Food, Cats, Dogs, the Husband Person and Other Thin

Jack Sparrow

2009-11-24T16:15:00.006-05:00

If you’ve read anything in this blog, you’ll already have realized that we live with cats. For about a year, we also lived with a sparrow, named Jack Sparrow.

Jack lived in the garage and the husband person and I tried on a daily basis to shoo him out of the back door and into the wide blue yonder. The bird would fly from one corner of the garage to the other, but never out the door. He’d come close enough to the door to presumably see and smell the great outdoors but he would never quite leave. He did come close once, flying outside only to flit back inside before I could slam the door shut.

There would be days when I wouldn’t see him and would feel sorrow since I was certain he’d ended up as one of the garage cats’ snack du jour. About that time he’d flit back into the garage from the North side cat house and crap on the dryer – usually on the load of laundry I had just folded.

Not long after we acquired our two legged, twin wing, self-propelled bomber, I went into the garage to find him on the side of the cats’ food dish, scarfing down kitty kibble. As Cressida, Darth Katti, Jingle Bells (AKA Captain Ballsy since he has yet to visit the vet for …ahem…the operation) and Mr. Tibbles were also scarfing down kitty kibble, I figured that was either one soon to be dead sparrow or one really dumb sparrow. Rather bird-witted, actually.

You know how you drive by a car accident and don’t want to look, for fear you’ll see something horrid but you look anyway? That was how I watched the silly bird chomping kitty kibble. Rather than realizing his foolhardy proximity to bird chomping machines, the idiotic bird jumped down into the middle of the dish of kitty kibble.

“Oh crap.” Thought I. “That damn bird is toast.” But he wasn’t. The cats totally ignored the bird as they continued eating. Cressida even swatted Darth Katti when he came close to where the bird was eating.

I waddled at a trot back into the living room to call the husband person from his chair. Right. Remove the husband from the chair after he’s been on his size 9’s for about 12 hours straight to see what was probably a figment of my imagination? Dream on. But eventually I lured into the kitchen (quite falsely, I might add) by the lure of brownies (well, we might have brownies, or fairies, or kobolds, dwarves, leprechauns or some other critter living with us). He cast his eyeballs out onto the garage. I hissed in his ear, “Do you see the bird?”

He grunted once. That usually means “Yes” or “No” or whatever I interpret at the time. This time it meant “Yes, dear, I see the damn bird, now let me go sit back down and watch the 2,394^th showing of the same idiotic law and order program from the inside of my eyelids.”

Captain Sparrow got along with Cressida particularly well. It was not unusual to look in the cat room to see her sleeping, curled up around the bird, or the bird picking at her fur. Talk about strange bedfellows.

I had to put a shallow basin of water out at the cat/bird feeding station so the bird could bathe and not drown in the cats’ deeper water bowl. Since the bird obviously took umbrage at me invading the joint cat/bird space, he’d either crap on the clean laundry or take a bath in his basin, which usually involved a lot of splashing of water which naturally would end up all over me. After a while I learned to watch the cats. If they fled for the safety of the cat house, that generally meant Captain Sparrow was about to take a bath. I also learned how to speed fold clothing with one hand whilst flapping the other around in the air to disrupt his bombing run.

Carl and I were very careful to keep the door between the garage/cat house and the kitchen tightly closed. Despite the glasnost between cat and bird that existed in the Northern Cat House, the cats who dwell in the kitchen and other areas of the house were not so kindly disposed toward birds. I had formed this opinion based on the number of times that one of the non-bird loving cats would ram their catly heads into the windows when a bird landed on the shrubs outside. Also helping me form that opinion was the fact that one of the cats, Luna(tic), is absolute death to mice. Unlike our neighbors, we have no problems with mice, thanks to the valiant efforts of our resident rodent exterminator, Luna. A Tonkinese mix, Luna has dozens of mice, voles, moles, lizards and one particularly slow grass snake to her credit. If it has invaded the inside space, it's hers.

As the Kitchen Cat Crew never evinced a desire to explore the garage or Northern Cat House (AKA Kitty Domicile Number 2) and they did not mind the occasional visit from one of their northern neighbors, Mr. Tibbles, Darth Katti and Jingle Bells would often stroll in for a friendly visit. I suspect they also came for a bit of feline gossip and naturally informed the other cats of the bird in residence. As Sneaky Pie Brown, co-authoress of some of my favorite books once said, “Death To All Vermin!” Luna agrees, especially if the vermin has two legs and wings and tastes surprisingly of chicken. Luna adores chicken.

Unfortunately, one day I did not quite shut the garage door behind me and turned around to see the door open and Luna standing there in rodent chomping position. I screamed at her to move and tried to shut the door, but Captain Sparrow flew in. Luna had him on the floor and his neck broken in less time than a scream. Should I admit I cried or would that seem a little sappy? I guess it is, but I did cry. I also didn’t let Luna have the bird.

Before I could get a paper towel to wrap the little body in, Cressida had come into the kitchen. Cressida has never entered the kitchen before, nor has she since. She picked up the bird and returned to the cat house. I went out there to take the bird from her; after all, one does not eat one’s friends after they have outgrown their bodies. But instead of eating the bird, she was curled around him, pushing him with her nose. The little head flopped back and she curled around him even tighter. I used the paper towel to wipe my eyes.

Over the rest of the day, she’d carry him around the cat room, gently prodding him with her nose, making a little trilling sound. At the end, she carried him to the feeding station and put him down next to the bowl. Cressida looked at me, gave the bird a last push of her nose and returned to the cat house. In all her years, this was the first and only time she has made eye contact with me. She watched as I wrapped him carefully. Carl buried the little body outside Cressida’s window while she looked on.

Goodbye Captain Sparrow. She misses you still.

Death Of A Washing Machine

2009-11-24T14:12:00.001-05:00

Death of a Washing Machine
After 25 years of faithful service, our old Maytag washing machine has gone to that Great Big Appliance Store In The Sky. In our 42 years of marriage, we've had 2 washing machines, both Maytag, and the first was a used model. So off we hopped to the local appliance places to price out new washers.

HOLY CATS! Both Carl and I are frugal but believe quality gives us a lot longer service than cheaply made things. But YIKES, the prices were enough to make me think maybe continuing to do the laundry by hand wouldn't be all that bad. Of course it cost us $50 ONE WEEK to send Carl to the laundromat with sheets, towels and blankets because I am too wimpy and old to wring
them out by hand any longer soooooo....

The first time we looked, I actually had to leave the store. Talk about sticker shock, yikes. Looked online, compared prices and things and decided another Maytag would suit us, so back to the store we crept, hoping that the prices were a joke or a misprint. They were neither.

The engineer in me started looking at each machine (Carl hid the prices). For the first time in all our married life and living with Maytag, the quality just wasn't there. The agitator wobbled around and was of a rather cheap feeling plastic. The case was a good, solid, heavy steel but the guts didn't pass any of my tests. But still, it was a brand we've lived with a long time, so I dithered over my decision. I fell in love with the Electrolux front loader in cobalt blue but no way, no how, noooooo nooooooooo noooooooooooo, I cannot bring myself to spend over $1,200 for
just the washer. Nope, can't do it. For one reason, we pay cash and do not have/want/use credit cards and it would take the better part of a year to save that much up, especially with him doing $50 a week at the laundromat.

Returned home without a new washer, again. More online research narrowed my choices down to four machines. I ruled out every machine with electronic heavy control panels. They usually go out first, about three millisecond after the guarantee expires and costs the most to repair. (IMExperience) We went to the Tifton, GA Lowes as the one in our home town leaves both of us
cold. The people at the Tifton store are great to work with and know what they are selling. If they don't have an answer, they will do everything they can to get the answer for us right then - even if all I am buying is a filter for the room ac. They also do not act as if they are doing us a huge favor by helping us or answering a question (which they never know the answer of.) One fellow in the paint department of the Albany store even refused to let us have the color of paint we wanted to do the house in - I guess he was the self-appointed Paint Police.

The young man in the appliance department steered me away from the really expensive units and told me exactly why he wouldn't feel good about selling us those. He also didn't talk down to me, which I really appreciated since most people selling tech stuff or appliances see an old lady and not someone who might actually know a little something about the advanced mechanics of washing machines, house construction and such. I narrowed my choices down to two units - both
GE, which shocked me because our last encounter with a GE appliance was extremely negative and went with the one with the least fancy schmancy controls, a huge 4.1 cubic foot stainless steel basket and no agitator. It even came with the hoses. (Cheapy plastic which we changed out before installation. ) It was $498, which was $200 less than was in the appliance budget, so I bought the new coffee grinder I've been lusting for and several Christmas presents, including a bright red, 6 quart crock pot.

Since there is precious little my husband cannot do, we carried it home and he had the old one out and the new washer in, hooked up and ready to go in about 30 minutes. It would have been shorter had the old washer not been full of frankly skanky nasty water that he had to bail out in order to move. I was absolutely no help since the smell made me sick and my stomach decided
I had to leave the room.

On super size, I was able to do 7 towels and 2 sets of queen size flannel sheets in ONE WASH. This washer takes a lot less water and electricity. Carl was out front looking at the water meter and I was watching the electric meter. It still has a few too many choices for my preference, but the manual controls are a lot more robust than electronic ones, IMExperience. It even did both of our large pillows without having indigestion or trying to walk across the floor. The pillows took under 40 minutes to dry, so I love the extra spin" cycle. But honestly, someone explain to me why I should actually want or use 23 wash settings? Good grief. Give me warm water wash, cold rinse, super heavy load, extra rinse and extra spin - keep all the other crap. Silk setting? They're kidding, right?

I suspect there is a Cosmic Law that states if one thing in the house dies, at least one other thing has to go kaput, and that happened here as well. I have a bit over one TB (terabyte) total of data on my 6 internal, one external drives in my computer. When I heard that dread noise which I know means a drive is on its last legs, I was not happy. Naturally it had to be the drive with the operating system on it and also naturally, since my sons had me convinced that I was crazy to have mirrored drives (which protects data well), I hadn't mirrored that drive.

DUMB. I should have listened to myself. So I started madly migrating data off of the wonky drive, but the other drives were slammed full with just a hundred or so KB of room on each. I spent hours burning DVD's filled with applications, documents and stuff, praying that the failing hard drive would hold on just a little longer. I keep my copy of Win XP pro in a lock box, (so it isn't turned into a kitty Frisbee, but couldn't find the key at first, of course. About the time Carl got back from Wal Mart with a small drive just for the OS, the drive had died with a heart-rending screeeeeeech. Didn't even get the blue screen of death, it just died.

Installed the new drive, praying that it would play nicely with the other drives, mobo, processor and RAM. Got a pulse, installed the operating system (Windows 2k pro is my preferred - tried the new thing, not impressed - too much junk) and started reinstalling dozens of programs and updates. I got to bed about 3 this morning, but everything was happy in computer land.

Made a huge pot of navy bean soup on Friday and put enough for our evening meal on Sunday in a pot, covering it with aluminum foil and the lid. Unfortunately for me, the dratted cats got the lid off and the foil didn't slow them down and they ate the whole quart of soup.

Also unfortunately it gave them gas. Ya'll really do not want to know what it is like living with two dozen farting cats. You really don't. As about ten of them insist on sleeping with us, I slept with the covers over my head One time I stuck my head out for air and to check the clock, I could swear there were mini atomic mushroom clouds all over the room. Linux ripped a
huge one and he jumped about a foot, ran around the room like a banshee was chasing him and glared at me from the top of the shelves - as if I had made him eat all that bean soup!

Other than all that, the weekend went fairly well.

Pookie

2009-11-23T16:35:00.004-05:00

Pookie, part I
When Pookie showed up on our doorstep, I was outside saying goodbye to a visitor. Pookie walked around the corner of our house, up my legs and back and curled up around my neck purring madly. She was a scrawny runt of a cat, weighing in at barely 3 pounds. Pookie was an unremarkable gray tabby without a bit of white; completely without any redeeming characteristic other than pure, unadulterated adoration of her chosen humans. Even after twelve years of good feedings, living inside, having all her shots and being spayed, she never gained an ounce and always looked frankly ratty. Others thought she was ugly. I thought she was beautiful and loved her even when those 18 hell claws were inserted into my flesh.

She was also The Cat In Charge. When I walked into the house, wearing my cat boa, she jumped down, checked out the food and water situation, scratched in the litter box and promptly whacked the current Alpha Cat, AKA She Who Hates Me. Honest, that's her name. She Who Hates Me refuses to allow any human to look at her, much less pet her and she was born here. But the Queen was deposed and Pookie In Charge.

The Alpha Dog, Ursula, was good friends with Pookie from day one. She ignored Sophy the lab and thought Gunny, the Great Dane/Pit Bull mix was hers to command. If he was eating and she wanted what he was eating, he backed away from the bowl. Once Pookie had finished eating, she graciously allowed him to finish the rest while glaring at the other cats and dogs, daring them to go near the food. When Toby the Dog was dumped here, she quickly whipped him into shape, despite his obvious dislike of cats.

Pookie had 18 Claws Of Death. Trust me on that. I have scars up and down my back from when she'd climb up me when she wanted a ride around the house. I learned quickly that if Pookie wanted me to be sensible, sit down and make her a lap, by golly I'd better sit down and make a lap right then. Otherwise I'd have to endure her crawling up me to curl around my neck and purr.

She also made certain that none of us spent too much time on the computer by jumping on the keyboard and daring anyone to remove her royal cattliness from the keyboard. Another method was to sit in front of the monitor. It didn't matter if you removed her once or 1,000 times from either the keyboard or in front of the monitor, she'd just go back to where she chose to sit until you were an intelligent human and either filled the food bowl or made a lap.

Unfortunately she was an excellent teacher so now all the other cats will do the same thing and right now Cass-Purr is in my arms, hampering my ability to type, Linus is in front of the monitor (and he's a rather large gentleman cat), Daffy Taffy is draped across one side of the monitor, Cisco is draped across the other side of the monitor, Callista (who is now 25 years old and still going on well) is on top of the monitor as are Linus (Linux's twin), Akira the First and Akira the Second (also identical twins).

The first week she lived with us, I learned to check the refrigerator several times before going to bed. I also learned to check inside the dryer...the washer...the linen closet...I swear that cat could teleport to wherever she wanted to be. It didn't matter how careful I was about restricting her access to something, that cat would find a way to get what she wanted.

I made a spinach and mushroom lasagna one night. Since there was enough for another meal, I wrapped it up and put it in the refrigerator. About an hour later, I went to get something to drink and found Pookie in the middle of the pan of lasagna, eating her fill. I tried removing her from the pan, but she latched the claws of death around the pan and around the shelf. I'd get one set of claws undone and she'd latch on even harder with the others, growling the entire time while gobbling down all the food she could - and that little cat could put the food away! In the end I ended up removing the shelf, cat, lasagna and all, and putting it on the kitchen floor. She graciously invited the other cats to join her in a midnight snack. In the morning the pan was scoured clean and ready for the dishwasher. For some odd reason, I rarely need to use steel wool soap pads for cleaning pots and pans.

That pretty much set the tone of our entire life with Pookie. To paraphrase a song in the musical "Damn Yankees", Whatever Pookie Wanted, Pookie Got.

End of part I

Halloween Decorations and The Law - Addendum

2009-10-15T11:48:00.002-04:00

Halloween Decorations and The Law - Addendum

Whilst Googling around, I found an article about some idiot - pardon me - person who hanged a vice presidential candidate in effigy. He got in trouble for that. I'm OK with him getting in trouble for that. I'm not OK with people who try to turn the innocent enjoyment of a holiday into something which it is not.

All this political correctness crap gives me hemorrhoids. I haven't put the hanging man back out because of fear that the law is going to come to my door to arrest me for racial insensitivity or anything else equally idiotic. YES, IDIOTIC.

What is next? Is it going to become illegal to put out a Halloween display of UFO's? Tombstones (made from extruded polystyrene)? Fake bones? Fake cheesecloth ghosts?

Going on from there, will it be illegal to put out a manger scene at Christmas? Ooooops, it already is. A number of local governments have gotten into deep legal dog droppings (sarcasm fully intended if it fits) because they had manger scenes or otherwise Christian looking scenes on public property. Good grief.

When is it going to be illegal to say "Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Joyous Eid" or something else connected to a religious holiday? A close friend is a teacher and she doesn't DARE put anything that even hints of religion on her classroom's bulletin board.

It might offend.

Come on, folks. Get real.

Screw it. Happy Halloween and a Joyous Samhain to all of you who care to celebrate. While it is still legal, I'm going to carve my pumpkins, drape my ghosts and put out my tombstones.

Halloween Decorations and The Law

2009-10-15T10:48:00.002-04:00

Ah sweet Halloween. You may have formed the opinion that I like Halloween. Wrong, I love Halloween. Pull up a pumpkin and hold onto your candy corn. Here's another true story about what happens when insanity - I mean passion - meets artistic tendencies - meets the local law enforcement folks.

I did mention before that son number 4 made a rather realistic hanging man one year. Well, I had to have another hanging man, so made one, coerced the husband and son number 4 into making a gibbet (what you hang people on, sort of like the guillotine cuts their heads off) so the hanging man could look more at home.

Moving right along here, the gibbet was made, the hanging man made (wearing the husband person's old boots, blue jeans and shirt stolen from son number 4, and a really unfortunately rather real looking body and head. The body was made with PVC pipe for the armature, a foam wig head for the head and the body more than realistic feeling made from foam. Hot diggity, it was great. I didn't have a clue how to do a proper hangman's noose, but son number 4 did, so eventually we had the hanging man hanging in the side yard - near the dead end, which I have always found so appropriate.

About the second night he was on display, gently rocking back and forth in the slight breeze, I had to get up about 1 AM for a glass of water. A car was out in the circle. The car had a spotlight attached to one part of its anatomy. The spotlight was shining on my hanging man.

SWEEEEEEEEEEEET, thunkest moi. I ran to the bedroom to wake the husband. "Hey, someones outside looking at the hanging man!" After a few minutes cajoling him to rise and be about the looking at my handiwork, he was up, wearing some clothing on his nether regions and with me at the kitchen window.

Hmmm...an interesting development. The car with the two men and spotlight also had a radio. Oopsie. It was some of our local law enforcement. Oh dear. The car was joined by another.

I was almost wetting my pants and holding my mouth so the officers didn't hear me laughing. Carl said "You're going to get us arrested."

The officers (in a group) approached The Hanging Man. One reached out and pushed the Hanging Man. From having made that sucker I knew that it had the weight and feel of a body, especially in the dark. Hmm....perhaps I overdid it a wee bit.

Another officer touched the Hanging Man with a finger, it rocked back and forth, it's ghostly, luminescent face facing towards them, then away and back again. Carl started muttering about it being all my fault. I started thinking about how I would handle being someones bitch in the big house and just how much time could they give me for making a realistic Halloween decoration, for heaven's sake?

One officer turned on his flashlight and shined it onto the Hanging Man's face. He gave a bark of laughter. Like kids will do when they've discovered that the ghost in the bedroom is only a curtain, the four of them pushed the hanging man around a bit before checking out the other decorations.

Carl pulled me into the dark right before the spotlight was turned on the kitchen window. Merlin, our black tuxedo (black with white bib) male was standing in the kitchen window, watching them. From experience I know how eerie a cat's eyes can be in the glow of a flashlight at night.

"Good one, Merlin." I made a mental note to give him an extra can of tuna as reward for being such a good prop cat.

Eventually they drove off, but I was later told that all the rookies were sent out that Halloween, with the radio report of "suspicious, possibly dead person hanging at blank blank road."

