Today while out walking the pooches, Dashman and I were having trouble keeping the little angel from straining forward against her leash. At last Dashman told her. "Remember the tortiose and the hare? Slow and steady wins the race? It's not so much the slow that's important as the steady."
Upon reflection I think these words are so true concerning so many aspects of life.
P.S. Yes, I know I promised you A Tale of Two Kitties, but the computer didn't save half of what I wrote, so please be patient. It might half to come out as a two parter. :)
3/8/12
Gentlemen, Start Your Seeds
It's time to start some seeds. Here is a link to a site I found that has started me thinking that it is never too early to start seeds in the spring.
http://wintersown.org/wseo1/index.html
3/6/12
A Tale of Two Kitties
Rusty stared at the ceiling, his tail twitching irritably.
It had been three weeks since Frank and Donna had left him here in this place and he had come to the conclusion that they were not coming back. Whatever a 'nursing home' was, they must have prefered it to the comfortable little house they had shared with Rusty and Dotty.
Glancing over at Dotty's basket, he watched her black and white fur rise and fall with her steady breathing. The move had been harder on her, he realized, she was younger and couldn't remember a life before being loved by Donna. She must miss the times when she used to sit on the old lady's lap and have her ears stroked, or chasing the yarn balls that were tossed for her.
Their new human tried to be nice, but he just didn't understand that there was more to a cat's life than kibble and a litter box. Rusty missed the early mornings with Frank when the old man would pour him a saucer of cream and explain all the events he read about in the paper. Rusty would listen with his head cocked to the side and stare at him with wide green eyes whenever Frank seemed to make a good piont. Frank would laugh and call him a little diplomate, which Rusty supposed was a good thing. 
A small sigh escaped Rusty. Yes, those had been good times. They had been loved.
Suddenly, a sound caught Rusty's attention. Footsteps? Who would be walking up to the house at this time of night?
SMACK!
Rusty sprang out of his basket, trembling with surprise.
"Dotty!" he bounded over to her basket and poked his paw into her side. "Did you hear that?"
"Wha'?" she blinked her eyes blurrily.
Rusty jerked his head at the window. "Outside, I heard a noise."
"Monsters? Thug? Housebreakers?" she squeaked, her large amber eyes suddenly wide with fright. "Are they going to steal my yarn balls?"
"Why would anyone want to steal your yarnballs?" scoffed Rusty. Before she could explain he turned to walk to the kitchen window. "I'm gonna go check it out."
He padded silently out into the kitchen and sprang up on the table. Outside the world was dark, but he thought he could hear a car driving away down the street.
Walking back to the baskets he found Dotty drifting back to sleep, her yarn balls tucked protectivly between her paws.
"I thought I heard a car out there," he said.
Dotty squeezed her eyes shut and stretched her tiny pink mouth in a yawn. "You were dreaming, go back to bed."
Rusty climbed back into his basket and curled up, but he couldn't go to sleep. Something had been out there.
The next night the same thing happened.
And the next.
Each time Dotty told him he'd been dreaming, but Rusty wasn't so sure.
Finally, on the fourth night, he decided to wait up and see for himself. So, after Dotty had drifted off to sleep, he crept out of his basket and out into the kitchen.
Perching himself on the edge of the table, Rusty waited. The clock ticked softly from where it hung on the wall and the noise slowly lulled Rusty until he had nearly fallen asleep. Suddenly he jerked awake. Headlights flashed over the house as a white truck pulled up to the curb. The door of the truck opened and a young man jumped out, a flat, oblong object in his hand. The young man twirled the object carelessly as he walked up to the house, then he stopped about three yards away and flung at the door.
Smack!
Rusty's fur bristled in surprise and he crouched low, pushing his belly fur against the table. Suddenly, the young man seemed to notice him. Through the window Rusty thought he could hear the word 'kitty' coming from the stranger. Unsure of his intention, Rusty stayed low, staring at the man until he at last turned back to the white truck and drove away.
