Bwahhhaaahaaa!!!! Happy Halloween

Quote of the day:

Ella asks me, "Is it Halloween today, Mom?"
"Yep. Today is Halloween." I confirm with her.
Next she pops out, "But where's the Easter bunny, Mom?"
I say, "Uh.... Today is Halloween. It's not Easter."
"But we need the EGGS, Mom!"

Apparently, I am not doing my job right. We still have some work to do.

Our trip to the local pumpkin patch...

Pumpkins, Pumpkins Everywhere, as far as the eye can see.


Hmm?? Where should we begin our search?
So many pumpkins so little time.

Wait! I think we'd better go to the pumpkin pyramid!!

OH MY!! I don't think I can handle that many pumpkins, Wyatt!
I can't possibly eat THAT much pumpkin pie!!
I think I'm gonna turn orange.

(PS. I did not coach these pictures. My kids are just nuts.)

I'd just rather play with a spider instead!!

Mom's training me early you see...


LATER.....

Staring into the scary mass of pumpkin innards Ella looks contemplative.


And after gutting the gourds, Wyatt stirs the pumpkin brains into a pulpy mash.

Then with careful planning they were transformed by a steady hand!

And Voila!!

As night fell we put flames inside these empty hulls to make glowing MONSTERS!! (Wyatt carved the jack-0-lantern on the left all by himself! Much to my surprise.)

Then a picture with Dad is always fun.

Somehow, Mom just does not tickle us the right way for photos, but she was tired from the laborious surgery to transform the pumpkins in to Jack-o-Lanterns (excuses, excuses).

And finally, I hope you have....

Arachnophobes Need Not Visit Here, Some of You Asked for This...

With requests for pictures and some folks doubts about the presence of a spider in the web from the last post, HERE IS THE PROOF!  

Will the fans of spiders please step forward and claim your own? Anyone know what kind it is? 

Writing this post did make my skin crawl just a little.  I am not even immune to the creeps from the spider-kind.

My Natural Halloween Decor

I have not quite jumped on the Halloween decorating band wagon, but my new friend is doing the job for me.  While, I type at my computer I can get a glimpse into the party atmosphere provided by nature.

This is the latest version of a spider in my window.  I don't think I can let this one have babies though.  This is a much bigger and creepier "Mrs. Spider."  But she is very very good fly catcher.  I've also been feeding her flies that I swat, for fun.   Heee hee. Or should I say "Bwahhaahaaaa" all scary-like.

Random Tuesday Thoughts-Mourning, Pharmaceuticals, Stranger are Strange, National Geographic Keeps on Giving, Doubleyew, and Grab Ass

So last week was a total mess. Swine flu kicked our ass. My favorite cat died.

What better to follow up the mayhem, but with a Random Tuesday Thoughts post.

On Mourning:  I sincerely, from my cat-broke heart, thank every one who left me kind and supportive comments and emails regarding the death of my cat Shmobie.

There is still a hole in me and in my house.  There is an empty spot in the vortex of our little shack that his body should occupy.  His place on the couch is noticeably vacant.  And Harley, the "grande dame" has taken over our bed and abandoned her cushion in the living room.  The shift of power has already occurred.  The imbalance is palpable and will askew be for a long time.  It does not feel right.

About Pharmaceuticals:   
Cherry flavored Codine cough syrup rules.
Antibiotics still work.
And Tamiflu works...for now. Just wait till that bastard swine flu virus mutates and becomes fully resistant...

After the family got through the swine flu, I finally came down with a 101 fever on Friday.  I went to the "Doc in the Box" clinic and the Dr said not only did I have flu, but bronchitis as well.  Funny how taking care of all the other sick people makes Moms forget there is wheezing in their chests.

My teeth hurt so much when I was sick I had a nightmare that they, MY TEETH, were bursting into fluffy white popcorn.  F-ing POPCORN was exploding from my mouth.  Yeah.  That's how much pressure was in those teeth...

Riddle: How many (numerically) is W?  Because Ella is frequently asking me, "Mom can I have doubleyew?"
Answer: This is easy, but the answer is at the bottom of this post.