At least I didn't get arrested.

But the following year it was close.

I found a fantastic plaster skull which looked just like a real skull except that the jaw was not separate from the skull part. "Cool beans, " I thought as I plunked down the cash for the skull. I knew just how I wanted to use it.

A haunt has to have a witch. I think it is a law or something. Sooooooooooo I made a witch, life size of course, with nice foamy squishy body, black rags, pointy hat, warty nose and all. In front of the witch was a large cauldron. In the cauldron was an assortment of plastic, life size bones. If I could have afforded it that year, I would have put a bubble machine inside the cauldron but had to settle for a bunch of glow sticks with some fake spider webbing on top of that to diffuse the light. The skull was put on the ground near the cauldron with a bunch more bones. Hehehe. I loved it.

Unfortunately some idiots thought it was fun to dig up some real coffins in a local cemetery, taking some of the bones with them. It was all on the news and people were really quite incensed. Heck, I love Halloween and even I knew that was Not Right At All.

I went to work since I had to pay for my addiction somehow. When I got home that evening, my next door neighbor exploded out of her back door. (Not literally. I do draw the line at exploding my neighbors.) "Hey, wait a minute!" She yelled.

"Oh God, don't tell me she's going to complain about the haunt, cars, etc." I pasted a smile on my face and waited.

"The cops came by today and they were going to arrest you."

I was astonished. "DO WHAT?"

"Arrest you. They were going to arrest you for grave robbing." She grinned and since I hadn't been arrested (yet), I started to relax. My heart was still zipping along about 180 beats a minute, though. "For real. They drove by and saw the skull next to the cauldron and thought the bones were real, too. I saw them get out of the car and thought I'd better get out there."

Yeah, sure I thought, you just wanted to hear what was going on. Gossip is alive and well in Georgia.

"They were talking about how you must be the grave robber since there was the skull and everything."

"Oh sh**." My verbal skills had deserted me.

"Yeah. So after a while I picked up the skull and said 'See, it isn't real, it says Made In Taiwan."

I thought I'd still faint. "Did they say anything else?"

Finally she answered, "No, but they did check all the bones and stuff."

I made a sound of relief. She went on "Um...you don't really know anything about the grave robbing, do you?"

I just looked at her for a minute. How does one answer that? "God NO!" Good grief, I barely can get my garden double dug and planted before having to flake out for a week. No way could I have dug up several graves and taken their contents over one night. Not to mention I wouldn't. As I said before, it's just WRONG.

Carl just looked at me when I finally got into the house. He repeated what he had said the Halloween before and pretty much on a daily basis since then, "You're going to get us arrested."

But I haven't - yet.

The Bobcat, The Husband Person and The Wardrobe

2009-10-07T18:55:00.003-04:00

I've mentioned before that my dear husband person, Carl, can sleep through pretty much anything. I also should mention that any readers of the male gender will want to stop reading now. Trust me. Nana knows best.

All the fellows gone? Good. Poor loves, what I'm about to share tends to cause them pain just to read.

Once upon a time I came home to find yet another kitten had been dumped in the yard. He was a handsome gray tabby with a large, roundish face. When I took him to the vets, we were told he was part bobcat and would probably get larger.

Hoo boy I hope to shout he got larger. When he finally stopped growing he topped out at around 35 to 40 pounds and about twice the size of the other cats. Hobby was a friendly soul, though, and showered everyone with affection. He also appointed himself to be guardian angel for our grandson and would sit on the dresser near the baby, just daring anyone to come close to Jon.

At that time we had a large wardrobe next to the bed and Hobby (Hobbes Katzenheimer was his full name) and Merlin (long hair tuxedo male) used to sleep on top, jumping down to the bed, then the floor. We never thought anything of it.

Oh dear. One of the men knows where this is going. Read fast, love, I'll be brief.

So there we were, sleeping the sleep of the sleepy. The bed was just right, the covers just enough and not too much or too little. It was quiet and perfect sleeping weather. You know how that is.

The cats needed to use the box, get a drink or a nibble of kibble or just to prowl. I was marginally aware as Merlin jumped to the bed from the top of the wardrobe. He was only 8 pounds and managed to land on mattress and not human. Merlin was a very considerate cat.

Then it was Hobbes turn to jump down. I opened my eyes in time to see him scrunch down on the front end, the butt end wiggling. I curled up in a ball, pulling the blanket over my head.

He jumped. He scored. Carl screamed, holding his private parts and writhing in agony on the bed. Hobbes and Merlin scurried out of the bedroom. Morgana, Lunatic and Boo peeked into the room to see what was happening and was there anything in it for them. The boys came into the room, quickly exiting when they realized what had happened to their father. They also held their private parts in sympathy, groaning almost as loudly as their Dad.

Carl rarely snarls, but he did this time. I offered cold compresses, he refused them (in quite a churlish manner, truth be told). I offered warm compressed, he refused more loudly. (Really now, it was just a little cat for heaven's sake!) He told me to leave him alone. (Honestly, men!) All his writhing on the bed messed it up terribly. I could barely sleep for his groans. Really, they can be such ninnies at times.

That's when we moved the wardrobe into the living room and started shutting the bedroom door at night.

Some time later I drew a cartoon of The Incident. It had a large wardrobe with large cat and a man sleeping in bed in the first frame. The second frame just showed the man, eyeballs (and other balls, too) bulging out as the huge cat jumped on him, waking him from peaceful repose. The third frame had the smaller cats holding up score cards.

Carl hated that cartoon. I cannot imagine why.

Now all the male dears who have read this far should go to Google and look up something like "Man home alone with taser." It is quite amusing.

Beagle Bailey's First Halloween

2009-10-07T10:33:00.004-04:00

Beagle Bailey's First Halloween
(Heaven help me, it's all true)

After Bailey had eaten our lovely new chair, he was given severely curtailed house privileges and allowed inside only if humans were around who would be awake and therefore able to curtail his slight proclivity toward furniture eating. That didn't bother him a bit, since outside there were rabbits and squirrels for chasing and woods to run through.

He did like sitting outside with me while I was working on my papier-mâché aliens, ghosts, UFO's, demons, monsters and whatevers. Bailey was good company. He tried a bit of the papier-mâché paste but decided it wasn't to his liking, so that was good, but Bailey did think that it was fun to take the large bag of torn paper to the front yard to empty and play in. I disagreed and after picking up the paper bits (which multiplied exponentially once out of the bag) a couple dozen times (in one day), I put them in a small, clean garbage can with a tightly fitting lid.

He didn't sulk. Really, other than his little problem with furniture, he was a great dog. I miss him so much, but this isn't about loosing him, it's about what he did while with us.

The Day finally arrived and I could safely put Halloween decorations outside without the neighbors whispering about how nuts I am. See, if you put Halloween decorations outside in your yard in May, you're totally nutso. If you wait until the first day of October, you just like Halloween. Of course if you invite them inside and they see life size (death size?) toe pincher coffins (yep, I make them too), ghouls, ghosties and other frankly weird things, well, you're back in the category of "complete nutcase," but I digress.

That year's UFO was a smaller one, about three feet across. Rather than hanging it from the tree, I had made little landing gear legs for it to stand on. I was still working on the mini tableau to go with the UFO - two aliens carrying a human on board the UFO - it was just the UFO sitting under the tree.

The next morning I got up, ready and rearing to go on making the aliens and terrified human as well as hanging more ghosts and getting the rest of the several dozen tombstones into position. As I stood on the porch drinking coffee and looking over the displays, I saw Bailey under the tree chewing on something I couldn't quite identify. Then I realized with horror that he was eating the UFO.

Since this was prior to the Blessed and All Knowing Internet, I called our vet. He answered the phone "Bailey just ate my UFO!" I screamed into the phone. Doc would understand, he knew the dog and he knew me.

The voice on the other end of the phone said "What?"

I figured I hadn't enunciated it properly. I'm hearing impaired so sometimes words don't come out quite as I want. "Bailey, you remember my beagle, Bailey? He ate my UFO! Should I bring him in? Will it hurt him?"

The voice repeated what I had said back at me - a ploy I would have used with a mental patient. Starting to think rather than react, it occurred to me that the voice, though male, wasn't Doc's. "Ah, is this "Handy Dandy Sick Pets We Cure Them All" vet practice. (Name changed for Doc's protection.)

The man agreed it was. I was relieved. "Is Dr. Blank there?"

The man told me that no, Dr Deleted was out of town and he was Dr. Someone else, taking the practice for a week.

Sweet relief. I still had a vet. "Well my beagle ate my UFO sometime during the night and I'm afraid he will get sick."

He repeated it back to me again. Hmmm, did he think he had a nut case on the phone? Oh, right, he may not know about the Halloween decorations, so I explained (slowly and carefully) about how I do a large haunt, blah blah and the dog ate the blanking (deleted for the vet's sake) UFO and what was I supposed to do?

He had me go over the paste ingredients (all non toxic, thankfully) and whether or not the dog had eaten any of the metal. I had gone over the detritus in the yard and reconstructed the metal armature so I could assure the vet that the dog had not eaten any metal, just the rest of the UFO.

I was assured that the dog would be OK and probably would get rid of whatever he couldn't eat.

Vastly relieved, I thanked the vet (who was probably delighted I wouldn't be bringing the dog into the office) and let Bailey into the living room where I collapsed into my chair with another cup of fuel. (Coffee)

About then he threw up about a gallon of UFO right on the new(ish) carpet.

The Alien In The Living Room

2009-10-07T09:00:00.003-04:00

I love Halloween, no matter what it is called. When I was a kid it was the best day (night) of the year and when I got married, it was on Halloween.

Some years ago son number 4, the only one still living at home, decided to do a small Halloween decoration and hung a man from the oak tree in the front yard. I thought that was neat, so did a scarecrow sitting in a chair holding a pumpkin. As he inherited my insane gene....I mean since he inherited my Halloween decorating gene, he had made the hanging man look a little too real.

The next year I bought dozens of yards of gauze to make a platoon of ghosts in the yard, including a huge, ten foot tall ghost which I had draped over a PVC pipe armature and clamped between some pieces of wood. Since the ghost was darned heavy and had a tendency to topple over, I ended up putting one fork from a forklift, on top of the wood. (We had a spare fork hanging around, not sure how or why.) Suitably secured, the ghost would still move back and forth in the wind, often looking as if it was trying to grab the viewer. Sweeeeeeet.

The same year I remembered the school desk we had used when I homeschooled number four son. We made another ghost and plunked it in the desk, titling it "Ghoul Skool." But that wasn't enough. My insanity, er....creative juices were flowing.

A quick trip to the fabric store and I came home (lighter by a bit of cash) with foam to make bodies, red satin to make the Devil, a cute cauldron they had at Wal Mart, a devilish mask and some glow sticks, poster board and other stuff. The Devil display was put in the side yard with a tombstone saying "This space reserved for..." Insert your favorite baddie here, I refrain from doing so at this time for fear of reprisal. Posterboard flames were quickly cut and painted and on Halloween we put glow sticks in the cauldron and candles all over the yard.

Tombstones were made with polystyrene insulation, cut into tombstone shapes and inscribed with amusing epitaphs. (I'll do them in another post.) The husband person was kept busy cutting long pieces of wire from coat hangers since my hands were too wimpy to do it. Each tombstone had a candle in a candle holder in front of it for Halloween and the trees were filled with ghosts. It was great! Son number four thought it was enough, so did his father.

Ha, what would they know? I was caught in the throes of inspiration. As soon as Halloween was over I went crazy with making Halloween displays. Since I have always liked using papier mache, most of the things I made over that year were in that medium. My hands were rarely out of the stuff and the poor husband person was run ragged by going here and there for people's newspapers. Thankfully the boss of bosses (aka He Who Is To Be Obeyed) took the Wallstreet Babbler, or whatever it is called and since it is a big paper, it was great because I finally had enough paper to papier mache the yard. All 2 acres of it.

I made a UFO to hang from the tree and little aliens to go with it. I made a monster (pink, about 4' tall), sitting on its haunches on top of the test well, a fishing pole hanging from his claws and a human skeleton hanging from the end. I made a troll (also 4' tall, but green and purple this time) and talked the husband person into making a troll booth.

Then I had The Idea to make a huge dinosaur (the Bitemyrumpasarus) in two parts. The first part would be the head, going out the right side of the driveway (or left, whichever perspective you were looking from). The tail end would come out of the other side. I made the armature out of chicken wire and the legs from number 10 cans. It wasn't too long before I discovered the armature was much too puny so had to stuff it with a lot of paper, cloth scraps and whatever else was at hand. The Bitemyrumpasarus weighed a lot by the time I put a couple dozen layers of papier mache and a few coats of polyurethane on it. It was kind of cutsie, I'm afraid, with her (yes, her), purple eyelashes cut out of aluminum cans, big eyeballs and purple skin with tasteful green and pink splotches.

But it wasn't Halloween yet, just August when I finished the Biteme's scales and paint job and I still had a bunch of my favorite papier mache paste made of wallpaper paste and glue. I decided a haunted tree would be perfect and out came the chicken wire and a quarter sheet of heavy plywood for the base. After putting on several layers of papier mache, I realized the haunted tree looked more like a tube of chicken wire covered in paper and less like the menacing haunted tree I wanted. So I cut out a large space for the mouth, already knowing how I wanted it. Unfortunately I had not calculated on the weight of the papier mache and the tree started leaning forward, the mouth collapsing. So I had to add interior supports and propped it up in the living room (that's where the TV and DVD player were) with the broom and mop. (Clever me, I had an excuse to not mop OR sweep.) It turned out well, though really rather heavy. The limb arms were just the touch, as was the Spanish moss and fake spider web. My friend Shelly had the clever idea of putting her then 4 year old daughter inside on Halloween, with the little sprite saying "Saaaaaaaaaaaave meeeeeeeeeeee" when people came by.

Anyway, back to the other stuff I made. After the tree I had The Idea. What would be scarier than a 5 foot tall alien, gray and with huge bulgey eyes, spooky hands reaching out to grab you? Well, it would scare the crap out of me, I can assure you of that. It was the easiest to make of all the things. A large balloon was the perfect armature for the head, the eyes were large plastic Easter eggish things (about 5 inches across), seperated in two, the body armature of PVC plumbing pipe and fittings with foam rubber over the body and a robe of cheap silver lame covering the body. He was great!

But it still wasn't Halloween, so the tree and alien stood in the living room. The cats decided the tree was a great place for sleeping and climbing. Some discovered how to sleep on the top of the tree, which was open. Don't ask me how they did it, they're cats, they can do what they want.

Son number 4, his wife and baby hadn't been over since I started the dinosaur (which was in the storage building after having proven to be a little large for the living room), so he didn't know about the spooky tree and frightening gray alien.

He has the occasional bad headache and had left his migraine medicine here, so at the first throb of one, about 2:00 AM in the middle of the night, he drove over here to get his medicine. Now everyone (ok, everyone who's honest) is afraid of something and Stephen REALLY does not like aliens. He won't even watch UFO shows. So he walked into the front door without turning the lights on so he wouldn't wake us us and several things happened at once. The light of the full moon shone through the window, throwing the haunted tree and alien into frankly ominous shadows, a couple thousand cats came pouring out of the tree and into the hallway and Stephen saw The Alien.

We were woken as he slammed into our bedroom, the doorknob impaling itself into the wall. "What the HELL DID YOU THINK YOU WERE DOING? THAT'S NOT FUNNY, DAMNIT!"

His dad actually woke, "Huh? What? Stephen?"

I was already getting out of bed, trying really very hard to not pee my jammies or laugh at our kid. Since I was obviously handling it, the husband went back to sleep. So did the cats once they were sure the screaming human who was foaming at the mouth wasn't a threat.

Stephen was livid. "What the bleep did you think you were doing, Mother?" Oh shat, I was in deep fertilizer. He never, ever calls me mother unless he's really perturbed or pissed. Perturbation was obviously not the problem, so the problem was pissedness.

I tried to defuse the bomb - I mean situation. "Did you like the tree?"

He wasn't defused or amused. "No, I don't mean the blanking tree!"

Dumb blond mommy mode wasn't working, "Ah, you saw the alien?"

He had gone from definitely not defused or amused to really pissed off. "Yes I saw the blanking blanking bleeping blanking blanked, will be blanked, was blanked, will always be blinking bleeping blaping blanking blanked alien. What the............did you, how, what....." About then he was sputtering and black with rage. (His Welsh heritage, I guess, though it could be our AmInd, either way he was too far gone for me to be considering our genealogy.)

Since I didn't have any horse tranquilizer or a cattle prod handy it took a while to get him settled down with a slug of his brother's booze in some hot cocoa. I had to throw a sheet over the alien while he was there but it didn't help since it then just looked like an alien ghost.

The good news was that the scare cured his migraine and showed me that I didn't need to tweek the scariness of either display. They were just right.

Thinking of it - and I'm not certain there is enough time left to make it for this Halloween - a 7 foot tall werewolf with claws extended would be a neat thing to make. Stephen doesn't mind werewolves.

At least I don't think so.

Animals, Damnimals, Amminals

2009-10-07T08:23:00.003-04:00

The husband person decided some time ago that it would be better to store the bags of cat and dog chow on the front porch rather than having them in the living room (dog chow) and in the kitchen(cat chow). I agreed with the provision that we'd get large, food grade plastic containers ASAWCAI) (as soon as we can afford it). Hence, the bags sat, opened, on the front porch.

I had the delightful duty of trotting outside, usually in my pajamas since those are pretty much the only clothing I own, and freeze my ...er...nose off whilst scooping 40 cups of cat chow and 16 of dog chow into large bowls, then carrying them back inside. At first I would glare at the Husband Person as he sat, warm and comfortable in front of the television but after the first 10 years he had become immune to my glares, so that never worked. After a while I stopped glaring and would occasionally ask him to get the food for me as I cleaned the kitchen and sorted out the leftovers into bowls for the cats and bowls for the dogs. (More on how to do that later.) Since he is also totally deaf when I ask him to do something while he's watching the idiot box...sorry, television...I usually would end up getting it myself which is what he intended in the beginning.

As for the process of dividing the leftovers into bowls for cats and bowls for dogs, I had to be very fast because the cats would swoop in, scarf down all the goodies and swoop back out. I swear cats have the ability to teleport. I am certain that they also can tell the difference between cans of corn getting opened and cans of cat food, although it really doesn't matter to them as they like corn and virtually every other human food with the exceptions of raw onion and lettuce.

Back to the hauling of cat and dog chow. One night, one beastly COLD night, I went outside to fill the cat bowl. As I scooped into the bag, my hand came into contact with fur.

"DAMNIT, I thought, not too originally or nicely, some damn (add expletives of your choice here) person has dumped another blank cat here and I bet it's pregnant. (They are all pregnant, even the males.)

I calmed down and put the empty cat food bowl and scoop on the porch. The cats watched from the kitchen windows and three were hanging from the windows in the doors. Pookie (I'll tell you about her another time) was sitting in the window with her eyes glowing red and her head turning around. I changed my voice from screaming to the tone of voice known as "poor, frightened kitty" speak which is supposedly good for keeping the little angels (right) from slicing and dicing me with their eighteen claws of death and destruction.

"It's OK, baby, no one is going to hurt you." I tried picking up the little thing, noticing that the fur was a bit rough and getting angry at the person who supposedly dumped the cat because a rough fur usually means poor nutrition and care. Damn, it was a hefty sucker, maybe it wasn't totally malnourished. It's little legs started throwing cat food all over the place as I finally dislodged it from the bag of food.

