The Cat from Hell

Four days ago I decided we needed a cat. After all, my life isn't complicated enough with working full-time, moving, a retired man in the house ALL THE TIME and a 14 year old. So I visited the Humane Society which is not that far from our new home - not a good thing. Basically I can swing by after work and pick up an animal or two every week.

Ian and his friend Elias and I stopped there to just look at cats. There were at least 112 cats and I decided we should get this small, shy half grown orange one. Then the sweet volunteer ( although I have now decided she has an evil streak) convinced me I should also take her buddy home. She pointed to one cat in the cage and I was looking at another cat in the cage. So after I filled out the paperwork which included the question, "How will you discipline your new animal?" (it's a cat) the gray-haired volunteer, which as I mentioned is secretly a sociopath, and I went in to gather up our two new cats.

She handed me the small, sweet, purring kitten and then grabbed a 27 pound orange demon. I said, "That's not that cat I wanted, that's the one I wanted," and I pointed to another small, sweet, calico. "No, this is the one that is your kitten's buddy," and she shoved him, head first, into an abnormally small cage; he was growling. Not wanting to cause a ruckus at the non-profit humane society I decided that I, the brilliant animal lover/trainer/psychologist figured I could, after kindness and patience, bring this cat around.

I was wrong. This cat is the devil.

I brought him home and released him into our house. He shot out of the cage and lodged himself under the wood stove. In retrospect I probably should have started a fire in the stove.

When I reached one finger in that I had dabbed with tasty cat treats he hissed at me. When I got more tasty treats on my finger since I had dropped the dab before with fear of the cat, he clawed me. I told Mike, "I think he just needs to be left alone for the night. He'll be fine in the morning."

At two am there was a crash in the living room. I stayed in bed. He scared me.

When I woke up he was under the TV stand. I stuck my hand in without tasty treats and he clawed me. I told Mike, "He just needs to be left alone for the day. He'll be fine later."

Later I walked into the living room and he sailed out from the TV stand, crashed onto the counter, broke three cups and flew behind the fridge. He was stuck on his side with one Satan eye glowering.

I wanted to ignore the 37 pound cat stuck behind the fridge. I wanted to push the fridge in more so he was crushed. He was still growling.

We fashioned a noose and tried to slip it around his neck. I took a closet rod and poked him. He did not move. At first. Then he slipped around and started clawing his way up the back of the fridge. Mike, Ian and I ran. I peeked around the corner and saw 47 pounds of  Hell scrambling across the counter. Mike, Ian and I ran farther. From the hall we saw him once again launch himself into the corner of the wood stove. It was 10:45 pm. I wanted to go to bed but I was afraid. We were all afraid.

We got a big box. We got two large blankets. We got a two by four. Ian was in charge of poking him out so I could grab him. I had extra heavy gloves on. Ian poked, he growled and I grabbed his tail, swung him up and into the box and Mike threw two blankets onto the top. It was a plan well executed. Except that now we didn't know what to do with him.

Ian said, "Let's put him on the deck for the night and then bring him to the barn in the morning."
Good plan, Ian.

In the morning we carefully and quietly loaded him into the truck and with the two dogs ignorantly following us. we jauntily drove across the field into the barn. We backed into the barn and we all got into the back of the truck and slid the box to the edge of the tailgate. The dogs were curious and excited. Mike then took his knife and started quietly slicing the two blankets away. There was no sound. I backed up against the back window of the truck. Ian was holding my hand. The dogs were curious and excited.

Mike threw the blanket off to the side and the 57 pound cat flew off the truck. The dogs were no longer curious and excited. They were now afraid. They saw something orange flying through the air and even though they outweighed Satan by 50 pounds they ran out of the barn.

The cat scrambled up into the loft and glared down at us. Then after enough time for our hearts to slow down, the cat started cleaning himself, ignoring the peons below.

