C.C.PoleCat 

...and one makes 22

The dogs were making an awful ruckus out back so I peeked out the bathroom window to see what all the fuss was about. They'd treed (on the power pole) a squirrel - with white feet. Ok it was a kitten. It didn't take me too much longer to figure that out. We got the ladder, kept the dogs at bay and played fireman and rescued the little kitty. She's about two months old and apparently she is the chirping noise I heard all morning and could never figure out where it was coming from.
Pole Cat is snuggled up with Leirin as I type and Jake is sitting on the ladder in front of the bookshelves lobbying for the name Cuddles (ack).

UPDATE: After much deliberation a compromise has been reached. Jake finally relented and agreed to C.C. PoleCat. We're calling her Cutter. (Yes, the other C stands for Cuddles)

Now this is funny

This, That, and The Other

This evening I started working on the front porch. Fall absolutely can not come without my porch swing, so today I bought the stuff I needed to hang it. I also found some cute lanterns to hang all around the porch. There are 5 of them, in an aged copper finish. They hang just above the porch railing at close enough to evenly spaced intervals from small sections of a pretty decorative-type chain. The corner of the porch now holds my four foot long set of wind chimes. Naturally, we haven't had a hint of a breeze yet, but I hold out hope for one in the night.

I've got a novel idea. A good one I think. I have title, a summary, character outlines, goal, motivation and conflict worked out and 738 words of chapter one thanks to today's visit to the library. I think that's pretty good considering 738 is exactly the number of times the kids interrupted me to help them find a book. Don't they teach them how to use a library in school?

And from Jake...did you know that an all-tile bathroom makes farts sound even louder?
Who'da thunk it?

Man Discovers Fire

Doug has a cooler full of shrimp. A cooler FULL of shrimp bought fresh off the docks yesterday morning and driven straight here.
So, you might ask, what does a man that owns a restaurant do with a cooler full of fresh shrimp?
Why, he calls my poppie with an invitation to a Sunday Eat All Kinds of Shrimp All Day Long Event, that’s what he does.
Doug just loves to cook for Pop. My dad is the only person Doug knows that loves to eat just as much as Doug loves to cook it. Pop’s generous with the praise too, and Doug likes that almost as much as he likes to cook for Pop. After all, it was Pop that said he’d marry Doug if I should happen to turn him down. There’s a bond that only men with The Belly can understand.
Doug especially likes that Pop will come and eat with him all the things I consider icky. Leg of lamb, seafood, and all those delicacies I can’t manage to develop a taste for, he can get a healthy portion or two together and it’s cause for a great big old eat fest.
Pop’s a closet chef himself and he hovers around Doug discussing the latest episodes of Emeril and other Food TV greats while exchanging information on their latest recipe experiments. It’s like boys night out only without the out part (unless they cook on the grill, that is). They’re quite a pair.
So today the theme is shrimp. Shrimp cooked all kinds of ways, all day long. It was like having our very own Bubba. And being the lucky day that it is for those smelly-food-loving-men, Paula made a Fiery Cajun Shrimp meal that had Doug chomping at the bit to try.
One of Doug’s goals in life is to make a meal hot enough to do for Poppie. Not spicy. HOT. Pop has a tolerance for heat that’s pretty amazing. Actually, my whole family does, so I’ve often wondered if it’s an inherited trait. People in my family will save a portion of particularly hot peppers and offer a bite to anybody and everybody that comes into the house for a visit. My uncle is particularly fond of sharing in this manner. He’ll greet you with the customary pleasantries but it’s only a matter of moments before he heads to the fridge and comes out holding something delicately wrapped in a napkin and tucked inside a sandwich baggie for safe keeping.
“You want to taste something hot?” he says, eyes wide with that mad scientist look. “Try a bite of this one here.”
He unwraps the napkin tenderly, careful not to touch the fiery hotness of the prized pepper (usually cayenne) inside.
“I had some the other night with a plate of pintos and whooo weee, I had to save some of it for you.”
He’s just about ready to break into a giggle at this point.
“It’s a real butt burner, that one.”
Of course, Pop is always willing to give it a try. He stands calmly while my uncle rubs his hands together in sheer delight while waiting for him to burst into flames, but Pop usually takes another bite and says “Yeah, that’s pretty warm.”
No sweating bullets, no itchy ears, no hiccups. Nothing.
So it’s become a mission of Doug’s to make the kind of hot that Pop would call hot. When we were in New Orleans, Doug shopped hot sauce in every store we went to. He carefully read each bottle, considered seriously spending the $23.00 on the bottle that came with a mini fire-extinguisher attached, and paid careful attention to what choices were laid out at restaurant. It’s serious business, this hot sauce stuff. He settled for Dave’s Insanity Sauce.
The label reads: A great cooking ingredient for sauces, soups, and stews. Also, strips waxed floors and removes driveway grease stains. Enjoy!
WARNING Use this product one drop at a time. Keep away from eyes, pets, and children. Not for people with heart/respiratory problems.