HOLY CRAP IT'S A POSSUM! I screeched and dropped the possum who quickly dove into the bag of cat food, digging for the bottom. I ran back inside the house, minus the cat food bowl, much to the cats' collective disgust. I ran past the dogs, past the cats and into the bathroom where I scrubbed my hands, used about a half bottle of hand sanitizer, washed my hands again as I screamed in agony since I just put alcohol on my hands which always have cat scratches covering them (hey, YOU try pilling a cat, giving a couple dozen cats their booster shots or bathing them and let me see what YOUR hands look like), so I washed them again. For good measure I stripped off my pajamas, ran to the garage totally ass naked, praying no one was out front to get blinded by my body. (Not a pretty sight, honey.). Put on new jammies, ran back through the kitchen and into the living room, followed by a couple dozen hopeful cats, to wake the husband.

The husband person didn't even look up from the television, which is normal, since he was asleep, which is also normal. I woke him up, wanting to share the news.

Him: "Snargle. Huh? What? Is it time for bed?"
Me: "There's a huge possum in the bag of cat chow!"
Him: "OK."
Me: "You don't understand. There Is A Huge Possum In The Bag Of Cat Chow." I carefully enunciated each word.
Him: "OK."
Me, going to the first look which is about 3 looks from The Look, AKA duck for cover: "Go do something."
Him: "Sigh. What do you want me to do."
Me, going straight to The Look, bypassing the other looks and not collecting $200, "DO SOMETHING." (Which can rightly be interpreted as "Damned if I know, just do something, do anything, just get out of your chair and DO.")
Him, sighing again and dislodging his cats (Akira the Second, CassPurr the Second, Callista, Linus and Mamma Katz). He walked out the door and returned with a bag of cat chow. Before I could screech and hang from the ceiling fan I noticed it was an unopened bag of cat chow.

The cats were eventually fed but the possum's bag of cat chow was put out front for its dining pleasure. Knowing how I am, I have refrained from naming the possum.

Pogo is awfully cute though as he (or she, I didn't ask) nibbles cat chow. Oh crap. I named it.

I'm so screwed, but I will be darned if I bring it in the house and let it sleep with us.

I think.

2009-10-07T08:15:00.002-04:00

To understand this you'll probably need to understand that we live in South Western Georgia (in the USA), and are vegetarians of long standing. Carl is my husband person and is the most laid back person I have ever known. Nothing frazzles him. We also have run a no kill animal (cat mostly) sanctuary from our itty bitty home for over 20 years now. (Current population about 2 dozen, plus 3 large dogs.)

One of Carl's duties is to keep the 100 plus acres of the boss's land mowed and tidied up, including around the pond. He was working on it Sunday (when he wasn't working here trying to put a wall in that was taken out during the last tornado), and came back home (we're in front of the boss's land) to cool off and get a drink.

Here's how it went.

Carl "Well, Mr. P has a new pet."

Me "That's nice. Another dog?" (Mr. P is not a cat person.)

Carl. "No, an 8 foot alligator. It's out next to the pond."

Me "A WHAT?"

Carl "It's OK, I didn't touch it, just tried picking up its tail. I thought it was a log."

Me "DON'T DO THAT! THAT THING WILL EAT YOU!"

Carl "Now Dear, it won't eat me."

Me "Listen to me. Do Not Go Near The Alligator."

Carl "I have to finish mowing around the pond."

Me, totally fed up "Blank blank invective, DON'T. And call the Boss and tell him about the gator before Tom (Boss's wonderful German Shepherd) gets eaten."

Day One, "Dear, did you tell the boss about the gator." Answer no, too busy. (normal for him)

Day Two see above

Day Three also see above

Day Four Rode my wheelchair down the stairs out front and plunked my butt in the boss's driveway, waiting for his wife to come down. Told her about gator. Listened as she went ballistic, watched as she hauled ass back up the road to make the dog stay inside till she got home from work. I could hear her screaming for the dog from a half mile away.

Last night (of day four) Carl came home. He said Darlene (wife of boss, aka She Who Is To Be Obeyed) called him and her first words were "What's this about a (expletives deleted so your tender eyes won't be offended) alligator in my yard? Why didn't you (blanking) tell me?"

So Carl called DNR (Department of Natural Resources) and they are supposed to be sending out a gator wrangler today to remove the boss's new pet and take him back to the animal preserve on the Marine Base next door. Knowing well how long it usually takes DNR to get off their tan uniform encased backsides, find the truck keys, get the necessary animal capture tools (duct tape and a really long snare pole), diet soda, candy bar, cigarettes , Cd's or 8 track tapes, whichever, and figure out how to get out here (they'll end up here so I can show them where to go, which will be better than what Darlene would say); they'll probably show up next month or so. By that time, Carl and He Who Is To Be Obeyed (except in the case of SHE Who Is To Be Obeyed) will get together, wrangle the gator into submission and tape the poor critter's mouth shut, along with his legs. I'm not sure what they will do to contain the thrashing tail. Son number 4 will undoubtedly be dragooned into assisting which means my precious daughter in love will raise her dulcet voice into a screech and we'll hear a few more choice bleeps and blanks whilst he does the man thing and assists in the Great Gator Wrassle.

When Carl came home last night he had two whole chickens from the grocery store. (Yuk) I looked at him like he was nuts.. The animals licked their collective doggy and kitty chops, awaiting the treat which was rightly theirs because there isn't a snowball's chance in Miami that I'm serving that to us. However the chickens weren't for the dogs, nor were they for the cats. They were not for the families we help out. They were for the alligator.

He did agree to stay in the truck and just toss the chickens to the alligator. We discussed the merits of just leaving the chickens in their nice if dripping plastic baggies or removing them and letting the gore act as a sauce to entice the poor gator to eat his dinner. Carl opted for gore, as he was afraid the plastic might hurt the aligator. I opted for laying down with a glass of ginger ale to settle my stomach. The cats opted for waiting till I was out of the kitchen so they could remove the gory plastic chicken bags and lick them clean. (Despite me washing the things before discarding them.) For good measure they removed everything else from the garbage bag and the "For The Compost" bucket and spread all of the gore, coffee grounds, egg shells, apple cores, orange peels, potato peels and whatever else all over the kitchen floor. Later I was told that the poor thing (the alligator, now known as Captain Hook) enjoyed the chickens and didn't complain about the lack of biscuits, cole slaw and baked beans which should have accompanied the chicken dinner.

And some folks think it is boring living out in the country.

Hugs, Jeanne in GA

Herrien Series: Ran'ya by Jeanne Buckhalter

2009-10-06T12:35:00.003-04:00

Odd things happen sometimes. I wrote the following back in the late 1980's. Around 2000, I met a gentleman online in one of the many places online and we discussed writing. We exchanged short stories and consequently both of us were rather shocked, since his story was about a gifted person, a Seer named Ranya and mine was about the birth and childhood about a gifted person to become a Seer, named Ran'ya. We decided to produce the trilogy together, our ideas and writing styles meshing somewhat well together. This is Ran'ya's story.

***

Somewhere, somewhen in time and space there exists a world not unlike ours but at the same time, very unlike this one. I have spoken with these folk, eaten meals with them, loved with them, cried, and rejoiced. I have seen their past, their present, and their future, all within the confines of my room. If it is simpler for you to think I am insane, then do so. If you prefer thinking this tale only my imagination, then please, feel free.

For I know the truth. They exist. Or they will, in time.

Ran’ya likes to say she was born at a very early age, laughing as she does so, for she was born a full two moons early. This is her story.

Sha’reen was playing in her special garden just in sight of her mother’s larger one filled with a mixture of fruits and vegetables for the body and flowers for the immortal soul, as her mother liked to say. Her garden was one of rounded pieces of colored smooth glass and shells found on the beach of the fresh water sea and twigs with snippets of her mother’s home spun and colored thread, woven from the pod plants and the long hair goats kept away from the garden by a high wooden fence. Sha’reen’s garden was not a small patch of dirt under the long leafed tree, but mountains and hills covered in beautiful flowers, inhabited by flower people of all colors, blues and reds, golden and green, rich purples and pale violets. She would play there for hours, whispering to the flower folk of the sister she would have soon, a special sister for her to love.

Mara, the mother of Sha’reen, bent over double, a sharp pain lancing through her belly as her waters broke to drain into the garden, giving the plants feeding. She leaned heavily on her hoe as she closed her eyes against pain and fear. As the pang of birth passed she called quietly to Sha’reen, not wanting to frighten her youngling, but needing her help. “Sha’reen my dearling, mother needs you to get father. Tell him I need the Healer and Seer. Run quickly precious, and tell father to hurry.” Mara smiled at Sha’reen, not realizing the child of only four turnings saw her mother’s pain and fear on her face. “Hurry now my precious, go get Father.”

Sha’reen dropped her flower folk in the dirt, trampling on the flower mountain in her haste to get her father, leaving them there in the dust, wondering what happened to their world. She ran faster than ever before, baby-chubby legs stretching out to eat up the distance between home and father’s store in the tiny town in which they lived. Swiftly Sha’reen ran past the goats in their pen, watching her move with goatly disinterest, past the cow in her byre, past the chickens clucking as the rude child disturbed their constant search for food.

As Sha’reen ran faster than ever her russet hair escaping her usually neatly tended braids, her little apron so like her mother’s billowing out behind her, she called for her father, sending her voice to alarm the birds in the trees, setting her father’s favorite cat to scurrying for the top beam of the store. Her feet clattered on the wooden raised walkway, startling the grandsires as they recounted stories to each other they had told so long that each knew the other’s lives by heart.

Ca’lan stopped his little daughter, swinging her up in his arms, laughing to see her running so fast. “Here now my little maiden, it isn’t time for the noon meal, why come you like this. Where is mother?” Seeing her frightened face he held her close against his suddenly thudding heart. “What is the matter Sha’reen, where is mother?”

Finally in her father’s arms Sha’reen relaxed and began sobbing, “Mother hurts. She said Sha’reen go get father and tell father to get the Healer and Seer. Mother said ‘tell father to hurry.’ Sha’reen ran fast Father, now will Father get the Healer and Seer for mother?”

Ca’lan closed his eyes in pain, understanding what was happening, trying to keep his fear from his little daughter, controlling his breathing, trying to slow the rapid pounding of his heart. He opened his eyes, nut brown like his daughters and smiled. “I will get them now. You stay here with Bab and the grandsires like a good girl.” He nodded at the store helper, Bab, knowing the grandsires heard every word, especially the unspoken ones, and knew that they would care for his youngling, bringing her home when it was time.

The eldest yet spryest of the grandsires was already better than half way to the home of the Seer and Guide on the edge of town, so Ca’lan ran to pound on the door of the healer. The healer’s wife, alerted to the urgent need, by his calling of the Healer’s name had the door open, standing there drying her hands wet from the dishes, in her apron, worry showing on her face as she recognized her dearest friend’s life partner. “Ca’lan what is it. Is it Sha’reen? Has she fallen? What is it? Mara?” Gundra turned away, calling her life partner Na’tan from the little laboratory where he prepared simple medicaments and potions. “Na’tan, hurry! There is need. Ca’lan is here.”

Na’tan took one look at Ca’lan, speaking only one word “Mara?” At Ca’lan’s nod he turned back to the laboratory to gather his bag and stock of medicaments.

Ca’lan swallowed hard, turning to the Healer’s wife, “Gundra will you keep Sha’reen until… well until she can come home again? She is over with Bab and the grandsires right now.” Gundra nodded, already out of the door to gather Sha’reen against her ample bosom, promising her freshly baked cakes.

Sha’reen sensed something very wrong, even at four turnings and a half, whimpering against Gundra’s body, smelling the sweet cakes on her apron, and feeling the worry in the tension in her arms. “Hush, hush dearling. Mother will be fine. You are going to stay here with me until Father comes to take you back home again. We will have a wonderful time. You can help me ice the cakes and make cha for Na’tan when he comes home. Everything will be all right, Sha’reen, truly.” Sha’reen read in her face the fear behind Gundra’s calm words and cried all the harder.

“She will be fine, Ca’lan, go to Mara now. I will take good care of her.” Gundra swung Sha’reen up in her arms easily, cradling her to her body, snuggling her close. “Look at you, your hair all over the place and tear stains on your pretty face. We don’t want you frightening your good mother now, do we? Let’s go in and get cleaned up for her. Is this the apron she made you last eight day? It looks just like hers, doesn’t it? We have new kittens, did you know that? Four of them. Let’s get cleaned up then you can go see them.” Gundra chattered as adults do when they are trying hard to keep children from seeing their upset and fear, and failing as adults always do, children being more observant than they think.

Ca’lan and Na’tan strode up the hill to where Mara waited holding onto the doorframe, her face shining with sweat as yet another pain tore through her. “Gods no,” Ca’lan whispered, taking his beloved into his arms. “It is too soon. Na’tan do something please.”
Picking her up as easily as he would have their daughter, Ca’lan bore his lady to their bed, sweeping the lovely embroidered coverlet back to lay her down, his heart weeping as he saw the next pain knotting in her belly, heard the soft moan escaping her lips. He looked up into Na’tan’s eyes, “Please Healer, do something. It is too soon. Make the birth stop.”

Na’tan shook his head slowly. “It is too late for that now, Ca’lan. All I can do is make her comfortable until…”

Ca’lan put his head down on the bed next to his beloved and wept, his hand protectively on her belly as if he could hold the child within by his will and love alone. Mara panted with the pains, fighting the labor, fighting to keep the child within, but knowing that her birth was inevitable…and the babe’s death from too early a birthing. Na’tan’s voice was gentle “Ca’lan, go for the priest. It won’t be much longer.”

From the door where she stood as proudly as a queen, the village Seer answered. “There is no need for the parting prayers yet. She will live.” P’aralda swept into the room, her thin hand on the arm of her Guide, her thin shawl fluttering in the breeze of her passing. Her smile was as a blessing on the little mother laboring on the bed, easing the pain of the father, and giving hope to the Healer who hated loosing a life. The grandsire lurking outside the home smiled, turning to carry the news to the town, panting as he labored down the hill on stiff knees.

The news spread more swiftly than one of the King’s finest steeds, the joyous news that the Seer had said the child would live bringing happiness to all, so close was the town in caring and love of each. For ten turnings had Ca’lan and Mara been partnered and childless, seemingly condemned to living without children to delight their lives when Sha’reen had been born, then another four turnings before once again Mara was filled. There was not a family in the small village that was not making something special for the child, each wanting to have a small part in sharing the happiness of the family.

Bab shut the door of the store, not locking it, for there was no lock on the door; neither Ca’lan nor his father before him, nor his father’s father seeing the necessity to distrust neighbors. As they had each said in turn, “If someone has such need as to break into the store, I would rather keep him as a friend and fill his arms with what he needs than to have my friend and neighbor loose his self regard.” She scurried up the hill, not wanting to intrude, but like the others, wanting to see for herself the birth of this special child.

Gundra heard the footsteps on the wooden walkway and went to the door with a heavy heart, certain that she was to be given word that the child had passed on, when she heard excited talking, saw her neighbors, baskets and cold lanterns in hand, rushing up the hill. The grandsire came to a wheezing, creaking halt and let her know that the Seer had promised the child to live and Gundra, so filled with joy pressed his frail body to her so admired bosom, giving him, as he later told the other grandsires “More woman than I have held in my arms in over twenty turnings!”

She laughed as she washed Sha’reen’s face yet again, quickly putting the plate of sweet cakes in a basket, the cha yet unmade, and for some strange reason, a pot of hot sweet relish, which she and Mara would laugh about for some years to come. “Hurry my little love; let’s go welcome your sister!” Lightly as a bird she ran up the hill, child and basket in her arms, barely noticing the ground she sped over, not seeing the cow lowing in her byre, the goats watching still with goatly disinterest, nor hearing the clucking hens irritable with the disruption of their search for seed and grubs.

The yard had taken on an air of merriment and celebration. Some had gone into the kitchen and brought out the freshly scrubbed table and benches, others had made swings to put their own babes in while the town waited the birth.

Food soon appeared almost magically on the table, another was made from boards from the barn and more food. Jellies and cakes and hams, a great roasted haunch of bison, roasted, fried, boiled hens and little light dumplings swimming in broth, vegetables fresh from the garden all red and yellow and green in great bowls and plates of blue and white and yellow and green and crimson, all ready for the celebration.

The vintner rolled a large cask of wine up the hill, puffing and huffing, patting his sweating red cheeks, fat and ripe as twin apples after the exertion. Pies showed on the table, and little quick foods, fruits and the sweets mothers always had hidden away for special treats for their loved children.

Gundra handed the basket to the vintner’s wife with an excited smile and little hug, whispering “Keep an eye on Sha’reen for me, would you?” before tripping into the house to be with her friend.

All the day the town quietly kept watch, hushing the children when they got too noisy, rocking the babes in their swing cradles, eating, and quietly sharing the day. From inside could occasionally be heard a low moan from Mara as her body worked to release the child. The Seer, P’ralda, came out once for a glass of sweet cider and a small cake, smiling so sweetly that the young man who served her almost fell at her knees. She spoke as ever, with a musical voice, which sent delight through those near, “She is very impatient to be born, is little Ran’ya”

A delighted gasp went through the crowd, “Ran’ya, did you hear, her name is Ran’ya!” Sha’reen, playing with her flower people, having remade her mountain and replanted her flowers, whispered to them, “My sister’s name is Ran’ya.”

The Seer smiled again and handed cup and plate back to the blushing youngling and stopped at the door. “Did I forget to tell you? She will be a Seer.” Hushed silence fell over the townsfolk, the babes in their swing cradles not making a sound, even the crickets forgetting to rub their legs together in song as the town absorbed the news. Sha’reen was the only one who was not surprised, as she told her flower people, for her sister had been speaking with her for ever so long.

Just as dusk fell and the cold lanterns were lit where they swayed on the boughs of the trees in the yard, just at that moment when the world takes one last sip of sunlight and sighs softly the sound of a tiny baby came from the house, gathering strength as she yelled. As one, the town sighed and came to life again. The vintner opened the cask and handed cups around as fast as he could. The town waited for Ca’lan to come to the door, holding their cups, the children stuffing sweets and cakes into their mouths as fast as they could while their parents were waiting the new father.

Ca’lan and the Seer P’ralda came to the door, P’ralda holding a tiny baby wrapped in her own shawl, a tiny babe, looking almost like a doll but a doll with rapidly beating fists, and face screwed up in a yowl of outrage at being taken from her mother’s arms. Sha’reen ran to her sister and father, some in the group trying to hold her back, she dodging them easily as she came to her sister. P’ralda knelt in the grass at the door and let Sha’reen see her sister. Ran’ya stopped crying, her unfocused newborn eyes somehow locking on her sisters, a tiny fist finding her sister’s finger. Sha’reen kissed her sister gently, laughing happily. “I have a sister!”

The little boys of the town looked at the tiny thing to make all the uproar, shrugging, when you have seen one girl you have seen them all, they thought at the time, but the food and sweets were good enough reason for standing in line to shake the hand of the father politely and congratulate him and the little mother on the birth.

Outlanders looking in on this town would perhaps have been astounded that an entire town gather together to celebrate the birth, albeit very early, of a child, even one marked as Seer from before birth, but the folk of Fair Crossing were close. It was a good place for a child to be born, a good place for a grandsire or grandmam to spend final years, wrapped in the rich caring and loving hearts of Fair Crossing folk. Perhaps Ran’ya’s memories are recalled through the roseate tints of childhood, but all things considered, it was a good place filled with good people.

