More Christmas confusion

 

Charlie discovers Christmas wrappings

We all know kittens have a magical attraction to Christmas trees. Charlie, Jordan’s kitten, not yet six months old, found the tree this week. Because he’s young and not quite civilized, Charlie has his own suite in the house—what really amounts to the family room and Jacob’s bedroom. But he gets frequent forays into the rest of the house, and that’s how he found the tree. Charlie is destined to be an indoor cat—in fact, Jordan rescued him when he was about to be turned out to the wide wild world at too young an age. But sometimes he feels his confinement severely. This morning I watched him march along the windowsills in the family room—the back wall is all window—watching intently as Sophie went about her morning business. He’s a pretty cat and, so Jordan tells me, affectionate though playful as kittens are. I have barely met him. To say I’m not a cat fan without explanation is not fair to me—I have adored one cat, my beloved Wynona Judley (affectionately known as Wywy), who crossed the bridge several years ago. But Jordan got a kitten in middle school that lived to nineteen and was, to my mind, the cat from hell. She peed everywhere, including on furniture, and I had to have a couch and chair reupholstered at great cost because of her. She’d stand right in front of me and pee on the floor. Graffiti soured me on cat ownership, though if I could have another Maine Coon like Wywy I would (she was not purebred, but we’re sure the strain was in there—thick, fluffy coat, pointed ears, sweet disposition).

For some reason, the gods of internet fraud have decided to pick on me this week. I’m not over the iStock disaster when today I get, in rapid succession, two messages from Norton Life Lock, the first informing me that my subscription was about to renew for $467 and would be charged to my account unless I called the cancellation line within 24 hours. So I called and ended up talking to a heavily accented gentleman who told me I’d have to file a cancellation report. The more he talked, the less I understood him, but I was fairly sure the report would want my banking info. I hung up. Within in hour, I got another email—different address, different amount—saying that the renewal had been charged to my Norton prime account. Good luck with that. I don’t have such an account. But they said I could still call the cancellation line. Just to be sure there was a flag on my account, I called my bank after both emails. They were tremendously helpful, but it took a chunk out of my morning.

In a similar vein, I recently fell for a free trial offer, and I am here to warn others against it. It was from iStock. iStock is images controlled by the Getty Foundation and those images are high priced.  I never consider them for my blog. But I thought, a free trial? Why not? I can tell you why not—it’s hidden in the fine print. If you don’t cancel in the first month, you are locked into a year-long contract. And it’s not small change. Many offers like that remind you when your trial period is ending or allow you to cancel at any time. Not iStock, and they play hardball. So I will make substantial monthly payments for a year. All my fault. I didn’t read the fine print. Even my lawyer daughter says I’m stuck. If I don’t pay, they’ll send it to a collection agency and damage my credit rating. I know it’s my fault, but I am still angry and still feel I‘ve been tricked.

Before all this I also signed up for a trial offer from the Washington Post—a reasonable $4 a month for something like three months and then no higher than $12. Still, I cancelled it—a lot of little subscription fees add up. No problem. Easy as pie. Not many of you reading this would have occasion to even think about iStock, but this is my warning to prevent anyone else from being taken by their free trial.

Otherwise, the event of the day was making our traditional cheeseball, which I wrote about recently on my food blog. Cheeseballs may be considered dated, but my family still loves this one which traces back to my childhood. In recent years, the girls in the family have made it, so tonight was my first time in a long time. I’d forgotten how messy it is to work with all those soft cheeses—blue, cream, Velveeta. I had the brilliant idea to grate the Velveeta—don’t try that! What a mess. And parsley all over the place.

But the cheeseball is in the freezer, Sophie is contentedly sleeping in her crate, and I am sipping a glass of wine as I write this. The neighborhood newsletter is off to the designer, the kitchen sink leak is still not fixed (plumber comes tomorrow), and life goes on. I feel like a hundred loose ends are dancing around me, but I know, with Jordan’s super organizational skills, all will be in order on Christmas Day. Counting my blessings.

