The other day I saw Mackenzie laying in the hallway, and she looked so young, just like she had as a puppy.  She was all spry and just wanted to run around playing, so we did that for a while, and you would have never thought she was 8 years old.  She's a great little girl.


This was her the first week after we brought her home:



And her as a grown-up in her favorite blanket:



So snuggly!




 

And because devvie and I briefly discussed the cuteness of bunnies, I thought I would post the pictures of it that I found this weekend.

I was 14 or 15 - some age where I wasn't quite old enough to drive yet, but I hung out with kids who were, which is how I came to be at the mall pet shop one day without my parents around to stop me.  I had babysitting money in my pocket that was backing up my lifelong desire to have my very own rabbit, so $20 later, I walked out of the place with a light brown bunny that I had brilliantly named Thumper.  Had I thought more than 3 minutes into the future about what it would be like to own a rabbit?  No,  I had not.  Which is why I didn't buy a cage for it, because I had been told bunnies will use a litter box, and we already had one of those, so I was all set!

Needless to say, my parents were not overly excited about my purchase.  But, Thumper was good at winning people over, so it wasn't long before we all were charmed by her cute hop-hop-hopping around the house.  I kept putting her in the litter box, but she wouldn't use it.  I figured she would learn.  She didn't.  I thought she would sleep in the bed with me, but she was strangely nocturnal (most rabbits are not) and would spend her nights cruising around the house, chewing on every power cord and shoelace within reach.

Finally, it's cool enough around here to actually make me think it's October.  I remember a time when you could put an uncut pumpkin out on the porch on October 1st and it wouldn't rot down into a boiled, nasty blob by October 7th, but those days seem to be gone.  We learned a couple of years ago to wait and buy our pumpkin the week of Halloween, and if we didn't carve it, it would usually last until Thanksgiving.  Tomorrow, we are getting a pumpkin...maybe two, so we can carve one, and save the other.

Today, I got a lovely birthday present from Christy (Thank you, Christy!!!!) and it put me in a better Autumny mood than I had been in previously, which meant that I had only stuck a few decorations outside before, and called it a day.  This morning, I dragged the boxes back out and dug out some more indoor pieces I wanted to have around, and after puting out all the candles and potpourri, this place is smelling mighty lovely.

The camera happened to be nearby, which is unusual, because it never seems to be within reach when I want it, so I decided to snap a few pictures of the house feeling Fallish.   This is BY NO MEANS all of the decorations.  I only wish these pictures came in Smell-O-Vision:

 Because my work room is also the bonus room over the garage, it serves double-duty as the cat's room.  Over in a dormer window nook is a table where their food and water bowls reside - I have to keep them elevated so the dog can't get to them.  We installed a cat bed/shelf onto the windowsill, and the cats politely take turns sleeping on it throughout the day. It is rare indeed to peek into that room and not find a cat passed out in the window.  Also residing in that nook is my ironing board, which I leave open and out pretty much all the time, because I do a lot of ironing, and nobody can tell me not to leave it out if I want to, because I am a grown up.

I guess it's because the ironing board stands in the area that clearly has been otherwise given over to the cats that they think it's part of their property, as well.  If the window bed is taken, sometimes the second cat to arrive ends up sprawling out on the ironing board, so they can nap while they wait for the better spot to become available.  Because of this, I end up using the lint roller that I keep in a basket nearby less on the clothes that I'm ironing than I do on the ironing pad itself.  It's a small price to pay for their happiness.  Another reason for the lint roller is to pick up the little bits and pieces from the wreath on the wall that Baxter enjoys chewing on regularly.  

Sometimes, it's a little irritating to be ready to iron something and have to stop to roll off enough fur to build an entirely new cat with, but when I find them sitting there, swaying sleepily, I find myself not minding at all, because they are just so darned CUTE.  Which is what happened just now...I was going to start ironing our clothes for work tomorrow, and went to plug in the iron when I saw Pumpkin sitting there, blinking slowly after a nice nap.  She sat up by the time I got back with the camera, but I still managed to catch her before she became fully awake:




She is so tiny and wee and adorable, that sometimes it's difficult for me not to eat her up in one cute bite!  

Hey...I can load pictures again, finally! Fancy.

So, I was sitting here working on my "home business" stuff, when I heard a weird sound coming from the lamp over by the sewing machine. I looked over and saw a shadow under the shade so big that I thought it must have been a big moth, but then it came out and showed itself, and turned out to be a huge wasp (or hornet? I do not know the difference, but dislike their stingers equally). He started flying right for me - toward my HEAD, like it was his JOB - but I swatted him away and he landed on the window. I looked for something to get him with, and couldn't find anything handy that I was willing to smash his guts into, but I did have an empty Frappuccino bottle and lid, so I lured him into it, and closed him inside.

I wasn't really sure if I was going to let him go, or let him die (because I didn't want him telling his buddies our house was full of bottles with sweet stuff on the bottom), so I set the bottle on a nearby shelf and went back to my business at hand, planning to make a decision about it later. Eventually, my cat Elvis spotted the wasp, and in order to prevent him from flinging his entire Goliath body onto my shelves, bringing everything on them crashing down, I decided to just let him have the bottle for a while, so I set it on the floor. Soon after, our little teeny cat Pumpkin came to join him in staring at the wasp.