Ran’ya prospered and grew on her mother’s warm milk and later good plain foods in abundance, grown in their own garden, baked, roasted, prepared by her mother’s loving hands. Later she would laughingly recall that her parents spoiled her terribly, but never so terribly as did her sister and the rest of Fair Crossing. Unspoken was the thought which always followed that one…that her family and folk of the town knew from her birth that she would not blossom to young womanhood in their midst, but would have to leave when her Gifts emerged, to go to the School of Seers and Guides called Herrien. It was natural that she would be the cosseted and cherished darling of town and family.

Unfortunately, being the cosseted and cherished darling was not enough to prevent Ran’ya from contacting every sickness that went around the village. From the head sniffles to the more serious sickness, if it was in the air, her family could be virtually certain that it would find home in Ran’ya’s body. This propensity to sickness did not make her a weakling, moving from one sickness to another, but built in her a natural will to fight what she could not change, for she chose to not meekly endure.

Having finally discovered the secret behind having children after the ten turnings without, Ca’lan and Mara went on to produce a child a turning till her eighth birth celebration. S’van and Isme were the twin son and daughter born in the year of festival following Ran’ya’s birth then Kelar who would be their final son, and who would join Ran’ya at the school to be trained as a guide some years hence, but that is another story, as Ran’ya has reminded me.

Sometimes in the Night They Come a short nightmare by Jean Buckhalter (1980-1990, about)

2009-10-06T12:18:00.000-04:00

Sometimes in the Night They Come
a short nightmare by Jean Buckhalter (1980-1990, about)

Sometimes in the night they come and carry me to that place I fear. Sometimes in the day, my old memories, my old fears come back to haunt me and I run crying to my mother. She dries my tears and comforts me, and it is better then.

My old memories, which they try to tell me are just bad dreams; I have learned to keep to myself. Some know, for others who have shared my memories and given me theirs to keep have been taken in the night as well. My old fears which the old one tries to take away with the touch of his long, cold fingers on my forehead, I have learned to hide in my other self, my true self.

I am writing this to tell others, even those who have never been taken in the night, or whose own memories are so deeply hidden that they will not fill them with fear in the day, what I and others have learned. For we have learned the secret. We have learned the secret of how to let them take our bodies and do what they will to them without fear, for we have learned how to pour our true selves into our other bodies, bodies which they cannot touch or even sense. Others must know of this. Everyone must be ready.

They came for me in the night again many months ago. The one who was doing things to my body did not care about my fear or the pain he was causing me and the old one who takes pain and fear away was not there. I was held fast to the table and the pain was so great that I wished there was a way I could leave the body and suddenly I was floating free over the table, over the body and the one who was doing things to it with strange instruments. At first I was afraid that he would see me and force me back, but even when I passed my other "hand" in front of the creature's eyes, he did not react.

I explored this strange place where they had taken me and saw others of my own kind on other tables with other creatures doing strange, hurtful things to them. My little brother was in another room; crying and asking for mommy to make the bad men go away. I found that I could enter his thoughts and showed him the way to step out of his body. He clung to me, which was strange at first, as our other bodies had no substance, but his presence brought me a sense of calm and I comforted him as well.

Together we joined with the others in that place. All but one, that is, for when I entered the room where another was being experimented on, the old gray who takes pain and fear away sensed me. I do not understand clearly exactly how I knew this, I just did, so I immediately withdrew and watched from where he could not sense me.

The others and I and my brother spoke together and compared what we had learned. My teacher was one of the first I taught, and she has helped me write this. Before the awakening, some may have found my writing strange for a child of my years, but one of the others who are taken in the night explained it by saying something about a group mind. You will understand soon. You will be changed as the rest of us have been.

Over the past sixteen months or so, ever since the night I learned how to leave my body and taught the others, we have done some experiments of our own. The first thing we learned was how to hide our other selves from the old grays. We discovered how to enter the thoughts of the others, those creatures which come for us in the night. We have learned their secrets and have brought them back to the day. Others are learning how to use those secrets and some day we will go to the place those creatures came from, and we'll show them what we have learned and we'll use the knowledge they gave us without knowing. Then they will know fear; they will know pain.

We do not enter just the minds and memories of those others, we enter the minds of our own kind as well, waking them and teaching them. Everyone is responsible for waking as many of our own people as they can every night as our bodies sleep. We are united, asleep and awake and everyone stands ready. Soon the entire world will have been awakened. One of our people has used the computer he works with at NASA to estimate that we will have wakened everyone within three months.

Sometime they will come for one of us in the night, but this time we'll be ready. Oh, yes, we'll be ready.

It's A Perfect Life - another nightmare of the End Times by Jean Buckhalter

2009-10-06T11:55:00.003-04:00

Note: I have nightmares at times and turn them into stories. A group of them fit around the End times. I have written a book filled with these short nightmares, but doubt I'll pursue publication, hence it is here to possibly give a chill or make you think.

It's A Perfect Life
a short nightmare by Jean Buckhalter

Sarah Miller’s home was as perfect as her life. On the perfectly polished dining table, buffet and sideboard the exquisitely arranged flowers gently perfumed the air while adding the proper ambiance for the festivities ahead. Sarah walked through the dining room into the kitchen where her kitchen staff was busy putting the final touches on her bon voyage party.

The crystal shone in the sunlight. The champagne chilling to the proper temperature in the temperature controlled wine cooler would be transferred to the waiting solid silver ice buckets.

Several gleaming silver trays held the finest Beluga caviar, buttered rounds of toast, chopped egg, and the requisite wooden spoon for the caviar. Other trays held all manner of appetizers and canapés. Money was no object, for this was a party to remember for the rest of her life.

Sarah nodded her approval to the kitchen staff and swept out of the kitchen. It was time to ready herself for her guests. Her personal masseuse awaited her in her suite. After an invigorating massage, Sarah took a long, luxuriant bath, glorying in the scent of the expensive perfume her personal maid had lavishly poured into the water. Drying herself on thick toweling, she slipped into the dressing gown held by her maid.

Seated at her vanity, the hairdresser arranged Sarah's hair in a most becoming and fashionable style. Sarah peered at the arrangement from every angle, nodding her approval and dismissal to the hairdresser.

Applying her make-up with a careful touch, she turned to her eldest daughter who watched from her mother's bed. "Not so bad for a fifty year old, do you think?"

Her daughter stubbed out the cigarette she was smoking with impatient fingers. "Oh mother, you know you're fifty seven, why don’t you admit it? I don't know why you're going through all this nonsense of a party. I attended Marion Kline's bon voyage party last month and hers was much more in keeping with the times. Austerity is in, don't you know?"

"Pooh. It’s my party and I was promised that it would be exactly as I wanted it to be. What time is your sister arriving? You did remind her to leave those children at home, didn’t you? I saw them yesterday and we already exchanged bon voyages, so there isn’t any need for those little monsters to ruin my perfect party." Her voice was muffled as she slipped into the dress for her party. "Honestly, I don't know how two such intelligent people as your sister and her husband produced two of the most impossible children I have ever known."

She preened before the mirror, examining her gown from all angles. Diamond and platinum ear rings were put in her ears and she reveled in the sight of the matching ring, bracelet and necklace glittering on her person. "These are rather nice, aren’t they? I’d like to leave them to you, but you know how it is. Oh, well, at least you don't have to share my engagement set with your sister, she’ll get your grandmother's jewelry instead."

Leanne shrugged and answered her mother’s question. "I told her several times. Honestly mother, I don't know why you worry so much about her. She has an excellent job at the depository and her husband is well thought of at the U.N. She always manages to land on her feet one way or another. I don't see why you had to give her Grandmother Mayer's jewelry. She's got plenty of her own, you know, and all I have is that pathetic string of pearls Daddy gave me for graduation. Not all of us have money, you know."

"Really, how you do go on and on about your poverty, it’s really quite boring. As if that matters today. Now look at me; have I ever looked better?" Sarah turned around to swirl her designer gown around still shapely ankles.

Leanne sighed in exasperation. "No, Mother, you've never looked better."

Kissing the air, her mother swept out of the room to greet her guests who had just started to arrive. Left to herself, Leanne looked around her mother’s perfectly appointed room. She checked her hair in the mirror, grimacing at the gray hairs which had started appearing at her temples. "But I won't be poor forever." She murmured.

Never had there been such a bon voyage party. Later the florist would report that several records for floral tributes had been broken. The champagne flowed freely and pounds of expensive caviar and other dainties were consumed by Sarah's guests. People she hadn’t seen for decades showed up as well as chance acquaintances. As the old saying goes, a good time was had by all.

At the height of the party, Sarah tapped on the delicate crystal champagne flute in her hand in order to gain the attention of her guests. "Well, my dearest darlings, it’s time for the big send off! I love you all madly, and want you to enjoy the rest of the party while I get ready, but save a glass for me!" Her words were slightly slurred with the amount of alcohol she had consumed. One on each side of their mother, the daughters helped her up the lovely curved staircase. At the top, Sarah turned and blew an exaggerated kiss to her guests.

Once they had helped their mother to the dressing room, Patti, her younger daughter, started crying. "Don't be such a baby. Do you want to ruin things for Mother?" Leanne thrust a wad of tissue into her sister's hand, hoping to repair the damage before their mother returned from her dressing room.

Sarah entered the room wearing a glorious golden gown, exquisite in its simplicity. Her hands shook slightly as she repaired her make up and touched up her lovely hair style.

Patti flew to her side and knelt by her mother's chair. "Don’t go, mother; I’ll have Brian fix it all somehow. Stay with us, won't you?"

"Don’t go, are you crazy or something? The arrangements were all made months ago. If mother was to back out now, well just think of all the trouble it would cause." Her sister scornfully answered while leaning over their mother to check her own make up.

Looking between both of her daughters faces, Sarah seemed to see something for the first time. A discrete knock at the door interrupted their conversation. "It's time for your trip, Madam." The maid’s voice came softly through the door.

Sarah Miller gave herself a shake and tremulously smiled at her daughters. "Come on, girls. It's time! Pull yourself together, Patti. Honestly, the big deal you make over something so trivial." A final look at the mirror, a final adjustment to the diamond and platinum jewels, a finishing dab of expensive scent and Sarah swept out of the room.

Behind her, Leanne gave a last look to the luxurious room and nodded while Patti wept softly into a tissue.

As she reached the lower landing, Sarah’s guests stood and applauded wildly. Her golden gown of tissue lame was appreciated by her guests as she regally swept to a throne-like chair set up in the very center of the great room. She embraced her guests one by one, being careful to not disarrange her perfect tresses or muss her exquisite make up, then her daughters. "Wish me Bon Voyage, darlings!" She caroled then drained a goblet of fine champagne served at the perfect temperature in an beautiful crystal flute handed to her on a silver tray by the waiting caterer.

The crowd chanted "Through the teeth and over the gums, look out Hell, here she comes!" laughing uproariously at the ancient chant with its new twist. Sarah tried to give a laugh for her guests, but was overcome by sheer terror. Alert to the signs of panic which would ruin business, the caterer standing nearby quickly shot a needle into Sarah neck which paralyzed her immediately and sped the action of the poison she had just imbibed. So adept was he, none of the guests noticed. The waiting maid caught the lovely crystal flute before it could fall to the thick pile carpeting, and carried it to the waiting caterer's apprentice.

Four of the apprentices lifted the throne of departure and silently carried it from the room. Patti had already left, escorted quickly and unobtrusively from the room so she would not spoil her mother’s bon voyage. A swiftly administered tranquilizer quieted her and a waiting aide drove her to her home.

Behind her, the party went on for three more hours, when her mother’s Perfect Year expired. The guests were driven to their homes and the house and its contents inventoried. All things in order, Leanne signed a receipt and accepted a small case of her mother's personal effects.

At the Perfect Year Catering Office, the incinerator was ready to receive the mortal remains of Sarah Miller. Her golden gown was carefully slipped from her still form. The attendant noted with satisfaction that there was no damage to the gown. "Good,” she thought "We can use this again."

The astronomically expensive jewelry was stripped from Sarah’s stiffening body and handed to the waiting attendant. A clerk in the background checked the jewelry off the inventory. The watching Security Officer accepted the jewelery case with a nod, leaving the room. Then the mortal remains of Sarah Miller were slid into the incinerator with less formality than the day's garbage.

As Leanne drove off, she debated just how she would spend her own Perfect Year. Of course, it wouldn't be for a while yet, but still, the thought was tempting. The country house her mother used was lovely, but she preferred something a bit more upscale, possibly a penthouse suite in New York City, and a chalet in Switzerland, and. . .

Shopping For Supper: a short nightmare of the end times

2009-10-06T11:07:00.000-04:00

Shopping For Supper
a short nightmare of the end times
by Jean Buckhalter

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Ezekiel 5:17 "So will I send upon you famine and evil beasts, and they shall bereave thee; and pestilence and blood shall pass through thee; and I will bring the sword upon thee. I, the Lord, have spoken."
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He barely looked like a man; certainly nothing like the Fortune 500 executive he once had been. Long, rank tangles of hair hung about his head in sharp contrast to the beautifully groomed style he once sported. An air of rancid, rotting flesh hung around him like the scent of a corpse dead three days in the sun. Flies buzzed around him mercilessly, laying their eggs in the open sores that covered his body. Maggots crawled around in the boils, cleaning out the noisome contents. His quarry lie ahead. Huge and fat, sleek fur gleaming in the sunlight, the animal would fill the hole gnawing in his guts for many a day. He approached from downwind with great stealth learned from months of hunting.

The animal looked up from where he was grooming his fur while seated on a chunk of concrete. Lifting his nose to the wind, he tested the air for food or foe. Nothing scented, the animal continued grooming the fur on his fat belly. A noise from the rubble nearby, and the head lifted again. All motion ceased as the animal prepared to run at the first hint of danger.

The hunter froze where he was. He grasped the small pitchfork more tightly in his hand. The pain was excruciating. The open sores on his hands cracked and bled, making his grip more difficult. The animal relaxed and he crept closer.

The animal lay down on the slab of concrete to better clean his hindquarters. The hunter’s mouth watered at the thought of something to eat. The blood would slake the thirst, which roared through his body like a fire. Closer he crept. He raised the pitchfork, ready to impale the food when an incautious step caused small pebbles to shift and alert his prey. Alarmed, the rodent scurried off to hide from the hunter.

The hunter shook his fist at the sky and screamed unintelligible epithets. In front of him, a random shaft of sunlight slipped through the overcast sky, lighting a stained glass window lying in the rubble. Perhaps the rat would have appreciated the sight of the sun turning the stained glass into glowing, liquid beauty or the ironic twist of fate which had left this delicate work of art untouched through the destructive power of the earthquakes, but the rat wasn't there. Furiously the hunter kicked at the glass, which remained unbroken. He grabbed a chunk of rubble and smashed it down on the brilliant glass over and over, ranting and screaming blasphemous oaths at God. Once the beauty of the stained glass had been reduced to shards, the hunter stood and shook his fist at God, cursing His holy name and decrying the day he was born before continuing the hunt.

Unseen in the ruins, the rat watched the hunter, smelling the stench of the rotting flesh like a connoisseur of fine wine. Alerting his pack mates, they followed the hunter with greater stealth than he had shown. Before long the food would lie down and sleep and they could feast. They were patient; they could wait. The pack would eat well for many days.
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Revelation 16:10 "And the fifth angel poured out his bowl upon the throne of the beast, and his kingdom was full of darkness; and they gnawed their tongues for pain. And blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, and repented not their deeds."
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Promo For "Cooking With Cats" by Jeanne Buckhalter

2009-10-06T10:08:00.002-04:00

Cheesey music, intro to show, Cooking with Cats, featuring Chief Chef Cat Wrangler, Jeanne!

(note: For some strange reason totally beyond my ken, PBS did not pick up this program. I suspect collusion on the part of the canine industrial complex.)

Pan in on several dozen cats at feeding trough, mike close to cats to hear the growls, yiks and snarls. Pan out and show Jeanne dressed a la 1950 Harriet Homemaker, including cat-embroidered apron, cats’ eye glasses and hair in an old-fashioned bun.

Jeanne: "Hello, and welcome to Cooking with Cats!" Winces as a twenty-five pound cat jumps on her head and gets comfortable on her shoulder while eating a chicken bone, claws extended. "No, no, you naughty boy, eat on the floor like a good little kitten!" Removes cat, growling sounds get louder.

Jeanne: "Today we are going to make a simply scrumptious dish any cat, er... person would love to serve to friends and family. As always, this is a cat friendly dish and easily prepared by any homemaker blessed with anywhere from one to several dozen cats." Winces again as large tabby crawls up her apron and hangs from her right breast. Removes cat, cat pulls apron, dress, hair, and several inches of skin with him.

Jeanne: "For today's dish you'll need those zippy special hand eye coordination exercises we have been reviewing, a can opener, a can of boned chicken or some cooked chicken, a box of stuffing, a can of cream of chicken soup and a casserole dish with a very heavy, tight fitted lid." Smiles at the camera and moans gently as another cat crawls up her back to perch on her shoulder and snarl at the camera.

Jeanne: Takes a deep breath, goes to counter where can opener, canned chicken, stuffing, etc. are ready. "Please remember that you will need to keep the casserole dish turned upside down at all times until you are ready to start preparing this lovely dish!" Takes another deep breath, dislodging several cats from her shoulders, knocks a dozen cats from counter and smiles for camera. "Ready? Let's Cook With Cats!"

Start stopwatch in lower right hand corner, loud ticking. "Quickly open the can of chicken without removing the lid. Go to the feeding station, squirt all the chicken broth into the feeding trough." Show cats jumping down to feeding trough, bouncing off cook's back. "With one hand, turn the casserole dish over and throw the chicken in! Slam the lid back on, and throw the can to the floor." Can never hits floor, is grabbed by cats, snarling loudly. "Open the cream of chicken soup and toss those little monsters, I do mean kitties, the lid. Don't worry about them cutting themselves. You are more likely to be sliced, I mean, kitchen accidents do happen and usually to the cat cook!" Smiles at camera, looking a little desperate as another cat lands on her head. "Open the stuffing, remove the lid, dump it in and immediately shut the lid. It should take you no more than a second to accomplish this if you have been practicing as you should!" Smile again for the camera, hair escaping from bun from top of head. Cat on head glares at camera, eyes glowing red. "Add the soup, a half can of water, and be quick with that lid!" Laughs for camera Camera pans down to show cat with empty soup can on top of its head.

Stopwatch stops, 30 seconds expired. "There, another lovely dish fit for company!"
Pan out, showing cook, clothes in shreds, blood spattered around, hair all over the place. "Be sure to join me next week when Cooking with Cats shows you how to make Poulet avec Champingons et Campbells!

Pan out, showing cat wrangler tossing back a handful of pills and washing them down with some merlot.

Jeanne:Until then, BONE APPETIT!

2009-10-05T16:09:00.002-04:00

Herrien, Book 1
authors and owners of this writing: Jean Buckhalter and Greg Hartzog

This is our work, and our work alone. If you should copy it, do not change it, use it in your own work or change and say it is yours. Give us the credit for the work, do not steal.

The Beginning - T'zurias (pronounced Zur e az)

Herrien, Book 1
authors and owners of this writing: Jean Buckhalter and Greg Hartzog

This is our work, and our work alone. If you should copy it, do not change it, use it in your own work or change and say it is yours. Give us the credit for the work, do not steal.

The Beginning - T'zurias (pronounced Zur e az) written in 2001

Herrien School had been there longer than man or woman, with her infinitely longer memory, could recall. There were times when one would wonder which had been there first, the great granite mountain, or Herrien School. Indeed, if Herrien School had been there first, then the immense granite mountain had grown up around the school as a thorn flower bush engulfs a trellis. At least that is how it seemed to T’zurias, son of Taran the Merchant, as he stood outside his father's warehouse.

