Halloween and a not-too-bright kitten

After a week of wearing a collar (which kept him from licking his tail wound), and being grounded, Devin finally got to go outside again. He was crazy frisky as you might imagine - scampering across the yard. One wonders though, if he has learned his lesson. His tail still shows signs of serious cat bite wounds where the fur has not yet grown. However, yesterday, I looked out the window and saw him stalking one of the big orange neighborhood feral cats. He was just a few feet away before I grabbed him and put him in the house again. The feral cat was nonchalant about it all and just sat licking himself but I hate to think what would have happened to Devin had he attempted to pounce on that huge orange cat. Maybe Devin had forgotten his week indoors but I sure hadn't and I wasn't eager for any vet visits either.

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Our neighborhood has quite a few feral cats. Though they are hardy cats, they are not the vicious beasts you might think of when you read "feral cats". One of the women in the neighborhood has captured all of them and taken them to be spayed or neutered and has even set up a small, protected cat shelter for them to hide in when bad weather hits. And a number of neighbors put out food for them each night. So even though the cats don't have owners, they are not wild - though not really tame either. They walk through our yard and stay their distance and Zoe tolerates them as long as they don't get too close. I'm hoping Devin will learn from Zoe and avoid any other close encounters.

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I went down to the homeless shelter yesterday as I do each Tuesday. I helped one of the guys look up a bus schedule and then sign up for an email address. The other guys were all pretty computer-experienced and got right to work checking their email or searching housing & job sites. One of the guys was in a mean mood and expounded his views (all bad it seemed!) on government workers, immigrants, even the shelter itself. He then proceed to talk to me about arson and about how he burned down his house. No wonder this guy is having trouble finding housing! I was glad it was only my task to help with computer problems, not all his personal problems.

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Last night B. and I walked to the neighborhood theater to see the movie "Once". We had been wanting to see it after reading numerous reviews about how great it was. Though both of us thought it a nice little movie, we didn't understand why everyone has been raving about it. Maybe just because it was an enjoyable film without sex, violence, car crashes, etc. - just a story. That was okay with me. After the show, we walked over to the pub for supper and had our favorite burgers with hot sauce - meat for B. and a garden burger for me - and then walked home.

Spiderwebs for autumn

Our yard is filled with spiderwebs - the porch, the deck, the trees, the cars - spiders everywhere. At least they are staying outside for the most part and I appreciate that. We had a light rain this afternoon and the webs were all much more noticeable than usual with their dainty droplets clinging to them. Here's one from our backyard.

I finished the flamingo puzzle today. It was one that I had gotten at the 2nd hand store and sadly, there were four pieces missing. Still, it was fun to do and it looks pretty good.

The verdict: cat bite

Took Devin to the vet to have his tail examined. The vet said she saw teeth marks on the wound, that he must have been bitten by another cat. Since he'd been licking the wound a lot, she gave him a collar to prevent this in the future and give the wound a chance to heal.

He has medicine, needs hot compresses three times a day and has to wear his collar for the next week or so. And while he wears the collar, he has to stay indoors. What a fun week this will be!!

And a sunny day

Today was such a beautiful sunny day, it begged me to go for a walk. I wandered about taking pictures and enjoying the sunshine. B. was off on a two-hour group walk but I preferred ambling about on my own. Though many leaves had fallen, there were still some gorgeous trees. And there were many houses decorated for Halloween.

While I was gone, Zoe & Devin worked on their mosaic skills. Since we had thrown a towel over B.'s work desk, they had a hard time of it and were left to contemplate the work that B. had already done.

Devin is itching to go outside but he injured his tail and it's not healing as quickly as I'd hoped. I'm keeping him in for now and he has a vet appointment for this afternoon.

A gray day

The day was overcast and it looked like a storm was imminent. So we headed off to the movies. Went downtown and saw "Michael Clayton" which both B. and I liked a lot. It was well-acted and kept our interest.

After the movie we stopped at a deli down the street and had some soup. They gave samples so I tried the butternut squash and pear soup which was good but not something you'd want an entire bowl of. So I got the tomato orange soup and B. had some chicken soup. We shared some chocolate mousse for dessert.

