Finding a New Friend; and Losing Him

This is about Harley. He is our two year old (three in April or so) who came to live with us after being abandoned as a puppy, and grew, and grew, and grew. Harley is a 200+ lb. St. Bernard with a large pit bull mix brother who he can't play with (because he'll kill him) and a medium-large white and black spotted sister who does play with him, but also plays with the other dog.

Today Harley thought he had found a new playmate. He came running around from behind our old mobile homes all excited, opened his mouth and dropped a mouse on the ground. Then Harley proceeded to bounce back and forth in a playful manner while the terrified mouse ran first one way and then another. Then... so sad... one of his big front paws came down... splat!... on the mouse. And friend mouse played no more.

Harley was quite stunned, and soooooo sad. He sniffed the mouse all over, then sadly walked away, looking back a couple of times with a confused and sorrowful expression. As he sniffed his way around the yard, he kept looking back at the scene of the accident. And before coming back inside, he stopped one more time to look at the mouse, and pay his respects, sort of.

Times like these, I wish we had adopted Rosebud, a distant half-sister of Chelsea, who hung around every day when our house was being built. Then everyone could have a playmate all the time.

(FOUR DOGS??? What am I thinking???)

Eau de Chatte; or The Cat Came Back

It wasn't the cat's fault. It was partly Jack's, and mostly mine.

All the laundry gets hung or folded and put away at our house, except the last load. It gets left in the dryer, and we just pull out the specific garments we want to wear until the next laundry day when the dryer is needed again.

Last evening we rather spontaneously decided to go out for fish and chicken and left hurriedly, with Jack going out the south living room door and me exiting through the bedroom and laundry room. As I passed, I noticed the dryer door slightly ajar and reached down and closed it. Jack had gotten his khaki pants out that morning. It needs to be kept shut, I thought to myself irritably - we probably have cat hair all over our clothes.

We went to Long John Silvers, enjoyed dinner and rang the bell, then brought home leftovers to share with the dogs, who also enjoyed it.

Leana, the cat, was a no-show at bedtime. She's been roaming a lot at night lately, so with no worries, I snuggled in to enjoy my first night's sleep of Christmas break - I don't have to get up at 5:00 am again until next year.

So quite some time after 5:00 this morning, after letting the dogs out and back in, I was just sliding back under the blankets when I heard a scratching at the door. I raised my head and checked - yes, both my doggie roommates were in bed. Ah, there's Leana, I thought. As I reached for the door to let her in, the scratching came again, behind me. You guessed it at least two paragraphs ago. My cat was inside the dryer and had been trapped there for twelve hours.

Our clothes are all ruined, I sighed. One of the absolute truths of life: you can't get cat pee smell out of anything.

WRONG! It's hard to believe, but after sorting the peed-on from the not-peed-on clothes and soaking and washing both groups separately (figuring one was definitely salvageable, and what the heck, I might as well try washing the others too), ALL of them are now clean, dry, and not-smelly!

Maybe because she's just a sweet old lady cat, not a damn tomcat or a queen in heat. Maybe because I got on it really quickly, soon after it happened. Or maybe my not-so-good nose is deceiving me, and the first really warm day in the spring, I'm going to find myself downtown smelling like cat pee.

(Jack sniffed them, too, and declared them cured, but I have to remember his nose has been broken twice and doesn't work that well either.)

Leana has been very purry and cuddly almost all day. Until now, ten minutes to bedtime, and I don't see her anywhere. I might have just a teeny bit of trouble falling asleep.