The cat, as far as I know, is still in the barn. I'm not sure since we're all afraid of actually going to the barn. We're going to give him a few days to relax - I'm sure he'll be fine after that.

Those Annoying Christmas Letters

I hate Christmas letters. You know, the ones that come tucked into Christmas cards on merrily decorated paper. I used to automatically throw them away when I opened the cards. Mike accused me of censoring the mail. I responded that I was only censoring for his own good. I am now no longer allowed to open Christmas cards.

I am tired of hearing how perfect everyone's kids are; volleyball star, straight As, prom king, state track star, volunteering for the sick, poor and blind. Every kid has their own paragraph; pity the reader if the braggart has more than two kids. Nobody's kids are like that. 

One time we received a Christmas letter from a couple with no kids - this was before I was banned from opening the cards. I was kind of excited - what could I learn? How will they entertain me? What is it like to have no kids? It was two pages, single spaced, on their house remodeling. I've never even been in their house so why are they telling me this? I heard about the "near disaster" with the toilet. The "funny" story of how her husband put the hammer through the wall. How the new tile looks in the kitchen (apparently they made the right choice between the dark gray and the light gray).

We used to get a Christmas letter from an acquaintance of ours that rhymed. She had four children, one husband and a dog. Each individual received a rhyming paragraph. I took that one to school and read it out loud in our office - all of us English teachers were practically peeing our pants on how bad her poetry was. By the way, NOTHING rhymes with orange so if that is your child's school colors and somehow you think I'm interested in that, you should lie and change the colors - you can find more words that rhyme with blue or red.

For once I'd like a Christmas letter that spoke the truth. Something like "Dear People I Never Keep in Touch With Except Once a Year, we've had a pretty good year except that Billy Bob lost his job at the pickle factory. Too much drinking on the job I guess. Sally Mae didn't make the cheerleading team this year - the school she's going to now doesn't let girls who are pregnant cheer, kind of a bummer for her but she's thinking of getting her GED anyhow, so I guess it'll all work out. Bubba got a job at the Exxon gas station - we're real proud of him, he gets discounts on Nacho and cheese and has a shirt with his name on it. Got a new hand dug well this past summer and while we were at it we went ahead and put brand new shiny skirting on our mobile. Our place is lookin' real good. I planted me some geraniums that I been raising in cans I picked up free at the dump. It adds a splash of color that gets me happy every time I pull up the blinds. We're hoping for snow this Christmas, it always makes the freezer in the yard blend in real nice. If you're ever out this way, stop by and have you some Nachos and a cold beer. Merry Christmas All!"

Now that's a Christmas letter I'd read.

Shopping Two Days Before Christmas

Usually I'm a fairly organized person when it comes to Christmas. Not because I'm a fairly organized person, but because I hate to shop - the Internet was designed for loser people like me. But this year I found myself shopping for Christmas on December 23. Not for presents (already ordered, delivered and wrapped) but for food for Christmas Eve dinner and Christmas morning. Thus I was at Fred Meyers on December 23, four in the afternoon with the other procrastinators, people with Alzheimer's and men.

If that wasn't painful enough people WERE NOT following the rules of grocery shopping. I try to give men a break, after all, not many of them understand how a grocery store works so I smile piteously at them and give them wide berth with my cart as they're on the phones with their wives/girlfriends/mother-in-laws trying to understand the difference between canned whole cranberries and canned cranberry jelly.

These are the rules of grocery shopping.

Rule Number One- you do not talk on your cell phone while grocery shopping  unless you are a man (see above). There are multiple reasons for doing this- the most obvious is that it annoys the hell out of me. Secondly, everyone can hear your conversation and unless you are the president you are not important enough to continue your inane conversation in the grocery store. Thirdly, people who talk on the phone do not pay attention to the seriousness of grocery shopping. They leave their cart in the middle of the aisle, they stop in the middle of the aisle to exclaim into their cell, "Oh my gosh, are you kidding????" and they do not know that some people are waiting patiently (not me) to get by them.

