Peace, Love, Understanding and Rascals in Everyday Ramblings

If you look closely at the center of the picture you can see beautiful Mt. Hood past the river. The days we get to see her all snow clad in the winter are rare and always worth celebrating. One of the women in the book group lives up at elevation near the mountain and was saying last week that she revers the mountain as she is close enough to see her daily weather and moods.

The traditional tales from the local native population say that Mt. Hood is male, and Mt. St. Helen’s is female, but I have always thought of her in the feminine. You get to choose.

Because of the construction going on with the wall in my kitchen and bathroom I have needed to move things around a bit to clear space for “the guys”. They are all guys. I have one lower cabinet next to the stove that I can’t put a childproof lock on because it is a single cabinet door. So to keep the cats out of there I lean up cookie sheets against it. I originally tried to keep them off the kitchen counter by lining the edge of the counters with cookie sheets.

To this day they are afraid of cookie sheets. It didn’t keep them off the counters but that is another story. I had moved the cookie sheets.

Night before last, or shall we say early yesterday morning, um, in the 1:30 AM vicinity, I wake up and I hear bapping. Bapping, like furry pugilists is how the cats get into the cabinets. Diego is a past master at this. I think, oh gee, the cats are trying to get into the cabinets but no worries I have the locks on them. Bap. Bap Bap. I drift back to sleep.

Bap, Bap. It continues and I think hmm, they are both in the kitchen and being remarkably persistent…

I finally get up. There are three cans of cat food rolling around on the floor and Carlo sitting in front of the one unlocked cabinet. La de da. Diego had managed to get himself into the cabinet, extricate three cans of old cat food and then get stuck. Or maybe he wasn’t stuck. Maybe he was greedy and going for more cans.

You may remember that my resourceful two when they came to live with me proved in front of my very eyes that as a team, with one holding the can down and the other pulling the tab, they could get a 3 oz. can of cat food open.

Hence the childproof locks.

Diego is definitely the ringleader here. He is hungry all the time because of the steroids but he is doing well now after our last distressing bout of digestive dysfunction. He was taking advantage of a slip in the elaborate system here to keep him well and safe.

Needless to say, I fed them fresh wet food and went back to bed with the cookie sheets back in place. And somehow managed to teach three classes yesterday and go to the store and deal with the unexpectedly intrusive plumbers even though I was exhausted. Last night was blissfully uneventful.

On Thursday as I was leaving to go across town to get an unfamiliar bus to meet the guys and have muffins with storied blueberries, (they were so good), there was a tree crew here with a chomper up in the parking lot. It was noisy and I felt bad about leaving the cats alone with all that disruption. The tree guys seemed to be taking down a few random youngish birches out back.

When I came home three (3!) of the teenage Oregon maples that screen my place were gone. They must have taken about 10 trees down in the near area. It was a shock. The Site Manager said that the arborist had come by and determined some of the trees were diseased. Thank goodness they left the rhododendrons. This is for sure going to change the light profile in my patio well.

By this time next week, I hope the worst of the upheaval will be over. There will be people in here after the wall is finally done to patch and repaint my interior walls. Oh joy. My primary concern is the well-being of the cats. But I am not enjoying this at all.

At least nobody is working on the weekend. I am grateful for what I do have here. So much luxury compared to the majority of folks in this big complicated well populated world.

Oh, and Walt published my essay in his newsletter, which you can read here…

Peace, Love, Happiness and Understanding

Sweet!

Last updated February 08, 2023