And He Crowed With Anticipation ~~

Oh, how I wish I could have made a video of this! Happy and his hover of crows had a real game going this morning and here’s how it went:

Happy was calming walking down my driveway towards the street. “Oh, nooo”, I thought, as I’m always worried about cars. But he always stops, looks both ways, and then crosses when it’s safe and heads through the neighbor’s backyard.  It was the same today, except….all of a sudden 4 crows landed in the street!  Happy froze because they were almost as big as he is and he’d never seen something that big fly.  “Is this a sign?”, he thought; “Can I fly?”  The crows walked back and forth, heckling him and moving ever closer still.  Happy was transfixed but then crouched down to the belly-run position. He ran at the first one but lo and behold, the first one shot straight up into the air! Happy’s head did a double take and looked up and his mouth was actually open in disbelief!  Then he looked back and there they were, 4 crows in 4 corners and he was in the middle, uh oh.  Trapped like a rat…ummm, cat.  They started to close in, cawing out insults to him and he was swinging his head to every corner.  He crouched again and decided to make the lunge.  Mistake. They lunged first, never touched him, but he started yelling like he was being killed as he leapt/FLEW 3 feet into the air. Never touched him!  They backed up, still in a square with Happy still in the middle.  His eyes were WIDE and his mouth was open as if to say, “Holy Sh*t”.  He crouched again, but this time he took a breath and ran like the devil himself was after him and tore back across the street, down the driveway, to the backyard, up the back porch, and jumped into a blanket-covered chair and sunk himself into the covers with only his eyes looking over the chair arms.

I felt like I was watching a movie in production and I ran from window to window so as not to miss even a second.  It was all I could do to not howl with laughter but I didn’t want to interrupt a moment of this.  Poor Happy, put down by crows.  I think this was the beginning and end of his crow hunting days.

Tonight will be 12 degrees and I’ll have him inside for sure from about 6 or 7pm on.  It won’t even hit 30 until about 1pm tomorrow and then even colder tomorrow night with low 20s for the days and right through the New Year.  These next few days will not be easy on him or me as he likes to be outside and then come in when he’s ready --- that will be about every 20 minutes, I think.  Come on Spring.

                                                                                                          

Dinwiddie Divas ~~

Crazy title, I know, but the phrase came about by my neighbor, Bev, up the street, who had a great holiday party for just the women in our neighborhood.  It was fabulous and jammed packed with women from my street and then both streets on either side.  We all had such fun that it was dubbed The Dinwiddie Divas in salute to our street name.  I’m hoping this begins a tradition!

My own tradition for this street has been going on for 9 years.  Every Christmas, I get into my little red car wearing a red cape and take gift bags to my neighbors up and down the street.  Now it’s funny because they all know who’s doing it but I still try to hide that it’s me!  Today was gift day and at one of the houses, I sneaked up to the door, cracked it open, put the bag down and softly shut the door and then rang the bell and ran like the devil.  JUST as I got into my car, she came to the door and saw me and started laughing while I was throwing my arms over my head and yelling, “You don’t seeeee meeeee!”  It’s like this every year and all of us get a good laugh but don’t you know I have the best time of all!

We’ve had a few days of 50’s and 60’s weather but chilly nights.  Now it’s heading back down again and one of the nights this week will be in the teens, brrrrr.  My newest adoptee, Happy, is now sleeping in the house at night, NOT with my other 2 cats yet, but he has the run of the kitchen (with a bed) and the run of the basement (with TWO beds, one heated), toys, and me cuddling with him for about an hour until he gets too hot and heads downstairs to his cooler bed of choice.  The thing is, I have 2 KittyTubes which I described before and he’d be just fine in either of them on the porch, but it’s the mother in me.  I hate the idea of him even ‘maybe’ getting chilly and so now he’s already waiting at the door to come inside to his winter home of kitchen/basement living.  As I type this, he’s been in his bed for 30 minutes and tomorrow morning I’ll actually have to wake him up for breakfast.  He’s such a love.  Am I pretty eaten up with this guy?  Oh, yeah.