Rule Number Two- stay on the correct side of the aisle. The right side of the aisle is to go down and the left side is to go up. Do not attempt to pass unless there is plenty of passing room. Do not veer your cart to the wrong side when you finally find bagged walnuts. Do not smile stupidly when you are caught on the wrong side - you know you're on the wrong side so quit pretending you don't.

Rule Number Three- if it says 10 or less items, that's what it means. Do not act like you can't count. A two year old can count to ten. Do not try to explain that 12 bags of oranges are just one item since they are all oranges - that's not how it works and you know it. You can only go in the 10 or less aisle with more than 10 items if the checker invites you, otherwise stand in line like the rest of us and if you continue to ignore this rule, remember-God is watching.

I think if we are to all follow these three simple rules our lives will be much fulfilled and harmony will enter our souls.

And if they keep giving out wine samples at the back of the store like they were last night, our lives will also be much fulfilled and harmony will enter our souls. (On a side-note, do not send your 14 year old to get you  more samples of wine - they're kind of stickler about rules.)

Five Years and Fifty Thousand Dollars Later

The Crazy House has become crazier. We finally got the TV hooked up and the first thing I turned to was the movie with Shelly Long called "The Money Pit." Remember that one? She and her husband buy this historic home and they plan to fix it up in a few weeks and a few stops at Home Depot. But they end up pouring all their money into the house that never ends. I am afraid that this may be this house. When it comes to buying homes, Mike and I have lived by these two adages: Buy the worse house on the block, and the house doesn't matter-you can change a house, you can't change land. We are about to see if those two adages are really something we want to live by.

Mike took the toilet out of the middle of the laundry room. Now there is a piece of blue tarp duct taped to the floor; it will probably be there at least one year. Our shower, what I have NOT affectionately named "The Camp Shower," is tilted so that soap, shampoo and anything else you put on the shelf falls off. Ian's shower sinks about four inches when you stand in it because the floor is rotted out. You cannot open the freezer if you have the fridge open. You cannot get into the kitchen if the fridge is open unless you detour through the living room. We cannot figure out the complicated heating system thus we only have heat at five in the morning and ten at night. The wood stove is disconnected and sitting in the living room since our insurance wouldn't cover our house unless we got rid of it; it will probably be there at least one year. When I opened the barn door, it fell off its hinges.

But......I wash dishes in the kitchen and look directly at Smith Rock. I wake up in the morning to a view of Three Sisters. There are coyotes that talk and howl every evening. There is a small herd of Black tail deer that live in the trees in the middle of our pasture. We have a black and white barn cat that came with the property. There are a pair of doves that sit in the apple tree outside the dining room.

Overall, I do like it. It's starting to grow on me, somewhat like a wart - you keep putting duct tape on it since your science teacher told you it worked, but it doesn't so pretty soon the wart becomes a part of your body and you no longer notice it.  In other words, I will probably turn the wood stove into an accessory and the soap and shampoo will remain on the floor.

It's all good.

Moving Day

We have finally moved into what I am referring to as "The Crazy House." We walk around the house noticing aspects of it that we didn't notice before we plunked down a huge wad of cash. I see Mike staring quizzically at a wall and then he says something like, "Hmm, I wonder why they did that?" Or ," Huh, this is kind of strange."

There are seven light switches in one of the bathrooms. In the half bath right off the kitchen, which doubles as a laundry room, the toilet is set in the middle of the floor so that you cannot open the washer door all the way, or you could look as it as being able to go the bathroom and fold clothes at the same time. There are four recessed lights in the dining room but no lights in the living room. There's a switch in the guest room but so far we can't tell what it turns on. There are three doors leading into Ian's room and three different ways to enter our bedroom. There is a door off the guest room that if you're not looking, you will fall four feet off the side of the house.

A few people of been by to welcome us to the neighborhood and the most they say is "Wow, you have a lot of windows." Kurt, my student who helped us move says that "it has a lot of character."

