Ethel...1993-2008

Ethel died this evening. We had been holding a death watch on her all night and all day. She was stretched out in front of the wood stove, on the rug where she loved to lie, and we just left her there until we knew she qwas gone. I had made up my mind that fear or not, I was going to take her into the Vet today, but they were closed.



I knew she was going to go this weekend. She crawled up on my pillow this morning and could not even purr, her voice was so weak. I cried, and just let her lay next to me. She got up and went and lay in front of her breakfast dish, and did not eat, and that is when I knew for sure.

Ethel was almost 16 years old. I got her when she was only a week old, and her eyes were just open. The W.A.I.F. (Whidbey animal improvement foundation) called my sister and asked if she wanted to foster a kitten, and she said no, but her sister would. So they called me. I went down and they told me that it was TWO kittens...that their mother was feral and had an older litter also, but that she was killed by a car, and one of the older siblings (7 months or so) brought the two kittens to a nearby house where SHE was getting food out the back door. THe kittens were found on the deck, and the woman brought them to WAIF. I bottle fed the two babies every 4 hours, and kept them in my bathroom with only a board (actually the leaf from my table) blocking them in. When they were about two weeks old Ethel started yowling like mad. LOUD and insistent. SO I went in and she was stretched out as tall as she could get trying to get over the board. SHe sounded like Ethel Merman...such a big voice for such a little kitten. Thus her name. Her sister was called Shirley. (????) I dunno, It just came to me. Shirley would let Ethel suck on her belly fur and she did too. It was so funny to watch the two of them.

One day I went in, and they were gone. I could not find them anywhere!! I paniced. I looked under the bed, and there was a tiny hole ripped in the gauze liner of my boxsprings, and the two of them were in there. I got them out, put a bigger board in the bathroom and they stayed there maybe two minutes before they were back in my bed.

As they grew, it became apparent that they were forming a very simbiotic relationship, and were not sociallizing well with people. At 6 weeks, I took Shirley back to be adopted, and I kept Ethel. SHe got along fine withe Rudy and Mariah my Dog. She grew fat and sassy, and ruled the house. EXCEPT when a stranger came into the house, then she was back in my box springs.



She had an evil look about her, as her eyes were very golden and in that black face, they almost looked like an old owl. She had a very LOUD purr, along with her very loud voice. When she was about 6 months old, she got outside, and was freaked, that she stayed under the back porch for two weeks. I finally got her back inside and she NEVER went out again.

I was transfered to Fallon, Nevada when she was 6, so I put her in a big carrier and Rudy in the other one along with Chitters, and put them in the back of my covered truck bed. I stopped in Shasta, California at a rest stop and a guy walked by and wanted to know what kind of animals I had back there. When I told him cats, he said WILD ONES??? I Laughed, and said she is NOW. She HATED the carrier, and would literally FREAK when I got it out. Once I got to Fallon, I let them out of their carriers and she found the nearest closet and stayed there until my bed got here, and then up inside it she went. The same was true 3 years later when I got transfered back home. I swore then that I would never scare her again. She was a LOVE!! She especially liked my and liked me to rub her belly. She would straddle my arm and place her belly on my hand so all I had to do was move my fingers.

She even got to the point of crawling under my covers when I was asleep and doing the same thing, so all I had to do was move my fingers in my half sleepy state. She was always beside me. In the chair, in the bed, on the couch, and she would tell me when it was getting too cold out and would lay in front of the woodstove and yowl at me until I built a fire for her. THen out full she would stretch, and lay there until the fire died. She was also the first to find a sunbeam. Winter or Summer, she knew where the cracks in the curtains were and would lay until the sun had moved, then on to the next spot she would go.

I will miss her very much, but she is in peace now, and is no longer cold, and I am sure that there is a nice warm hand and arm that she can straddle when she wants her belly scratched. There just has to be someone up there waiting for a cat...

YAWN!

GADS!! I just have absolutely NO energy! I slept most of Sunday, got up late on Monday, went swimming, did my 45 lengths of the pool, and was pooped before the aquarobics started. I did 1/2 an hour of them and then came home, took a shower and CRASHED!! I woke up around 2 AM and turnwed off the TV, let the dog out and the cat in, and closed off the front room and the kitchen, locked the doors, checked my email, turned off the computer and crashed again! Yesterday, I had a dentist appt, got a new crown and a new filling. (MONEY!!) went to the Playhouse and took the few pictures that I had not taken for DEAR SANTA, and came home, fixed what was left of the package of thighs that I had thawing on the counter and went to bed.

Dotties cats are cupboard walkers! Mine are not. And Tyler jumped up and got the thighs off the counter ripped open the wrapper and stole a thigh. I rescued 3 of them though. Little SHIT!! He is such a sweet cat though.

The above picture is of my baby...Schroeder, who is 18 months old. He is so afraid of anything new, that everytime I pull out the camera to get a picture of him he runs! The other day he just sat there, so I took the picture just as he said "I'm so bored with this, opened his mouth, yawned and ran. so you get a great picture of his throat. He is so BIG and the vet thinks he is part Maine Coon. His Momma was a slut, so no telling what he really is. He is starting to get little tufts on his ears and on his TOES!! And he is a really mama's boy.

I had better go get the pies made, so I can get to bed early tonight. We are going to Donna's for dinner tomorrow, so I dont have to cook!! YAY!!!!