One of Taran’s cargo ships had docked that morning and T’zurias was awaiting the arrival of the huge, slow-moving drayage wagon. He yawned, stretching his stocky but well-formed body, twisting and moving gently to get the night kinks from his muscles and bones, unthinkingly running his fingers through the long, thick nut-brown curls. T’zurias disliked his hair and would have preferred it cut short, yet women, including both his mothers, seemed to love his hair long and full. Deep inside him, the empty cavern which he called his stomach and M’areen his mother called a bottomless pit, grumbled and groaned, making its needs known.

Two stories above T’zurias, Taran the Merchant looked out the window at his seventh-born son and smiled in satisfaction. Taran felt that T’zurias was perfectly suited by temperament and training to take over operation of the family business. Taran sipped his hot morning caffe while making a mental note to begin introducing the new luxury item to various important people around town. Hopefully this would spur demand for the imported caffe beans and all their paraphernalia from as far away as Kingsland, the capitol. Glancing down the street to see if the drayage wagon had yet left the docks, Taran noted with great satisfaction that the huge transport ship he had commissioned a full two turnings earlier was now riding high at the docks. This meant it had been emptied of its cargo and that the drayage wagon would now be filled and on its way. His glance returned to his son and he smiled, recalling the day of T’zurias’s birth on the couch in his office.

M’areen, one of his two life partners, was bringing the afternoon meal that day. She was feeling uncomfortable, as she was in her last moon of pregnancy, and felt the short walk from their large home to Taran’s warehouse just up the street would help. She felt the first birthing pains start about the time she lifted the basket containing a hearty meal of thick stew, fresh bread and a large slab of winterberry pie all wrapped in a cheerful red and white checkered napkin. Kaythe, Taran’s other life partner, was busy with the twins in the nursery but heard M’areen’s soft sound of discomfort. Keeping her voice quiet as always, she called down to M’areen, asking if she should carry the meal to Taran. M’areen smiled, going to the bottom of the stairs, and calling upwards to reassure Kaythe that she was fine, that the pain was only a twinge and she would return soon. The two women had great love and respect for each other sharing the household, Taran, and the growing number of children with grace and aplomb, and without the little pecking order problems often encountered by triads.

The second pain came as M’areen neared the baker’s shop. She stopped for a moment on the wooden sidewalk to find her breath, thinking perhaps she and Taran’s latest child were in a bit of a hurry. But not such a hurry that she needed to return home to her bed. As M’areen entered the warehouse, she smiled and called greetings to the multitudes of employees busily working. The third pain came as M’areen climbed the stairs to Taran’s third story office. On the landing outside Taran’s office, she stopped to gather her breath, thinking that perhaps bed would be a nice place to be as soon as Taran finished his afternoon meal. The contraction finished, she wiped the perspiration from her forehead with the delicate wisp of a handkerchief Kaythe had made for her on last winter's Solstice, and picked up the now much heavier basket. Composing her face into the smile that Taran so loved, M’areen entered his office, crossing to the window where Taran stood looking toward the docks, as he often did. As he wrapped her in his arms to exchange their customary loving kiss, her water broke in a gush. Later M’areen would clearly recall thinking how typical of a child to make a mess before he was half way into the world. The fourth pain hit hard and she dropped the basket, gasping Taran’s name.

Taran took in the soaked carpet and M’areen’s pale, sweating face, and called loudly for one of the employees to get the midwife while putting M’areen to the couch in his office. She gritted her teeth in the pain, groaning, “I don’t think there is time for her to come,” and started pushing. Being wise in the ways of both child birthing and women, Taran slipped a blanket around his partner and yelled loudly for one of the female assistants, diving out of the way like a solider dodging an attacking enemy. The fifth and final pain hit; M’areen screamed in pain as she pushed, and T’zurias exploded into the warehouse. Before the echo of the scream could die away, the midwife flew into the office with her heavy bag clutched in her hands. Before Taran could blink three times, the midwife’s cape was off, her apron on, her hands washed, the babe’s cord tied in two places, and snipped neatly with scissors, with the afterbirth delivered and packed away. T’zurias never cried, but lay on his mother’s stomach, his rich brown eyes calmly surveying the warehouse, taking in his future domain much as a monarch would survey his realm.

Taran recalled all this watching his son, now full sixteen turnings old, handsome, capable, and shining brightly with so much promise. Taran mused how much longer his son would be his alone, for even before T’zurias’s birth in the warehouse Taran had feared, and known, that someday he would lose this child to Herrien School. His other children were competent, yes, and several already worked in the business, but T’zurias was different. T’zurias could settle differences between employees, rough dockhands, and wealthy clients with equal and effortless aplomb. The most tangled mess of shipping schedules, warehouse problems, and any emergency were nothing for this son to handle without thought. Even the house servants, who had been with Taran for more then thirty turnings, performed better for T’zurias than they did for him. Taran groaned softly in his office, not wanting to think what his life would be like should he lose this golden child.

At that moment the golden child was oblivious to his father’s memories. T’zurias was however all too keenly aware of his growling stomach and wanting to get the drayage wagon there and unloaded before the day’s business began. Otherwise he would not have a chance to consume the morning snack his heart mother Kaythe had packed for him before he left the house this morning. T’zurias closed his eyes and leaned back against the gray stonewalls of the warehouse. He enjoyed the feel of the sunlight rising over the walls and listened to the sounds of Herrien Township coming to life. T’zurias inhaled deeply as the baker opened his oven, identifying with his nose the honeycakes, thick loaves of bread, and rolls ready for sale in the shop just across the street. He could hear the creaking of the produce carts as they rolled through the township, still too early yet for the familiar cries of “Taters, onions, carrots and greens, peas, and beans, corn and leeks, come now, come now, fresh grown, fresh grown”. Each smell, every sound as familiar to him as were the faces of his family.

The sound of the huge drayage wagon pulled by the team of ten oxen was as familiar as the rest, and he opened his eyes, preparing to push away from the wall. His job was to stop the traffic of smaller carts long enough for the drayage wagon to pull in to the offloading dock of the warehouse. A high-pitched scream pierced the normalcy of T’zurias’s world and his head snapped around to locate the source of the sound.

Down the cobblestone street a woman ran, her clothing torn and hanging from her thin shoulders, looking as if she was a wraith fresh from the grave trying escape all the demons of Hell. She ran mindlessly, panic showing clearly, not looking where she was fleeing. She seemed so caught up in her escape from the supernatural world that she was oblivious to the natural world around her including the lumbering drayage wagon. The drayage wagon and its oxen team, massive, coming fast, and impossible to stop or swerve, was certain to be the end of the woman.

From where he watched for the drayage wagon in his office, Taran saw the woman’s terrified race. He heard the yells of the oxen driver as he frantically tried to will his team to a stop, despite the impossiblely heavy wagon behind them. Taran’s heart jumped into his throat, as he watched T’zurias shoot like an arrow from where he had been busily holding up the wall of the warehouse toward the panicked woman directly in the path of the tons heavy drayage wagon and deadly oxen hooves. Caffe filled mug slipping from suddenly nerveless fingers, Taran watched his son rushing toward his destiny. Taran suddenly knew this day he would lose the one son whom he secretly loved the dearest, the one son whose shining abilities were so evident to all. Later M’areen would weep as she scrubbed the caffe stain from the very spot on the carpet where T’zurias’s birth waters had spilled on the day he was born. As she wept she could not help but think that surely she should have seen the foreshadowing of his life in those sacred waters and cursed not having been able to stop the inevitable.

Reacting without thought, T’zurias pushed off hard from the wall, running as swiftly as he could to sweep the woman into his arms and then leap out of the path of the speeding team and heavily laden drayage wagon. With the woman locked in his arms, he landed heavily on his shoulders and arms as he rolled up onto the wooden sidewalk across the street. With absolute clarity of vision T’zurias scanned his body quickly for injury, wincing as he noted the torn trousers and dirt now covering his clothes, already hearing the voices of his mothers in his ears. He could also feel bruises starting to rise from where he had landed hard on the cobble stone street before rolling up onto the wooden sidewalk. On the whole, T’zurias was certain he was alive and mostly unharmed. He gently started checking the woman in his arms for injury. The woman’s eyes had never blinked and there was no trace of coherent thought behind them. Her eyes were the eyes of a terrified animal, and she started struggling in his arms, trying to free herself from him. Instinctively, T’zurias soothed her as he would a frightened wild thing in his arms; “Hush dearling, hush now, quietly, I have you my girl, hush now, “ T’zurias held her as securely as his strong, young arms would provide as he continued the constant, quiet assurances, rocking her in his arms slowly.

Once the woman began to calm, T’zurias eased himself and the woman to their feet, holding her tenderly in the safety of his strong young arms. As T’zurias did so, a guardsman pulled his horse up short, snorting and blowing, the horse evidently ridden hard to get the guardsman to where the woman was. From where he stood, T’zurias could not see the insignia of Herrien School on the guard’s collar. T’zurias only saw that the new arrival was a Guard, armed, and obviously coming to retrieve the woman. The woman struggled in his arms, a soft, animalistic keening deep in her throat, as she tried again to escape and resume her running. T’zurias held her as he continued the constant stream of soothing talk, calming her as he would a wild animal. Protectively, T’zurias pulled her closer in his arms, his constant reassurances pouring over her and soothing away her terror, feeling as she started to relax in his protective embrace, under his constant stream of soothing talk.

The guard sergeant who had pulled his horse up dismounted cautiously, quietly, watching the young man with the insane Seer in his arms. Hoping that she was controlled for now, so he and the young man would not become the insane Seer’s next two victims, he walked cautiously to them. The guard sergeant cleared his throat to get the young man’s attention. Sergeant Ker’shai took note of how the woman clung to the young man holding her, much like a barnacle to the side of a ship. He knew that it would be futile, and more likely suicidal for him or anyone else to attempt to remove the insane Seer from the young man’s arms. Ker’shai cleared his throat, and T’zurias looked up in question. “Pardon, Sir, but if you could accompany us, we can get the young lady to where she can be helped.” Hearing his men pulling up behind him Sergeant Ker’shai motioned them to lower their weapons and stand off.

T’zurias opened his arms experimentally, noting that the woman no longer made any attempt to detach herself from him, let alone escape and run. T’zurias paused his stream of soothing talk and replied, “Um, I guess I am going to have to”. T’zurias then resumed his stream of quietly calming talk to the lady in his arms. Sergeant Ker’shai congratulated himself silently on avoiding getting killed so far and not upsetting the obviously wealthy young man with the Seer in his control. T’zurias cursed himself mentally on his less than elegant and worldly choice of words.

The guard Sergeant ordered one of his men to get a cart from the local guardhouse around the corner. As he stood their waiting with the woman in his arms, T’zurias took it all in, the woman’s condition, the tattered rags of what once was obviously fine quality clothing, her soft hands unaccustomed to work, and the armed guardsmen. T’zurias reached the erroneous conclusion that the woman was from a wealthy home and, having gone insane, had been sent to Herrien Township so she could be treated at Herrien School's renowned hospital. Recalling his father, his duty, and the drayage wagon now waiting to unload, T’zurias motioned with his head to the warehouse door without interrupting the stream of soft soothing talk to the woman in his arms. Much to T’zurias’s amazement and gratitude the Sergeant understood exactly what he was trying to indicate. The Sergeant immediately headed into the warehouse where T’zurias hoped the Sergeant would relate his current situation and forthcoming destination to his father. Turnings later, T’zurias’s sharpest recollections of that morn were the smells from the bakers, the growling in his stomach and the feeling of something so very right about holding this frightened young woman close in his protective arms, keeping her quieted and comforted with his words.

A small and rickety cart lumbered up, pulled by an ancient nag of venerable years. The discontented animal, rudely taken from his morning grain and put into harness, looked back almost accusingly at T’zurias as the gathered guardsmen lowered the back of the cart and helped T’zurias and his firmly attached woman to climb into the cart. The woman whimpered softly in his arms as T’zurias tried to get them both situated comfortablely for the upcoming trip. T’zurias soothingly stroked her hair, his fingers working through the mass of silken tangles, his soft voice never ceasing as he gentled her with word and touch. Sergeant Ker’shai rode next to the cart, his eyes rarely leaving the woman, watching for the first sign that her Gift was going active again. He nodded to the bowmen who rode behind the cart with bows strung and arrows notched. The young sergeant made several quick battle hand talk gestures to them indicating to shoot first if there problems and to try to avoid killing the young man if possible.

T’zurias‘s heart beat faster as he realized where they were going, Herrien School. When they passed through the high stonewalls of Herrien School with its huge metal gates, T’zurias’s heart moved up into his throat. For as long as he could recall, he had wondered about the school of Seers and Guides, wondering what sort of folk they were, what happened behind those granite walls, deep within the mountain. Time and again, Seers or Guides would enter the warehouse looking for this thing or that and he would rush to wait on them. T’zurias hoped that by talking to them he would finally get some understanding of what sort of people Guides and Seers were. But Taran would inevitably get to them before he did, and then send T’zurias off to the bowels of the warehouse basement on some obviously spurious excuse. T’zurias’s older brothers and even a younger sister had been sent to Herrien School many times to delivery purchases and messages, but T’zurias had never been allowed to go. Once T’zurias had confronted Taran with this, determined to satisfy his curiosity, asking why he could not deliver some little thing to Herrien School. The look of pain in his father’s eyes and the way his mothers showed their heart’s fears as they looked at each other, cooled his burning need to know, and T’zurias dropped the subject. As T’zurias’s brown eyes bore into his father’s, T’zurias sensed that somehow this was an old wound of his fathers, and one that he should not reopen.

The cart and its entourage pulled up to the huge stone staircase curving gracefully to the cobbled drive topped by huge iron banded doors carved deeply with the insignia of the School of Seers and Guides. To T’zurias’s right, barely noticed, was a huge thorn flower garden liberally scattered with benches handy for taking one’s ease. The thorn flower bushes were intermingled with heavily laden fruit trees and a large fountain burbled in the center of this small paradise. T’zurias’s excitement grew, but he continued to focus on comforting and calming the woman in his arms. At the bottom of the great stairs waited two men and a woman. One man was tall and young, not even near middle age, dark of hair and with golden skin. The other man was older, shorter, and somewhat stooped, looking as if he bore the weight of the twin moons on his shoulders. The woman who stood waiting bore tearstains on her cheeks, flax pale hair falling over her shoulders in some disarray, her glorious blue eyes filled with ineffable sadness. Around her neck and that of the shorter man was a chain and cage of gold. But the truly amazing thing was within each cage a golden crystal gleamed, looking as if it bore life within its depths.

Cautiously, Sergeant Ker’shai and his men assisted the young man and the insane Seer from the cart, handling them as gingerly as they would have a living death adder, the most poisonous and fortunately rare snake known. Once the young man and his dangerous companion were standing on their own at the base of the great stair Sergeant Ker’shai and his men gladly backed away and left, pleasantly surprised to have survived this day. The man with the golden crystal at his throat spoke, his voice sounding rough with emotion and tears, “If you will follow me, we will get her to where the Healer and my Guide can help.” He continued under his breath but T’zurias was able to barely hear, “If she can be helped…dear gods please let them be able to help her.” The woman, the Guide, T’zurias guessed, reached out to touch the younger woman as T’zurias entered the doors. A soft sob escaped her throat and her long, slender fingers shook as they lightly stroked the girl’s pale forehead.

Once his eyes adjusted to the darker interior entryway of the School, T’zurias noted with some disquiet the char marks on pieces of furniture. That is, the furniture that was still in one piece and not the scattering of shattered furniture pieces that seemed to litter the entire hall. His uneasiness rose as he noted the people who were in the hall as they entered quickly scurried away, in evident fear. The older man, the wearer of the golden crystal, motioned him to the large, sweeping staircase. At any other time T’zurias would have been enchanted by its beauty and craftsmanship, but the overriding need to keep the young woman quiet, the strange reactions of the folk around him, and his frankly too empty stomach were taking precedence.

They were not at their destination at the end of the first lovely staircase. T’zurias and his charge were lead down a wide hall scattered with the occasional comfortable sofa or grouping of chairs. Flowers in graceful vases were everywhere, perfuming the air. A pair of caged blue song sparrows with their golden chests and voices like liquid sunshine trilled in complete unconcern near one of the chair groupings. Down the hall they continued, past closed doors, till they reached the next staircase. T’zurias was a strong young man, but even the light form of the ill young woman in his arms was getting to be a bit much. The man with the gold at his throat turned to him, smiling sadly, “It won’t be much further.” T’zurias nodded in reply, murmuring quietly to the woman in his now aching arms, satisfied when she sighed softly, relaxing once again in his arms.

There was another staircase, not as large as the first, but as lovely, then another and the tall, thin man waiting at an open door, having been able to get there faster with his long legs and unencumbered by a clinging woman. Stopping where indicated next to the bed, T’zurias was surprised when the older man sighed, closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them, touching the woman clinging to T’zurias. She sighed, her eyes closed, and she starting slipping from his aching arms. Quickly the tall thin man and woman with gold at her throat caught her as she slipped from T’zurias’s now nerveless arms and moved to place her on the bed. They placed her on soft looking sheets and blankets smelling of thorn flowers and lavender. Standing there watching, T’zurias wondered at why his arms, now free of his burden suddenly felt so horribly, almost achingly, empty. The older man turned to him, “Please come to my office for a moment.” Uncertainly, T’zurias turned back to the young woman on the bed, not realizing that his hand reached out to her. Nor did he see the lightning quick glances that passed between the Guide and his Seer or how the brows of the tall man arched with surprise, quickly hidden.

Back down the staircases they went, T’zurias noticing even less than before, conscious only of an empty feeling deep within. He reasoned it was just hunger gnawing through him, not realizing it was the loss of the young woman from his arms that made him feel so hollow inside. The halls were filling now with folk, some servants by what they were doing. T’zurias expected the Guides and Seers to be well dressed, but the servants were as well dressed and obviously content to be bustling and scurrying about to clean up the debris and beginning to scrub the scorch marks from the walls. The man motioned T’zurias through doors marked with a wreath of thorn flowers surrounding a crystal in a cage. T’zurias wondered what name and title the gentleman who lead him bore, tired of thinking of him as the “older, shorter man with the gold crystal.”

As if hearing the question T’zurias was asking himself, the man came to a sudden stop and laughed. He extended his hand to T’zurias, “I am M’eran, Seer and the Headmaster here; the lady is my life partner and Guide, the Headmistress here, K’tan; the tall gentleman is Master Healer Taolin’m; and the sick one you helped is Bak’kara, a Seer.“ He sighed sadly, “Such potential now lost”. M’eran moved to sit behind a desk of deeply carved ironwood, black with age, gleaming with polish. A hammered brass bowl of thorn flowers on one corner of the massive desk, filling the room with their sweet scent. The heavy woven gold brocade draperies were open at the windows and sunlight poured through them to spill over the deep red carpet under their feet. Son of a prosperous merchant, T’zurias unconsciously noted the quality and age of the things in the room, approving the care they received, and thinking how they fit the School so well.

“Now, if you will indulge my curiosity and answer a few questions?” M’eran smiled kindly at T’zurias, who found himself smiling in return. As the markings burned by the smile gave way to a mind numbing sense that he had merged with the once comfortable chair. M’eran had him repeat each detail over and over, often backing T’zurias up to touch upon tiny points again. When M'eran's questions stopped, K'tan's began. Trying to not groan loudly, he rearranged his bruised body several times during the interview. M’eran wanted to know everything with such precision, but seemed to concentrate mostly on how T’zurias felt. “And what were your feelings when you did this, and how did this make you feel?” Just as T’zurias was beginning to truly hate the word “feel” K'tan called in the young sergeant who had been there to go over the same things all over again.

