Seasons Changing and So Do We

While the temps have just begun to reflect the change from summer to fall, the last few days are hinting that winter isn't far off. I don't mind the cooler weather and am happy to have turned off the AC.  After surviving far too many recording breaking days of 100+, anything under 80 feels like heaven.  But the newest addition to our family isn't very happy.

Toby, a 2 1/2 year old gray cat, came into our lives a month ago.  Several times throughout the year, when the cat population becomes too high, our local Humane Society gives away free kittens and cats.  I hadn't intended to take a new pet home, but out of curiosity we decided to see what was available at the latest give-away.  After getting a number and walking through the crowd of people hoping to adopt a new pet, my youngest daughter and I weren't able to tear ourselves away, even though we were told that it was entirely possible there wouldn't be any kitties left by the time our number was called.  As it turned out, Toby, who was being fostered by one of the employees and wasn't in the facility at the time, was the last cat available at the end of our four hour visit.  We took him in a heartbeat.

Toby's description mentioned that he was a great personal assistant, and he's already proved that to be true.  His favorite spot to snooze quickly became the window that overlooks over my desk.  This was fine with me, until the temps started to dip into the low 50s at night, and the daytime temps stopped reaching 75.  To Toby's utter disgust, the window had to be closed.  All the windows had to be closed.  So now when he discovers that his favorite sleeping spot will no longer accommodate his bigness, he gives up and settles for the top of my desk.  At 34 inches stretched out from head to tip of tail, that's more than half of my desk, and I've spent quite a lot of time moving him so I can see the bottom of my computer screen.  He still doesn't understand that assisting doesn't mean keeping me from working.

We're happy that, instead of a tiny kitten that would have needed training, we found Toby.  Or he found us.  It appears that he and I will be enjoying the changes of the seasons together.  I'm already curious to see what he thinks of the view out the window when the snow begins to fall.

Here, Kitty

It’s a jungle out there. In my back yard.

When we moved from beachside to mainland eight years ago, Dear Hubby and I made the decision not to clear the back half of our one-acre lot. I have to admit, initially I envisioned something a little different from a wild abandon of palmetto and pepper trees. My original plan for the back yard included paths winding through the wilderness, hostas edging the line between grass and growth. Maybe a tree house and a swing. But since neither DH or I particularly like working outside in Central Florida’s ever-present ninety degree heat, yard work is, yeah, a problem.

Instead, we’ve decided to let Nature do her thing and hired people who mow the grass and keep the jungle behind a line that ever wants to creep forward. Some of my neighbors have clear-cut their back yards. They mow an acre of sod in straight rows. Not us.

We love the birds, I exclaim to anyone who bold enough to ask why. Our plot of overgrown jungle is on the map handed out to various species before they take off on their annual migration. So, twice a year—coming and going—every tree limb fills with robins, and the ground becomes a carpet of tiny little butterbutts. (See my Tipsy Robins post from 2/25/10.) We enjoy watching the squirrels, I tell neighbors who complain about torn screens and furry animals that can outwit the smartest bird feeder. I’m not so crazy about the raccoons, but once we wrapped our enormous hobo in bungee cords, those scavengers left the garbage alone.

Lately, there’s been a new addition to the menagerie of birds and opossums, armadillos and raccoons, squirrels and the occasional red fox that live in our back yard. A bobcat. Who, apparently, thinks we’ve laid out the welcome mat. He’s certainly made himself at home. This week, he prowled through the back yard, sniffed at the screen door, and bounded into the woods.

Pretty, isn’t he? I hope he doesn’t expect a bowl of milk ‘cause that’s one kitty who won’t be invited indoors.