Strange People are Everywhere: 
Imagine the parking lot of our local Nor. Cal grocery store. Ella and I were making our way across the asphalt weaving through the parked cars, when a gap with empty parking spots opened up in front of us. Ella was wearing her new yellow dragonfly patterned apron and holding my hand tightly, as she normally does. We walked freely forward and I hear a voice say, "I'll trade my car for your daughter."

In front of us was a older man sitting in new looking red Toyota Celica.

I was not quite sure I heard him right, so I looked up and said, "Excuse me? We're you talking to us?"

"Yeah, I'll trade my car for your kid," He repeated without pause.

"Huh........? No thanks," I said as stared strangely at man, while I kept us moving away from the car and into the store. I was baffled. I could not believe somebody would say this. Was this a creepy old man, a old man making a joke, or some strange complement about Ella in an apron?

Regardless, if somebody ever asks me to trade my kid for their car, I am taking their license plate number and calling 911, as if the Golden Gate Bridge is falling.  I'm going to start firing and ask questions later. Both my husband and MIL were freaked out by the whole thing.  Are you?

Next topic:
We get National Geographic (NG). It's great. I love to read it and look at the pictures.

And, no. This is not a cliche story about naked primitives.

Ella was looking at the NG too one day last week and was very interested in one photo in particular.  It showed a color photograph of a girl with a cleft lip in an advertisement soliciting donations for this cause.

Ella stared at the picture and studied it for about five minutes before asking me, "Why is this baby girl sad, Mom."

I explained, "Ella, that girl is not sad, she has a cleft lip. She was born like that. She needs stitches to fix her lip."

"Mom. I think she is sad, Mom." Ella responded with a cautious certainty.

"That baby is not sad. Really, Ella. She is going to be just fine. The doctors will sew her up and she will be all better," I explained with equal care.

Ella continued to look at that picture for another five minutes before abandoning it.  She picked up the magazine several more times in the day to inspect the baby again.

I let her be the judge of this picture.  Ella did not cry or get scared or show distress in any way. Would you have let your 2.5 year old have this education?

Something Else:
My husband says that there is a significant difference between "grabbing ass" and "patting ass."  I am of the opinion that they are both equally offensive.   My husband thinks I should not be "angry" when he pats my rear, because "grabbing" is so much more "invasive."  To me the unsolicited groping of a woman's rear end is universally unacceptable.  I am still maintaining that my opinion has more merit since my ass is the one being patted.  

Good Home Cooking:
I made a pot of mixed beans with bacon, including mire poix, and spices.  Savory, yummy, healthy...

My adorable, five year old son, Wyatt says upon looking at the bowl, "Mom, I'm not eating that sewage water."  Then he falls to the floor looking squeamish. 

"OH COME ON!!" I rally back, "Ella at a bowl for lunch already."

"No Mom, that's raw sewage."

Then it was too late.  I did one of those closed mouth laughs that you try to suppress but it comes out like a "Phlll" sort of like a fart, but not quite.

Then we laughed for five minutes.

He still had to eat the "bacon and bean sewage" for dinner. 

ANSWER to the Riddle: W = 3 to my daughter as she holds up her little hand and makes a "w" with three fingers she says, "Can I have doubleyew candy corn..."   Now how can a parent predict how a kid's mind processes information with switching numbers for letters like this????

That's random for you.

See The Un Mom for more random...

Pain is Most Tangible in its Raw Form

This has been a bad few weeks...as I have explained with the swine flu. However, things can get worse.

Over the past year good things have come my way and I have passed through happy times for which I am grateful, but it is my turn for a super-sized serving of illness, difficulty and personal sadness.

My cat, Shmobie, took a turn for the worse. He looked so much like he might pull through during the first 2 weeks of feedings, but last week he started to fall backward, irretrievable to me.

Whatever he recovered in the beginning of the treatments was no longer enough. His body was not healing or something else was definitely wrong. He started vomiting all his food and growling at me with my feeding administrations. The look of distress in his eye and the way he carried his body told me he was done.

We had to put him down today to end his suffering.

I am hopeful his spirit lives on.

As I sat crying in the kids room my consolation was Ella. While she did not quite feel the acute pain from this event like me, she took each of her five baby-sized blankets and her assortment of stuffed animals and covered me with them. One by one, she carefully layered her stuffed animals in between each of her special blankets over the top of my body.

