animals

It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, what the rest of the family and I have been reading and watching, and what I’ve been writing. Some weeks I share what I am listening to.

Our cat Scout was missing yesterday so I was not in a very perky the entire day.

We hadn’t seen her since Friday morning. We do let our cats outside but they usually come back several times throughout the day, and in the case of our oldest cat at least, don’t go very far.

I hadn’t been able to mentally function much since Friday night when it was pouring rain and she still hadn’t come back. I was sure she’d been hit or kidnapped. She could have been locked in one of the neighbor’s sheds too. They were all mowing their lawns before the rain came. I held out hope that she’d be home Saturday morning when one of them opened a shed or barn door.

Saturday morning came and still no sign of her.

I spent all day Saturday crying, but I knew it wasn’t just over the cat – it was over all the stuff that’s been going on with my parents and my health all combined. It was mainly the cat because I pictured her dead over the banks, I suppose, but the built-up tension from trying to figure out some weird symptoms I’ve been having and the challenge to get into a doctor and the challenge to fake it to everyone around me has been overwhelming me lately.

I just kept shoving it all inside and trying to pretend everything was fine and it just came to a head yesterday because I thought the cat was dead.

Saturday night I headed to bed around 11:30, resolved to the fact our cat — the biggest pain in the butt cat I’ve ever had in my life — was gone. I don’t know why I even did it, but I walked to our blanket closet in the hallway, as if giving it one last look, even though I was sure my husband and son had already thought to do so over the last couple of days, and I opened it.

There was a soft trill, and then a cat jumped out at me.

I was in total shock. I just started yelling, “Oh my gosh! She’s alive!”

The kids came running while the cat, probably startled as much as I was, took off for the food downstairs.

During the day I had been thinking about how much I would miss her. I would miss her touching her nose to mine when she came into my room at 5 or 6 a.m. for cuddles (I don’t actually enjoy being woke up that early, but I would now miss it, I had decided). I would miss her touching her nose to mine when she jumped up on the counter and waited for me to give her a snack of turkey deli meat when she came in from exploring outside at the end of the day.

Touching her nose to mine is something Scout has done since she was a tiny kitten, and she’d sleep on my chest.

After she grabbed some food and water, she ran back up the stairs, overwhelmed by everyone screaming over her and the dog excitedly sniffing and chasing her (I’m sure our older cat Pixel was simply glaring at her as she’d probably hoped she’d died somewhere so she could have all the attention again). I went up to finish getting ready for bed and she was standing on the window sill at the top of the stairs. She trilled at me and then she stretched her neck out toward me. When we were face-to-face she touched her nose to mine and I cried again and did something I almost never do to a cat — I kissed her forehead.

Then I wiped the fur away. Yuck. That’s why I don’t do that.

This cat definitely has nine lives. She’s the same cat that climbed and then fell out of a tree when we first got her. She lay on her side at the bottom of the tree panting and we thought she’d broken her spine and was dying. Thirty-seconds later she jumped up and took off running..

A few months later she climbed a larger tree in front of our house and was trapped there a day and a night and finally the town’s lovely fire department came and rescued her in dramatic fashion with their ladder truck. Just like in the movies.

In addition to having nine lives, the cat is also notorious for embarrassing me. That time it was the fire company rescuing her and yesterday our son went up and down the street asking all the neighbors to watch for her. Now we have to tell all of them she was in our linen closet the entire time and that we are sort of morons for not checking it and she’s sort of a moron for going into in the first place.

Last night I finished The Wishing Well by Mildred Wirt. It is a Penny Parker Mystery. I actually enjoyed it more than some of the Nancy Drew Mysteries because Mildred’s wit and humor comes through so clearly and Harriet Adams took a lot of that out when she wrote the Nancy Drew books that Mildred had written.

I might have to agree with Mildren when she once said that Penny was more Nancy Drew than Nancy was.

She is a lot more mouthy and pushy, but in a well-meaning way, than Nancy was even.

I am still reading Mansfield Park by Jane Austen, one chapter a day, but I didn’t read it much this week because I lost my paperback of it and then found it late last night. I did download an ebook copy to my Kindle too in case this happens again (which it will. I’m always laying my books down somewhere and losing them).

I am also continuing All Things Wise and Wonderful by James Herriott and will most likely finish that this week.

I plan to start The Inimitable Jeeves by P.G. Woodhouse this week and soon I will start Summer of Yes by Courtney Walsh (a fun summer romance) and ‘Tis Herself by Maureen O’Hara.

This week I watched a couple of older movies with two of the original Dames.

I watched The Assassination Bureau with a young Diana Riggs. That was — um, interesting. Quite goofy with a lot of sexual tension between her and Oliver Reed.

Then I watched The Honey Pot with a young Maggie Smith and Rex Harrison. This was another interesting one with an odd plot. A rich man pretends to be dying and invites his three former mistresses to his home to see which one of them is worthy of his inheritance.

Maggie portrays a nurse of one of the mistresses.

Rex is in his usual, witty form in this one.

I wasn’t sure what to expect of the film when I started it and when it got serious, Maggie really stepped up her acting game. That was enjoyable.

I also watched Ludwig, a mystery with David Mitchell, on Britbox. I really enjoyed the first episode.