The dogs love it. They were not interested in coming in last night, even Mona who I believe thinks she is a lap/house dog. They periodically stampeded off the deck barking wildly at something....anything. Bodie is starting to get hopeful that he will never have to go to the dog park again.

The main thing is that we're here and we didn't kill each other. Moving is stressful even on a solid thirty-year marriage. There has been a lot of eye rolling and ignoring each other the last two days. When I opened up the storage area and saw a broken vacuum cleaner I knew it was going to be a long two days. I told Kurt that a certain battered metal file cabinet was NOT to come into the house. It's in the guest room. When I asked Mike to paint the laundry room before he put the washer and dryer in, he did but only halfway up the wall. He was surprised when I questioned his painting skills. He made a trip over to the apartment last night and I asked him to bring all the food; he brought the beer.

Poor Kurt - he will probably never get married.

But we're here and that's what's great. I'll worry about the 63 boxes of books I brought and the twelve boxes labeled "Buffet" later.

Forced Family Fun

Ian has entered into the phase which Jordan fondly referred to as "Forced Family Fun." This is when, as the horrible, cruel parents that we are, force Ian to join us in family time. We are terrible. We demand that he go to museums with us or go hiking or go out lunch. Jordan's most horrendous times were spent fishing with us. Ian's most horrendous times are just about anything that entails spending time away from the skate park.

Mike and I are the kind of annoying parents that like to do things as a family. I remember many times when Jordan was the charming age of 14 that we'd go fishing and Jordan spent the entire time attempting to make our lives miserable. Mike and I learned the fine art of ignoring although I do remember one distinct moment, walking by Jordan as he half-heartedly threw rocks out into the lake next to his fishing pole and for a moment, just a moment, I wanted to push him in.

When I was growing up my grandfather would say, when he too was demanding of my precious time, "You better quit whining or I'll give you something to whine about." My mother, while taking us to a drive-in money with her hard-earned cash as a single mom would turn around in the car and yell at my sister and I "If you two don't quit your bitching, I'm dumping you both off right here and you can walk home." So you can see that the idea of Forced Family Fun is a tradition spanning multiple generations.

When Ian and I first got to Redmond, every weekend we'd do something  together; the museum, hiking, shopping in Sisters, Oregon, going to Peterson's Rock Garden and it really was fun. But this was before he had any friends. Now he wants nothing to do with Mike and I, especially on the weekends. Yesterday we went Christmas shopping for people other than Ian; he was not happy about that. We went out to lunch, we strolled through the mall, we ate candy canes and listened to Christmas music.

Ian shuffled behind us pretending he was born of the Virgin Mary and every four and a half minutes piteously said, "Can we go now?"

The irony of Forced Family Fun is that both our kids think that we enjoy it. Seriously. Do they think Mike and I want to spend time with them listening to them whine, cry, complain and whine, cry, complain some more?I would rather be riding my horse who does not talk and I know Mike would rather be watching the Denver Broncos.

Last year for Christmas, Jordan, who is now 23, asked for a fishing pole.

It's funny what our kids remember about their upbringing. I remember a lot of fun times because I think Mother Nature blocks out all those bad memories, sort of the same idea that when you get in a car crash you really don't remember it.

 I said "A fishing pole?"
"Yeah, remember when we used to go fishing all the time, that was so fun."

This is what inspires, no, forces me to make Ian spend all those horrible moments with his terrible parents - I really am doing the right thing.

The Final Chapter in Apartment Living

When we first moved into our apartment I tried to convince myself and Ian that this would be fun, this was an adventure. We've never lived in an apartment, won't this be fun? This weekend we'll finally be moving out and into our new house and all of us (and I include the dogs in this) cannot wait.

I haven't really minded the smallness of it. I can't do my Yoga because the dogs take up so much of the living room and we eat on the half of the sectional I snagged when Mike got here with the furniture since there's no place for a dining table. But that's okay, I guess.