I have walked around the house with tears streaming down my face killing flies that have come in through the front door. I smack them without heed. There are a million flies to kill and I can not exterminate them fast enough, but there is only one Shmobie cat who I did not want to go. Why do my favorite pets always die early?

My husband says I can't have any more pets because, "It's harder on you when they die, then it is to them dying." I have been told by others that I feel too much as well.


I don't know what to think with the raw pain of death and overwhelming sadness touching my nerves. Each of my animals is part of my family; I invest time and energy and emotion into them and it hurts me deeply when they are gone. How do you ever build immunity to this pain?

Strip me naked, lay me on the base rock, and let the vultures pick my bones clean.

Yes, it has been that bad. I can't resist the gory details any longer. If I have to be tortured, so do you.

And if you were wondering, the swine flu (H1N1) is everything and more than the media promises it to be.

People with swine flu can fall into several categories which I have scientifically studied during the last 12 days of my life.

There are the violently ill (i.e. my husband Mike). They have insane high fevers reaching 105-106. They shake violently and vomit. This is accompanied by a racking cough and headache and body ache and malaise. These patients end up panicked in the emergency room and are prescribed Codine cough suppressant. (I was all !#@* WTF?? But I guess this is all they can do for this flu in adults).

These wonderful symptoms last between 7 and 10 days. Mike has not reached 10 days yet so I am hopeful this is not a lie. He'd better get better soon or I may have to be committed. Also, the ER nurse informed us that you can take Ibuprofen and Tylenol simultaneously. I am storing this for future use in my memory.

There are those treated with Tamiflu around 28 hours from onset of fever. (i.e. Ella). This produced a patient with high temps between 101 to 103, crying, vomiting, headache and a mild cough. While fever and coughing has subsided this patient suffered a secondary ear infection which is still lingering.

There are those treated with Tamiflu at 12 hours from onset of fever. (i.e. Wyatt). This produced a patient who is spastic and annoying since he neither had a fever or cough or headache after 24 hrs of first symptoms. He was complaining that "It was boring at home," with all the sick people.

Then there are those with very mild symptoms. (i.e. ME). These people may experience only hard coughing, head ache, and lack a fever entirely. BUT these people suffer the unmitigated consequence of "health" by taking care of the rest of the family 24 hours a day. They are sleep deprived to the point of derangement.

Last night went like this:

9:00 - Bed time
9:30 - Mike's alarm clock went off to "remind" him to take his medicine and the siren could not be turned off.
9:55 - Ella woke up crying that her ear hurt.
10:26 - Mike coughing uncontrollably wakes me up.
10:45 - Ella re-emerges complaining of her head.
11:15 - I wake myself with a coughing spam.
11:55 - Ella wakes again screaming. I dose her with Motrin.
12:31 - Mike spits up a lung.
3:15 - Wyatt comes in saying he is "having a nightmare." I say he has no idea what that really means.
4:00 - Ella back to say she needs to "snuggle." Snuggling is a word that has been deleted from my vocabulary.
4:18 - My involuntary coughing spasm produces an alien.
5:15 - Ella comes to me saying she wants her "milky baba."

(And this is the short version, it was actually much, much worse than described above. Since this all began I have not slept more than 2 hrs consecutively per night.)

Yeah. At this point I would welcome a pack of wolves to tear me from limb to limb. It would likely be more pleasant than the past 12 days of my life. Really.

Okay. I am through bitching. Probably.

But to make it up, here is a Halloween pumpkin to carve for your entertainment pleasure. Be sure to click "Done" to see what happens after you have carved your face.

I'm not much good for any thing other than pictures this week...

Unless you want to hear how miserable Ella was and Mike is with the swine flu, I thought the only thing I was good for was a photo essay. I needed a break from the house of pain and walked around this morning taking some photos with the zoom lens.

The first thing I encountered were two phoebe's perched next to the pond. One is a resident, the black phoebe and they are common all year round dipping and diving over the water catching bugs. The second is a Say's phoebe, which is migratory and only seen in the fall and winter. They act the same as the black phoebe but are not quite as dippy-divey.


Next I took a few leaf pictures since the colors on the bloodwood sycamores were looking fall-like still.


Then I meandered out to the horses to check on them and remembered that Alfie rolled in the mud. Ahhhhh! That's horse heaven or horse happiness, take your pick.


His rear and middle were covered in caked mud.