The Story of Charlie

 

Charlies at four weeks,
when he was rescued

After years of both Christian and me saying, “No more cats,” a kitten lives in the family room in the main house. Jordan was visiting at a neighbor’s lake house, and the two of them found an apparently feral kitten, probably about four weeks old. Far too young to survive on its own. They brought it inside, gave it milk, and decided to co-parent. There was no sign of the momma, though in later days they did see other kittens. None were as lucky as Charlie to be adopted.

Since Christian really didn’t want a cat and since they already had Cricket, the remaining Cavalier Spaniel, the kitten went to live with the neighbors. Jordan made regular trips to feed, play, and love. When the kitten was about ten weeks old, the neighbors decided it was time for it to be an outdoor cat. Even I, not particularly a cat lover, know that the survival statistics for outdoor cats are pretty grim: an average life span of three years as opposed to fifteen or more for an indoor cat. At ten weeks, the poor thing was doomed, and Jordan of course couldn’t stand that. I’ll never know what she said to Christian, but the kitten, still unnamed, came to live in our compound.

The first order of business was to find the kitten a name. Charlie seemed to fit, for whatever reason. For now, he periodically gets the run of the house but for the most part is confined to the family room, an add-on that sprawls across the back of the house. Jordan spends time loving on him, playing with him, and so on. Jacob, who has a perfectly good bed in his adjacent bedroom, chooses to sleep on the wrap-around couch in the family room—and then complains the kitten wakes him up. When he’s past kitten stage, Charlie will have the run of the house.

Charlie at three months

A bit of an explanation here: Jordan has always loved kittens. Me, not so much, though I had one cat, Wynona Judley (commonly known as Wywy) that I adored. Christian says he had cats growing up, but I think his first real experience came with the cat Jordan bought ($5 at a pet store) when she was in middle school. Pardon my French but Graffiti was the cat from hell. She peed everywhere, in obvious defiance—sometimes right in front of you. I spent hundreds of dollars reupholstering furniture and even then our house smelled of cat pee. When I found myself living alone with Graffiti and Wywy I banished Grafitti to the guest house, which was empty, so she lived alone; Jordan came to visit, and I made her pay a monthly fee for the a/c to keep the cat cool (give me credit: I was trying to teach responsibility). I was also honestly at the end of my cat rope. Graffiti ended her long life living in the bathroom in Jordan and Christian’s first apartment. She died one night where she was happiest: sleeping on the floor next to Jordan. The details of what ensued after her death are hilarious, a story for another time. But that background is why I was not enthusiastic about a kitten, and I was amazed that Christian acquiesced as easily as he did. I think that boy really loves my daughter.

Charlie has been once to the cottage, a complicated maneuver in which Christian kept Sophie in the house. Sophie has demonstrated, in various veterinary trips, that she hates cats, and I see no reason to bring him out here again. Sophie knows where he is, and it bugs her. Jordan has put paper across the lower panels of the windows in the back door, but that’s an exercise in futility. The vet tells us Sophie is blind, so it’s not vision that tells her a cat is in there. It’s instinct, hearing, and smell. Some days I can see Charlie from my desk, sitting in the window, surveying that world he cannot be part of. Once I saw him stalking Sophie.

I suspect Charlie will outlast me as a resident of the Alter/Burton compound. And that’s okay with me. I wish him no harm. I’m just not intrigued. But I have to redeem myself with the many cat lovers among my friends: I absolutely adored Wywy, the cat Jamie found as a kitten abandoned on a roadside in Minnesota (do not ask what he was doing there). For the first year of his life, we thought he was female; after the vet corrected us (another hilarious story), Wywy lived a life of gender confusion. Today’s aggressive Christians would have had a field day had they known of his transition. We like to believe Wywy was part Maine Coon—he was big, with a fluffy gray coat and a wonderful full tail. But beyond that he was sweet and affectionate, and I loved him dearly. Wywy was helped over the Rainbow Bridge at the age of nineteen, when he was truly miserable and trying to sneak off to the back of a closet to die. He holds a special place in my heart yet.