Once the truck had disappeared, Rusty jumped down from the table and padded back to the baskets. Dotty lay curled up in her basket, her yarn balls tucked safely in the curve of her body, her tail resting protectively over them. Rusty poked her gently in the side. "Dotty, wake up."
"Meep! Thieves! Cat nappers! Yarn snatchers! Heeeeelp!" she squeaked, scrambling to her paws.
"It's just me," Rusty assured her, sitting down and drawing one paw over his ears. "I just wanted to tell you that I was right, and I wasn't dreaming!"
Dotty nudged the pink yarn ball back into place beside the other two as she sniffed, "Well you should've been dreaming, it's late!"
"But there is someone out there!" insisted Rusty. "He comes up, throws something at the house, then walks away again."
"Bad luck," Dotty reached out a paw and patted his shoulder sympathetically. "Better go back to sleep and forget it."
Rusty shrugged her off and padded over to his basket. "You don't believe me."
Dotty nuzzled the blue yarn ball and held it gingerly in her paws, kneading it softly for a moment before replying sleepily, "Well, you don't believe my dreams."
"It wasn't a dream!" Rusty retorted, but Dotty had fallen back to sleep. He stared for a moment at her black and white pelt rising and falling steadily, then sighed and flipped on his back. Convincing Dotty would take time, right now he had to figure out if the strange young man was a threat, or a friend.
Part 2 coming soon!
2/29/12
My New Favorite Cheese!
P.S. It makes amazing Pizza.
2/28/12
You've heard of Superman...
Over in the valley
when the sky's dark blue
travels one little Paperboy and
occasionally two...
"Hey, Bunny, wake up!"
"Huh...?"
"Time to go."
"Right, yeah, okay, I'm up."
That is a typical 1:30 A.M. conversation for me.
Just before the new year, Dashman asked for my help with his paper route early the next morning. He was feeling a bit under the weather and was looking forward to nothing but an all-nighter, and wondered if I'd be willing to help him out.
I agreed "just this once."
At one thirty the next morning a LED flashlight shown into my room and a hand shook my shoulder. For about five seconds I was annoyed. Then I remembered, Oh yeah, papers.
Because it was a cold night and there was a substantial layer of snow on the ground we dressed in layers of warm clothes. I followed Dashman blindly out to his truck and climbed in. He stopped at a nearby Super America to pick up some coffee, to keep me awake, and a bag of Bugles "The Breakfast of Paperboys!" Then we headed out on the freeway to the paper depot.
By the time we reached the depot I was beginning to feel the effects of the caffeine and so was sufficiently awake enough to smile politely at the old couple across the table from us when Dashman introduced me. I still don't remember their name.
The paper truck arrived with the beeping of lights and the opening of doors. Immediately the depot erupted from the quiet murmurings of acquaintances greeting each other, into a screeching maze of clanging metal carts, shouting men, thudding paper bundles and pushing bodies. I stayed by our table and watched as Dashman dived fearlessly into the fray.
He emerged a few breathless minutes later with a couple bundles of papers. After looking at our eight maps, recording stops and starts and correcting the number of papers needed for each map, Dashman and I began to count the papers in the bundle to make sure we had enough. After ascertaining this fact we pulled out the slick orange bags and began bagging the papers. Dashman was faster than I and finished his stack of papers first. While I finished up he ran off to another part of the depot to pick up the eight "Dinky-Winkies" that we needed (so named because we only received eight cents for them as opposed to the typical 22). Hereafter they shall be called DW's.
After the DW's had been rubber-banded, we loaded up the cart and rushed out to the truck. Dashman loaded the buckets into the back then, while he returned the cart, I grabbed the papers we needed for map 1 and stuffed them onto the dashboard for easy access. The few extras I stowed by my feet. Dashman returned a second later and we reved up the engine and headed out onto the freeway again.
When we reach the route, Dashman likes to say that we're "On station" and has me record what time we arrive so we can compare it to the ending time and see how fast we've done the route. Then, the real fun begins.