Nothing was missed.

"Yeah, I'm muddy. So what?"

Then I decided to check out the chickens and in route I saw I could not pass my Mexican sage without taking a picture.


Then walking away from the sage, the turkey vultures started popping up from behind our trees. There were at least a dozen, but all I could get on the film at once was four or five.

They circled around over my head and followed me like I was some kind of dead meat.


Oh, and one of them had dead meat in it's beak. Yum, ground squirrel. I think they were hoping we were all going to expire from swine flu. They must have smelled my husband Mike.


Then taking a moment to notice the smaller birds I saw a small flock of white-crowned sparrows, more winter visitors from far away places. They will disappear around February or March flying north.


In the garden, the giant pumpkins were looking marvelous!


And checking on my kids I found them playing imaginatively with our broken screen door. They finished ripping off the bottom of the door and used it as a ramp to roll walnuts. Ella is feeling much better and did not have a fever last night. She is still snotty and coughing. Wyatt has survived almost unscathed by the swine flu.


So hopefully next week will bode better and we can be through with our portion of the cold season. I can wish can't I?

H1N1 Lives Here (For Sure)-And We Will Shortly Be Washed Downstream

Was it not just a month ago that I was lamenting about how hot and miserable I was and how I could not wait for winter? This is Gemma's field where she lives all summer. All the horses are tucked into the barn so they don't get washed downstream.


Hallelujah! The remnants from a typhoon in the Pacific is thrashing us vigorously! I have to cross this below to reach the barn. I'd better be getting out my hip waders and a drag line.


And the lonely tricycle is drounding in misery. I can hear it calling, "Won't somebody rescue me?"


And you all know about swine flu? Right? Or do you?


Ella has the flu. Or rather WE have the flu. The compound has been infected through Kindergarten. The joys of Kinder...

Last week, Suzi told me one of the kid in the cousin's class was kept home since she had swine flu.

My first comment to Suzi was, "Well, if Adam has a fever in the next five days we've got it too."

Yesterday Ella and cousin Adam came down with fevers and sniffles and basic aches. Ella was sporting a fever around 102 last night and could not sleep between 1 and 4. She had a fever all day today.

I took Ella in to the Dr today to see if they wanted to give her any Tamiflu since I was sure she had "The Flu" of one kind or another.

Here is how they test for the flu in the Dr's office:

The Dr takes a nasal swab. Dr puts the sample on reader like you would use for a pregnancy test. There are two lines that indicate an infection which will show up on the in-office test. One line indicates Influenza Type A and another denotes Influenza Type B. There is also a control line.

Depending on the amount of virus in a persons system the positive stripe will light up quickly or more slowly or not. Ella's test reflected a strong quick positive response for Influenza Type A.

Dr told us that the H1N1 also causes the test to show a positive result for Influenza Type A, so without further testing in a lab it can not be differentiated whether an infected person has H1N1 or Influenza Type A in the Dr's office.

So, basically if the kid sent home from cousin Adam's Kinder really had H1N1 then we have it too.

Ella took her Tamiflu and is in bed sleeping now. I think I will too soon be sleeping after my three hour stint with her last night in the wee hours.

(Oops. I spoke too soon. Check off vomiting in the list of symptoms that Ella now is exhibiting. That was fun cleaning up...)

Public Service Announcement: If you suspect you have the flu, the Tamiflu does not work after 48 hours from the onset of flu symptoms. The Tamiflu must be taken in the first 24 t0 48 hours to have an effect.

With a storm pounding and virus's raging, winter is already claiming us as it's own. See isn't a change of season just wonderful!

Post Script 10/15: We are working on four days of a fluctuating fever between 101 and 103 AND an ear infection. Ella is really getting hit hard. I have no doubt about which flu this is. Swine flu is on the loose in our area for sure!

If I See That Pink Topped Syringe I Think I Should Start To Run

Yes, it's me, Shmobie. I am giving you folks my personal account of the last few days.

Sometime an eternity ago, the tall lady put me in the office after I had been hiding out in my favorite bushes for a long time. She came in and sat next next to me petting my dirty fir. Yes, I had begun to think bathing was just not important anymore. My white fur was rather brown in some places. Nothing was important to me. You see, I wanted to die.

