Hitchhiking Cats

I know my recent posts have been about animals, especially cats, but rescuing animals and helping them find new homes is important to our family. So when I learned about an opportunity via Facebook to transport some cats from the Young-Williams Animal Center in Knoxville to the Union County Humane Society, we volunteered. These two adult cats needed a ride to Maynardville in neighboring Union County so they could then hitch another ride to Winchester, Virginia and join a rescue shelter.

David and I were happy to help, and we had never driven to this part of Tennessee, which is about 30 minutes north of Knoxville. The two cats we picked up were a Persian and Himalayan, and they were fairly quiet during the ride.

When we arrived at the Union County Humane Society, I was quite impressed. The society has been around a while, but the current facility where they house the animals recently celebrated a one year anniversary, and it has some very nice accommodations for kittens, puppies, dogs and cats. I especially love the Cat Cottage out back where all the adult cats hang out together. They have little beds on the walls with pillows in each of them. I wish I had taken photos!

The society's vet told us more than 50 animals were on their way last night to rescue shelters in parts of Virginia and Maryland. I hope they all find homes very soon!

Also, here's a shout out to my niece Mia, who hasn't been feeling so great this week and had to visit to the vet's office because of a possible snake bite, but she is feeling better today. Watch out for those snakes Mia and Mattie! :)

Aren't We Cute!

You can tell I'm a proud mother. I joke with David that we'll probably take more photos of our cats now than we will of our future human children. Anyway, just thought you'd enjoy some of these. Cash is fitting in quite well and is very active. He loves to lay in the bathtub, but I haven't gotten a photo of him in there yet.



He also loves sunning himself in the bright afternoon sun. We don't let him outside on the porch yet. That is still Sammie's special spot.



Sammie is also doing well, and still loves to sleep most of the day. They both love the cat tree!

13 Reasons to Adopt a Black Cat

1. You can’t tell if they’re dirty, and their teeth always look white!
2. A black cat is a great accessory to any outfit, and they go with everything.
3. Black is very slimming—holding your cat will make you look extra-slender.
4. Save time on date night—you don’t need to use the lint brush on your black dress.
5. Your cat doesn’t care what color YOUR hair is!
6. Black cats are the most fun to play hide and seek with.
7. They have a “black belt” in cuddling.
8. You’ll never need to go shopping for Halloween decorations.
9. In most cultures, a black cat in your home brings good luck!
10. A black cat will help you celebrate your inner “Goth.”
11. They are always in the best-dressed category.
12. They make you look beyond the surface to find true love and beauty.
13. They are the least likely to be adopted and need your love the most!

From http://www.petsunlimited.org/adopt/Black_Cats.htm

It's Time for Your Close-up...

No, the above photo is not another new cat for us, but isn't he cute! That's Mr. Buttons, who I met last Friday. I've started volunteering at the Young-Williams Animal Center in Knoxville, a great organization that tries to find homes for hundreds of animals every day of the year.

I helped with a photography session for the animals available for adoption. My job was to serve as a "runner," or basically getting the cats, dogs, rabbits and rats (yes rats!) out of their cages for photos in the community room and then taking them back to their cages. It was fun, but a lot of hard work!

Most of the cats were scared, and they had font claws, which I'm not used to since Sammie and Cash are front declawed. They didn't scratch me, but I could tell a few of them were less than thrilled about having their photo taken. One of the other volunteers loves rats, so she handled getting them. The dogs were loving and excited but more challenging since they are larger and have tons of energy. I dealt with a boxer mix and a rottweiler mix who wanted to run around and play.

Below are some of the animals I saw Friday. They all need good homes, so please visit knoxpets.org if you are interested and willing to be a responsible pet owner. One of the reasons so many animals end up at the shelter is because their owners are irresponsible. As Bob Barker says, please have your pets spayed or neutered.

Halo the rabbit


Sam the rat


Ingle the dog


T-Rex the dog


Greta the kitten


Gabel the kitten

My New Little Brother

It's Sammie writing here. My parents decided that I was lonely and needed another sibling. I admit I have missed Dolly the past couple of months, and I know my parents have missed her too. Also, there are so many loving animals in the world who need homes, and I used to be one of them, so it's important to share my parents with another feline.

My mom really wanted another cat in the house, but she also wanted to wait until after my parents returned from their Florida trip a few weeks ago. She looked at various animal shelter's web sites, and then a former student (Thanks Tony!) suggested she check out craigslist.com.

Since I don't have front claws, my parents didn't really want a cat with front claws just in case we decided to have a cat fight. She found a few people who were trying to find homes for their declawed cats, so she made some phone calls. I think my mom wanted to get another tabby cat and probably a female, but sometimes you just know something is right even if it's not what you thought would happen. This is how I ended up with my new little brother.

