Watch Out For The Mouse...the one on your desk, that is

Herbs before the heat roasted them
Jaunt through the back yard to the fence

Man alive, guess what just happened. I was writing a long blog, believe it or not, and all of a sudden my hand hits the top of the mouse and I was back over on Curtis's site. I sat here with my mouth open and not even breathing, then tried the back button. No dice. Tried EVERY button and no dice. Daggone it, I was on my 8th paragraph and typing my fingers off and then lost it all. Now my brain has forgotten what all the topics were.

I remember the first one: I was saying how perfectly THRILLED I was to see that Toodie, Curtis, and Beth had found me and that Sue had meandered over from Toodie's, too! Oh, wow, Lisa found me, too --that's so good and this has made me so happy. Actually starts a little fire under my behind to not become m.i.a. again. And Beth, thank you for your words, sweetie. I know you get it. Moving on is the key word, it's just hard to do. I'm not feeling sorry for myself, it's the thing of being the last of a family. Gosh, it's such a final type feeling and really, I don't like it. But hey, it's sure better than last year at this time when Mom first became so sick and it was such a shock to all of us. So yes, I guess I have moved on to a certain extent since the crying isn't all day every day as it was before. Better days will be ahead.

The heat here is still either at or making records. To open the door to reach for the mail takes your breath away. No one is out and about now. Darn shame, too, since I have 11 bottles of wine just waving their little wine bottle necks and calling out for what else: Happy Hour. Here's the great part of a "moving on" thing that's happened here. MY porch has become the gathering spot for all the neighbors. It's so funny -- we've had a bunch of power failures because of the heat and storms, but once the lights are out, the neighbors from all the way down the street are right here. The last outage had 22 neighbors on my porch, some with wine, some with harder, some with just water, but everyone talking up a storm (pardon the pun) and having the best time. They stayed until 1 in the morning! It's not just outages that brings them around, although that's when it's in droves, it's regular days, too. The phone rings and it's like each neighbor calls the next and tries to round up a happy hour...and it ends up here. I love it :D.
I have the most caring, fun, and wonderful neighbors anyone could ever hope for and each day give very verbal thanks for that. Without them, I don't think I would have done very well for this past year. And do you know what? That includes Bob (Mom's Bob). He's only 8 houses down and he's here with all the rest, too! Super good, yessirree.

Back to the heat for a minute. Flowers and baby bushes all dead now, but it's that way for everyone. Boy, everyone sure poured a lot of money into plants this year. Well, there's always next year. What I feel terrible for is the wildlife. It started 30 yrs ago with one small family of chipmuncks in a stump in my backyard. Babies came, then more babies.....then they took over the world. The thing was, they recognized Mom and they recognized me, so they made a permanent home in the stump. Generation after generation in that old stump. Well, I found out what they all did when they couldn't come up to ground level over the winter due to the 2 ft of snow and ice. They burrowed from the stump to the garage and then did what every living thing does when they can't get out and socialize -- they mate. Now my backyard has well over 100 chipmunck holes and will probably sink in the next decade or 2. I don't care. I love the muncks. They see me come out onto the back porch with a little dried corn and seeds and some water in a dish and they run right over. What a trip to watch them stuff their little mouths til they are twice their size and run back to their burrow to store their goodies; then back for more. I put up birdfeeders, too, and had a slew of goldfinches and bluebirds, along with the regular house finches, cardinals, wrens, etc. It's been so much fun but I'm going broke on seeds -- one kind for colorful birds and one kind for regular and larger birds. Funny that the squirrels don't differentiate at all. Gluttons, all of them. So what did I do? Put out corn for them, too, in a different container. Worked great til the plate was empty and then they went back to stealing all the rest.

I went outside a couple weeks ago and found some fluffy feathers. Oh no. Then I saw even more. Had to be a cat. The next morning, I got up extra early and checked the window. There it was, a black and white cat just waiting at one of the munck's holes. All of a sudden I saw him go into a crouching postion and I never moved so fast in my life: I was down the steps, through the house, out the back door, and bellowing like a wild woman and chasing that cat all the way to the back of the yard and over the fence. Not too shabby, right? That's what I thought, too, until I realized I had nothing on. I stood in the bushes until I got the nerve to make a break for it and flew back to the house at record speed and trying to cover every part of me at the same time. I think I made it intact. At least, IF anyone saw that, they were polite enough never to mention it. Damn cat.
The next day, there was a yellow cat. But this time I was dressed and chased that one away, too, but I got so worried about the muncks and the birds that I took down the feeders for the time being. So far it's worked: no birds, no cats. But this weather, ugh; I put out water in different places and hope it helps. But the seed and the rest will have to wait.

Lol, it is now almost 5pm and I am telling you the truth when I say the phone just rang. Yep, it's the first neighbor and she said, "Hey, want to do Happy Hour?" You betcha. See you soon!