Just so you know, some weeks ago there was this pain in my ass. Literally, a pain in my behind. It was indescribably painful. So painful I could not eat. Then add in the fact that it was my rear and the embarrassment factor was overwhelming. I decided I had enough of it all. I quit eating. It was amazing how fast I went from over 18 lbs to 12 lbs.

But after placing me in lock down, the tall lady talked to me in her human babble and was dropping sprinkles of water all over my fur. It was rather odd. We cats don't sprinkle unless we want to mark our territory or sneeze all over the humans. But the human lady was dripping water. I am not sure what all of it was about. I just wanted to be left alone. She pet me and I obliged her by purring with my best effort. Then she left.

The next day, the tall lady took me in the TRUCK. I do not like cars, trucks or anything with a motor. If I can't put my claws into something, I have no business with it or inside it. I already felt like total crap and she loaded me into that rumbling, moving, strange smelling TRUCK.

When the truck stopped moving, the tall lady took me into a building where some more humans touched me. It was not so bad. They were gentle and nice so I did not scratch them. But I was ready, even in my condition, to do some damage if necessary.

Then they did something really weird to me. I know I have a lot of loose skin on my body. They shook my skin around and somehow filled me with water. Yeah, water! There were these lumps hanging from beneath my fur all sloshy and jiggly on my arms. They magically put water under my skin. I am smart, but I can't figure out how they did it.

I guess I was kind of thirsty since I quit drinking with the whole mission to die thing. I was having visions of seeing my brother Frankie in cat heaven. There is a cat heaven right? Well, I was kind of counting on that since I loved my brother so much.

So then, they gave me a tiny pill. It was not much. Just enough that I had the gag reflex for about a quarter second and it was over. After that, the tall lady picked me up again and took me back to the TRUCK.

I shall spare you the details of the ride home. That was hideous. The tall lady is a really bad driver and I think I get motion sickness. But seeing as I could not remember the last time I ate there was nothing to barf up. Good thing cause I could have made a good sized mess in her TRUCK.

When we got home the Tall Lady immediately put me back in the office and disappeared. I breathed a sigh of relief. I could go back to dying.

Then as suddenly as she disappeared, she popped back into the room. She had cans and saucers and a pointy plastic thing with a pink bulb on the top. I heard the cracking of a can. I knew that sound. It was food. Suddenly, I remembered I had not eaten anything in a long time. I sauntered over to the Tall Lady and sniffed at the bowl. After a three licks of food I was done. Why was I hungry all of a sudden? I could not figure this out. I was all set to be done with my cat life and then my stomach started talking to me a little. Hmmm.

But no. It turns out that I was NOT done. The Tall Lady grabbed me and put the long plastic thing with the pink bulb in my mouth. Then there was all this food going down my throat. WTF!!! After being stuffed with a meat slurpie, the Tall Lady gently put me on the bed and petted me. This I found was to be my new routine in life. Every day the Tall Lady squirts food in my mouth. I guess she did not want to let me die.

So here I am, still alive and feeling some what better. Although, you could not tell by my expression since the Tall Lady was in my space and I was just not ready for pictures yet.


And then again, when I have to tolerate "the girl" hovering around me and getting her face all up in my face, I can appear a tiny bit annoyed. But can you really blame me. I try to close my eyes and act like I am sleeping. It usually works. Or not.


Today I brought myself to my feet and took a stroll around the house. I am still not quite normal yet. I don't want to eat by my self, but I don't want to die anymore.


I even wanted to do some prohibited activity...


Like going outside. I used to stare at the door and the Tall Lady would open it. It did not work today. Rats!


And finally, here I am doing what I need to get better. Sleep. I have been sleeping most of the day and night and day and night. But you can see here I actually have a little kitty smile. There were no smiles before the Tall Lady started to force me to eat.


So that's all. I will try to get better now. I am only 9 years old. That's not so old for cats. With the stress and trauma and personal humiliation from my rear end, I did not feel like trying any more. That Tall Lady must really love me to do all this. I guess I can live a little longer for her.

Rednesday-That's Wednesday with Things Colored Red for the Uninformed

Hi All, I forgot I had prepared this post a few weeks ago and it snuck through my net. I would not have posted it until next week but.... what is what is... Shmobie (post prior) is still the anorexic kitty but is not any worse. I have started feeding him every few hours since he still wont eat on his own. :( But I did more research and it says 90 percent of these cats can recover with the forced feedings. Thanks for all you nice words of encouragement yesterday. I sincerely appreciate them.

