The Girl Just Wants to Have Fun

Zoe is our crazy girl cat. She was my third cat, and considering her auspicious beginnings, living in a tree outside of our yard, Zoe has an amazing outlook on life. She lived in that tree for about 3 months, during a very cold winter. She would meow at me and the other pets (1 dog and 2 cats at the time) every time we were out in the yard. That time of year, I always come home from work and play with everybody outside until it gets dark 30 minutes later. She started getting braver, gradually working her way down the tree and hanging out by the cyclone fence. One day, she started running after the ball I was throwing for Stanley, and would claw for it through the holes. I, of course, was leaving food and water for her by then, and had determined - what's one more cat? Well, she proved a bit difficult to catch. Plus Stanley had decided she was some kind of strange looking squirrel, and every time she tried to jump on our side of the yard, he would chase her back up in the tree. I was not very pleased with him throughout this ordeal. Finally, though, I caught her and took her to vet, got her spayed and vaccinated and BATHED.

She has proven a little bit of a challenge, having never lost her wild spark. She does not like to be held AT ALL. She will let you pet her, but only on her terms. It's a bad morning when I have to catch her to take her to the vet for some reason or another. She never really learned how to groom herself properly, (we assume because she was separated from her Mom too soon), so she needs to be bathed every 6 months or so. This also gets done at the vet - and when she comes back we remember that she is a beautiful snow white, instead of a grayish color. I don't let her outside at all, and she doesn't seem to mind. I think she had enough of outside during her treehouse life, and realizes that she has it pretty good now.

My husband dotes on her, being the only female cat, and has nicknamed her The Princess. She is a tomboy, demanding to play with the male cats, but then running away in a very girly manner whenever they get too rough. Every time I do yoga, she hangs out with me, curling up just next to the mat. This is the only time she is really touchy-feely, so I reach out and pet her alot during my routine. She rolls on her back and purrs, and looks so very content and relaxed. She teaches me about enjoying the moment, which is really what yoga is all about.

But the biggest thing I'm trying to learn from her is how to have fun. If she isn't eating or sleeping, she wants to play. All the time. We discovered a few months ago that she loves chasing after those little rubber balls that bounce to kingdom come. She actually plays catch with us, batting the balls back to us so we can toss it again. She'll chase me pulling an old shoelace all over the house. And we just recently started playing with her old love - a tennis ball. I realized while watching Zoe playing that sometime over the last year I stopped having as much fun as I used to. I have since determined that life is too short to let problems get you down for long. I've been laughing and cutting up more lately, and I thank her for inspiring me, because I feel alot better.

Zoe, aka "The Princess" 

Decisions, Decisions

I know it's been awhile since I've last posted. We've had some ups and downs over here, and I've been writing in my own private journal for a few weeks. But now I'm back.

Our house hunt has continued, and not only did we find a house we loved, we happened to find two. We saw Dream House #1 about 3 weeks ago, and immediately tried to forget it. Asking price was a tiny bit higher than our upper-end limit. BUT everything about this house was wonderful (of course). Jav and I floated, not walked, through it. It was built in 1952, but had had all kinds of updates to pretty much everything in the house over the past 5 years. It was on an oversized lot (but with no fence, a must for us with the two doggies). Beautiful landscaping, sprinkler system, huge rooms with wonderful original hardwood flooring and new paint, bathrooms with all new fixtures and tilework. The best thing about the house, though, was a completely renovated kitchen, with new cabinetry, huge island with storage and seating, built-in fridge, glassed-in cabinets for china display, HUGE pantry with rotating shelves, a Jenn-Air, the list goes on and on and on. Me being someone who loves to cook, this was just too good to be true. And it turned out to be too good for us to forget.

We wandered through a few more houses, but with very little enthusiasm. We both started talking about the house again, and how we could possibly cut back here and there to afford it. We had three other houses set up for this past Saturday, and even though I promised to keep an open mind, I really didn't think we'd see anything that would even come close to Dream House #1. Until we saw Dream House #2.