Wywy on my desk, ready to help me work

I am ambivalent about Charlie. I’ll never feel about him the way I did about Wywy, but Charlie and I haven’t crossed paths much and probably won’t. Meantime he makes Jordan happy. She loves him. Who am I to quibble. You know what? He’s kind of cute when he stares out the window. I think he’s looking straight at me and trying to win me over.

 

Writing with whimsy

Please welcome my Wednesday guest, Ann Kaier. Best American Essays notable author, Anne has published in Alaska Quarterly Review, The Gettysburg Review, The Kenyon Review, and Beauty is a Verb: The New Poetry of Disability, an ALA Notable Book for 2012. Malade, a memoir about sexuality, disability, and the shrine at Lourdes, is forthcoming from: www.shebooks.net. Anne lives in Center City, Philadelphia and teaches at Arcadia University and Rosemont College. She has a Ph.D. from Harvard University.

Anne's blog tour will continue through July 9. Look for her tomorrow at July 2 http://www.MochasMysteriesMeows.com

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A lot of my writing is fairly serious. I try to unravel knotted relationships and describe tough family tussles. But now and then, I write for the pure fun of it, letting the words run with a subject until the topic sprints away. Often the subject is an animal, more particularly, a cat. And it’s always good to have a willing human friend in these word displays. Someone equally inclined to spin a little froth.

When my memoir, Home with Henry, was about to be published, I began to think about publicity. I didn’t know much about how to publicize a book and my nervousness spilled over into a series of emails with my friend, J.C. Todd, whose most recent book of poems had appeared to

 

 

 







glowing reviews. J.C.’s cat Lucia is a handsome calico with attitude. In my house, Coco reigns, flaunting her quite spectacular beauty. A gorgeous black velvet stripe runs down her face and she carefully tends her luscious calico coat, which, it has to be said, covers a very nicely rounded body. Coco is anxious, fat and somewhat bossy—and she makes excellent copy. So when I began to worry about publicity, my friend and I had some correspondence about an imaginary PR campaign in which Coco would be the lead publicist. I offer some tidbits from these emails. In the first, Lucia writes to me with instructions about Coco’s requirements:

03/04/14

Meow, Anne

 

Coco will be needing a few things before she launches her campaign. A comb-out at a chat salon in Paris. First class flight and limo service to the salon. In New York, a suite at a boutique hotel on Madison Avenue on the day of the media blitz.

She felt it would be more politic to pass this message along to you via me.

Whiskery yours, Lucia

 

03/05/14

Dear Lucia,

 

Did Coco put you up to this? Since you and she are clearly in cahoots, let me say that she has been telling me she’ll need a personal assistant for the duration of the PR campaign.  Qualities required: Beauty (the sine qua non), pizazz and chutzpah—not to mention contacts in Paris, NYC and at top flight hotels on the water in Tahiti where you both will have to tone up before the action starts.

Know anyone interested?

Do tell, Anne

 

03/06/14

Meow Anne, 

 

I suppose it might be me. I’ve engaged a colorist at Le Chat Salon. Or perhaps you would prefer to reserve the position of Coco’s assistant for yourself?

Whiskery yours, Lucia

 

You get the point. This writing was done late at night, purely for the fun of it. Of course the whole thing masked the fact that I worried about the publicity for Home with Henry—in which Madison Avenue media blitzes and Parisian hair salons would play no part. My fears dissipated, however, in the spray of words between me and the very confident Lucia Gata Todd.