So they sat down with Paula's Fiery Cajun Shrimp and Dave’s Insanity Sauce. The first thing I hear from the kitchen is a lot of manly whooping as Doug’s first taste gave him the hiccups. Pop was sweating the proverbial bullets and I laughed myself near to death.
Doug says he may have the cure for balding. Hours later his scalp still tingles. Pop thinks he might regain feeling in the upper part of his body sometime within the next couple of hours. Doug is pleased as can be that Pop used more napkins to wipe sweat from his face than butter from his fingers. They’ve both just woke up from their naps (yes I checked to make sure it hadn’t given either of them heart failure) and are beginning preparations for round two.

Now, I like it hot, but not that hot. I think I’ll pass.

After

Jake and Emily had their adenoids removed yesterday. Jake’s doing just dandy – he ate about a case of yogurt and Popsicles and had two hot dogs for dinner. It’s like he’s not had a thing done. He was very sick right after his surgery, but once it passed he was doing just fine. Em, on the other hand, is having a rough time of it. She did well in the recovery room, but she was drowsy for most of the night and is in a lot of pain from her throat and a headache. The doctor said it could be either from the anesthesia, the adenoid removal, or the deep incision into the muscle of her neck he had to make to remove a mole that looked suspicious. Emily has a problem with abnormal moles.
It was a very stressful day for me. It’s so hard to turn them completely over to someone else, to know that whatever may go wrong, you’ll not know about it until it’s done, and there will be nothing you can do even then. It’s a level of surrender that ties my stomach in knots and stays with me for a long time afterwards. Jake went in with no problem but by the time they came for Emily, she had waited long enough to get nervous. She cried and she begged me not to make her go. She couldn’t do it, she said, she was too afraid. It takes a different kind of strength to listen to the pleading and not fall apart or give in. I don’t know where the strength comes from but thank goodness it does. It gets me through until the end, pretty much holding as steady as I need to be. I can’t let myself experience the fear of ‘what if’ until I see the results before me, when I know the answer to all of them. I don’t know if it’s easier or more difficult that way but it keeps me from falling apart while it’s happening, when it’s the strong me that my kids need. It’s the best I can be, I suppose. I’m just glad it’s over.

This was taken outside my new mother-in-law's house. What a beautiful street to live on. The entire area (Moss Point) was filled with gigantic old Oak trees like this, their limbs outstretched holding gently to the dangling, lacy moss.  

A long weekend

We left early Thursday morning for the more than five hundred mile drive that would take us to Mississippi for my Father-in-Law's wedding. It's been a long and wonderful, though far from relaxing weekend.

I’ve stood on the bank of the Mighty Mississippi. I’ve eyed the wares of Marie Laveau’s VooDoo Shop, and bought a Mardi Gras mask to hang in the library which will go a long way to making me look more “well-traveled” (I hope).

Yes, the weekend was all about going to Mississippi to attend my Father-in-law’s wedding.
But the weekend was all about the day we spent in New Orleans.

Driving in to town on Toulouse, I was decidedly disappointed – it felt kind of like being stuck in a box – such narrow streets. And all those people!
It must have been because the windows were rolled up, or maybe the car deflected the electro-magnetic energy field or some such bull, I’m not sure. All I know is that from the moment I opened the door of the car, I was caught up in the energy of the town. It wrapped around us, pulling us to the heart of it, which for us (with three kids in tow) turned out to be Danny O’Flaherty’s Irish Pub (a great place to rest, nice, friendly staff, and the world’s coldest beer – or maybe I had the world’s most severe thirst, I don’t know). They welcomed children, had an incredible Irish harpist with a beautiful voice, and a top-notch air-contitioning system, and they didn't care how many times we came in just to rest and cool off a bit.
Who knew it was possible for the city to get even hotter once the sun went down?
Not I, said the cat.

I’ve heard people talk about New Orleans as if the city itself was a live entity, and now I understand why. There are those places that gently seduce you, for me it is an empty beach, a secluded wood with old knobby trees that whisper the earth’s secrets upon the wind. New Orleans pulls you roughly into a tight embrace, grabs your ass with a demanding squeeze, then ravishes you ‘til you’re breathless.

I am not normally a crowd of people person. If given the choice I’d pick a secluded cabin in the woods or on a deserted strip of beach somewhere over a happening kind of place any time. Except, I found, when it comes to New Orleans. It is, apparently, home to my alter-ego…the wild child stashed somewhere deep inside of me that has been longing for a chance to escape since the many years ago when it would have been more suitable to allow her to do so.

New Orleans has something called The Hand Grenade. The Hand Grenade is a pretender of a drink, tasting remarkably like honeydew melon and packing a wallop the size of a Mac Truck. Of course, if you’ve never had one before, you don’t find that out until you’re already finished with the drink and standing in the middle of a French perfumery sniffing the most amazing scents and trying to act grown-up enough to be deserving of one of the fine blends.
It could have been embarrassing, but I held up rather well. I was beyond caring, at any rate, thanks to the generous helpings of three kinds of rum that are purported to be included in the drink. Two of those and anybody’s toast, let me tell you.
I settled on the lovely Sesquessence fragrance, btw.

If the entire town hums with life, Bourbon Street sings with it. Music spills from most every open doorway. People peddle mixed drinks on the street. The police ride horses and look cool and laid-back. It was only the fact that we were too tired to walk another step, and that we had to get back in time for Miss Libby to let us into the house, lest we have to sleep in the van, that we left. Each one of us hoping that we get a chance to go back some day.