As the morning lengthened into early afternoon and the questions continued, T’zurias’ normally placid temper grew sharper. His stomach had gone past growling to howling like a pack of ravening beasts. His bruised hip and bottom were aching against the wood of the chair, with a deep bruise on his elbow past aching but screaming for attention. T’zurias never had headaches, but the one that was growing in his skull promised to be a monster. Yet the others seemed indifferent to all his discomfort as they droned on and on and on and on. At one point T’zurias idly considered if this was what Bak’kara had been enduring before running to escape.

M’eran stood suddenly, “Come with me T’zurias, I believe you need to see this.” Wincing as he rose to follow the Headmaster and Headmistress, T’zurias tried to silence the cacophony of demands his body was making known. Again they climbed the stairs to the second floor, going down the hall, turning, going down another hall and up a shorter stair to travel yet another hall. T’zurias’s head was pounding, making it hard to walk without focusing all his concentrate on where his feet were going, almost walking into M’eran as the Headmaster stopped abruptly. T’zurias looked up from his feet to see M’eran stopped before a door that appeared to have hacked to bits by a dozen or so soldiers with axes. K'tan gestured to T’zurias to enter the room before them.
T’zurias looked around the room with eyes wide in shock. The once obviously lovely room was devastated. The walls were darkened where some sort of flame had burst against them. In some places bits of sand in the granite had been fused to give the wall a glassy surface. All the wood in the room had been blackened to char, including several pieces of wood that appeared to have been embedded in the solid granite walls by some massive force. The draperies and bed covers had all been turned to ash.

M’eran let T’zurias take in the room for a dozen or so heartbeats an then cleared his throat. “Early this morn Bak’kara woke to find her Trainer, A’mara dead. Taolin’m thinks it might have been his heart as A’mara was one of our older Trainers and in failing health. As can happen to Seers, even student Seers, she went insane with grief, when his mind touch left her. “ M’eran pointed to a deeply blackened area on the floor in the doorway, “Their seneschal had knocked on the door and entered with their morning meal but she was too far gone in her insanity to stop from doing to him what she had done to room already.” He sighed deeply, leading T’zurias from the suite. A quiet sob came from K'tan, surprising T'zurias who had thought of the two, she was one quite without feelings.

They stopped at another blackened spot down the hall from the destroyed door, the carpet burned in the unmistakable shape of a human. “Another servant tried stopping her, tried keeping her from running out of the building.” With a growing sense of horror, T’zurias silently followed them back down the halls and stairs, noting three more blackened spots where presumablely people had tried to stop Bak’kara. Where people had died. When they reached the bottom of the staircase leading back to their office, K'tan turned and looked in his eyes, “Don’t go thinking she is evil or bad, she was insane. Just quite insane.”

T’zurias asked the only question which came to mind. “Can you help her?”

M’eran, hiding his pleasant surprise that it was this question that was asked and no other, looked deeply into T’zurias’ eyes. M’eran drew T’zurias into his space, and nodded, “Normally, not much could be done, but… I have hope in this instance.” M’eran smiled and T’zurias rocked back on his heels, blinking slowly. T’zurias had the vaguest feeling that something had happened, but that feeling quickly faded under the growing cacophony of demands his body was making. T’zurias could not have known that the two had done a lightning fast but deep scan of him, of his mind, of his skills, and found a brightly shining Gift within.

Sergeant Ker’shai was waiting in the Headmaster’s office when they returned and M’eran reached for T’zurias’s hand, shaking it in dismissal. “Well, thank you for your assistance in getting Bak’kara back to us and answering my questions. Sergeant Ker’shai will see you back to your home.” Feeling put out, dismissed as a child, and filled with an odd longing to fly back up the stairs and to the bed where Bak’kara lay so still, T’zurias obediently followed the Sergeant to the waiting cart.

Sergeant Ker’shai saw that the young man did not want to talk on the way back, and clinically noted the young man’s pallor, the shaking hands, and way he kept moving to rearrange his body on the hard bench of the cart. Ker’shai smiled inwardly, making a private wager that within the moon, this young man would be coming back through the gates of Herrien School in Onset Fever.

T’zurias was silent on the trip back, his aches and pains screaming through him, his hunger replaced by nausea and the headache blinding. The ordinary street sounds were too loud, the cart jarred his aching body and he wanted something he could not quite put into words. Suddenly, turning around to look at the great School of Herrien he knew what he wanted; he wanted Bak’kara. The closer he got to the warehouse and home, the worse he felt with a raging headache, bruises feeling the size of stones, and nausea which was coiling in his innards.

Taran stood in the door of the warehouse, waiting the return of his son. As he saw the cart approaching, his heart began beating rapidly. He silently called his traitorous heart back into check. He saw his son, obviously pale and upset, torn trousers, and needing the clean clothing and bath his mothers would insist on.

Also he saw more. Taran saw his son’s pain, mental and physical. Time moved strangely, as it sometimes did for Taran and he saw his son older, Gift shining but honed with use, time jumped again and he saw his son smiling down at a tiny but equally Gifted woman, again and he saw his son weeping uncontrollably, being held back from doing something by a man whose Gift shone so brightly that Taran was afraid to look further.

M’areen and Kaythe had been watching for T’zurias’s return as well and they both ran down the stairs, rushing out the front door to T’zurias. Only by the shared force of both their wills did M’areen and Kaythe keep from weeping over their son’s obvious illness and injuries.

One mother on each side of him, they chivied T’zurias back to the house, daring their husband with those wifely gleams to object. The mothers’ raised eyebrows informed Taran in no uncertain terms that their son was going home to be bathed, dressed, fed, and made to feel guilty for giving them so much work to do.

Understanding far more than he would admit even to his life partners and deep in his own sorrow for the imminent loss of his favorite child, he made no effort to object and returned to the warehouse to work. The afternoon passed slowly for Taran with only part of his mind on business, much of it on Herrien School, and most on his son. He sat heavily behind his desk feeling all his turnings weighing upon him and turned to look again out the window. His eyes fell to the barely visible stain on the carpet where those birth waters had flowed sixteen turnings before and sobbed softly into his hands. Taran knew that before the sun rose on the morrow his son, this golden child of his heart and body, would no longer be his.

T’zurias was barely aware of his mothers, his world focusing to encompass only pain. His head was exploding with lights so loud, and sounds so bright. Each one breaking against him so painfully that he looked to see if he was bleeding before falling back against his bed. He was marginally aware of his mothers gently removing his clothing and bathing his bruises, moaning as his face was washed, the dust-filled hair brushed with care. The normally soft sheets felt like sandpaper against his skin and he picked at them, trying to move them from his body, but suddenly unable to lift them. Kaythe gently spooned soup into him, her eyes filling with tears as he turned away from the spoon, not wanting food. “Oh M’areen… oh M’areen sister he is so ill, so very ill.” Heart mother and birth mother sat next to him, sponging him constantly to try to lower the fever raging through his body, knowing that otherwise he would be leaving them soon, trying by determination alone to keep their son with them.

His twin sisters stood in the doorway, aware only that their most beloved brother was ill, frightened at this, their mothers' fears making their own even greater. Their old nurse pulled them away from the door, taking them to their room and letting them weep against her ample bosom, her own tears dripping onto the twin heads of red and gold.

T’zurias spiraled down into blackness, into colors that screamed at him, sounds that broke against his skin, and shapes that flapped all around, threatening to swarm over him. He cried out and fell back into the blackness, not hearing his parents or feeling their tears. T’zurias did not hear as Taran explained in sobs to his life partners what was afflicting their son and why he knew about this particular illness, Onset Fever. T’zurias did not feel as he was carried in his father’s arms down the stairs and placed tenderly on a pallet on a cart. He did not feel as they drove him with great speed back through the gates of Herrien School. Nor was he aware of the Healer Taolin’m spooning Onset medicaments through his moaning lips, or the gentle touch of M’eran and K’tan as they sent him into a deeper sleep where his body and mind could heal. As he slipped into that dark void the only thing he could recall was the feeling of Bak’kara’s body, warm and trembling in his arms, and the feeling of such rightness as he soothed her.

T’zurias floated in a world of pain, nausea, sounds, and lights, aware that somewhere in the back of his mind that something was missing. Murmuring voices he could almost understand pierced the fog and he felt something warm and soft placed next to him, something familiar. His hand was lifted and something hard and cold was put in it, then part of the soft, familiar thing was put over the hard and cold.

Rushing through him like a shock wave, the identity of the soft and familiar as woman…Seer…Bak’kara, woke T’zurias from his fog. The unique qualities that made Bak’kara herself whispered through him, filling his mind like the scent of the spices from his mothers’ kitchen. A loud crack exploded in his ears and her hand fell away from his. T’zurias tried to open eyes which were gummed shut from his illness, and felt a soft hand gently sponged away the crust. He opened his eyes and looked at the hard but now warm on his hand and saw a glowing blue crystal.

The soft hand slid a thin leather band under his hand, turning his hand so that the crystal touched. T’zurias watched as if far, far away, noting that somehow the crystal clung to the band. He watched as the soft hands did the same to the woman next to him and watched as the hands lifted the wealth of honey gold hair from the pillow, securing the band around Bak’kara’s throat. The band was slipped from his fingers and secured around his own throat. Bak’kara and T’zurias sighed at the same moment and returned to sleep, turning to hold each other close.
K’tan smiled at M’eran, “There, tis done. Now they will recover.” Shaking his head, M’eran answered, “I hope and pray you are right my Guide. Tis a gamble, pairing a student to an insane Seer.”

K’tan stood, coming into his arms which had opened to her as a flower will open to the sun, “Oh they will be fine. For one, the crystal would not have broken had it not been the correct pairing. For another, even as sick as they both are, they bonded.” K’tan looked back at the two on the bed and smiled, “Don’t worry, my Beloved, Taran’s son will be a far greater Guide than ever was his father.”

M’eran kissed her forehead, whispering so only her ears could hear, “Dearling, you know Taran does not want his son to know he was a Guide.” T’zurias did not hear the gentle whisper, hearing only Bak’kara, calling to him in the darkness, calling him away from pain to find her in the abyss of her madness. Even as her madness spiraled around him, calling him down into it, T'zurias took control of her mind, pulling her from madness. Only then did he sigh and fall into natural rest. Only then did Bak'kara recognize her own mind again and the young man's pain, and she reached out to weave his pain into deeper sleep and smoothe the torn channels into controled Gift.

K’tan, watching from within both their minds saw as the young man in Onset fever found the insane Seer, watched as their minds bonded and he began to gently draw her home. She nodded in satisfaction, knowing that she had been right in thinking Bak'kara would make an excellent Healer. M’eran laughed, his mind joined to hers; laughed in relief and wonder and joy that again he was free of the abyss of Seer madness, that she was his and his Guide and, as always, right about a Student and Trainer, a Seer and Guide. A momentary fear of being locked in madness on the top floor of the School passed through his mind and she turned to him, wrapping her arms around him, pressing her body to his, linking her mind more tightly to his, whispering with mind and voice, “Never shall I leave you my Beloved, never. And never will you fall into madness and despair. This I promise you.”

M’eran kissed her lips, her eyes, her forehead, taking comfort in the touch of her body warm against his, and her mind touch on his, glad that the youngling had been able to call the insane Seer home again. They left the room, calling the young Trainer to the room, giving her the assignment of tending the two until T’zurias was free of Onset Fever, or Bak’kara well enough to tend him. He sighed as they walked to their chambers, “The Council is not going to like us breaking tradition my love.”

K’tan snuggled against him as they walked, “They won’t be too upset, dearling, after all, we saved a strong Healer and T’zurias is the future headmaster after all.” M’eran laughed, thinking how easy she made it all sound, knowing time would prove her right … as always.

The Judgment of the Ice Mother

2009-10-05T15:55:00.002-04:00

Judgment of the Ice Mother...Jean Buckhalter, June 2001
From The Herrien Series by Jean Buckhalter and Greg Hartzog. If you copy, please give us credit and don't change anything, use it in your own writing or otherwise steal.

N'enyara looked within the girl child sleeping on the furs, tear stains still showing on the pale cheeks, the frost white hair kissed by winter sun with the dried blood matting it against her head. She controlled the sudden, hot flash of rage against the one who did this to the child, breathing deeply to regain her center and not let her anger contaminate the child. Down, down, down she slid deeply into G'zelda, slipping easily past the surface girl, past the usual thoughts a person thinks shameful and wants to hide even from self, deeper and deeper into her, looking within on a cellular level.

"Gifted, strongly yes…"She murmured, knowing every word would be heard by the other Wise of the Tribe who had gathered.”Her body will heal in time, but the channels carrying the majority of her Gift are blocked." N'enyara pressed gently against the channels with ghostly psi fingers, withdrawing as she saw that it was not possible to open them at that time. Again she controlled her anger at the animal that had raped the child, beating her to unconsciousness. "The skull is not fractured, but there is bruising of the brain below. It will need to be monitored closely for the next two eight days." Gently she probed with her mind past the torn open womanhood of the eight turnings child, seeking the holiest spot, where life is held, and sighed, finding no permanent damage, for children were the life and soul of the Tribe.

N'enyara came from trance after setting sleep more deeply upon the child, letting her sleep past the initial pain of her attack and turned to the other Wise and the Council of Elders present observing. "Her Gift shines brightly but is blocked. We do not have the skill here to heal her mind and open her Gift." Still partially in trance, N'enyara placed her hand on the girl's forehead gently, assuring herself that she still slept deeply. "You have the animal who did this?"

D'aan, the Chief of the Eldest grunted, pointing with his head to the other room. "The brother of her father. We have him. Her brother will also need to be monitored." N'enyara's nostrils flared and she breathed deeply commanding her body to silence, not noticing how her hand had crept to the sharpened bone knife around her neck.

She forced herself to speak calmly, "The boy as well?" D'aan nodded silently, noting her hand on the bone knife and considering permitting the Guide to take the animal's life.

"The parents did not know. The Tribe did not know. He had threatened to take B'ren's sister's life and his parent's lives if the boy spoke." D'aan shrugged. "B'ren heard her scream in his mind while fishing with his father and they ran to her to find the animal using her and beating her head with a stone."

N'enyara contained the sudden flash of nausea through her body, speaking but two words, "Tribal law?"

D'aan nodded once.

"I will monitor the boy, he is how old? Then when G'zelda is well enough I will take them back to Herrien with me where the Mind Healer will work with them both and perhaps, in time, their Gifts will manifest fully."

The Council Elders and Wise nodded as one. D'aan spoke again, "B'ren is twelve turnings. The animal has used him for three. The tribe will send them with honor, furs and goods. They will not go as beggars to the School."

"When do you take him to the ice?" N'enyara planned to keep both children deeply under while the animal was given the sentence of the Tribe to spare them this pain as well.

"On the sun's setting."

Hannan spoke, the Eldest of the Wise. "I will do the castration myself, cleanly and without letting the animal bleed to death." Her face was lined with the wrinkles of age, hair like frost in twin braids with their decorations of carved wood and bone braided in falling over her shoulders.

N'enyara thought of the words within Hannan's words and nodded once in approval. The animal would be carefully and skillfully castrated and not allowed to bleed to death and lead to the ice, where he would be abandoned without furs, food, or water, without knife or flint, alone with his crime, the ice broken free from the rest and pushed out into the Great Salt Sea. The Wise would send into his mind all the children's terror and pain and horror. If he were fortunate, he would die of this. If not, there was always the cold and pitiless judgment of Ice Mother.

Granny Nobles Pound Cake

2009-10-05T15:42:00.003-04:00

2 cups butter flavor Crisco
3 cups white, granulated sugar
5 large eggs, added one at a time
1 cup sweet milk (whole milk )
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
2 tsp. vanilla extract
4 cups Soft as silk flour (cake flour)

Grease and flour a 10” tube pan. Cream butter flavored Crisco, and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until light and fluffy after each addition. Pour vanilla extract into milk. Sift dry ingredients together into separate bowl. Add 1/3 dry ingredients to sugar and egg mixture. Add1/2 of the milk. Beat at slowest speed until flour just is mixed. Add second third of dry ingredients and the rest of the milk and beat until the flour is just mixed. Scrape the bowl and add the rest of the flour. Mix until just blended and pour into pan.

DO NOT PREHEAT OVEN! This is what the old folks called a cold oven cake. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 1 hour and 20 minutes, or until a cake tester or broom straw comes out clean. Don’t open the door for the first hour or the cake will fall. Cool on a wire rack for 15 minutes and remove from the pan. let cool for 1/2 hour before serving.

Carl's Granny Nobles always had one of these on her kitchen table and made several every week until the day she left us. There may be fancier cakes out there, but this one is one of the best and always good. The only change I made was using butter flavored Crisco and adding a little vanilla extract. I've made it before without any baking powder and it still rose magnificently.

Grits Soufflé

2009-10-05T15:22:00.001-04:00

Grits Soufflé (Sort of Soufflé)

More stable than the traditional soufflé, but the husband and I didn’t like it, mainly because neither of us like soufflé’s or soufflé-ish things. Go figure. If you like soufflé’s you may like this. Other folks who ate it liked it. The cats and dogs did, too, but then they'll eat darn near anything.

1 cup corn grits
4 cups water
1 teaspoon salt
Couple good shakes hot sauce, more or less to taste
1 cup grated cheddar cheese or grated American cheese or Monterrey Jack
6 eggs
2 tablespoons butter (if you prefer chemicals, go ahead and use margarine)

Note: Corn grits are dry mealish things, not canned hominy grits. Same basic ingredient - corn - but totally different critter.

Bring water to a boil. Add salt, butter, stir in grits. Turn down to low and cook till thick, about 20 minutes. (I don’t care if it says 5 minute quick cooking grits, cook those things.) Stir frequently. Beware spitting, bubbling grits. They are hot enough to burn the heck out of you. Use a long spoon (wooden is good) to stir.

While grits are still hot, add the cheese. Let the grits cool in the refrigerator then beat the eggs, shake in some hot sauce and add them to the grits. Pour into a greased baking dish and (I used a round casserole dish) and bake at 350 about 30 minutes, or until fluffy and golden brown. Unlike all soufflé’s, it didn't collapse when served.

Variation: We liked this one.

1 large sweet red pepper, diced
1 large onion, diced
2 tablespoons butter
6 to 8 eggs, beaten and scrambled (cooked)
Recipe as above, but minus raw eggs

Saute onion and pepper together. Add to cooked eggs. Fold cooked eggs and veggies into cooked, cooled grits and cheese. Bake as above.

Variation for Carnivores:
Fry and drain a lot of bacon, crumble, add to either variation of Grits Soufflé.

Fry, drain and crumble sausage, add to either variation of Grits Soufflé.

Reheats OK, freezes well.

Recipe- Blobs for Susan by Jeanne Buckhalter

2009-10-05T15:00:00.001-04:00

Blobs an original recipe by Jeanne Buckhalter
For Susan - we miss you, angel girl

1 bag Kraft caramels, unwrapped
1 bag Semi-sweet or milk chocolate chips, your choice
1 tablespoon cream or milk
Rice Krispie type cereal, about 2 cups
Waxed paper

I have to specify that you unwrap the caramels because I have actually been asked if they should be unwrapped before melting. Of course it was the same person who asked how long I baked Rice Krispie Treats, Perhaps she was joking, but I don't think she was.

