Boys boys boys

Greetings all.  It is bright and sunny out there and colder than a witches tit as my Grandma Gwen used to say.  I, however, am snug as a bug with a new rug…in the living room.  It’s funny how getting a few throw pillows and a giant shag rug can make a gal feel these days.  I’m almost inspired to continue working on the house, but I’ve got a hot coffee (prego decaf…mostly) and something important I wanted to share with everyone.

I am so very lucky to have the men in my life I love so much!  Of course there is Steve, but there are the other residents in our household that deserve a mention.  But, a little background first.  Growing up outside Hastings, NE at the old Naval Ammunition Depot (if you don’t know what that is google it, I can field questions another time) allowed my family to have all kinds of animals. Dogs, goats, a sheep, rabbits, gerbils, a hamster, chickens, turkeys, geese, a pot bellied pig, raccoons, an opossum, and an ungodly amount of cats to mention a few.  I should also mention that most of these animals met untimely demises that ranged from wrong place wrong time as in the Iroc Z-28 tragedy to inclement weather – tornadoes, freezing temps, or even, in the case of Opie the opossum – the heat of summer.  For now I’ll spare those tales,  I hate to admit though that along side of each tragedy is a pretty funny story.

As a child I dreamed of becoming a veterinarian and if that had actually come to pass I believe the animal population would be in peril.  Anyway, after striking out on my own I tried having cats, there was Mack “Attack” who I had in college, he went feral.  He’d literally hide and wait for an unsuspecting person to walk by and he’d strike, or latch on really.  Thank goodness the puncture wounds on my legs have faded with time. I finally released him at the Navy Base to be free and the last time I saw him he appeared to have grown a mane and was twice the size of a normal gray and black tabby.  Then there was a quaint little kitty named Ben I got when I lived in Nashville.  He disappeared the evening of July 4th, 1998 and I was heart broken and swore off pets…for the meantime anyway.

That’s when the nightmares started.  Cat nightmares.  Vivid and horrible ones.  One dream in particular was the re-occurring dream of kittens and a swimming pool.  It was the indoor swimming pool I grew up with and kittens would  be walking on the sidewalk around the pool and randomly fall in.  If I was on the shallow side saving a kitten more would be falling in the deep end and I couldn’t save them all.  These dreams plagued me almost nightly.

In 2001 I was living in Omaha and my Sista had come to visit me.  I told her about my cat nightmares.  Her remedy was…to get a cat.  It was a Sunday and we looked in the phone book, first the humane society – but their process was not conducive to the immediate need of cat.  Then, like fate there was a cat store aptly called Charlie’s Angels Pet Store.  This was important because my Sista LOVED Charlie’s Angels, even had their dolls growing up!  Me being six years her junior chewed the Angels feet off however…anyway, we decided that was the place.  We called and they said there was a few cats for sale.

Wasting no time we went to the pet shop.  I gravitated to this scared half grown gray shaggy cat hiding in it’s litter box.  I felt sorry for it.  Sista gravitated to  this little gray and black fur ball lying on its back sticking its paw out that she held onto and cooed and awed and persisted we should get that one.  I relented because, well quite honestly, she was buying.  When the clerk came over and took the little fur ball out of the cage, it split in two.  Indeed another fur ball was lying underneath.  My sista and I looked at that second kitten in disbelief and both of us felt the pang of separation.

We went back to my apartment with precious cargo, both of them.  Two half Persian half Maine Coon brothers that were born on Halloween.  We deliberated their names with beers in hand thinking that Miller and Falstaff were contenders.  I kept the name Miller in honor of my Sista’s suggestion and named the other Potter.  I consider them tradesmen, Potter and Miller.

Halloween 2011 will be their tenth birthday.  Potter and Miller have traveled and moved with me and have remained alive for almost a decade.  Amazing.

Here is a video that I took a few years back of the boys watching a little tube.

Around three years ago I was driving home from work and a kitten was impeding traffic, on a back road.  This lady driving a pickup truck was afraid to go because this kitten kept running around her truck.  I opened my door to get out and get the kitten out of the way, but before I could get out the little thing jumped in my car.  And before I knew it I was driving it home!  I called the farm houses around that stretch of road and no one claimed it.  I named the kitten William.

I had full intention of finding it a good home.  But my Great Aunt Shirley fed me the greatest guilt trip only she could artfully provide.  She said that William chose me and it was down right cruel to give him away, just cruel!  And she tisked me.  I felt like dirt for even thinking about giving him away.

William is a crazy curtain climbing biting clawing love bug.  He has calmed down a little bit now and he literally loves Steve.  I mean LOVES!  He’ll crawl on Steve’s chest and stretch his little cat arms wide and hug him – seriously!  He tattles on the the other animals if an “accident” has happened, too.  Quite a personality for sure.

And who can forget Brian, Steve’s dog.  I know there are many stories about Brian and coming second hand from me wouldn’t do them justice.  But he is a good dog, a little on the naughty side, but good as he can be.

Yep, a house full of boys and I love’em all.  If this baby is a boy he’ll be in good company.