No smoke and mirrors here, people. These photos show the size difference between our behemoth of a cat, Elvis compared to our mutant dwarf cat, Pumpkin:











Pumpkin is a full grown, adult cat at this point. She's over a year old, and has not grown a bit in the last few months, so I figure this is it for her. Permanent Smallness, as I expected.

Elvis was the first one out of his mother's womb, and he literally came out with a flabby, fat belly. I was alarmed to see how small and thin the rest of his littermates were, and figured they must have suffered from malnutrition because Elvis sucked all the nourishment out of their little umbilical cords into his. He was always first and last to nurse, too, and it turns out he's just a big ole boy. Lovable, goofy, super sweet, impossible to intimidate and huge. He and Pumpkin are great friends, and don't seem to notice the size difference, even when they have stand-up slap fights.

The rest of our pets just fall somewhere in between these two, but I never figured we would end up with a sideshow lineup of animals in our home. Never say never!

...that Charles can't blame his farts on the dog (or cats), because I can tell who did what by each fart's distinct odor?

I do have an amazing sense of smell, which I would gladly trade for a keen sense of pretty much anything else, so maybe it's not completely normal that I can pinpoint every fart down to the exact colon that produced it. A smart nose is what I got instead of good vision. Without contacts or glasses I can get around okay in my own house, and recognize pets by the color of their blob and the way their blob moves around, and I know that Charles is always the tall blob, but if I was dropped outside in say, the back yard, and had to find my way home, I don't think I could do it. Blind as a bat, I am, but I can sniff out a fart like nobody's business. Sometimes it's hard to count my blessings, there are so many.

So, my Dad has this dog, Cartman, who he took in as an orphan puppy about 9 years ago. Cartman is a mutt, and is very smart and pretty big, and he can jump and soar through the air like nobody's business. He's always been a total sweetie to "his people", but has also been an excellent watchdog - he can look and act pretty scary when he wants to, despite his gentle nature.

When my Dad remarried back in 2000, I think it was, his new wife decided she wanted to get another dog. She picked out an irritating as hell, fat, barky-yippy fluffy white thing, and Dad wanted to name it Kenny (to keep the Southpark thing going), but she was a girl, so they settled on Kini. Cartman loved Kini, and became very protective of his new yardmate.

In 2001 we drove up to NC to visit, and we brought our beagle, Mackenzie, with us. We figured she would have fun romping through the big fenced-in back yard with the other dogs, because at this point we had not fenced our yard in yet. She and Cartman hit it off instantly, and ran like the wind together, taking turns chasing eachother, racing around with their tongues lolling out the sides of their mouths, just stupid-happy. Well, Kini did not like this, because Cartman was HER DOG, so she went over to Mackenzie and made this yip-sound that apparently indicated distress (we saw her do this even though Mackenzie had not done a thing to Kini). Cartman instantly became protective and started to bark at Mackenzie, who was all, "What the hell is the matter with y'all? I'm going inside. It's hot." We didn't leave her in the yard with them together ever again because we didn't know what kind of stunt Kini's calculating manipulative ass would pull next. Later, we found out that Kini pulled the same jealous BS any time someone's dog came to visit, always leading Cartman to think she needed protection from them. Basically, Kini is a bitch.

So, a few days ago, Kini bit Cartman, and actually took a chunk out of his side. My dad and his wife brought him into the house, laid him down on the rug, cleaned the wound, and decided to keep him in by himself for the night to keep an eye on it. He curled up on the sofa next to my dad's wife like he usually does when he's indoors, and I don't know exactly what happened next as far as what she did - moving him, getting too close to him, no idea - but he went crazy, and he bit her in the face, twice. She had to be taken to the emergency room and got five stitches where his teeth punctured her skin. Dad wanted to have Cartman put down that night, but was told that even though it's his dog, he couldn't do that. Instead, Cartman has to be quarantined and tested for rabies, etc.. After the required time has passed, then Dad can have him put down.

Well, now that a few days have passed, it's harder to make that decision. Dad has to take into consideration that Cartman was injured at the time, and has never done such a thing before. Cartman is very valuable to them as a watchdog, but obviously Dad's wife never wants him to come into the house again. She said it's up to my Dad to decide what is to be done with Cartman, and it's just breaking his heart. He doesn't want to risk that Cartman would ever hurt anyone again, but Cartman has been his dog for a long time, and he already lost his cat a few months ago. Poor Dad. I don't envy his position. I offered to talk to Charles about bringing Cartman to live with us, but realistically we don't have the kind of yard he needs, and Dad doesn't want to risk Cartman hurting us or our animals. I don't really think he would, but you just never really know with dogs.

I hate that this happened. It could have been so much worse, and I'm grateful that it wasn't, but the whole thing just makes me sad for my Dad. And Cartman. Kini sucks, and I blame her for all of this.