Sometimes, no matter how perfectly crafted the sentence or how compelling the verbiage, there is just no way to do justice to certain events and tie them up with a pretty bow to make sense of them and move on with clarity, acceptance, and understanding.

Several months ago Dan’s youngest daughter, Jackie, shared the amazing news that she was going to be one of the ice skaters performing in the Ice Chips 2012 Show in Boston where she lives. 2010 Olympic Champion Evan Lysacek would also be performing and we decided then and there that a visit from Florida to Boston was in order and began to make plans for our trip at the end of March. Dan’s oldest daughter, Crystal, who teaches a 3rd grade class thought it would be a wonderful idea for me to come in for a few hours the day we were scheduled to arrive as a guest author and share with the students the many steps involved in writing a book. I was looking forward to it and began to formulate a lesson plan in my mind. 

Three weekends ago on a Sunday night, Dan and I were getting ready for bed and caught wind of a freak accident whereby a car had driven off the road and hit a hotel restroom cabana here locally and killed the woman inside who was 7 months pregnant with her unborn son. Not to be disrespectful, but tragic stories seem to become part of the daily news background and don’t really connect to your own personal reality. You mutter to yourself how terrible that is, then you turn off the TV and go to bed. The next morning Dan woke up to a string of texts from Crystal – the woman and unborn child who was killed was her classroom assistant teacher who was on vacation in Florida with her husband and they were just freshening up before they headed off to the airport for home. This was real and it was unspeakably horrible with no rational explanation as to why it had to happen. No single platitude or cliché in the world could possibly justify that it was her time and that it happened for a greater cause. Read more

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Who among us has not seen that intense, faraway look a cat has. Where do they go? It would seem they are miles away in thought, perhaps in some distant world filled with fluttering butterflies, hovering birds, scampering bunnies, chattering squirrels and heaven knows what else. Or perhaps it is nothing at all, but a speck of dirt on the window… With a cat, one will really never know…

There is no doubt a lot of serious stuff when it comes to cats – cat overpopulation on the streets and in the shelters is a subject we have been trying to tackle for months now and there is still a long way to go before the problem is solved. But, sometimes we need a break from all that heavy stuff, just to talk about cats being cats…. or what I called in Chapter 22 of my book, “Cattitude & Cattisms.”  This chapter was so much fun for me to write, because it is all about the universally wonderful personality traits, habits, quirks, and mannerisms that our cats possess to one degree or another to let us humans know we are NOT in charge. Read more

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Sure, there are times that my cats judge me – when I dare to sleep in the morning, when I do not feed them at precisely 6:00 pm on the dot, and when I have the audacity to remove them from my numb lap when I have to get up and use the bathroom. They do not judge me, however, when I am not wearing makeup or if I am wearing ratty old sweatpants. They have no interest whatsoever in what my political views are and they are not remotely impressed that I am an author while holding a full-time job. They live by their own rules and I think that is why I respect cats so much, as did Andre Norton of this prolific quote. I love the contrast of Peanut in this image against the black background of the patio furniture and the stunning juxtaposition of the ceramic zebra next to her. It all seems to imply that we should accept life for what it is without discrimination. I also love the connection between cats and creativity. In light of my circle of cat friends, I would agree wholeheartedly.

 Andre Alice Norton (1912  –  2005) was an American science fiction and fantasy author who published her first novel in 1934 and was the first woman to receive the Gandalf Grand Master Award from the World Science Fiction Society in 1977. An important role in Norton’s books is often given to animals — both ordinary terrestrial ones, such as cats (with whom she had much personal experience) and exotic fictional ones, whose characteristics are meticulously worked out. Many of Norton’s animals are highly intelligent without being anthropomorphic, acting as virtually full partners to the human protagonists and in many books forming telepathic links with them. (Wikipedia)

As with anyone in my generation, I grew up playing outside in my neighborhood until I was called in from the distance by my Mother for supper. We were probably playing some sort of game that involved nothing more than a simple ball, but my siblings and I were completely engrossed in whatever game we had invented for the day. This is not the world our current generation lives in and I can’t judge them for their seeming obsession with television, computers, video games, and cell phones, because that is how they are growing up and that is their reality. Tell them to go outside and play with a ball for hours and you are certain to get that teenage glare of utter exasperation at the stupidity of your suggestion.

A vast sea of cell phones that become more obsolete with each passing second...

I recall my teenage moment when I rolled my eyes into the back of my head when my grandfather told me about walking a mile to school without shoes in the winter. I also recall getting “the look” from my oldest son when I told him when I grew up, we did not have a microwave. The look implied, first of all, “who cares,” and secondly, “I can’t relate.” Whatever… Read more