Thursday, August 28, 2008

I Thought Sneezy Was One of the Seven Dwarfs!

But apparently, we are all channeling him. August. Ragweed. Joy.

Can you tell I'm being heavily sarcastic? I hope so. Because I do NOT like ragweed season. But we're in the middle of it, so we'll have to deal with it until we get a good, hard freeze which will kill it all. Hurry winter!

Well, maybe. We still need to get the chimney swept, the fireplace looked at and possibly fixed, a load of firewood, my car will need a new battery soon, Otter and I both need new coats... The list goes on!

Anyway, are all all taking turns sneezing this afternoon. Otter is trying very hard to not play the asthma game, she's been having it off and on all week. I told her that she really needs to go to school tomorrow (Friday), since she missed Monday because of it. And I'm taking her and her best friend to the zoo on Monday, so she really REALLY wants to stay healthy. If she's having mild asthma or mild allergy symptoms, then the zoo will still work. So she's going to take it easy this weekend and stay inside as much as she can so that Monday at the zoo will be possible.

She's had a couple of driving lessons this week. I took her out on Tuesday, we went to the streets behind our house and she practiced turning right, braking and driving straight. She did great. She was nervous at first, but we talked about a few things and then she put the car in gear and off we went. And after she drove around the corner a few times, she did so well that I just told her to drive us home. Which isn't far, but she was a little nervous about possibly meeting a car coming her way. She did really well getting us home, although she was just a touch closer to Bill's van than she probably should have been. But for the first time she's ever put a car into a driveway, it was very good. Her lessons with the driving coach are the week after next, we are going to give her as much practice between now and then as we possibly can.

The doggies are back in our good graces. Although I wish we knew why Maggie is suddenly sleeping in our closet! Frasier has always wandered between his blanket in the living room and the floor at the foot of our bed. But Maggie has always been in Otter's bed, except for occasionally sleeping with big brother at the foot of our bed. But here lately, she's taken to sleeping underneath my shirts that are hanging on the low closet rod so she can get up under them. So now all my shirts have beagle hair on the right side! They are in a good mood this evening, we had Digiorno's pizza for dinner and they got some of the pizza crust.

I have a load of laundry in the dryer right now. And it's noisy. I just took a nickle out of the dryer, probably courtesy of Otter's jeans that are in there. But I think that there might have been another coin, I'm still hearing it!

We have an office cat at work. She might be a stray, or she might have a home and just be let out during the day. We don't know for sure. She is very healthy so we think that she might have a home. But then again, she has just about everybody on that street trained so she gets fed frequently. She shows up at regular times for meals, my 91 year old boss has fresh water out for her all the time, he made her a bed and even put a fluffy pillow in it for her. When it's hot, he has something he attaches to the bed so she'll have shade. She's very spoiled. She's a black & white tuxedo cat. This morning, I had quite a fright when I was turning onto the street I work on: there was a black & white tuxedo cat that had been run over and it looked just exactly like her. I even turned around and went back to check, and I really thought that it was "Miss Whiskers" as Otter calls her. So I went on to work, I looked outside where she usually is waiting just to be sure. No cat. So I decide I'd better call my boss and break the news to him, he is extremely attached to this cat and I really didn't want him to find out by seeing her in the street. So I tell him and he's upset. And as I'm talking to him, I see a black & white furry head pop up and look in the back window where she usually is waiting for her food. Apparently, there was another cat in the neighborhood that looked exactly like ours. Exactly. The younger boss even had to drive by and check, and he even thought it was our cat, too. Anyway, I was overjoyed to see that our cat was ok. I fed her immediately (she's got me trained, too!) and then she spent the majority of the day snoozing on the back porch. She will sometimes come in the back door of the office, she will walk around and meow, as she checks out each room. Then she'll mosey back out the door. Like she owns the place. Because of Otter's extreme cat allergy, I always scrub my hands as soon as I've fed her, or petted her or scratched her ears, or rubbed her belly (just like a dog, strange cat likes that), but one day she rubbed up against my shirt as I was bending down to feed her. When I got home, Frasier would not leave me alone for anything! He kept coming up to me, and inhaling very deeply against my shirt. Then he would look at me, and I know what he was thinking: "OK Mom, where's my snack!?".
Friday tomorrow. About time!

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