Of course, I watched Just A Few Acres Farm on YouTube and will watch it again because I was interrupted during it. He was restoring a Farmall tractor. Who knew one day I’d be fascinated with watching a man restore an old farm tractor…

I’ve decided that I am going to have a Summer of Angela and watch Angela Lansbury movies. I’m going to sort of do it on my own but if anyone wants to join me, they/you are welcome.

Last week on the blog I shared

What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to, or writing? Let me know in the comments or leave a blog post link if you also write a weekly update like this.

This post is linked up with The Sunday Post at Kimba at Caffeinated Reviewer, The Sunday Salon with Deb at Readerbuzz, and Book Date: It’s Monday! What are you reading hosted by Kathyrn at The Book Date.

Lisa R. Howeler is a blogger, homeschool mom, and writes cozy mysteries.

You can find her Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find her on Instagram and YouTube.

Sipping tea and cocoa, reading books, and watching All Creatures Great and Small. That’s all I want to do today and hopefully, I will.

It wasn’t a rough week. It was a relaxing one, but it did have various bouts of sad news mixed in about a variety of people and situations. I just need a break from things.

The world is heavy, right? I’m not the only one who feels it, am I?

I mean – it’s a lot unless you lock yourself in a house and never engage with people or go on social media or participate in society whatsoever. That may be something I look into soon.

Again, though, could just be me, but I’m sort of over the craziness of the world right now.

Which is why I am piling up my cozy mysteries and popping in some old movies and eating a lot of chocolate this weekend.

Okay, maybe I won’t eat a lot of chocolate. I’ve actually been craving fruit more than anything else. I just want fruit all the time lately and I think that’s because my body wants healthier foods. I intend to give it those healthier foods it wants this week. Even if fruits and vegetables are some of the most expensive foods right now.

This past week, as I said, wasn’t really too stressful other than bad news.

The Husband had off work for the week so we had some family time, including a trip to a nearby reptile zoo yesterday.

Earlier in the week we hung out at home, went for some walks (well, I didn’t but the rest of them did), went to the playground, visited my parents and had some pizza with them, watched some Adventures of Sherlock and Perry Mason and read books or, for me, wrote blog posts.

The kids had school but we took it easy, especially on the nice days when we had sun and warmer temps. We seem to be in this routine in Pennsylvania of two nice days and five not-so-nice ones. I’ll take those two nice days and hope for more nice days in a row in May and the rest of the summer.

Wednesday night we had a pizza night at my parents’ house. We made homemade pizza – well, not really. It was store-bought dough but we added the sauce, cheese, and roasted peppers.

Yesterday it was off to Clyde Peelings Reptiland where Little Miss was able to see her favorite creatures – reptiles. She was able to pet a snake and was thrilled by that but I’m sure she would have been more thrilled to bring it home. She’s still trying to talk me into us buying her one. I just keep pushing her off and hope she will forget about it.

The Boy, The Husband, and Little Miss went inside the zoo and I stayed in the car reading books, partially to save money because the tickets are quite high, and partially because I had already seen the zoo and The Husband hadn’t.

He is not a fan of reptiles, especially snakes, but he did well.

Afterward, we decided not to go to a fast food restaurant to eat but instead stopped at a local supermarket called Weis. It’s like a smaller version of Wegman’s, for those familiar with that chain, or Trader Joes with less options.

Still, it provides more fresh fruit and natural products than other supermarkets in our area, which means my lunch was some pork chops I had brought from home and a package of raspberries, blueberries, and blackberries. Everyone else had things like General Tsaos chicken, dumplings, and fried chicken pieces. To me, it always seems a better deal to pick up lunch at a place that provides good quality food next to some healthier options, especially since our last restaurant experience was expensive and disappointing.

The sun has been out a little bit today and that’s been nice but it looks like it is clouding up again out there. We really need a stretch of several days of sun to perk us all up.

I plan to spend the rest of the day sipping tea, as I mentioned above, and finishing up a The Cat Who … book that I got wrapped up in the other day when I was looking for a comfort read to deal with all the overwhelming news of people I know with health issues.

There are some very funny lines in this book – The Cat Who Talked to Ghost by Lilian Jackson Braun – it’s actually become one of my favorites.

At one point, Polly, the main character’s girlfriend (they are an older couple in their 50s just for a visual) adopts a Siamese cat and, usually reserved, gushes over it and talks baby talk to it.

Main character, Jim Qwilleran, a slightly uptight newspaper columnist with two Siamese cats of his own, is aghast at her behavior.

“Qwilleran had to admit he was an appealing little creature, but he found Polly’s commentary cloying.

He occasionally called Yum Yum his little sweetheart, but that was different. It was a term of endearment, not maudlin gush.

“What’s his name?” he asked.

“Bootsie, and he’s going to grow up to be just like Koko.”

Fat chance, Qwilleran thought, with a name like that! Koko bore the dignified cognomen of Kao K’o Kung, a thirteenth-century Chinese artist.”

I don’t know why that section cracked me up, but it did! I guess I needed the laugh.

How was your week this past week?

Do anything fun?

Let me know in the comments.

Next week I plan to start a link-up for weekly wrap-up posts and then anyone who does similar posts (they don’t have to have the same name at all) can add their links and we can catch up on what everyone is doing. I’ll let you know more about that next week.