Then it was on to the library. I usually just request books and have them delivered to the branch library so it was fun to be at the big downtown library and look at all the books. I decided on 5 of them and I'm hoping at least one or two will be good ones - the last couple books I got weren't even worth finishing!

And we still got home before the storm...maybe it'll hit tonight.

Tuesday, October 16th

I drove down to the homeless shelter to provide computer assistance as I generally do on Tuesday morning. It was a quiet morning though busy. The guys knew what they were doing and the only question I was asked (other than general chatting) was how to spell 'failure'. One of the guys was filling out a form and needed that word. Whether he was identifying himself as a failure, the system, the government, a product - I don't know and I didn't pursue it. He seemed pretty positive about himself so I'm guessing he didn't feel like a failure, just went on to finish his form. Though he needed a bit of help on how to sign off, he was soon done with the computer for the day and off to the rest of his activities, whatever they may have been.

As often happens when I go down to volunteer, I learned something myself. This time it was a website, http://www.refdesk.com/. I think I've seen it before but never really explored it. However, it has a lot of amazing stuff. One of the best things right off is that there are very few ads, no dancing monkeys, just a few little cars at the top. And - it has all the info in one place! What do you want to know? Time zones? Newspapers across the country and around the world? Encyclopedias? Statistics? Airport wait times? etc. etc. etc. If you are not familiar with this site, check it out!

Parking near the shelter is difficult to find. Sometimes, it would take me longer to find parking than it would to drive down to the shelter itself. So I gave up looking and now I just park at a nearby city parking lot. It's 85 cents per hour so every week costs me $2.85 but it is worth it, saving me the time and effort of a parking search. The parking lot attendant is the same person each week but since the lot holds many cars, I didn't know if she knew me or not. Apparently, she does. Today as I was leaving she said "The best customer I have is you - always perfect!" Always nice to get a compliment, even though I think she just meant that I give her the exact change.

This afternoon B. and I decided to walk to the library. We had a couple of books to return and I have one waiting for me. Looking out the front door, the day appeared sunny but there were some dark clouds behind us. We'd only gone a couple of blocks when it began to rain. Another couple of blocks and the hail came pelting down. Our jackets kept us warm and dry but our jeans began to get wet, then - somehow - water got into our shoes and worked its way down our socks. As it continued to pour, we decided to head for home rather than the library. We didn't want to revive our now dormant colds. The rain slowed as we approached our house and we were tempted to head back towards the library but we were so sopping wet that we didn't follow up on that. Inside the house again, we found the rain had practically stopped. And shortly thereafter, the sun was out again. Crazy weather!

Saturday, October 13th

This morning was a bit misty, but not raining - just made everything look a bit hazy. By ten o'clock or so, the mist had been driven off by some bright sunshine. This photo on the left was taken around 8:00 AM when I went for an early morning walk.

B. and I went for our flu shots last Saturday. Ironically, the day after the flu shot, I woke up with the worst cold - and spent the next 3 days in bed! Today, I went out to get groceries and it was a treat, so nice to be outside again and feeling well. :)

B. has been taking some classes this fall - mosaics, fall walks, Spanish. The mosaic class is over and B. has a fine piece completed, a picture of our cat Zoe. The walks and the Spanish class continue. I signed up for very few classes this fall - the tofu one I wrote of in an earlier blog, and a tempeh cooking class sometime in November. I purposely didn't want to schedule much so that I could spend whatever extra time I have working on family history. My current project is about my family in the WWII years. I have letters from a couple of my uncles (both of whom were in the service in the 1940's) and also letters from one of my aunts. So I have views of what it was like in the army and also on the home front. It's been very interesting so far and I still have another 30 - 40 letters to type up. Then I'll have to go through the family photos and see what I can find that corresponds to the war years. This particular project was triggered by the tv show: Ken Burns' "The War" which I and a number of my siblings have been watching.

It's a lovely fall day and I'm cooking applesauce. Maybe next week it'll be time for some apple pies and Indian pudding.

October 1st

These pictures are from earlier today when Devin decided to work on his computing. He takes sort of a laid back approach to it all.

B. is at Spanish class tonight and I have been spending the evening typing up some family history - letters from the WWII era. My father saved his siblings' letters and some from his mother and they are interesting reading.

It's been rainy much of the day but it cleared up beautifully tonight so I could go for a long walk.