Whelp, the joke was on us.
Our sweet Mama cat was a neutered male.
What seemed like an awkward baby belly was primordial pouch.
I tried Facebook again to find his owners, but at 5 pm he will be headed to the cat sanctuary.
But that cat looked like Mama.
Explains why it acted differently toward us than in our past experiences.
And the cat was sent off in our biggest cat carrier so now we don’t have enough for all our pets should we have to transport everyone.
So Mama did not get surgery today.
Last July, this small grey and white cat appeared in my neighbor’s yard. She was so small we thought she might be a kitten.
We tried to catch her— to no avail.
She disappeared as quickly as she came. A few mouth’s later she returned to my neighbor’s house.
But disappeared again.
Two months later, three solid grey tiny kittens appeared on her doorstep. It took about six weeks, but we trapped them.
The first was Mistofelees, now nicknamed Misty, the runt of the litter who always stayed behind when Mama and the others went out hunting.
They all lived under my neighbor’s porch.
We started feeding them, and got a trap as the December nights got colder and wetter.
Misty was terrified and for two weeks lived on our enclosed, heated sun porch.
Eventually, my daughter won his trust and he moved to her bedroom.
The second we nicknamed Smoky. Another neighbor found a home for it.
Fog was last at the end of January— he was so damn smart. We reunited him with his brother in the teen’s room and the two immediately snuggled up together.
I couldn’t bear to separate them.
Fog would not let anyone handle him, but after a while he started appreciating sitting next to a human on the couch or a good chin scratch.
Last weekend, I noticed Mama at the neighbor’s house again and she looked heavy.
I warned my neighbor.
On Tuesday, Mama walked up to the teenager and let us bring her home. She appears to be very pregnant. Someone in the next block has been feeding her.
I made a post on our neighborhood Facebook page but no one claimed her.
We bathed her, combed her, cleaned her ears and gave her expensive flea medicine.
Someone on Facebook recommended someone who has a cat rescue and can get her spayed.
We contacted that person and they can get her spayed today. We asked if we could foster her until the kittens are born as the organization finds them all good homes.
We were told yes.
A few hours later, we received a text that one of their regular foster family’s may take her.
This made us sad.
I feel like Mama wanted to have her kittens with us, because she has seen us raise her other kittens.
But I don’t have the money to get her spayed and her health assessed. Today is my last day of work and I already have too many cats.
So a new life awaits Mama.
There’s so much good activity in my life right now — I’ve been too busy to catch everyone up.
Last week the Grocery Outlet had the single serve packages of Sea Hale nut blends on sale for 69 cents.
I bought some of every flavor.
I love these snacks. This was the first time I tried the berry macaroon— very berry and very full of large pieces of coconut.
But I also love candy. And Haribo candies are some of my absolute favorite.
So these were 50 cents.
The fruity flavors is far superior than other gummy candies. They taste like a burst of sunshine.
And the shapes are very fun.
So I had a somber thought this morning about disability…
How does disability color our view of the world, security and life?
Over the weekend, my daughter and I went to visit my dad, while my neighbor shopped at my step-mom’s store (The Flag Store, Rt 209, Sciota). My daughter and Dad were spying on me from the security camera.
“You know, Mom,” the teenager said, “Your CP is a lot more noticeable on video. Because when you look at you when you are with you, it’s just that you walk a little funky. But looking from the camera it’s obvious that bodies shouldn’t do that.”
My initial thought was relief because I thought everyone saw me as I appear on video.
It’s the whole reason I refused to allow anyone to video my wedding.
And smart phones weren’t a thing back then.
So today— while pondering recent stresses in my life— I had a sober thought.
Does disability teach you to rely on others and therefore make it easier to ask for help?
That’s how I see my friend, Nan. She’s been blind since birth. She never had children. She’s outlived her whole family. Yet, she has this amazing network of friends who are also helpers. And we all love her sense of humor, her adventurous spirit and of course her practical approach to everything.
But for me, disability has intensified my insecurities to the point where I think no one, and nothing, is reliable. I know there are a lot of other factors that contribute to that in my mind, but I wonder if my disability “tightens the screws.”
Because I can’t even rely on my body.
Will it be an easy walking day? Will I trip and fall? Will my S1 joint protest? Will aches and pains plague me? (Or will my allergies make me nuts as if I don’t have enough health issues?)
Just a somber thought.
When I was a girl, our house had a fairly plain rocking chair in the living room.
As a girl, I never really thought about it.
And then, when I got pregnant with the now teenager, my friend gave me a rocking chair that was the same basic rocking chair.