You all have a great THANKSGIVING, and for all you Canadians up there, You get to smell our turkeys cooking like we do during YOURS!!! ;) I wonder why we don't have them on the same day? Huh!

and another picture from the show...

I have not been anywhere to take pictures other than the Playhouse, so you will just have to deal with these...

I am in the process of finishing the Lobby Poster for Peter Pan, and then the wall for DEAR SANTA, THEN i CAN RELAX (oops caps on) at least for a few days...I have to bring pies to DOnna's house for Thursday, so I will those on Tuesday, and stick them in the fridge. I am also cat sitting Dotties two fur babies, so the house is kinda on edge right now until they all adjust to each other again.

I have a huge fire going in the stove, and the animals are all jockeying for the best position in front of it. Ethel has won so far. She is the oldest and the Bitch of the crew, so they all catered to her needs. I just don't know how she hangs on, she cant weigh more than 2 pounds! She sleeps a lot, but she still cuddles with me, and purrs, and eats, and meows loudly when she wants something.
I wish I could make her better but I can't. She is happy, and does not appear to be in pain, so I will just let her be for awhile.

Gotta go throw another log on the fire...

Catching up

Just another picture from the play...Tiger Lily and the Henny Penny tribe...from PETER PAN

I have finally transcribed my 19 pages of notes from the Coupeville Festival Retreat and I used Office 2007. WOW!! I LOVE it!! so many easy things to do to make your pages look good. I have to have these printed for our meeting again in Dec. This is also the meeting that we award our 30,000 dollars of Grants to those individuals and organizations that applied and we thought were worthy. We had a lot of people apply for these grants, and it was very hard to say no to some of them, but then again, there were some that we all looked at and all did a thumbs down. There are rules to follow, and those that do not follow the guidelines, get denied. They are right there on the front of the application, and they STILL get it wrong.

I am learning a lot with this organization. Next time you go to a town festival, or a craft sale, or a city bazzaar, stop and think about what all goes on BEHIND the scenes by VOLUNTEERS in order to make it happen. Amazing what all you DONT hear about!

I am just about caught up with my book work, The Play has three more weeks to run, then it will be all torn down and the next one will go forward. Three months of hard work by a very few people, and once again, they are all VOLUNTEERS.

I am working harder volunteering than I did before I retired!! amazing isnt it?

My canning is all finished.
I cleaned my house.
I did all the laundry.
Bob raked all the leaves.
I finished the retreat notes.

I still have to finish the Lobby poster for PP.
take and do the Bio's photos and pages for the Christmas play.
Get the Meeting Minutes for the CFA finished.

I am still swimming, in fact I just bought three new suits in a size smaller than before! (swimming 6 hours a week does a number on a suit! they only last about 3 months, and then they fade and the elasticity fails.)

Little Miss Sadie-Bug is in the Doghouse!!! She was given a ham bone outside last evening, and last night or rather this morning, she pooped right in the middle of the hall way! Yep...I sure did...It was dark. She got yelled at, pitched outside, while I hobbled to get some toilet paper to get it off my foot, and then up off the floor. I was NOT happy! The last time she did this was last Christmas, when I gave her the boes and excess fat off the prime rib roast. I think I will not do that again. DAMN DOG!!! >:(

I have my oldest cat, Ethel, getting rid to leave this world. She is 16 and has lost almost all of her weight! She is losing hair like mad too, black fur everywhere! She has kidney failure, and will soon just die. I should take her in to have her put down, but she freaks really bad when I haul out the carrier, so I dont want her last minutes being fearful. She still purrs, and eats, and sleeps, and cuddles, but she now weighs only about 2 or 3 pounds...So sad. I will tell her story when she goes.

We ared having a very warm November. Flooding and rain, and wind, but so far, no frost. It got close the other night, but not yet. FOg though.

Well, I need to get busy and finish a few more things. Just wanted to post so you would not think I was gone forever. I'm not. I'm here. Just was really busy!

States I have been in.

Make yours @ BigHugeLabs.com

The end is near!

Whew!! Last dress rehearsal tonight and we open Friday for a 4 week run! My eyes are so glazed from all the detail work on the background of the pictures. I bought the whole Photoshop suite when I got my computer, and it is really really NEAT!! I had elements before, and that was good, but this has sooo much more, and I like the interface between Vista, windows picture viewer and Photoshop. You click on a picture and then click on open and VOLIA! the picture you want to edit is right there!! COOL!

I have all the portraits for the lobby wall, and Most of their Bios also, but I have to get it up tonight, so some will go up without Bios, and then they will whine and wonder why they did not have a bio on the wall, write one out and expect me to just reach into my back pocket and pull out the formatted, bio, all printed in powerpoint in the proper font and colors. Not gonna happen. I have been asking for Bios for 3 months. And as many pictures as I have taken there are still several kids that were not there in time so their portrait was not taken. This cast was just WAAAAAAY too big, with hardly any parental help.

The show will open on time, and it will all work out, but this one has been a rough birth. I had the lights all set, and then they changed the set, so now the lights dont look right. They will have to do though. As I was not given any more time to get them done. It will work! Some how the magic always comes together.

I will only be taking pictures and doing the lobby wall poster for the next show, so that will not be bad. And then Nothing until June, when we Produce NUNSENSE. That one only has five ladies in it, so it will be a snap. WHEW!

Now on to other things....