East, West, Home's Best

I’m an inveterate traveller. I’ll put it down to growing up in the middle of the Australian desert. From the age of six weeks I was carted from coast to coast to visit and be shown off to distant relatives. As a child, I felt confined by the wide open spaces around me, so those twice yearly flights to civilization, must’ve given me a thirst to explore new horizons. Since there was no television service, I buried myself in National Geographic magazines, dreaming of travelling to places with exotic names like Mystic and Nantucket, Middlesex (where I seriously thought hermaphrodites lived) and Moosejaw, Kathmandu and Kabul.
I’m so desperate to see new places that if there’s an alternative route to return from that destination, I’ll take it!
However, an insidious realization has been nagging at me lately, and that is, that in spite of the beauty or benefits of travelling, I really miss my own bed, my own loo, my own shower.
Recently, I travelled around the south of England researching Jane Austen, where we stayed in the filthiest B&B you could imagine. The beauty of Winchester, where Jane died and was honored by being buried in Winchester Cathedral was tainted considerably by this experience and I’m annoyed with myself for letting this be so. It’s happened in other places too. Perhaps I need to consult a travel psychologist who’ll prepare me for the worst, so that I’ll be pleasantly surprised when it turns out to be better.
Now I’m on Corfu, an idyllic Greek Island, but again the accommodation is lacking. If we were paying half what we are, I’d put up with the less than clean bathroom, the un-mopped floors, the miniscule shower (18x24 inches!) the rock-hard bed and the dodgy electrical connections.
But what’s really upset me are the stray cats and dogs roaming the island. We’re presently feeding three kittens who’ve adopted us, bleating plaintively for food morning and evening. But what will happen to them when winter sets in and the tourists dry up? There’s no government run animal shelter on the island and the council controls dogs in some areas by baiting them! How inhumane is this? How sad that a civilized country’s answer to animal control is to allow them to roam free begging for food, or poisoning them? No doubt the female kittens will be pregnant as soon as they’re in season – provided they survive the winter. Although two of “our” kittens are quite wild, the smallest is friendly and sweet natured and would make a lovely pet, but there’s no such thing as animal adoption here.
However, I’ve discovered there’s a wonderful group of people who do their best trying to raise money to de-sex as many of the females as possible and set up feeding stations in various areas to try and tide the animals over the winter months. It’s a pity every visitor to Corfu and the other Greek Islands isn’t asked to donate five euros towards a non-profit fund for animals. I’m donating to have a female cat neutered and placing the Agni Animal fund website as my homepage, for which they’ll receive two British pounds per month (at no cost to me) for each of our family’s pc’s that has their site as our homepage.
So although this started as a whinge about how great travel is, but how much greater it is to get home to my own creature comforts, it’s ended as a plea to help those four-legged creatures who sleep on the streets and beg for food because there’s nowhere else for them to go. No warm lap to sleep on, no leg to rub up against, no human to call their own.
If you’d like to help, here’s the link to their website where you can read about the good work they do – http://www.agni-animal-welfare-fund.com/Index.asp
And here to make them your homepage - http://google.agni-animal-welfare-fund.com/
Meantime, I’m dreaming of getting home to my own comfy bed and a loo and a shower that I know are clean. But most of all I’m looking forward to getting home to my own four-legged friends and giving them an extra big hug.
Til next time…
CC

A Cat Called Buick

I’m often asked if the characters and situations in my books are based on real people and the answer to that is simple. No. That little blurb on the copyright page—the one that begins with “This is a work of fiction”—is completely accurate and true.

That’s not to say I’m not inspired by the things I see and hear. If you read my July release, Firefighter Daddy, you’ll remember that the heroine, Rory, has a black and white cat named Buick.

I’ve never met a cat called Buick, but years ago I knew someone who had a cat named Evenrude. He didn’t purr quite as loud as a boat motor, but he was loud! However, Evenrude was a tabby, not a tuxedo cat.

More recently my neighbor had a black and white cat named Pete. Here’s a picture of Pete, taken one Hallowe’en on my neighbor’s front steps.

My family loved Pete, so when we decided to get a cat of our own, we fell in love with this black-and-white beauty. Her name is Imilie.

I guess you could say the cat in Firefighter Daddy is three real-life cats—Evenrude, Pete and Imilie—rolled into one. However, his name, Buick, came entirely out of my imagination and if you want to find out where that came from, well, you’ll have to read the book.

As an aside, and so as not to cause any hard feelings between the two felines who rule the roost at my house, here’s a photo of Lucy, our other cat.

Lucy hopes to inspire a story someday, too.

Until next time,
Lee

PS: Firefighter Daddy is available at eHarlequin.com, Amazon.com, and in Canada at Chapters.ca.