We have often joked how fun it would be to have one of those things that people shoot T-shirts out of at baseball games to shoot the papers at houses. As we don't, we end up having a great pitch. Dashman is by far better than I am at this, but I pride myself that I have landed a few "perfect placements" as well. Not to say we haven't gotten a few bad throws as well, a couple have even landed on the roof. One memorable paper got stuck in the gutter and Dashman had to lift me up with a stray hanger to pull it out again. Another paper landed on the roof, we both said "No...YES!" as it slid back off again. And in the far off chance that one of the papers lands in the bushes, we both have trusty flashlights to help us go fishing.
Map 1 is mainly comprised on the ordinary suburban houses, most of them easy to pitch to the front door. Map 2 is all townhouses that required one of us or the other to jump out and run up a long sidewalk to reach. Map 3 is commonly referred to as "the creepy map" as they are all brown, wood-sided houses with poor lighting and the most creepy incidents. Map 4 is the shortest map with only about 6 papers, but all of them have to be pitched STRAIGHT UP to get over the townhouse stair-railing. Map 5, more townhouses, no railings, richer neighborhood. Map 6, strangely akin to map 1, but with a couple townhouses for good measure. Map 7 has ALL townhouses, STEEP driveways and NO salt on the roads! And Map 8, quite a bit like maps 1 and 6, but with more culdesacs than all the other maps put together.
Dashman has a head for numbers and can remember most of the houses that way, but I, alas, am no good at that so we have come up with a naming system for them. For instance, over the Christmas season many people had decorations up and the first house we named was "demonic drummer boy" so named because of a light up plastic version of the hero of the famous Christmas song, except this version happened to be smiling evilly at me the first time I delivered and so was named out of my fear. Other names include "the cow house" with a cow-colored mailbox cover, "Bat-cave" a cave-like driveway with a bat-shaped bow on the garage, "Red Rover" because he has a red rover in his driveway, "Ballet house" because of a little fling I have to do with my foot to get enough momentum, "Jack Sparrow" one of the few houses I have to walk across the lawn and in my efforts to make as few tracks as possible I end up using the rather erratic walk of that famous pirate, and of course "Elvis" the last house on map eight, which got it's name because I said "Elvis has left the building!" one night we were making particularly good time, and the name stuck. But the most famous by far is the "paw house" this one got it's name because it is one of the few that we are directed to place the paper inside the screen door. The first time I was to deliver, I was scared, and just as I stepped out of the truck Dashman quoted a line from the movie Cats and Dogs: the revenge of Kitty Galore, "Don't worry, I'll hold your paw!" Whatever scary thoughts I had been thinking of, his unexpected voice scared them right out of me. After realizing what had happened, I laughed all the way to the door and back.
Would my story be complete without PP? I don't think so! PP is the affectionate name we gave to the deliverer of the rival paper, named after the initials of his paper. He has a rather sloppy way of delivering, just driving past houses and randomly pitching papers at the driveways. Dashman and I live by the Paper-person code of honor, that sadly many of our compatriots have let fall by the wayside, THE PAPER MUST BE DELIVERED TO THE DOOR, unless otherwise directed. Our nightly goal is to finish the route first, but having followed the code. Sadly, we have yet to achieve this goal, but there are many more chances to win.
When our fuel tanks start running low (both in the truck and in us) we like to stop for a refill at the local PDQ station. The night lady knows us by now and is quite friendly, even letting us return a package of cold medicine one night without a receipt after we'd bought the wrong brand. She can also make fresh apple fritters that, with a bottle of Sunny-D, is a perfect pick-me-up half-way through the route.
After experiencing all this just once I was eager to go again, and gladly took up a role as a paper person. Perhaps some day another career will call my name, but until then, if you hear the smack of a paper against cement some night, you can rest assured that your friendly neighborhood Paper-person is on the job.
Signing off,
Bunny.
Tune in next week for: "The Tale of Two Kitties"
2/27/12
A Homeschooling Haven
This site is a real help to me. Maybe you can find some helpful things on it too.
http://www.donnayoung.org/index.htm
http://www.donnayoung.org/index.htm
2/16/12
A Penny for Your Puppy Thoughts
 |
| Though this is not actually her, it is almost her look. |
2/15/12
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)