a weird rhyme from my childhood just pops into my head for no reason.

Shut my mouth and call me silent; brains are weird.  

Pittie Prankster

My job is a hybrid position, so I often work from home.  One of the things I enjoy about working from home is coming out of my office for a break and traveling around the living room, kissing furbabies along the way.

Our pittie boy, Rex, is our wild child.  Even when he's stationary, he's wiggling around, snorting, grunting, or posing.  He does have allergies though, so he sometimes sneezes or sounds like he is hacking up a furball.

Earlier this week, I was working in the office when I heard Rex hacking up a furball.  I decided it was time for a break anyway and went out to check on everyone.  Rex was posing upside down on the loveseat like his normal weirdo self.  I made a "pitstop" and came out of the bathroom to find him in the exact same pose – highly unusual.

I called to him:  "Rex, are you dead over there?"

Rex: <not a muscle twitching>

Me: "Hey, Rex, are you ok?"

Rex:

Me: <worried> "Hey, Rex!!" <poke poke poke>

Rex: <head pops up so I can see his eyes> "Gotcha, mommy!" <grin>

Me: "DON'T YOU EVER SCARE MOMMY LIKE THAT EVER AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

 

Stinky

Every two weeks, I look forward to my bestie spending the afternoon with me.  Today we were relaxing next to a cozy fire and watching shows.  

We both had our feet up and my bestie had taken off her shoes to get comfy.  After a while, she started putting her shoes back on.  I asked her what was up since it wasn't cold in the room or anything.

She put her shoe up to her nose and started sniffing.  What in the world, I thought.  Was my bestie finally becoming as much of a weirdo as I am?  

Then she assured me that she had taken a shower today but that her feet were stinky for some reason.  I usually have a very sensitive sniffer, but I was not smelling her feet from where I was sitting.  

Then it dawned on me.  I glanced under her footrest and yep, our pittie boy, Rex, was sprawled out right under her feet.  She thought she smelled super-stinky feet, but in reality, she was smelling our super-stinky dog.  

I laughed and laughed and laughed.  Then I went into the office to tell my husband and laughed some more.

I guess it's time for Rex to have a shower!

 

Dashing Through the Snow

It’s been an evening chock full of surprises.

It started around 4:15pm when my husband called saying his truck died.  We are currently having a cold snap in our area and his diesel truck isn’t liking it one bit.  It is cold enough that his fuel gelled and the truck wouldn’t stay running.

Traffic was slow as we’d gotten over 8 inches of snow in the past 24 hours and the roads were slippery.  I finally made it to his location in Eden Prairie around 5pm.  I drove him to a Holiday gas station, The Home Depot, and Bobby and Steve’s Auto World before he found the additives he needed to (hopefully) get his truck running.  

He poured the additives in and started it up.  It ran for a couple minutes and then died.  He kept trying but it wouldn’t stay running.  He finally called Bobby and Steve’s to see if he could get a tow, but they said they didn’t have anyone available, and work orders were piled up.

He had a little more of the additives left and decided to pull out the fuel filter and dump it all straight in.  (He was doing all this in -11ºF weather and then jumping into my car to warm up.)  Huzzah!  That finally worked and the truck stayed running!  He drove around the parking lot a bit and then pulled out onto the road.  A few blocks away was the entrance to the freeway.  I was following along behind him and knew something was up when he wasn’t accelerating past 35mph on the freeway.

He pulled off at the next exit and told me it wouldn’t go any faster.  He mapped out a route to avoid freeways and we took off again, down Shady Oak Road to Highway 7, to West Lake Street, without encountering much trouble.  

West Lake was very busy.  Shortly after crossing Hennepin Avenue, we had to stop for a light at Bryant Avenue.  Unfortunately, the truck chose that moment to die and refuse to start.  The right lane was partially blocked by a parked car.  We had a line of traffic behind us, including a city bus.  My husband kept trying and trying to start his truck.  

