A Sad Day In Blogdom

If you're not a follower of Small Stream Reflections, please go to the link and leave a comment on the loss of a very good friend. Alan passed away early yesterday morning. If you are a follower, then get over there. 

I've followed Alan's blog for many years and I'm sure a lot of you have. 

He will be missed. 

A Day In The Life Of Sophie

One quick update, my kids have all recovered from Covid unscathed. 

Do you have cats? We've had several over the years. Back on April 6, 2009 I did a joking post about Jasper and Smudge messing with the computer while I was gone fishing. How'd he get named Smudge? When he was a baby, he was just a little gray smudge.   

Well, we lost Smudge quite a while back. Poor boy had a bad heart and only survived about 3 years. 

Losing his brother, Jasper went into a funk like I've never seen an animal do. Can you imagine a cat moping? That was Jasper (that's him, the black & white below) for about 4 months. We decided to get him a brother or sister to keep him company. 

Enter Jasmine. Definitely a Mom's girl. While we were picking her out, one of her sisters was sitting in the back of the cage at A-Pals looking very sad. So I decided to take her home too. She got me hook, line, and sinker. Appropriate for a fishing blog ya?  

Enter Sophie. Oops, another gray cat. 

Unfortunately, Jasper didn't like Jasmine for some reason and she started peeing on the floor right about the time we were selling our house in Volcano. One, can't have that happen when selling a house and two, can't have that happen at any time anyhow. So we found Jasmine a new home and she's very happy there. We get updates occasionally from our Vet. That left us with Jasper and Sophie. 

In March 2020 we lost Jasper to kidney failure. 

Sophie didn't have "her" Jasper any more and pretty much didn't know what to do with herself. We were not getting another animal so I tried to "entertain" her as much as I could. Looks kind of sad huh. 

Well, I created a monster. Now Sophie has a daily routine (that I've created for her in a moment of stupidity) that is far and above anything a normal cat should have. 

Here's how it goes:

First thing in the morning (even before I get coffee) she has to have 10 cat treats and a good amount of brushing. Actually a good thing in Spring and Summer as she sheds like there's no tomorrow. 

Then she sleeps all day. 

At 3 pm or anytime between 1 pm & 3 pm if she can nag me into giving her dinner.  A plate with about 1/3 of a can of wet food (must have gravy). Followed by 5 cat treats and a half hour of sitting on dad's lap.  

Then after our dinner she has to have her ice cream. She like Drumsticks best (the Simply Dipped kind although she'll tolerate the Cookie Dipped ones). Oh, no she doesn't eat the chocolate. Dad has to eat it off first and then she eats about half of the vanilla ice cream. See picture below. Followed by sitting on dad's lap until he throws her off. Not literally, all I have to do is close the book I'm reading and she jets.  

When I tell people that the ice cream in my shopping cart is for the cat, they laugh until I show them this picture. Of course I have to eat the rest of the cone. Don't want it to go to waste.

Lastly, Sophie has to have her nightly massage just before mom & dad go to bed. She runs into the living room from where ever she is and plops on the floor (kind of like the second picture up) and dad give her a good rub down, although it's never enough for her. 

A monster has been created and it's my own fault.  

Stay tuned.  

That Damn Peep

Back on July 6th of 2021 I did a post about the Smoke alarm that I though was peeping in the garage. I proceeded to smash the crap out of it to make it stop peeping. Well, since that day the peeping has continued. 

Some would say it was the water heater. Nope, that was replaced late last year. Peeping continued. 

Some would say it was the Freezer being too full. We've been emptying it on a regular basis (we gotta eat you know) and the peeping continues. 

For the past few days my neighbor and I have been replacing the fence between our houses. While I was at it, I planned to replace the gate on my side as well. You can see in the photo below the latch and string used to open it from the outside. Looking for something to use for a "Handle" on the outside, I went looking for something like a plastic knob or washer or the like.    

As I went to the washer drawer drawer (in the photo below. I might add that I've been collecting nuts, bolts, screws, and washers for about 50 years) and pulled it out, the plastic drawer cracked and dropped all the washers on the garage floor. 

Now getting down on ones knees when one is a gimp, is not an easy feat. I use a bucket to press on and kneel on a double set of kneeling pads. 

It just so happened that when I was picking up the washers (scattered all over the place) my right ear was next to the bucket (in the picture below) that we keep the hazard waste (per California Law) such as batteries, CFL light bulbs and an occasional electronic device. 

Low and behold, there was a peep in the bucket. I grabbed that sucker (after all the washers were in the broken tray) and on the bottom of the bucket was an old CO2 detector I had discarded months and months ago. Guess what, the battery was still in it and if you've experienced smoke detectors or CO2 detectors that have a bad battery in them, they PEEP. 

I think I got the peep, finally. 

Stay tuned. 

And You Wonder Why I Push Vaccinations

You saw the 6 from the last post. Now here's a few more.

7. My son got hit pretty hard.

8. My Granddaughter.

9 My Great - Granddaughter Mavis.

10. My Great - Granddaughter Azzie. 

No matter what I said, they remain un-vaccinated and are paying the price. 

And just in case you haven't seen the statistic, 900,754 deaths as of today from Covid-19. 

The US is reporting more than 2300 deaths EVERY DAY. 

Here's a little quote from the former President:

"The minimum number was 100,000 lives, and I think we'll be substantially under that number. ... So we'll see what it ends up being, but it looks like we're headed to a number substantially below 100,000,"

That was April 2020. 

Less than a year later more than 500,000 Americans had died.

Tens of millions of eligible Americans still unvaccinated. Why????

I just hope my children aren't going to add to this number.