My mom talked to a very nice woman named Amy who had a three-year-old black male cat who is declawed and neutered. She and her husband are middle school teachers, and they have a nine-year-old daughter named Allison. They've recently moved in with her mom who is not a cat person, so they are trying to find new homes for their two cats. Tigger had already been adopted last week, but Ebon was still available. They went over to their house and met him. He was shy but a very handsome cat. Amy was very happy about meeting my parents and felt Ebon would love living with us.

Well, so far, so good. He spent the first few days in the spare bedroom, and we did have a few hissing contests, but he's hissed more than me. Now, we like to sniff noses. My parents have renamed him Cash after the legendary Johnny Cash.

At first, Cash liked to hide under the spare bedroom bed, but he's a lot more active now.



He comes out a lot more and explores our house.



Cash prefers to lay around on the floor and isn't crazy about being a lap kitty, but that's fine with me since my mom's lap belongs to me and only me! He does love to rub up against my parent's legs.



Cash got a special present in the mail from Ryan, the little boy of my mom's friends from college. He picked out a blue animal toy for Cash just like his favorite "Fa" stuffed animal. Thanks Ryan! We both have enjoyed playing with all the toys you sent us, and the treats are very yummy.





Cash is a lot more active than me and quite curious. For instance, on Friday morning my mom noticed the fish net that should be next to the aquarium was on the floor, and the fish food container was nowhere in sight. My dad finally found it Friday afternoon under the spare bedroom bed, and Cash had managed to open it, so there was fish food everywhere under the bed!

He also likes to "sing" like Johnny Cash, especially during the night. Last night he also knocked over my glass of water on my dad's night stand. He loves to sit in the window and watch the birds. He also makes the clicking noise to attract the birds just like Dolly did. I'm making that noise now too, but I'm not as loud as Cash and Dolly.




We're glad Cash has joined our family. I think Dolly would approve of him, but she's probably glad she doesn't have to live with him and can just watch over us.

Una Comida Deliciosa (A Delicious Meal)

On Wednesday night, we went to our friend Susana's house for a delicious Venezuelan meal. Susana's husband Simon is my Ph.D. colleague, and he is currently in Venezuela conducting research for his dissertation. They have two wonderful hijos (children), Leandro and Isabella, who are very smart as well.

My good friend Aya was there as well, and we dined on a wonderful meal of plantaines, ensalada (salad), carne (meat), queso (cheese) and a special pan de maiz (cornbread). Susana made a tres leches (three milks) cake with fresas (strawberries) on top for dessert, which was so good!

Isabella and Leandro are teaching Aya how to make the bread.



Yummy plantaines!



We talked to Simon using Skype, a software application that allows users to make phone calls over the Internet. He could see us very clearly, but he didn't have much light at his house in Venezuela, so he looked like Darth Vader from Star Wars, which is also the background image on their computer. Simon is in the upper right-hand corner of the screen. See the resemblance?



Muchas gracias Susana, Leandro and Isabella! We hope to see you soon Simon! Safe travels!

Three Years Ago Today...

It was our last night in Gainesville, Florida. Hard to believe it's been three years since we moved to Knoxville. It was a Saturday, and we had finished packing. The movers had already come on Friday, so Saturday was our final day in town. I remember getting a haircut and pedicure at my favorite salon. We also had a yummy steak (chicken for me) dinner at my parent's house.

We thought that night would be the last time we saw my family before we left early the next morning, but as we tried to pack things into both cars, we realized they would not fit. So we called my parents, and they came over Sunday morning and picked up some things to store for us until they visited us that October.

Today, I edited a friend's dissertation...never thought I would be doing that three years ago! Time really does fly when you're having fun...or when you are always doing something productive. I wonder what we'll be doing next year on this day?

10,000 E-mail Messages

David recently needed an official transcript from the University of Florida for a job he's applying for, so he had to call UF and reset his Gatorlink username and password to electronically order his transcripts. This also allowed him to check his UF e-mail account where he found hundreds of messages. I thought our accounts expired once we had left UF for a period of time, but no—the accounts are permanent.

Well, I have him beat! I called UF yesterday and reset my account. When I checked my e-mail inbox, I had close to 10,000 messages dating back to August 2006. They stopped last July since my inbox was well over quota. I couldn't believe it! I spent some time going through them and making sure there wasn't anything important. Many were spam messages, but some were e-mails sent from various companies and organizations that I had subscribed to over the years.

I forgot to take a screen shot to prove how many there were, but here's one of my perfectly cleaned out e-mail inbox!