                                                                                       

Well, folks, obviously I didn’t have a ton of news and was really mostly rambling out thoughts of the day, but just in case I don’t post until after Christmas, know that I am SO glad to be back, SO glad to see YOU, and SO happy that with a little time, patience and work, we’ll get a great crew going again.  Until then, Merry, MERRY Christmas to each of you and I say that with a huge smile and open arms that are hugging us all together.  XOXOXO

                                                                                      

To Toodie, in reply……….

Toodie, try what I did: see if logging into the old blog works with your OLD email address, as in prior to gmail.  I log in with my old verizon and that gets me 'in', but I still can't post replies on this page.  I have to end up doing a whole other post just to even say thanks, sheesh.  Anyway, try it with your old email.

As you can see, I had to make an actual post to reply to you.  I swear, I used to love blogger and now….well, I don’t know.

MERRY CHRISTMAS to YOU, MY GOOD FRIEND!  Sending love to you! XOXOXO

PS/ Just tried and I can't leave a comment on your twiddeldee page, either

Lordy, Lordy…here are my replies to my last post ~~

I have NO idea why I can't post comments on my own page.  I've tried everything I can think of and in fact this happened the other day with Sally (Whispering Hope) and I had to go to her page to post from my own. Guess I'll have to get used to doing a post of a reply of a post.

_________________

To Sally:  WOW, Sally, what a story! I know what you mean by standing up for yourself -- it is not easy and it took me years to be able to muster the courage to do it.  Still, you know that lump of fear in the throat, the sweaty palms, the beating out of your chest heart, whew, not easy at all.  But look at you now! Fabulous through and through and I can't tell you how many people have been honestly inspired by you over the years, myself included.
Side note here:  I can't believe how grown up Hunter is! She was just a little kid a blink ago.  Ever notice how your own daughter, grandkids, and greatgrands have all taken after your beauty?  Gimme those genes!   xoxoxo

_________________

To Toodie:  What a surprise that call was!  I was dancing for the rest of the night and I'm so glad we're keeping in touch.  It was Christmas-Come-Early! xoxoxo

_________________

To Sue:  HI!!!  Have thought of you so often, you can't imagine. There was a little 'blip' in my life and you had said to be very careful and I insisted I was. PFFT! Ended up awful and now I look back and wonder what on earth did I ever see in that person.  I must have lost my mind, but I did some great poetry then, haha.  Problem was...get this....right after I said don't ever, ever contact me again, ransomware hit me and wiped out 24 poems (one being the best I ever did in my life, darn it) and my piddlin' book.  I've been rewriting it and changing a wholeeeeee lot and one day I might actually finish it, we'll see.  Man, what an ordeal.  Let's say I broke down and bought Carbonite for backup.  I'd backed up on an external but they got that, too.  Best laid plans....   xoxoxo

_________________

To Dianne:  I am so glad to see you! Start blogging again, Dianne; come on, do it.  If I can drag my sorry hiney to the keyboard from time to time, so can you (not that yours is sorry). Besides, I want to hear about Timmy!  How's your furniture with those claws? I ask because now I'm a convert to SureFit Slipcovers, haha. xoxoxo

                        *******************************************************************************

It seems everyone, or most, dropped blogging in favor of facebook, ick.  I'm just not a fan and I doubt I ever go back to it. I miss the REAL part of everyone and that was only in our blogging.  Look how many folks we all met over the years and years and sure, it may have only been in typed words, but no one can tell me that we didn't get to know each other --- almost like we were all neighbors.  We laughed together, we cried together, we worried for each other and we celebrated all the wins.  A better support group there never was.  We need to drag them all back into the fold, even if it's only a once a week post, that's fine, too. I'm holding up a virtual sign, Come On Back, ya hear?

I wish we were all right next door, but this is the next best thing, and hear this: We are all sisters of our collective souls.  