This house was newer. (1971). It had been on the market eight days. Smaller square footage, but in a newer, safer neighborhood. Smaller yard, but sizeable enough for the dogs. Everything in the house had been updated - flooring, paint, lighting, bathrooms, carpeting. And it had the Holy Grail of rooms for Javier - a pet room. Actually it was an 11 x 16 sun room, but with ceramic tile flooring, A/C and heating, and plenty of room for kitty litter boxes, dog crates, scratch posts, food and water dishes, and anything else for the perfect pet playroom. It's minutes away from my favorite place to walk the dogs. One bad thing, though, the kitchen was pretty small. Our realtor, though, said she expected this house to be snatched up faster than you could blink.

So then - the hard part started. My two main issues were huge, private yard vs. smaller, suburbia yard and dream kitchen vs. small I'll Have to Learn To Live With It kitchen. Jav had these two, plus he loved having an extra bedroom for a study. After an entire evening and all day today of cussing and discussing pros and cons out the yazoo, I finally started leaning towards Dream House #2. This was after it was determined that we could use the money we would have spent on fencing at Dream House #1 to knock out a wall and make the kitchen big enough for an island in Dream House #2. I also determined that even though we have to leave our wonderful, wildlife-filled yard for suburbia yard, the wonderful wildlife-filled park is two minutes away by car. We decided to make the third bedroom a study for now. We also realized that monthly utility bills would be quite a bit higher in Dream House #1. We also determined that we might be doing nothing but housework and yardwork on the weekends in Dream House #1. In other words, we made some tough compromises, but came up with solutions to any problems, and we think we've made the best decision for us right now.

We'll make an offer tomorrow night, and hopefully no one will beat us - that would be a little gut-wrenching at this point.

But then, of course, there's always Dream House #1 to fall back on in a pinch.

But I Wouldn't Want to Live There

I have an obsession with Russia. I think it's the most interesting place on earth. Probably part of its intrigue is its remoteness and distance from the United States (both in locale and in ideology). I love hearing stories about Russia on NPR. One of their best reporters, Anne Garrules, recently did a series of stories about "The New Russia" and the direction the country is taking. One story was about a young female celebrity with her own talk show promoting free speech, free markets and severely blasting the old-time Russian way of thinking. It seems to be yet another country who seems to be moving very quickly towards an American way of thinking, but then turns around and bombasts Americans and the way that thinking is taking over their country. It's probably generational arguing, between young people searching for a better way of life than their parents have or had, and older ones too bitter and soured by problems in the past to want to change anything now. There is such economic turmoil, which also goes along with the battle over doing things the old way versus the new.

There was an amazing article on Putin in a recent issue of Atlantic Monthly. It went over his history, how he got from point A to point B, and why he seems to think what he thinks. And how sometimes it's hard to tell WHAT he thinks and which way the country is headed. Russia seems to be such a grand expanse of land. I've always wondered if what its citizens in Moscow think is entirely different or the same from people living in the far reaches of the country.

I'm now trying to get through a book about the 10 years after Gorbachev called "Black Earth" by Andrew Meier. He's a reporter who, after living in Moscow for several years, began to wonder what ordinary Russians thought about what was going on in their country. He decided to venture to those far reaching places, well away from his comfort zone and into some really dangerous places. It is not an easy read. There are massacres of Chechens and mob hits on foreigners trying to "make Russia a better place" with Western type construction projects. But it's fascinating to learn more about this place that has played such an important role in our history - and still makes us nervous thinking about the future.

I would love to travel to Russia one day, especially to see St. Petersburg. But I'm not sure I feel that it would be safe to do so now. Maybe one day the country will be a more stable place to visit.

As an addendum to this post, I am thankful that the Russian sub crewmen were safely rescued. I'm glad the military authorities in Russia were much quicker to ask for help from other countries this time, because in doing so they avoided another tragedy like the Kursk submarine back in 2000. Thank God there was a happy ending this time.