Just then, because there wasn’t enough going on already, lights started flashing and sirens started blaring a few blocks behind us.  An ambulance.  Well, of course, there was an ambulance!  There was nothing we could do but sit in the left lane with our flashers on.  The parked car left and the bus and remaining traffic pulled off to the side.  The ambulance had to go around us to the left into the oncoming traffic lane.  

The truck finally started and we zipped around the corner and parked, where the truck promptly died again.  After more struggles, he got it to fire up and we headed toward West 31st street.  The truck died at the light before we could turn on 31st.  Again we had a string of cars behind us.  The guy behind me got out and yelled if we were waiting for something specific.  I informed him that the truck wouldn’t start.  So that string of cars navigated around us on the left side (oncoming traffic lane) and went through the red light to get out of the way.  

Finally, my husband decided enough was enough.  He had me pull my car up in front of his truck and hooked up a tow strap between our vehicles.  Away we went, my 6-cylinder SUV pulling his 1-ton F350 Super Duty.  Since it was slippery and my car really wasn’t made to pull that kind of weight, it took a bit to get going at intersections.  One nimrod decided I was just going too slowly through the intersection and turned right in front of me when I was halfway through.  Thankfully, I didn’t hit him.

Slowly but surely we made it all the way home.  He had managed to keep it idling about halfway there, so I pulled over on our block, he unhitched the vehicles, and we were both able to pull into the driveway unassisted.  Almost 4 hours exactly, getting home around 8:10pm.

I had no desire to make supper when we got home, so I ordered Door Dash.  Then I remembered the 8+ inches of snow out front, so I slapped my coat and mittens back on to go outside and do a quick shovel of the deck/front walk.

I was almost done when I heard, then saw, one of our neighbors walking around the block.  “Oh good!”, she said, “I’m glad to see you shoveling.  It’s hard walking in the snow.”

“Well”, I said, “I’m not doing it all tonight.”  (Thinking to myself – In the dark, when it’s 11º below zero, the wind has started blowing, the snow only stopped falling earlier today, and we just had a 4-hour ordeal getting the truck home.)

She walked past and then had to drive her point home again, “Everyone else has already shoveled”, spreading her arms to encompass the whole block.  I’m honestly surprised she couldn’t hear my rolling eyeballs as they scraped the back of my skull.  It was pretty loud.

Shortly after that, my supper arrived and I laughed out loud.  The delivery person delivered my meal ON HIS BICYCLE!  I would have given him a second tip if I had had extra cash on me!  He was bundled up in winter gear and navigated the snow-covered roads like a pro.  I watched his little flashing red taillight as he rode away.

I love Minnesota!

 

The Camera that Thought it was a Slinky

 

I had a bit of a mishap this evening.  

I had been taking some pictures and set my camera and flash down at the top of the stairs.  I set it down on something soft thinking I would be protecting it from the floor, but apparently, it wasn't a very stable surface.

Just like a scene out of a cartoon, the camera fell over and started bouncing down the stairs.  It looked like it would stop after a couple, but no!  It continued bouncing down nine steps to the landing.  It had to stop now, right?  Nope.  It somehow defied the laws of physics and went around the corner and down four more steps to the basement floor.

At this point, I was lying down at the top of the stairs and thought that I would just lie there for a bit and cry a little.  Tears didn't come, so I figured I needed to get up and go view the carnage.  I slowly made my way to the landing and was afraid of what I would see when I looked around the corner.  It was actually much better than I thought it would be.  

Most of my flash was no longer connected to my camera.  As you can see from the image above, the flash was ripped off the base with the screws still attached to the flash.  The camera and lens were a little scuffed but appeared to be undamaged.  Even the lens hood was still attached!

Both the camera and flash still turn on and work.  I won't know if every feature works until I put the camera through its paces.  My husband thinks he might be able to fix the flash, otherwise, I will have to find a new one.

Never a dull moment in my world.