Missed Holidays & Odd Beginnings

Through some of the many notifications I get on my phone about national holidays and international holidays and the greeting cards I should send for all of them, I missed National Friendship Day on August 7^th.  This could be one of those holidays contrived to sell greeting cards, since the reminder for the holiday asked me if I wanted to send a card, but I want to believe that is a genuine holiday designed to show gratitude to those special relationships in your life.   I wish I could write a sonnet for every friend that had touched my life and the impact that they made, but poetry was never my strong suit.  I will however share some antidotes as to how some of my best friendships started.   Just to keep it fun, see if you can guess which anecdote goes to which friend. 

The friends in question are: Barbie, Lizzy, GAT, Faye, Steph & Nic.

1.       They say that you are either going to love the person that sits next to you at work or you are going to become arch enemies.  After weeks of silent treatment, hairy eyeballs and suspicions of bird harboring in desk drawers, negotiations were finally made.  I tried to go for arch enemies and then Stockholm Syndrome set in.   

2.       The tinkling of bells rang in the air with every step she took quite literally. The best interviews are the ones that are done in Halloween costume, because you can tell right away when someone is nervous.

3.       And I said to her, “You will know my house by the snow bunny in the front yard.” After a moment of silence, she said, “What’s a snow bunny?”

4.       I was standing behind the registers watching the crowd for the midnight release, when she stops in front of me and hands me a bottle of drugs.  I wasn’t even sure if I had met her before that moment.

5.       “Let’s put this sweater over our heads and we can pretend we are fairies in a cave.” 

6.       I was walking down the mall when someone from inside one of the stores I was passing yelled, “FRESHMAN!” I turned and responded with, “I’m not a freshman.”  She just smirked at me and said, “You’ll always be a freshman to me.”

Please keep in mind that there is more to most of these stories than these few sentences.  The drugs weren’t the illegal kind, but more of the pain relief sort.   For those that are wondering who lined up with what story, here are the answers:  1=Nic, 2= Lizzy, 3= GAT, 4=Barbie, 5=Faye, 6= Steph.   It just proves that friendship starts in the most unlikely ways.  Happy Belated Friendship Appreciation Day!

Until The Cows Come Home

I don't usually do a lot of creative writing. I get about creative about once a year when I do NaNoWriMo.  That isn't to say that I don't want to do creative writing, it is more of a laziness that prevents me from doing so.  Discussing this issue with my friend Faye, we came up with the idea of writing prompts and short stories. Our idea was we would  both start a story and the other would finish it. The writing prompt that was suggested was cows.  Below is the start.

Until The Cows Come Home
Zoey wasn't amused.  Of all the plans they could have come up with, this by far was probably the stupidest and these would have to be the stupidest thieves in the history of thievery if they were going to fall for this stupid set up.  Zoey wasn't sure if she was frustrated with herself for even agreeing to try this plan or if she was mortified that it seemed to be working.   There she was on her hands and knees in her lucky black jeans and a black turtleneck sweater in the middle of a herd of cows with an itchy cow hide on her back and a goofy plastic cow Halloween mask being ushered into a truck with the rest of calves.   The mask was humid from her breathing and she could tell that her long brown hair was slowly falling out of the braided bun that  it was in at the base of her neck. Sweat was trickling its way down her cleavage and she could feel the weeds brushing against her as she tried to keep up with the cows as some of them were being lured up a ramp.  The bite of rocks and stones made her knees ache and she mentally cursed her rotten luck in her head as the cows lowed beside her. 

Zoey had always thought of herself as an intelligent young lady that would go far if she could get herself out of the sleepy little town she was raised in.  There was nothing exciting to do, and nothing ever changed.  The most exciting thing prior to this current bout of thievery of livestock was when the slushy machine ran out of cherry coke slushy’s and it was replaced with some blood orange and lemonade swirl mix. Change was not taken well.  There were still scorch marks on the side of the 7/11 where a flaming bag of dog shit had caught the newspapers next to the entrance on fire.
    
Cow thievery was not uncommon.  It was actually pretty normally for one or two head to go missing and it could easy be written off as an occupational hazard. It was not common for almost a dozen cattle to go missing every five nights from a different ranch each time.  It wasn't normal for that many heads to go missing in that short of an amount of time without someone outright stealing them.  Zoey wasn't even interested in the missing cattle.  Bovine was the hottest topic of conversation from the grocery store to the hair salon.  There was no where a person could go without someone having an opinion, which is how she got in this predicament. 

Zoey had been chilling at her friend, Lucy's house when Lucy's brother, Garret had rushed into the house cussing about missing cows.  Zoey was not going to admit to having a crush on Garret, but she would admit that he did fill out a pair of jeans in all the right ways. Maybe it was the fact that he looked good with his cheeks flushed that she was drawn into the fight against the missing hoofs as Lucy had tried to console her brother. When clucking and fussing didn’t seem to calm him down, Lucy had pulled out the booze and they all took a shot in sympathy.

 After a couple more shots of corn whiskey, it was deduced that old man Johnson's farm was the only farm that had not yet had the misfortune of absent bovine and that someone would need to go undercover to see what was going on.  Zoey definitely remembered the corn whiskey and the hang over the next day and the way Garrets eyes had sparkled that corn flower blue she loved, but parts of the plan were a little hazy.  She was sure that at no time in the planning was it ever out right said that Zoey would be the one disguising herself as a cow.  Zoey's had always figured it would be Lucy in the field and she would be tuning in by Walkie Talkies as Garrett took watch from one of the residing hillside with binoculars.  In fact that was the plan, until Lucy sprained her ankle and couldn't support herself without crutches.

IF you want to read the rest of the story, click here and it will take you to Faye's blog.  Cows.  I have no love for cows having lived on a beef farm in weening season, but over all this was a fun exercise .

My Cat is 33

Dib Age 4

August is full of birthdays for me.  One of my favorite birthdays is August is Dib Cats birthday. (Sorry Mom, but on the bright side I didn't forget your birthday.) I know I sound like a crazy cat person,  but I don't care.

 Dib cat is awesome and brings joy to everyone he meets. My husband and I were celebrating Dibs birthday with beef and gravy tinned cat food.  Let me clarify, we weren't the ones eating the food, Dib and his brother Iggins were enjoying the birthday treats, but it got my husband and I chatting on how old Dib would be in human years. 

Dib Age 15

The popular belief is that to calculate a dogs age in human years, you multiply it by seven, but I will admit that I had no idea on what the cat conversion would be. This is where I turn to the all might Internet to find the conversion.  The Internet didn't fail me exactly. It just gave me several possibilities and no real answers.

According to CatYearChart.com Dib is a healthy 33.

According to CalculatorCat.com  Dib is a robust 35. (This might be the best calculator, because it will also tell me how old I am in in cat years.)

According to Miniwebtool.com Dib is a wizened 36.

My husband insists that Dib is a young lad in his twenties and is still full of life.  I don't think being in your mid thirties (possibly) means that you are no longer full of life, it just means you have a better handle one what you want out of life.   I think that Dib definitely has a handle on what he wants out of life. 

Dib Age 33

I am pretty sure that he wants corn chips, ice cream and a comfortable spot on the couch to lay on as he watched television.  If you think I am lying about the corn chips, just try to open a bag covertly. He has a sixth sense for them. It makes eating chips and salsa a cat adventure.   Happy Birthday to one of the coolest and weirdest cats I have ever had the pleasure of being in the company of.  May all your days be full of open windows and tasty treats.  


"When my cats aren't happy, I'm not happy. Not because I care about their mood but because I know they're just sitting there thinking up ways to get even." Percy Bysshe Shelley