I was tickled.
My mother-in-law made cushions for it to match the enchanted forest-themed nursery. (The teenager has never painted over the mural.)
Gradually, when breastfeeding and rocking a grumpy baby was no longer a thing, the rocking chair went down stairs.
The cats like it.
And as the house seems to get smaller, now the chair is on the enclosed sun porch.
Do you know how hairy this chair gets with four cats?
I finally realized today that I could remove the cushions, not just vacuum them. After all, my mother-in-law made the cushions so we could be comfortable with the baby.
The baby just turned 16.
I removed the cushions. I’ll wash the covers and maybe I’ll put them back, maybe I won’t.
The rocking chair looks good bare. More appropriate for the porch.
Sometimes we need to stop for a minute and learn to recognize when we are functioning on auto-pilot and not in response to our current environment or situation.
I am not an “extreme couponer” and I hate the whole concept of “extreme couponing.” Life experience has taught me to be frugal, but *living* life has taught me that reading 5 newspapers to get a few extra bottles of Tide raises the question of how much is my time and my happiness worth?
When stores first starting using loyalty cards, I hated the concept. I still hate cards. But customer loyalty apps are different. I already have my phone. These apps also allow me to shop and plan my shopping trips. Target Circle, like many others, combines their coupons, payment options (even when in the store), circulars, and stock all in one place. I can scan items to see if there’s a deal while in the store and, of course, they customize offers to cater to my shopping habits.
The Lidl app allows me to make a shopping list (as does Target but I like Lidl’s list organization system better) and rewards me based on how much money I spend. Last month I earned a 30% off sliced cheese coupon! So I bought extra cheese. We might be living on toasted cheese sandwiches with my upcoming job loss.
I sign up for the emails and while a lot of them get annoying, some of them alert me to major deals on my household staples.
And that is what happened with CVS. They sent me a coupon for the gallon bottle of Arizona iced tea for $1.66 cents. The teenager has a weakness for Arizona iced tea so I let her buy some as an occasional treat.
I texted her the offer, and asked her if she wanted to walk to CVS to redeem it. She declined.
CVS sent a 40% off one item coupon. I loaded it to my card because you never know when you’ll end up in CVS for a health emergency.
The teenager also loves Cinnamon Toast Crunch and had a craving for Honey Nut Cheerios. Now I view cereal as an occasional emergency snack, not as breakfast. But the teen is a convert to the cereal-to-start-the-day camp.
Now I know CVS regularly has regular cereal sales.
Yesterday they sent me a coupon. “One day only! General Mills Cereal! $1.99!”
And the photo featured Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Honey Nut Cheerios.
I texted the teenager.
She came downstairs. When I told her that I would buy both cereals, she volunteered to walk to CVS. I handed her my debit card. She refused it. “Mom, it’s $4.”
I asked her if there was anything else she needed. She said no, but she might buy iced tea. I thought, “drats. We missed that iced tea offer.” I told her she could use the 40% off coupon if the iced tea was full price.
She came home with the gallon of iced tea, the two boxes of cereal, and a bag of Doritos. I asked her how much she spent.
“$7,” she said, “but that doesn’t make sense. This is $14 worth of stuff. At least.”
Apparently I also had a snacks/drink coupon I forgot about that also saved us 85 cents.
So we talked about it, and I asked her if she was starting to get my system. She said no. Not at all.
As far as she understood, she merely said she wanted to go to CVS, I looked at the app and put coupons on, she randomly grabbed what she wanted, and told the clerk at the register to use all the coupons.
Magic.
One of the women I went to school with took her kids to Slateford Creek Falls, a place about 5-6 miles from my childhood home. I have never been there. Her pictures left me captivated.
How could something so beautiful exist so close to my former home?
Gayle joined the teenager and I for a morning walk. We did a little web research— apparently not enough.
Gayle drove and I took her on a scenic detour to my childhood home between Tuscarora Inn and Driftstone Campground in Upper Mount Bethel Township.
We arrived at the main parking lot on National Park Drive in one of the first parks that make up Delaware Water Gap.
And we knew from our research that the falls weren’t by the main parking lot but we decided to follow the main trail anyway. Maybe we thought the falls would move just for us.
We were rewarded for our adventurous spirit by seeing two very large woodpeckers with vivid red heads.
Someone gave us helpful directions that the falls were across the street and by the “pull off” between the guard rails. I remembered seeing the pull off on the way in, and I was sure it wasn’t that far.