Meanwhile, with my sneaky post which I forgot about until logging on this morning here's the scoop...

I am playing along with SueLovesCherries at My Secret Garden today. She asks you to share something you like in red on Wednesday. You can visit her blog to see more folks who played along with her Rednesday theme.

To start things off, here are some California fuchia (Zauschneria californica). It's one of the ONLY native plants in our region that is blooming this late in the season. I have some growing on my landscape berm and it spreads like crazy and is a great native plant that needs little water and has great flowers too. I especially like the burning red they project to the world, matching the blazing heat we get late in the season.


Next in the line up are my two "red" horses. Chestnut colored horses are called red by some old timers and I kind of like the sound of this expression too. Showing their orange-red tinges, Sharpie and Max were begging for food of one kind or another in the afternoon sunlight.


And here is the last hurrah from my blooming roses. This is a simple rose with only a few petals per flower. It's more of a "wilde" or old fashioned type of rose. Roses in nature have few petals and more closely resemble this kind of varietal. In my plant systematics classes in college, one of my professors said, "Ornamental roses are the only "rose" that don't really look like the rest of the rose family." Her thoughts really stuck with me about this family.


Closing out this pictorial essay, we have rose hips. The fruit of roses with red skins hang pendant-like from the main bush. They are kind of heavy so the stems dangle under the weight of the seed and fruit flesh. Time to prune I guess...


That does it! You can check out other Rednesday posts at My Secret Garden!

Shmobie Update

Hi Folks,

Last week Shmobie started to plummet and stopped eating and started to look like a bag of cat bones. I knew for sure he had not eaten in at least four days. I had an appointment for him to go to the vet on Friday but he went and hid for the entire day and did not surface again until late Saturday, albeit worse looking than ever before. Locking him up for Sunday, I got in with the vet on Monday morning to figure out what was going on.

I told the vet he had basically stopped eating and that was it. No other symptoms were showing other than having the abscess a few weeks prior. Then the Vet examined him and weighed him and came back to tell me, "Sometimes when cats get stressed (i.e. the big abscess in his rear) they just stop eating. They don't exactly know why but that cats and mini-horses can do this and it is baffling. After the stressful event is over they just keep declining even though they are technically healed."

She said his liver was being eaten by his body since he was in starvation mode. His gums were whitish-yellow and he was obviously deteriorating rapidly. Then she said, "If you can get them eating again, they can bounce back."

So with what seemed like a gallon of fluid pumped subcutaneously under Shmoe's skin and a pill for an appetite stimulant we headed home carrying a six pack of high calorie wet cat food.

Shmoe has been on total lock down in my office and does not seem to mind much. Every few hours I mix wet cat food and water and suck it up in a syringe and squirt it down his throat like a meat smoothie. Today he has gum color again! Yeah. Pink has come back in a lot of areas where his gums were white. So with my attention going to nursing Shmoe and my feeling of stress about the situation, I am a bit behind in visiting folks.

I am hoping for the best and that Shmoe will start to eat again. He made a few attempts at licking food this morning too so that is a good sign. Wish me luck. I just want to infuse him with the will to live again.

Horse Time: Trit-Troting our Way Through Fall

Just a quick update on Gemma-horse (Dutch warmblood) who is getting her act together with consistent training. One of my friends said to me, "She looks like she could jump a house." Too bad I only ride dressage...


This is the first horse I have owned on who I look size proportionate. You really can not tell that I am an Amazon in size when I ride Gemma.


This trot picture shows Gemma balanced and accepting of her fate. We have had many "discussions" about what she has to get used to. This mare is fussy and has been a long time in taking consistent contact in the reins. She would much rather trot around with me not touching her mouth. Too bad, so sad... Just so you have a point of reference, the feeling of the rein contact should be only that necessary to keep the rein from flopping between my hand and the bit. No heavy weight is pressing on my fingers.


Here is the canter gait. Again Gemma is coming to terms with her job and is lightly taking connection without throwing her head randomly about.


There are days that after riding this horse, I can not help but have a gigantic grin on my face. She is getting more fun to train all the time. I think I am truly blessed to have this wonderful mare!