In one clean and well dried pot, melt the caramels, adding the tablespoon of cream. Stir as it melts. Add Krispie cereal then spoon by the tablespoon to sheets of waxed paper, coaxing it to spread out. (You don't want a huge thick blob of Blob).

Let the caramel/cereal mixture harden. While it is firming up, melt the
chocolate, stirring. Using a teaspoon, barely dribble chocolate over the blobs;
random lines, criss-cross sort of thing. Let harden, (refrigerating them works
well), then remove from waxed paper. If you will be stacking them for storage, put waxed paper between the layers of Blobs.

The story behind Blobs. Some time ago, I came up with the idea of inventing candies for everyone in the family, using their favorite candy combination. The first year I did Jingle Bells for our eldest grandson Jon. I'll post it later, but it was a huge hit and he, his brother, and Jon's girlfriend Susan ate the better part of 5 pounds of assorted homemade candies, including Jon's Jingle Bells, before getting home.

I planned on making Susan's candy the following Christmas and had come up with Blobs, waiting to find out what name she would prefer for the candy. Knowing her as I did, she would probably have wanted them to remain Blobs throughout eternity just because it is a silly name.

Unfortunately Jon and Susan were in a terrible car accident before Christmas and she died immediately. No drugs or alcohol were involved, just a combination of a poorly placed stop sign on a blind highway and the sun angled just right (wrong) to make it impossible to see anything coming. Jon was in a coma for several months with little expectation of living. Gladly he did come out and is doing well. I never did get to ask Susan what she wanted to call her candy, so Blobs they remain.

I miss her terribly. So these are Susan's, and she loved Jon, us, Harry Potter, cats, dogs and laughing. We love you, Susan and I will try to get that sculpture done for your sister. She'll laugh herself sick and know it was from you. See you on the other side.

Writer's Block by Jeanne Buckhalter

2009-10-05T14:56:00.000-04:00

Writer's Block - Jeanne Buckhalter
The blank page stares at me accusingly. “Fill me,” it seems to hiss. “Erase my awful blankness with words.” I look at it wondering what words, where to start. The blank page sneers back at me. “Hack,” it seems to say.

Beneath my fingertips the keyboard says “Go away, stop your pounding on me.” Its whine sounds in my ears, “Haven’t you punished me enough?” I pick up the keyboard and turn it upside down, whacking it gently against the desk to loosen the cat hair and cracker crumbs before spraying it with canned air. The can, icy cold in my hand, seems to resent being woken to blow the detritus from the keyboard.

The wolves on the monitor stare back at me, their yellow eyes inviting me to leave this world, this body and run with them wild and free. We sing as we run in the hunt, the frosted grass crunching under the pads of our paws as we dash across the moonlit wood. I sigh, human, too human, and feel only the hard chair under me.

Faithfully the CPU sings softly to me, occasionally whispering as it goes through its Arcanum. “I am here,” the fans sing to me, “Feel my heat, hear my heart beating.” The case is cool and hard against my hand, solid, dependable. A quiet gurgling as it does some mechanical thing deep within almost seems to appreciate my gentle stroking.

The cat looks up from her nest on the floor. She stretches and yawns before padding softly to the office door. Aki could care less if the page is blank, or the computer runs, or the wolves on the monitor stare. She only cares that she needs to use the litter box, visit the other cats, have a drink from the water bowl and perchance a nibble of kibble and wishes to leave the sanctum.

I sigh. My duty is clear. The page will not be filled. The keyboard will be silent. The wolves will run without me. The faithful CPU will shut down properly, leaving me with a lonely pang as it finally clicks off. My bed calls. Too bad the dog is already on my pillow.

Dukkah

2009-10-05T14:27:00.002-04:00

Dukkah is a Moorish crumbly spice and nut mixture served in many different ways. Traditionally it is served with pieces of pita bread and individual bowls of a high quality extra virgin olive oil for dipping. One dips the bread in oil, then in the Dukkah. Divine.

I don’t recall where I got this recipe, since it is one I’ve made a while now. You can also use it in cooking. I particularly like drizzling chunks or slices of vegetables with olive oil then liberally coating them in Dukkah and roasting them in the oven.

Dukkah
1 cup of shelled pistachio nuts (I am profoundly glad that you can now purchase shelled pistachios and don’t need to shell nuts to get the kernels.)
1 cup of almonds
1 tablespoon of whole coriander seeds
1 tablespoon of whole cumin seeds
½ teaspoon of dried thyme
¼ cup of sesame seeds
¼ teaspoon of salt
First toast the nuts in a hot oven for about 15 minutes, stirring frequently to prevent burning. Don’t ignore them, they can burn easily. Toast the spice seeds and sesame seeds separately in the same way. Cool and combine with the remaining ingredients in a food processor. Pulse the mixture until it resembles small breadcrumbs. The mixture should be very dry and crumbly, not a paste. If it’s a paste, you over processed it but do not despair, now just add a little olive oil and use it as a spread on fancy toast or crackers. Be careful as over processing can release the oil from the nuts making the mixture moist, which you don't want.
How to serve Dukkah:
Simply dip small pieces of fresh bread in good quality olive oil and then into the Dukkah and eat, yum!
Spread pita bread or pizza bases with some olive oil and Dukkah, and then lightly grill. Cut into wedges and serve.
Coat chicken or fish in Dukkah and grill.
Sprinkle over your salads or pasta dishes.

Variation - credited to Mystery Person

I found this one online (of course) but don't recall where. If anyone knows where I found it, let me know so I may give credit where credit is abundantly due.
1 cup shelled roasted pistachio nuts*
1 cup shelled roasted almonds
1 tablespoon whole coriander seeds
1 tablespoon whole fennel seeds
1 tablespoon whole cumin seeds
1/4 cup toasted sesame seeds
1 tablespoon crushed red pepper flakes
1/4 teaspoon Smoked Spanish Paprika (optional)
1 tablespoon coarse salt or sea salt
1 to 2 teaspoons coarsely crushed black pepper

* Hazelnuts, pine nuts, macadamia nuts, sunflower seeds, and/or peanuts may be substituted. If you cannot purchase roasted nuts, toast the nuts in a hot oven for approximately 10 minutes (watch closely so they do not burn), stirring frequently.

In a separate container from the nuts, toast coriander seeds, fennel seeds, cumin seeds, sesame seed in a hot oven for approximately 5 to 8 minutes (also watch carefully so they do not burn). Remove from oven and let cool.

In your food processor, grind your toasted nuts until the mixture resembles small breadcrumbs. The mixture should be very dry and crumbly, not a paste. Be careful as over processing can release the oils in the nuts and turn the mixture into a nut spread such as peanut butter.

In a mortar and pestle, grind the coriander seeds, fennels seeds, cumin seeds, sesame seeds, and red pepper flakes slightly. You can try using your food processor for this, but I find the seeds are too small for using it.

In a bowl, combine the crushed nuts, crushed seeds, Smoked Spanish Paprika, salt, and pepper. Taste and adjust seasonings if necessary. Store mixture in a covered container in the refrigerator.

To serve as a dip: Place 1 cup Dukkah in a small bowl and about 1 cup extra-virgin olive oil in a separate bowl. Dip cubes of fresh crusty bread first into the oil, then into the Dukkah and enjoy!

Feijoada (Tangy Black Beans) from Diet For A Small Planet

2009-10-05T14:15:00.002-04:00

Feijoada (Tangy Black Beans) from Diet For A Small Planet

Oil for sautéing
1 large onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 green onions, chopped
1 red sweet pepper, chopped
1 tomato, chopped
1 teaspoon cilantro
1 cup black beans (dry, yes, you can use canned, drain and don’t use stock and bay leaf)
3 cups vegetable stock
1 bay leaf
1 tablespoon red wine or 1 teaspoon red wine or other vinegar
¼ teaspoon pepper
1 orange, washed, cut in half, NOT peeled (or about a quarter cup of orange juice)
½ teaspoon salt
2 stalks celery, chopped
1 carrot, chopped
1 small sweet potato, peeled and diced

Heat oil in large heavy pot and sauté onion, garlic, green onions, sweet red pepper tomato and cilantro until onion is transparent. Add beans, stock, bay leaf, pepper, and red wine or vinegar. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 2 minutes. Take off stove and let sit, covered, for 1 hour.

Add remaining ingredients and simmer with lid ajar, for 2 to 3 hours, or until beans are tender. Remove orange from beans and discard. Remove a couple ladles of beans and mash them, and return to the pot to thicken the mixture.

Note: pressure cooker or crock pot works fine. To substitute canned black beans, use two cans black beans, drain one, add sautéed vegetables and one can of vegetable stock. Simmer all together with the sweet potato and carrot till the sweet potato and carrot are cooked and tender.

Another note: Using a perfectly good, expensive orange for this, then discarding it, goes against my basically frugal nature. I use about a half cup of orange juice rather than the orange. I have also used lime or lemon juice, in smaller measure, when out of orange juice, since I usually have a number of different citrus fruits hiding somewhere in the refrigerator.

Yet another note: Omit smashing some of the beans, drain beans (SAVE LIQUID) and serve, cold, over a bed of salad greens with tomatoes, cucumbers and whatever else you like on a salad. Nice hot weather dinner and the black beans are gorgeous against the colors of the salad. I like it topped with Thousand Island dressing or naked. Er...the salad is naked, not me.

Now a Bit of Fiction "Lost and Found" by Jeanne Buckhalter

2009-10-05T13:37:00.002-04:00

Lost and Found
A short story by Jeanne Buckhalter

The woman was working in her garden, the sun beating down on her skin glowing a pinky gold, a sheen of fine perspiration on her brow, the rays of the sun highlighting the white streaks in her golden hair. She stopped pulling the weeds at the sound of the tiniest silver bell chiming to look and see a handsome Siamese male cat walking carefully down the rows of carefully tended flowers, looking as if he was a cat on a mission. Cara sat back on her heels, waiting his arrival, almost as if she waited for him to speak. The silence grew, as do all silences when cat kind are involved, and finally Cara spoke. “Well, Sir Cat, what brings you here, just a casual visit? New to the neighborhood? Need to borrow a can of salmon?” She laughed softly as a person who is doing something idiotic and hopes no others hear, reaching out to pet the magnificence of Royal Catliness who sat before her. “Mmmmm a tag on your collar, let’s see who is fortunate enough to have you living with them?” Her brows rose as she read his name, murmurring "That's a language I haven't heard in a while." The Cat smirked, laughing deep inside so he didn't insult the two-leg woman.

His Royal Catliness, Xia Que according to his collar, permitted her to carry him in her arms, purring madly, smelling the delicious scent of female Siamese on her skin and clothing and a familiar, almost clove and rose scent, similar to that of the one he permitted to live with him.

Once within her abode, he saw HER, the most magnificent Siamese female ever birthed. Oh how her fur shone, her perfect points, the azure of her eyes, the trilling voice. He straightened in the woman’s arms, demanding to get down, arranging his fur neatly and presenting himself to the vision in fur before him. The vision fluffed and made herself absolutely adorable to him and he sat as befitting Royalty meeting Divinity, presenting his whiskers and ears at the perfect, appealing tilt he knew other intelligent feline could not resist, and carefully wrapped his tail around his paws as he had been taught long ago in kittenhood.

The woman did what they do with telephones, contacting his so-called “owner” and discovering his address. She glanced in the mirror to assure herself that none of the garden loam was on her face, her hair was reasonably groomed and buttons fastened. She dithered about changing her clothes, decided against it before Bastet got any ideas of the kitten kind since the visiting male was fully male and obviously interested in her little darling Bast.

As both cats could hear the thoughts in the woman's head, Bastet rolled her eyes and sighed, quietly apologizing to her visitor. "I'm terribly sorry. I haven't owned her long enough to do much good." Xia Que nodded his head in understanding, for his human was also a sore trial at times, though he had hope.

The vision in fur decided that she too would accept a ride with the two-leg female and the greatly acceptable male who had been kind enough to visit her. She walked out of the house, each foot placed precisely and delicately, causing Xia Que to moan softly in his throat, causing the two-legged female to stroke his fur soothingly.

He sat next to Her on the back seat, permitting the female to drive without telling her what she was doing wrong, getting to know the Vision. She inclined her head regally; he cleaned her ears, eyes closing in rapture, his tail flicking gently back and forth. “Divine One, tell me, what is your name?” Her purr was bliss, a delightful music to his ears, “Bastet, but please, call me Bast.” Xia Que gave a catly chuckle, “Appropriate; your pet has a sense of what is suitable.”

The drive was far too short, but Xia Que and Bastet had time to discuss Euclidean Theory, astrophysics, assorted tricks in getting around having to do all the piddly calculations necessary to use a tesseract for interstellar jumps, the deplorable habit of humans to neglect the purchase of fresh tuna from the grocer, and the possibility of getting their pets together. His pet answered the door and Xia Hue moaned in his throat, apologizing to Bastet for the creature’s sad appearance, with the smudges on his face and wrinkled clothing. Bast, being a cat of good breeding, forgave him, commiserating on how difficult it was to make them at least maintain the semblance of good breeding.

“I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you bringing my naughty boy home. Please do come in for a drink, some fruit juice, something?” Xia rolled his eyes, sad at the obvious efforts of the man, but giving him some credit for at least trying. Bastet smirked as only cats can and took matters into her finely shaped paws, jumping from her pet’s shoulder and racing into the house, Xia close on her perfectly tipped tail. Xia Que discovered that the view of The Vision was as perfect and perfectly enticing as was her front, as Bastet already knew. They

“Bastet! Come back here right now!” Cara blushed a bright red, “I don’t know what has gotten into her, let me get her out of your hair.”

One thing led to another, the two cats managing to hide in plain sight and the two rested in the living room, tall glasses of cold fruit juice in their hands, talking. She taught, he wrote, oh really, what, oh I love those books, chatter, chatter, chatter. Their conversation being a boring one, the two in fur discussed the latest appropriations before Congress, the ethical dilemma of cloning Siamese, comparative religions, and the innocent pleasure in hiding some small thing of the pet, such as the car keys. The pets made food, ate, remembered their owners, fed them some lovely tuna with grated egg yolk and a spoonful of caviar...sadly not Beluga…and fresh water.

On her third visit to Xia’s home, the female two-leg was shown the pool, a vast, indoor extravagance that made her gasp and squeal in delight. Dan, his pet, hemmed and hawed, managing to, with a complete lack of grace on his part, not invite her for a swim, no matter how much she mentioned loving swimming. Bastet made a delicate “Tcha” of annoyance, knowing that once in the water, things would finally progress to the place where Xia and she wanted them, namely with their two pets as interested in denning together as were they.

Things progressed too slowly for the cats. Normally of the greatest patience, they were ready to pull their whiskers out in frustration. Cara and Bastet visited often, or Dan and Xia visited but the two cats just could not get them in the water together. Dan had Cara come to the house while he was out of town signing at another book sale, and she made liberal use of the heated indoor wonder then, but never, ever when Dan was home.

“Well, that’s over finally.” Dan had returned home on an afternoon flight, throwing his car keys on the table and removing his jacket. He sounded tired, and Xia despaired for his pet. The female rubbed his shoulders, and Bastet nodded her head in satisfaction. “Did they accept your title?” Xia listened to her voice, approving it; the pitch was a little low for his liking, but after all she was not feline. “Yes, finally, 'The Dragon in Los Angeles' is in their hands now.”

Cara smiled a dreamy smile, “I love that one, but my favorite is still 'The Dragon Awakes'.”

Dan laughed, “The reviews for that were terrible.” He assumed a high falsetto, “The premise that a dragon, a mythical creature at best, could exist and live unseen among humans is far beyond even this reviewer’s ability to believe.”

Cara laughed softly. “I don’t care, I still love that book.” The cats, with their greater abilities heard the unspoken words she only thought, ~and I love the author even more.~

That night Cara slept in the same bed with Dan and the two cats purred mightily, congratulating themselves on at least this small success. Bast yowled “But they still haven’t gotten into the pool together.” Xia sighed deeply, cleaning Bastet’s face with his raspy tongue, earning him a few catly kisses and cuddles in return. He began thinking of kittens and Bastet agreed, with the proviso that their pets were finally living together and in a stable relationship.

The next morn Dan and Cara cuddled and snuggled, displaying fine mating behavior with Xia and Bastet watching critically. Suddenly Bastet stood, her hair fluffing around her neck, “I can’t take one more minute of this nonsense.” Saying this she suddenly yowled loudly, screaming as piercingly as only a Siamese can and ran around the room a few dozen times, knocking over lamps, potted plants, books from the bookshelves and nonsense from the tables before running through the door to the great indoor pool and flinging herself into the water.

Cara screamed “BASTET!” running after her and diving into the pool to save her presumably drowning feline. She stroked to Bastet who purred wetly in her ear, to return her to the side of the pool, laying her on the tile. Cara looked at herself, groaning as she realized that in the water her transformation back into dragon was automatic, and dropped her head as Dan rushed in to see what was going on.

She slapped the surface of the water hard with her opalescent white tail, delicately glistening scales shining with the coating of water, “Go ahead and say it.” She growled deeply, agony sounding in her ears folded back along her head, her lovely white fangs showing along her delicately shaped snout.

Dan crouched down, wrapping the madly purring Bastet in a towel, “Say what?” His voice was calm but held an undertone the cats understood, one of great excitement.

Cara snarled, her long, forked tongue hissing out of her mouth in exasperation, “Say, are you going to eat me? They always do, you humans, either that or run to get a camera to try for a picture for the National Babbler or some such. DAMN now I have to change names, get new identification, change jobs, move. DAMN! DAMN! DAMN! With each roaring DAMN she slapped the water again and again, diamond bright sprays of water going everywhere. Xia and Bastet made a strategic withdrawal to a dry spot to further watch what they knew was coming. They exchanged frankly smug expressions and Bastet began thinking of appropriate names for their kittens to be.

Dan laughed softly; smiling that gentle smile he saved only for Cara and stood. “Why should I do that?” He removed his shirt slowly, his eyes locked on the golden orbs of hers.

“Because you are human that is why and all you humans are alike. DAMN!” If a dragon of great years could weep, Cara was weeping, for she had broken an old law of the Draconic Kin. Never, but never, fall in love with a human.

Dan grinned and Xia and Bastet exchanged lightning quick glances, congratulating themselves on their efforts. Dan removed his trousers and slipped into the water, groaning as his body changed, long tail growing, snout, long white fangs sprouting along the side, the gleaming red scales whispering over his body. His tongue flickered lovingly over her head in a gentle caress and Cara moaned softly, her golden eyes closing in delight.

Dan laughed; his laughter a deep rumble in the cavern of his chest. “I have the title of the next book. At her look of question he replied, 'The Dragon finds Love'.

Xia Que groomed Bastet slowly, telling her how brave she was to jump in the pool, how beautiful, how absolutely perfect she was in every way as the dragons cavorted in the pool. Bastet agreed, accepting his caresses and leading him from the pool area. After all, humans, cat-kin and dragons all appreciated time apart with their chosen one.

In Memoriam and A Very Special Halloween

2009-10-05T12:37:00.004-04:00

In Memoriam
Jeanne Buckhalter
August 23, 2001

The Grove, sacred space for so many of us here in Albany, had been desecrated. What once was a place of harmony, worship, and peace was now a shambles. The altar, which before had held only salt, candles, wine, a little cake and flowers was covered in human feces and urine. Glass was broken everywhere; the star-shaped candle-holders one had given with love were shattered against trees and bottles had been broken against the stones. The rough-hewn bench made by my nice, Baptist husband had been lifted and smashed, which had to be the work of several, for it had been 10 feet long and sturdy enough to have already withstood ten years use. Though not of the Craft, he had kept the paths clear of weeds, and had helped make the Grove, clearing out the poison ivy and making paths where they wanted to go, not forcing them, and was the one to find the desecration before I went out for morning meditation. It was a beautiful, peaceful place. “Don’t go to the grove,” he told me.

