And the cat came back, she didn’t want to roam…

We have had a big fat cat named Squishy for years. She was actually born here, in our house some years ago.  She thrived and became huge.

Along came Sandy Dog.  Sandy is the bird dog that my husband has always wanted.  She points and fetches birds like a dream.  She is also a hyper brat   dog. Needless to say, Sandy and Squishy do not get along.  We noticed last fall, that Squishy would spend more and more time away from home.  Right after Christmas,  my daughter rescued the cat from an iceberg in the middle of the creek that runs along our property.  She couldn’t convince her to come inside and that was the last time we saw her for five months. 

Last Sunday while were eating dinner with my brother and their family and my daughter and her husband, my husband came inside to tell us that he and my brother had spotted Squishy.  Sandy the bird dog, (not cat dog) had her ‘treed’.  My daughter and my niece headed to the rescue.  After a brave and dangerous and determined trip down the gully, they came back with the cat.  What a wild thing.  There she was bigger than ever.  She looked as though she had been living in the wilds of Borneo eating elephants.  Her once pristine white fur was dirty and clumped with burrs.  I don’t know how she survived, but she must have been eating coyotes.  The past week has been interesting.  This huge beast cat, who we could hardly get inside, has become a big fat house cat.  Her fur over the last week, has thinned out and become cleaner.  We have found piles of white hair with burrs in it around the house as she has cleaned herself up.  I have never seen anything like it.  It is like when the wicked people of the Book of Mormon had a ‘mighty change of heart’.  She has turned from her rowdy and wild past and has domesticated herself and is completely happy to be the house cat we never wanted.  Oh well, at least we won’t have any mice (or small children for that matter) running around mucking the place up. 

Good Food

I love good food, I think most people do.  I have also been lucky enough to live in some great places where great food is available.  I grew up in Utah, where one can grow anything.  As a child, my summers were spent helping with our families massive garden.  After planting, weeding and watering, the great harvest would begin.  I snapped beans, shelled peas and helped can them all along with tomatoes, peaches, pears, pickled beats, just plain pickles, and corn just to name a few.  Summer and fall months were full of fresh fruits and vegetables which grew in abundance.  I remember grabbing fresh tomatoes from the bushel baskets that were waiting to be canned and eating them with the salt shaker like apples.  

My husband and I were also fortunate enough to spend quite a few years in the Pacific northwest, in the Seattle and Portland areas.  The fresh fruits and vegetables were also prolific there.  We had blackberries in our back yard.  There were wonderful deep red strawberries and peaches that were huge and so juicy it was impossible to eat them with out them dripping sweet juice down your chin.  Along with the great produce, we had wonderful fresh seafood.  Salmon, shrimp, crab, lobster, I can still taste it. 

I live in a great place now, but sadly, it produces more coal and oil than produce or seafood.  We have tried and tried to grow a garden here, but with limited success.  The soil is mostly clay and the growing season short.  Any seafood that is available is days or weeks old.  I find myself still purchasing tomatoes, peaches, strawberries and even seafood here.  Most of it is hard pale and crunchy.  I haven’t canned much since I moved here, there is not much to can.  I have to admit though, that we do get chokecherries and love the syrup that they make, but I would love to get my hands on some strawberries that were actually red instead of pink and crisp, or peaches that were large and tender and juicy, and not as crunchy as an apple.  The produce that I do buy here, I think I get so that maybe a bit of the rich flavor will come through their pale crunchy exterior and bring back just a slight memory of what great fruit really tastes like.  The dry, fishy clam,  I actually order in restaurants, and if I close my eyes and try really hard I can still remember what good crab is actually supposed to taste like.  All of you who live in places with great food, go and eat a crab, or a peach for me.  Don’t worry though, I will be alright ,we do make get really good jerky here.

Waking up

Have you ever been in the middle of a routine that is the same routine you have been in for months, and suddenly ‘come to’.  Perhaps you then  realized that you are doing something not quite planned and are not quite sure how you got there and if this is where you want to be? 

This happened to me the other day.  I work as a substitute teacher.  I started about four years ago, because all of my kids were in school and I wanted something extra to do and a bit of extra cash.  The other day I was standing in front of a junior high science class, talking about invertebrates and it hit me.  What the crap am I doing here?  I had worked for the past month every day solid and was hitting my sixth week with no break.  It is to the point that most of the students know me by name.  I am on a first name basis with most of the teachers. 

The part time job that I started four years ago to fill in some time, has become a monster.  I am expected to know how to use the air projectors, how to use the computer program used to keep attendance at the schools.  It is often assumed by students and even staff, that I am going to be there, for assemblies etc.  Sometimes they forget, I am a substitute.  If I don’t get called in, I am not there.  When a student asks me if I can help with something tomorrow, I may not be there.  It is interesting, I do love working with the kids, maybe that is why my job has grown into something more than expected.  I hope it is because I have some rapport with the students and the teachers and administrators trust me.  That is my goal, I don’t know if I have met it or not, they keep calling me.  Maybe they are just desperate, I don’t know.  I guess until I get too fed up with it, I will continue to accept jobs and go to work.  Sometimes after a six week stint of subbing every day, I do stop and wonder though,  how did I wake up here? 

General Conference

It is General Conference time again.  October and April, this has been ingrained in me my whole life.  It is a tradition, like Christmas and Thanksgiving.  Growing up we Conference wasn’t just a two day deal.  General Conference lasted for several days with several sessions each day.  We didn’t have a television in the house for many years while I was growing up.  So I loved Conference time because my parents would rent a television for a week or two  so that we could watch.    We got caught up on all of the shows like the Brady bunch and Gilligan's island.  The interesting thing was, six months later, when we rented the TV again, we found that we had not missed much.  We would sit around as a family during conference and color and listen.  We had stoves that heated the house and we would put our paper up against the stove and melt the crayons onto the paper.  We could get away with this until dad got sick of the smell.

Going to school during conference week was interesting also.  They had just put televisions into the schools.  The teachers would pull them into the classroom and watch General Conference while we did our assignments.  It never occurred to me that life was any different than this.  I didn’t realize until years later when I had moved away that having the same belief as those who I was surrounded by during the day, was unique.  I wonder if I had known then, if I would have appreciated it more.  My children grew up being very much the outsiders.  Maybe that is one reason that I like General Conference so much.  Beyond the spiritual uplift, I love the camaraderie I used to feel as a child.  Plus, it’s tradition.