                                                                                   

                                                                                                        XOXOXO

The snow is still on the ground and so are my patio table umbrellas, ugh. It's been a crazy few days, I tell you. First, the weather said snow, snow, snow, and then 2 days later they said it would miss us. Listen, I love snow and use it to give myself excuses to do nothing, but this year is different. In Oct. this skinny, forlorn cat showed up in my backyard. Being the bleeding heart for animals I am, I called to him and he came running. Hungry! I fed him, and fed him, and wondered just how much a cat could put away -- he'd now eaten 2 big cans of Little Friskies -- and so gave him dried food, too, and that was gobbled up in no time flat. Then he climbed into my lap and fell asleep. The next day, he was still there and so I started posting flyers and making calls and still feeding him. The next day, the owners were found and I was thrilled! He was such a sweetheart of a cat that I was sure he had a home that missed him. Well, he had a home all right but it was right on the highway and as they began telling me how much they'd missed him, they also said, without missing a breath, "But you can have him if you want him." WHAT?? Who says that about their pet?? I was positive I was hearing things and so we bundled him up in my carrier and they took him home. The next day he was back in my yard. I called them and they said they thought it was because their other 2 cats beat the living daylights out of him every day. Omg, no wonder he ran away. So here's this sweet cat in my yard again and they said they were coming (again) to get him. I was not feeling good about it at all, but they didn't show up. A week went by and guilt set in that I was sort of kidnapping this cat and so I bundled him up and took him to his house. I drove home and there he was -- he'd beat me to my own home and was waiting in the driveway. I wrote a letter to the 'owners' and said what happened and this time there was no mistake, they said, "Good. He seems to be happier there". No emotion. I said I was keeping him. It seems that other cat of theirs, the ringleader of bullies, is named Ammo (God, who names their pet a violent name like that), and so they'd named 'my' cat Chamo which stood for camouflage since he'd try to hide from the bullie. It took me 2 days of calling him by a new name, only 2, and he got it. His name is now Happy. Now Happy is not fond of other cats but I understand why. I still have my Sam & Lucy inside and they are now going on 13 and 14. Happy is 2.5. Sam doesn't like other cats and so this is not exactly a match made in Heaven. I'm not giving up but this co-mingling is going to take a long, long and patient time. In the meantime, he can't come inside and in fact doesn't want to because he knows they're there. It's ok. I spent $250 on a double insulated (rated at R20), heated cat house with extra heating pads, squooshy bedding, a rewired back porch to make sure it's always heated, an entrance where nothing can get to him, and he loves it. He also loves the 2 litter boxes so his toes don't get cold in the yard/snow, the abundance of toys that he plays with all the time, breakfast, lunch, and dinner with snacks no less, AND my winter fur coat in one of the chairs in case he wants to lounge (and he does). He's got it made. But back to the beginning of this post -- after all this he has and can't possibly get cold, I still worry because we got a ton of snow for 2 straight days. So much that I forgot to take down the patio table umbrellas and it broke the metal poles in half and almost shattered one of the glass tables. And Happy? Well, he sauntered down the steps, looped his tail in play, and ran all over the backyard in the snow; leaping, skidding, running, and having a ball as he ran back to the porch, through the boxwoods and the snow plummeted onto his head. He didn't care. I swear he laughed.

Later, JennyD XOXOXO

Test, just a test ....

I haven't been able to access this old blog of mine for a few years now and have had a terrible time trying to post on anyone else's as well. Today I'm trying sort of a backdoor process to see if it will take a post or not. Interestingly, after researching for so long that I can't even count anymore, I first tried my old email address that I never use --- bingo, it signed me in to my blog. Then I tried to change my info to my new email address so it would be a LOT easier for me. Nope. Won't take and you know what it says? You can't use a gmail for a blogger. Don't they realize that the majority use gmail these days? Who's up there twiddlin' thumbs?? Oh well, it won't help to rant. Just trying a post, that's all. I miss blogging and honestly, I do not like FB and haven't posted on that for a year and 3 months. The only plus I see to keeping my FB is to know if someone has died or not. I loved blogger. I loved knowing what people were actually doing and actually 'thought' about things. Ok, ok, if I keep typing, it will be a book. Let me see if this posts, that's all I want to know. If it does, I'll be back...but I might be all by myself. (I need to ck my cat blog, too; oh lordy) XOXOXO