15 Books in 15 Minutes

15 Books in 15 Minutes

Rules: Don't take too long to think about it. List 15 books you've read that will always stick with you. They should be the first 15 you can recall in no more than 15 minutes.

1. The Wizard of Oz
2. Great Expectations
3. To Kill a Mockingbird
4. A Separate Peace
5. Goodnight Moon
6. Green Eggs and Ham
7. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
8. The Grapes of Wrath
9. The Sound and the Fury
10. The Elements of Style
11. The Best Christmas Pageant Ever
12. The Bible
13. Writing for the Mass Media
14. Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret
15. The Diary of Anne Frank

Down on the Farm

During our Florida visit last weekend, we stayed the first night in the house that belonged to my grandparents in Brooker. Jason and Kristen live there now. In addition to the house, there is a lot of land, around 150 acres. I had not driven in the back in a while.

David's dad came up for the party and spent Saturday night at my parent's house with us, so we had extra time to spend with him. He greatly enjoyed riding around the farm and seeing a part of old Florida.

Papa, who would have celebrated his 87 birthday today, planted a lot of pine trees on the land before he died. They provide a lot of forest, but when storms move through the area, they fall on fences, causing some headaches.



Here is an example of one of those potential headaches. The tree is leaning and could fall on the power line to the house, not a good thing. They are going to take care of it very soon.



This is an antique tub that acts as a pond drainage system of some sort. Some of the land in the back is swamp land and very wet and muddy.



I didn't realize Jason was in this shot until I looked back at the photos. We're driving down a path. I think the sun's glare is causing the frown on his face. :)



The ponds aren't as dried up as they've been before, but I'm not sure how many fish are in there.



My nieces, Mia and Mattie, love running in the back. Mattie runs all over the place and very fast. I would have taken a photo of her, but she was out of sight within seconds. Here is Mia taking a rest.



It was nice to drive around and see the farm. On Sunday, David and his dad drove over to Gainesville and saw the new sanctuary that St. Patrick's Catholic Parish has built. St. Patrick's was the church we attended when we lived in Gainesville, and they've had plans to build a new church for many years. Construction plans were put on hold a few years ago due to rising costs, so it's nice to see they've finally completed it. They'll dedicate the new sanctuary on August 15.

Fish for dinner?

No, we don't have another new cat...yet.

Last night I was in the kitchen making dinner, and when I turned around, I saw an orange tabby cat outside on our porch, peering inside. I put Sammie in the bedroom and closed the door, and then David and I investigated our visitor.

She had a collar on and clearly was someone's pet. We looked over at our neighbor's porch and saw another cat sitting there with a similar collar. They had just moved in, so David went over to ask if they were missing a cat. In the mean time, I let Buttercup (the owner told us her name when he came over) in the house since I didn't want her to run away. She walked around, sniffed everything, and then found our fish tank! We bought the fish last year so Dolly and Sammie could watch them at a safe distance, but neither seemed interested. So it's funny to us that the first thing Buttercup noticed was the tank. She sat there for several minutes just watching them.

It turns out that our new neighbor is actually renting a house down the hill, but there were bad storms Sunday night that caused flash flooding. His house had four feet of water, so the rental agency let him move in next to us in a vacant house while they repair his house. We weren't home Sunday night, but I guess it was fairly bad in the Knoxville area. Buttercup is an indoor/outdoor cat and had gone back to her old house last night. When she made her way back up the hill, she got confused about where her new house is since they all look the same. Too cute!

Happy Belated Birthday!

This past weekend, we journeyed to Florida to celebrate my dad's 70th birthday. However, he had no idea what we were up to on Saturday. His actual birthday was July 7, and as usual, he went to Outback Steakhouse with my mom, brother and sister-in-law. We mailed his gift in a card, and another birthday was celebrated...or so he thought!

We've been planning his surprise party for months now. It was my brother's idea, and it was a great one! We celebrated at the Brooker Community Center with a BBQ lunch, catered my my mom's cousin Mike. Very yummy food!






And what's a birthday party without a birthday cake from Publix?!?!?!?! It was sooooooo good! Dad even blew out all his candles on the first try. We didn't put 70 on though. There are fire regulations at the center we had to follow. :)





Below is my parent's adopted granddaughter, Caidence. She is the granddaughter of my mom's hair stylist, but they've grown quite attached to her. She even spends the day with my parents from time to time. She sometimes calls my dad "my Amos!" She is a cutie!




It was a great day with family and friends, and we're so glad no one spoiled the surprise. It was hard on my mom since she knew what was happening and had to be careful about what she said around my dad. After the party, my dad said he was glad the next day was Sunday—everyone should go to church and ask for forgiveness for lying so much the past few months. Happy Birthday Dad!