Close the door? How dare you!

Bathrooms are meant to be that one scared and intimate place in our home where we can shut the door and retreat from the world to our own blessed sanctuary of aloneness and privacy. Unless you have cats, of course. There is literally nothing that will make a cat magically appear from thin air to break that privacy code than a closed bathroom door. You’ll hear that mournful, repeated, and frantic “Meeoooooooooowww” in tangent with a paw, paw, paw, dig, dig, dig under the door and a scratch, scratch, scratch on the door.

“Where are you? When are you coming out? What are you doing in there without me?” Read more

This beautiful stained glass window in our kitchen is the perfect filter when the sun is just right for what I call the “hairlight affect.”

Snowflakes softly twinkling, falling in a graceful dance, dusting all they touch with an exquisite blanket of untouched snow. I carry the memory of those moments from my days in Upstate New York where the quiet beauty of a freshly fallen snow can take your breath away. Living in Florida, we don’t have anything to quite compare, unless you consider what I term ‘hairlight” – those moments in a household with cats in which the sun is at that perfect setting in which it creates a glorious wash of sunlight that exposes every delightful bit of dust and cat hair that abounds on the floor, on furniture, on computer screens, on appliances, on televisions and more. This, I am very familiar with. Read more

While the worst of it is over and I’m grateful for the success of my recent vitrectomy eye surgery, the recovery period was intensely difficult and one that gave me an unexpected virtual perspective of the life of my cats. For nearly two weeks, I was confined to a 3’ x 4’ cushion on the couch. I had to remain in a seated position, with my head upright, including when I was sleeping. After day 10, I was in tears, exhausted from the monotony, and it hit me like a lightning bolt – this is what it must be like to be a cat, captive to the 24/7 same old, same old of whatever world we provide for them. Read more

This is an older photo, but it gives you a sense of me at home on Tuesday prior to surgery.

Tuesday, June 26^th was a hectic day. I was squeezing every last thing I could possibly jam into my life prior to 12:30 p.m., the designated time Dan was going to drive me to my scheduled vitrectomy surgery to remove a macular pucker that had developed in my left eye after I had emergency laser surgery in January to repair a tear in my retina.  I did laundry. I cleaned my office. I paid my bills and like a mad lunatic, I sent about a dozen emails to various people at my day job, outlining projects they were already fully aware of what needed to be done with. Read more

Sure…my luggage might have a few love scratches and frays from my cats, but as long as the contents are less than 50 pounds, I don’t care!

Hey everyone! I had wanted to do a recap of my experience attending the 24th annual Cat Writers’ Conference and Awards Banquet last June 7 – 9 in Houston, TX. From start to finish it was a perfect alignment of the sun, moon, and stars. I remembered to pack my razor and phone charger. I had pre-TSA check-in at the airport. My luggage was less than 50 pounds and my hair was uncharacteristically cooperative during my stay. Read more