I was wrong. We followed the road, on foot, down the steep, windy road. And we almost made it, but we weren’t sure how far it was and wasn’t sure we could walk to the falls AND make it up the hill.
Gayle offered to get the car, which didn’t make much sense because Gayle doesn’t do well on hills. Her knees have aged faster than she has.
The teenager volunteered me to go get the car. I asked if she was coming too— she said no, that I would only slow her down. Apparently, the now-16-year-old can’t keep up with me on hills. And I have cerebral palsy!
So I hauled my butt up that hill, huffing and puffing. Gayle and The Teenager almost made it, too!
I didn’t move Gayle’s seat so I was sitting on the edge barely reaching the pedals and then I couldn’t get the doors to unlock but Gayle took over and saved the day.
And when we found the trail, it was intimidatingly vertical. I’ll let Gayle’s blog entry cover the specifics of the trail:
Click here for Gayle’s blog entry .
My Photos
The teenager got to play in the falls, and Gayle and I didn’t end up on the wrong side of gravity although Gayle did bump her head on that tree.
It occurred to me— as the teenager and I gathered slate for future spiritual purposes, climbed among the rocks and fallen trees in the middle of the creek, and enjoyed the peace of the rumbling water—that this moment was full of freedom, nature and life giving resources.
The stats on this hike weren’t accurately counted. The teen got 4 miles, I got 2.5 and Gayle’s numbers were different from those. I got credit for 3 flights of stairs, Gayle got 14.
And perhaps it was no coincidence that I had received notice that I am losing my job with the full moon and “Independence Day” approaching.
With this in mind, I arrived home in time to meet up with our favorite little dog, Sobaka, who is hanging out with us while her “mom” is at a picnic.
Sobaka laid at my feet while I did some public relations work for upcoming events hosted by Aspire to Autonomy, Inc.
I am constantly blessed to work with such a wide range of people with different outlooks and different strengths. I learn something from everyone of them— admiring one person’s brilliance, another’s kind heart, and yet another’s passion and willingness for boots-on-the-ground work.
It’s a lot to think about.
Maybe I’ll get out my tarot cards tomorrow.
This is a review of the new drumstick blizzard.
But at the end of the post, there will be a bit of bad news explaining why I had said blizzard. But let’s focus on the good. Because that’s how I roll.
The teenager and I skipped breakfast and went to Dairy Queen for lunch with Nala, the Goffin’s Cockatoo.
The Drumstick Blizzard
The latest blizzard creation from Dairy Queen is the drumstick blizzard with chunks of deep fried chicken in ice cream. Just kidding.
In reality…
They crushed up bits of Drumstick ice cream cones and peanuts! So good. Very similar to a Snickers Blizzard but not as chewy. The ice cream cone pieces were crunchy and tasty.
And Nala enjoyed her French fries.
So now I have 503 reward points at DQ which is enough for a free 4 piece chicken strip basket.
What I struggle to understand is what is this super bendy straw for?
So, now the bad news… I was informed today that my last day with the non-profit agency where I work will be July 10. That’s why I had a Blizzard.
Here’s to the next chapter. I had a great time learning a lot of new skills in a field that was brand new to me. I had a lot of good experiences and made a lot of new friends and new connections. I look forward to finishing out next week with the team, and I wish the agency the best in the future.
The teenager has committed herself to her fitness goals at the same time that I have to use some serious discipline on my own behalf.
As the woman in her mid-forties with lower body cerebral palsy and a history of anemia, I have to join her.
The stress of my job has impacted my sleep and my blood pressure and the exhaustion that comes everything—from turning to various comfort eating techniques, drinking too much coffee and working too hard—leads to me not getting enough steps and not doing cardio or weight training.
That makes me look different, feel different and act different.
I like being a strong, fit woman, even if my body isn’t athletic.
My daughter informed me that she can’t work out with me. She doesn’t want her success or failure to have anything to do with anything other than herself. I respect that heartily, but I hope soon we can at least go to the gym together.
She downloaded the Instafitness app onto her phone. I purchased this app for $5 six years ago and it helped me make my body sleek and lean. I went all the way from 142 pounds to 110. That was too thin.
By the way, today I’m 142 pounds.
But why we like Instafitness— it divides workouts several ways:
Each work out ranges from 10-20 minutes so you can mix and match to build a routine.
Today I tried an arm workout on FitOn. It was a 10-minute burnout session for upper body. I liked how complete it was, but man, I was not prepared for ten minutes of non-stop high intensity dumbbell pounding.
So far, and the reality of our need to get in shape has only really hit us this week:
Angel Ackerman 