I tell people I'm not "into stuff" but I'm starting to miss my stuff. Ian drew some graffiti on a piece of cardboard and stuck it up on the living room wall, so this is our art. I have pens and markers in a cup I bought at Goodwill so that's a kind of accessorizing. There's also a can of purple spray paint sitting on a kitchen shelf - I guess that could also be called accessorizing.

I never thought I 'd say this, but I'm starting to miss cooking, real cooking the kind that entails more than one pot (again bought at Goodwill) and a cheap WalMart frying pan. There's about 4 square feet of counter space in the kitchen and one drawer. I haven't cooked anything that needs chopping, dicing or mixing since I don't want to buy a tool that could do this since I know I already own one that's in a box.  Most of our meals have to be cooked in one pot....think Hamburger Helper with no MSG.

But this is not really the worst of it. Last month our apartment complex was evacuated because a man who robbed Ray's Supermarket, two blocks away, escaped into the complex. It was quite the excitement - police dogs, policemen running around with guns drawn and hordes of Hispanic families standing in the parking lot speaking too rapidly for me to understand.

And then this weekend, once again, our complex was evacuated. The entire complex was roped off with the scary yellow tape declaring CRIME SCENE-DO NOT ENTER, again the dogs and men dressed in frightening black holding even more frightening large weapons. Apparently a man was suspected of building a bomb in his apartment. But not to worry, as the paper stated the next day, he was not building a bomb but he was declared to be mentally unstable and taken into custody.

I talk a lot about diversity at my job. I try to convince students, faculty and staff that diversity is a good thing and we all need to embrace it. There is definitely diversity here in this complex however I think I only want to talk about it, I don't want to live near it.  I really want to live in my nice safe house and look out into the field and see my horses and pet the cats and walk the dogs. I figure this, like anything in life, will be counted toward those "character building" lessons, the ones my grandfather was always expounding about that quite frankly I was tired of, I figured I had enough character to last me a lifetime.

This weekend we will be moved and even though I will probably be living out of boxes for a year or so, I can't wait. I hope that sometime in the future I will drive by the apartments and laugh and say to Ian, "remember when we lived there, wasn't that fun?"

Lesson Number One

A few weeks ago I mentioned on my blog that if Mike can run a multi-million dollar ski area, he can learn to shake a can of Comet.

Apparently not.

Since I'm working and he's retired he has decided that he will take care of house-cleaning. I wanted to hire a housekeeper. He didn't want to spend the money. We haven't even moved in to our new house and already I'm worried.

I asked him to clean the bathrooms last week. I had to put it on his calendar. He has this large calendar that he writes everything he has to do on. If I need anything done, I have to put it on the calendar and he's already warned me not to go overboard with the daily requests.

Two days ago I asked him if he had cleaned the bathroom; I had requested it on Monday.

 He said "Yes."
I said, "Did you also clean the toilets?"
"Toilets? I have to clean the toilets?"
"Well they aren't going to clean themselves."
"I can't clean the toilets unless I have the right tools."

He went out and spent $100 on the right tools.
I could have hired a housekeeper for two weeks for $100 and she would have cleaned the entire house, not two toilets.

Last night I asked, "Did you clean the bathtub?"
"Kind of."
That meant he wiped down the side with his $5 special chamois.

So today we're having a lesson in bathroom cleaning. This is the same lesson I gave both my boys, the only difference is that they were both 14 at the time; Mike is 55.

I'm concerned that the time used to question Mike about his cleaning may not be worth it. However, instead of going ahead and doing it myself (which is my usual method of operation) I may go ahead and hire a secret housekeeper.

I doubt Mike would even notice if the house had been cleaned by the Secret Housekeeper. I mean, if he doesn't even notice the ring around the toilet bowl while he's standing over it, why would he notice if the rug had been vacuumed?

I can't wait to teach him about dust.