I am a woman, and was Priestess and High Priestess and was going into MY Grove, period, and no discussion. The first thing my eyes saw was that the lanterns which had taken me months to make and hang in the trees had been crushed into the forest loam, next that the wind chimes I so loved had been stolen, further down the path I saw the first of the broken candle-holders, then the stripped young pine trees, wantonly denuding them of their branches. The decorations lovingly handmade by the children in the coven and their parents had been ripped from the trees and crushed, broken, torn.

I stood there, just looking. It felt as if someone had kicked me in the stomach. It was hard to breathe and I was not really sure my old heart was going to continue beating. I picked up one of the decorations Dove’s children had made, a sun face. It lay in my hand half torn and crumpled, and I remembered the great pride with which the child, then four, had hung it on the tree at Winter’s Solstice. Great “Art” it was not, with its gold sequins and glitter, but it was made with all that little girl’s care and hung on the tree with great pride and love. Right then it symbolized to me the Grove of the Green Wood, which we had made with such love and pride.

My husband returned with the garbage can, shovel and rake and we started cleaning up what once had been a place of peace, where no words other than loving ones had ever been spoken, where the Creator of All had been worshiped, no matter what names had been used. I didn’t cry then. I was too numb. Thoughts swirled through my mind, memories upon memories of the Grove, and the folk within.

I remembered the night our fourth son had hand-fasted there; a night of joy and laughter, and cold, oh goodness, it was so very cold, almost as cold as I felt right then. My first grandson’s face swam before my eyes, and I recalled how my son had told me, with an embarrassed laugh, that he had been conceived there in the sacred grove. I remembered the tears which had watered the ground there; tears from a young woman abused by her husband and seeking answers and solace; tears from a teacher who could not get through to a student who was lost in depression and drugs; and my own tears as I buried a beloved cat near the entry to the grove. All I could do as I cleaned was remember.

My husband left the Grove, coming back with a wheelbarrow and we lifted the heavy stones that had made the circle. North, the largest of them all, we put in the wheelbarrow first, then East, South, West. Finally, my heart breaking, we lifted the altar stone in silence and put it on top of the rest. His quiet "I'm sorry, dear." didn't even help, as it normally would have. As we left the Grove, walking down the path I had walked thousands of times before, I was certain it would be the last time I would enter the Grove of the Green Wood.

Since curiosity about the so called “Satanists” which is what the desecrators thought us to be was what sparked this outrage, I set the circle up in the front yard under a huge, 300 year old oak tree, boldly daring any to come desecrate it again. I cleaned the stones and purified them, setting them up with my own hands and heart. On the altar I placed flowers from my yard and a small shell I had found. The wind chimes I so loved had been stolen, but I was able to buy another and hang it there in the oak tree. My husband was worried about this, being a good Baptist, but I was furious and adamant about it. I snarled, “If they are so damned curious, let the little bastards come back and look all they want.” Then, exhausted emotionally and physically, I went to the bathroom and wept in the shower.

Samhain, Halloween for the non-Pagan, is the celebration of the New Year for us, the night when the veil between the world of the living and the world of the passed is thinnest. It is also my favorite celebration of the year, and I decorate the yard extensively, with tableau's ranging from the traditional graveyard scene to the absurd pink troll with a fishing pole and skeleton dangling from the end.

Usually I do the decorations to delight the children and families, and coming to see our yard at Halloween is a family tradition now for many. But this year my heart was sore, and aching, and I was still grieving and angry, and wanted to make a statement about my loss.

Carefully I planned and crafted the tableau, making it all by my own skill, as was my preference. I kept the traditional tableaux (displays) and the family favorites of the purple people eater and ghoul school, certainly, but this I put separate from the rest. I began with a pole, a stake, driven into a hole my husband had dug for me. He is a wise man and only asked me once if I was sure I wanted to make the display I had planned.

Going inside, I came back out with my old white ceremonial robe, a box of foam rubber pieces used to make bodies, chain, the nine foot cord usually worn in circle, a hood made of a burlap bag, and two skeletal hands I had made years before. Soon there was the body of a woman, a witch in her ritual robe, her cord around her waist, bound by heavy chains to a rough stake, her head in a rough hood, her hands raised to the sky. I piled wood all around her and finished the tableau with another tombstone. On it the simple words and prayer, “Never Again The Burning.”

Every night of October, the entire time she was there bound to the stake, I kept a candle burning in a votive glass. Not a word was spoken about that display. People came and read the humorous epitaphs, laughed about the huge dinosaur going from one end of the drive and out the other, and the Troll booth, pitching pennies into the cauldron, but when they came to Her…the laughter stopped and they drove on, subdued. At first I felt vindicated, then as the month grew on, and I would go outside to make the customary adjustments to the displays, I began to imagine a presence there at Her display.

I felt such grief there, as is to be expected; after all, I was mourning the loss of the Grove and the men and women who had died for faith, died for all faiths, not just mine. Being somewhat pragmatic, even if a pragmatist with an imagination, I told myself I was imagining things, and no, I did not hear the sounds of soft weeping at nights in the yard. Halloween came, and I rejoiced in the New Year, giving out treats to the kids, taking them on the tour of the graveyard, laughing with their parents, telling them how adorable their aliens, ghosts and Barbie’s were. The morning after, when I went outside to begin dismantling the displays, at the feet of the woman on the stake, someone had placed a single…perfect…red…rose.

I have never again put Her out in the displays, but Her tale is not done, for last year a neighbor known for a complete lack of imagination, told me why he did not walk past our house that month so long ago. I looked at Fred, grinning, for this old Marine is …well…an old Marine says it all, and I thought he was joking. “Serious as a heart attack. Every time I walked by here I kept hearing a woman crying. Even knocked on your door, thinking it was you. Looked around the yard too. Nothing, nobody. Just a woman crying.”

Perhaps I will put her back out again this year. Either way, my prayer is the same, Never Again The Burning.

Reminiscing about a Beagle named Bailey

2009-10-05T12:26:00.003-04:00

Reminiscing about a Beagle named Bailey
Jeanne Buckhalter

I first saw Bailey as he walked down the street like a dog on a mission; his head held high, tail wagging at the world, a big doggy grin on his face. He was a handsome fellow; beautiful in his absolutely striking coat, the black accents, the glowing red, the little freckles on his white legs and bib. Being a polite human, I greeted him and being a highly sociable young beagle, he stopped to smell the flowers I was planting and agreed that mums didn’t offer much in the way of tummy filling, but if I had some kibble, he would be glad to munch it for me.

I invited him in, watching to make certain the big dogs: the pits, the shepherd and lab, were not rude to the visitor. Oddly it was love at first sight. The alpha females in the house were pleased with this dapper fellow and the cats tolerated him. He could have cared less about the cats. Bailey was home, and he knew it.

I made the usual calls about finding this wonderful hound, placing the proper ad in the paper and hoping no one came forward to claim him. We went to the vet’s the following day for shots and…well…”the” operation. I figured that if the owners showed up I would handle that little loss when they got here.

This dog would not stay in the yard. I don't care how many rolls of chicken wire the Husband Person put around the bottom of the fence, around the top of the fence and even under the fence, that dog got loose. The lure of the rabbits across the street in the woods and field, the deer, the birds, the freedom, the squirrels, ah Bailey could resist none of them. My husband and I enjoyed listening to his arrrooooo aroooooo as he, hot on the scent, chased a rabbit, thankfully never catching one. He just liked chasing them.

It rained and I had to go to the doctor’s, so since it was cold and wet and icky, I left Bailey in the house with the ladies. He was so adorable curled up on his blankie on the chair. We had just been given the chair and being financially challenged (down here in the south that means po), getting a new, newer, or just nice piece of furniture is a “call your kin, call your friends, call the church and invite them over to give it a sit” occasion. Bailey naturally took it as his throne.

I got home less than two hours later to find the chair half demolished. The living room was covered with chair stuffing, gold velvet fabric was hanging in shreds from the denuded frame and Bailey was sitting in the middle of the floor chewing on the removed arm of the chair. He looked incredibly proud of his efforts. I closed my eyes, hoping against hope that I was hallucinating.

I wasn’t. Bailey Had Eaten The Chair.

We had many wonderful though furnitureless years with that dog till he tried to catch a truck and failed. He sleeps with the cats in the front yard plot, the statue of St. Francis watching over them all. I believe Bailey and the others who have already gone over the Rainbow Bridge will meet me when I finally take that walk. It's going to be great and there will be tuna, steak bones and Lucky Charms for all. I think there will be rabbits too, since they seemed to enjoy outrunning the swift Beagle Bailey as much as he enjoyed the chase.

How To Open A Can Of Tuna (Or One Of The Reasons I Became A Vegetarian)

2009-10-05T12:10:00.003-04:00

How to Open a Can of Tuna
Quietly as you can, assemble the necessary things, the can opener, Band-Aids, canned tuna and bowl. Cough loudly, sing nonsense, and make a LOT of noise to cover up the fact that you have tuna ... oops, that didn’t work, let’s go to attempt #2.

Attempt #2
Go into the bathroom with the can opener, bowl, tuna, fork and whatever else you want in the tuna. Open the tuna, making rude noises at the cats outside the door, and feeling vastly intellectually superior to the mere felines. Scream in horror and agony as the cat that was hiding in the linen closet comes out and lands on your back, removing skin, muscle tissue and the can of tuna.

Attempt #3
Take can of tuna, can opener, bowl, fork, and whatever else outside. Shut the door. Make assorted obscene gestures at the cats as you open the tuna, put it into the bowl, mix and eat. Return to the house and smirk. Go into the bedroom to discover little presents from the cats adorning your pillow...and blanket...sheets...shoes...closed dresser drawers...

Attempt #4
Open 15 cans of tuna, tossing them to the cats as fast as you can open them. Open number 16 and try to eat as much as you can shovel in your mouth before they go down the hatch after it. Gag as you realize you mistakenly opened a can of Ye Yummy Kitty Foode. Go to the bathroom and scrub your tongue doing the "Yuk, ick, bleah, nasty" dance. Follow with a gargle with half a bottle of mouthwash.

Attempt #5
Make a peanut butter sandwich.

Final note: You may assume this all is fiction, just a joke about living with an assorted dozen or two (and at one time darn near four dozen) dumped, abandoned cats. It isn't. I wish it was. There are a couple of medical health workers I know who honestly believe I cut myself for some really odd reason to make myself feel better. HA HA HA and again, HA. Let them come here at feeding time. I've seen wild tigers and lions with better table manners and attitude toward their keepers.

Ruminations of a Beanish Kind

2009-10-05T11:51:00.002-04:00

About a little problem many have described after eating beans, there are alternatives to get around that little problem. There is Beano, an over the counter substance said to be effective at reducing gas after eating beans, cabbage or other gas-producing food. Many swear that soaking, draining and washing the soaked beans will wash the farts away. Oops, pardon, outgassing. There are also alternative methods to use if your body is suffering an unfortunate problem with .....er....outgassing while at work, home, or otherwise around others.

After a SBD (silent but deadly) episode of outgassing on your part, immediately scrunch up your nose, look as indignant as you possibly can and glare at a fellow co-worker, family member or the family pet. If in an elevator or other enclosed area filled with strangers, a quiet, "Dear God in heaven, who just died?" can help put the blame on someone else. While driving to Atlanta with my husband, I successfully blamed a little problem of mine on a supposedly faulty catalytic converter on a car in front of us. Unfortunately, these methods do not work if you are enclosed in a toxic green cloud of effluvia or have managed to mess your pants. Should you have been fortunate enough to remove yourself to the rest room before your intestine explodes, and someone else enters the rest room before you can exit after washing your hands, look around and say "Someone's stomach must really be upset."

I have gotten very good at quickly leaving the aisle of the store I am on in the event that I just could not hold it in. My husband, on the other hand, cares less if his toxic emissions have caused the nose hairs of others to fall out or curl up inside their collective noses.

Once upon a time we had our computers in a very small room here. Since he's a diabetic and I'm admittedly beyond fluffy to frankly fat and we both love chocolate, I had the great idea to try some of the sugar free chocolates. "Whooo hooooo", thought I, "Legal chocolate! We can eat the whole blanking bag without having to count calories or grams of sugar!" The husband person chose the sugar free peanut butter cups. I chose something else - cannot recall exactly what, but whatever it was, it was a huge mistake.

It began with our stomachs rumbling like thunder. For a moment there I had the passing thought that I had been impregnated with some alien creature, as in the movie Aliens, and at any moment it would burst forth from my gut and run across the desk. I looked at the husband person and he looked at me. Our pit bull mix, Gunny, looked at us, cocking his head back and forth, wondering what was going on. Ursula and Sophy were already out of the door, down the hall and hiding under their pillows in the living room, having become accustomed to Gunny's occasional atmospheric contributions and being wise in the knowledge of gut rumblings as precursor to SBD's. Rather than describing the situation, suffice it to say that our dogs left the room, the drapery turned a sickly yellow-green and the EPA came to investigate reports of us making poison gas in our home. OK, that last part wasn't true but it took a long time for the dogs to trust either of us again and both of us slept with our pillows over our heads.

Thankfully, it seems that the more we depend on vegetables and legumes as the major part of our diet, the less we have those little problems of the gaseous kind. Hopefully this won't scare you out of trying Feijoada and other yummy bean recipes. It's worth the effort. (And any danger of combustible gases, ruined underwear, lost friendships, family members, jobs or visits from the Environmental Protection Agency.)

Saturday Thoughts, Ramblings and Rants

2009-10-03T10:51:00.000-04:00

It isn't easy living with a multitude of cats and dogs and retaining what few threads of sanity I have left. It is even harder maintaining contact with friends, especially if they happen to be phobic about cats or dogs, allergic to pet dander, or too fond of the pristine condition of their un-cat and dog - furred clothing.

To be painfully honest, if you visit here, you WILL leave with fur somewhere on you. It doesn't matter if I've just spent hours cleaning and vacuuming and mopping madly, the fur is just there. Perhaps if we shaved all the animals we could de-fur the place but then we'd end up laughing at their naked appearance and the cats would end up depositing signs of their disfavor on our bed or on our heads in the middle of the night. Cats have a highly developed sense of their own leonine dignity and, like the Devil, do not appreciate being mocked.

Trust me on that one. Should I neglect to change all of the litter boxes several of the cats will find a way to force me to correct the situation immediately. Most of the cats (and the large, full male mixed chow-shepherd) will use the litter boxes in whatever condition they find them. Several, however, won't.

Cass-Purr the Second is one of the cats in the "I refuse to use an unscooped, unchanged litter box in horrid, stinky condition" group. God help me, he sleeps with us. The dialog goes something like this:

"Daddy can't change your boxes tonight, Cassie O Poo Poo Sweetie Lambykins, he forgot to go to the store and buy litter. But he'll get it tomorrow and then we'll change them."

Or like this: "Cass, I'm tired and feel like death warmed over and dead on my feet. I promise to change the boxes in the morning after I've made coffee and fed you."

Or thusly: "Cat, for heaven's sake, NOT NOW. Tomorrow. Manana. Now be a good furball and let me go to sleep."

Ah sweet bliss as my head hits the pillow. Whoopsie, not the pillow, I laid on top of Sissypuss, a pure white elder cat of 15 years of age. She moves from under my head and I try again. Drats, this time I laid on top of Hairy Katz. He doesn't move. Hairy works under the premise of "I was here first, go find your own pillow - or bed - chair - table - dinner ...

I remove Hairy and he goes to sleep on top of the Husband Person's head. Thankfully Carl the Husband Person sleeps like a rock, though not being a geologist, I haven't a clue how rocks sleep. I wonder if they toss and turn in their beds because there are rocks in their beds. It merits consideration. *Adds to list of things to consider*

Where was I? Oh yes, Cass-Purr the Second and the litter box. He'll usually let me get to sleep and then I'll wake, feeling something warm and wet pouring down my hip to pool at the small of my back or the sudden wetting of my head. If Daddyums was the one receiving Catly displeasure, he may or may not wake, so Daddy isn't usually the target. If he was, he wouldn't even wake up, which is probably why he isn't normally the target.

I usually scream, flinging off the sheets, blankets, cats, the Husband Person, books and whatever detritus happens to be on the bed. The cats scatter - most of them - and the Husband wakes. Thank heaven he is a calm, laid back man who rarely looses his temper. (Which is probably why we are still married after 40 plus years.)

He doesn't have to ask me what has happened. We're both too well trained by now to need to indulge in excessive vocalization. Carl will sigh and go to the kitchen, returning with an empty garbage bag, the new box of kitty litter and the baking soda. While he cleans the box, I strip the bed, get new sheets and blankets, remake the bed, get a shower, put the used sheets and my nightgown or pj's on to soak and finally return to the bed.

The entire time, Cass-Purr will be sitting on the dresser watching his humans go about their duties. The bedding changed, the female human bathed and (again) dressed in appropriate snoozing attire, I'll turn out the lights and lay down. Or I'll turn out the lights and lay down on Hairy or Sissypuss or Linux, Linus, Silverkins, Rascal, Godzilla, Mothra or any one of the other cats who decide to join us in restful slumber.

Whilst typing this, two gentlemen of a visiting church came by. They knocked on the door before I could get to it and our three, large, highly vocal, dangerous looking dogs hit the door. I could swear I heard one of them scream "Holy J* save us!" as they ran to the safety of their car.

I think Toby, the chow mix, snickered. The wretch. So I slithered through the kitchen door, leaving the dogs snarling, barking and slathering at the front door, through the kitchen, telling the suddenly hopeful cats that no, I was not feeding them then, just passing through, into the garage where I had to tell the Eastern Cat House cats that no, I was not there for their daily brushing and play time, then out the garage door without letting Akira the First slither outside with me.

Phew. Exhausting. Had a nice chat, came back inside to find carnage and notice that another good half inch of the front door had been eaten or clawed off, strange things written to this blog, (I think the cats were trying to contact the Mother Ship), caret browsing turned on and my coffee mug (on the floor to protect the keyboard) turned over and the puddle of coffee tracked through by a number of paws, large and small.

Sigh. So I got out the mop, did the floor, (again) fixed the blog, turned caret browsing off, closed the 5,347 Internet sites the cats had opened, and currently am attempting to find my train of thought which appears to have left the station. Hate when it does that, but I'm old, so I'm entitled.

Now the Husband Person, aka He Who Is To Be Fed, Loved, Cherished, Entertained and Adored is here and has made mention of being not ill-disposed to accepting a plate of whatever it is that I'm giving him for lunch. If I should sit here longer than the next 5 minutes, he'll go to stage two, which is "If you want me to finish that wall (the one the tornado took out), you might want to feed me."

The husband person is absolutely unable to feed himself. More on that later, though.

Here's what he's getting. It's called Feijoda, or black beans in a tangy sauce. I'll post the recipe as soon as I figure out why my trusty copy/paste shortcuts aren't working in this.

Oh Lord. He's gone to stage 3. "If you don't feel like cooking, I could go get something from the curb store." A diabetic, the Husband Person forgets that eating an entire pint of chocolate ice cream is a BAD THING and "going to the curb store for something to eat" always means he'll come home with chocolate ice cream, which he will commence to eat until the container is empty and his blood glucose is up to 300 and he's taking a high blood sugar nap.

I'm out of here for a bit. Seriously though, spay and neuter your pets.