 

 

 

The Cats of Heart to Heart

Please welcome my latest guest from the Small Town Charm, Love & Mystery boxed asset. Jan Scarbrough is the author of Heart to Heart as well as the popular Bluegrass Reunion series. She writes heartwarming contemporary romances about home and family, single moms and children, and if the plot allows, about another passion--horses. Living in the horse country of Kentucky makes it easy for Jan to add small town, southern charm to her books, and the excitement of a horse race or a big-time, competitive horse show.

Leaving her contemporary voice behind, Jan has written a medieval romance My Lord Raven and several sensual Medieval romantic short stories. Her Gothic romance, Tangled Memories, was a Golden Heart finalist. Timeless is her newest Gothic romance.

A member of Novelist, Inc. and the Romance Writers of America, Jan has published with Kensington, Five Star, ImaJinn Books, Resplendence Publishing and Turquoise Morning Press.

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Heart to Heart is part of a four-book Ladies of Legend series called Return to Legend. The premise of all four stories is the return to Legend, Tennessee, a fictitious town created by authors Maddie James, Magdalena Scott, Janet Eaves and me.

When I wrote the story of Heart to Heart, about an animal communicator and her relationship with the owner of six cats, I knew the cat characters were critical to the story. I thought it might be fun to honor a few of cats I knew, as well as those of my Legend co-authors.

When Jeremy’s aunt gives him a second chance, he must decide if he believes in the unbelievable and the pet psychic who teaches him about faith…and love.

Tinkerbelle
Last winter dogs killed a cat named Tinkerbelle at the barn where I take riding lessons. The character of Tinkerbelle is my way of honoring this sweet, little cat.
Notes: Long hair pale gray – gentle – likes attention and being the center of things
Quote: “The gray cat had followed them into the living room and continued its leg rubbing routine. Jeremy clenched his teeth, forcing himself not to kick the animal off his pant leg. This was his best Armani suit, for crying out loud. He didn’t want cat hair on it.”

Attila
My cat hero is named after Magdalena Scott’s companion of the same name. Magdalena often writes emails about Attila, and that gave me the idea of using the name in my book.
Notes: Male, Maine coon – big cat, sturdy, rugged – uneven, shaggy coat, long tail carried proudly, large, well-tufted paws – intimidating size – brown tabby with white underbelly and white paws. Normal cats have a total of 18 toes, with five toes on each front paw and four toes on each hind paw; polydactyl cats may have as many as eight digits on their front and/or hind paws.

Calliope
Calliope is one of Maddie James’ cats.
Notes: Calico – long hair – knows she’s beautiful – princess - tri-colored
Quote: “The top of the desk was empty except for a longhaired, tri-colored calico cat stretched out in the center preening herself. A tiny pink tongue licked a white paw in a leisurely manner. The cat didn’t even look up to greet them.”

Clio
Maddie James has a second cat named Clio. The real Clio is a tortoiseshell female. I changed Clio’s color in the book and his sex.
Notes: Orange tabby with white bib – nervous – comes up for affection sometimes after gets to know you
Quote: “The last cat in the room, an orange male tabby named Clio sat next to the water fountain watching the other cats in the room with a worried gaze.”

Jinx
I gave my husband a fiftieth birthday gift—a black cat named Jester. You can tell where I found my character Jinx.
Notes: Black cat – prowls, sneaky, pops up expectantly
Quote: “Jinx, the sleek black cat prowled the perimeter of the kitchen as if he couldn’t stay in one place for long.”

Gloria
My favorite cat of all time was Gloria. My daughter, the veterinarian, brought her home from college at Thanksgiving one year. Knowing my daughter is dangerous, because she has a knack for placing homeless pets. How do you think Maddie James got her two cats?

Notes: Tortoiseshell – female, this color is typically reserved for cats with relatively small or no white markings.
Quote: “Gloria was the oldest cat in the house, a tortoiseshell in color—reddish orange and black—with a distinctive orange stripe down the bridge of her nose.”

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Follow me on Twitter @romancerider

Website: http://www.janscarbrough.com/

 

Travelin' Jack Lives On

Last night I posted about the sad story of the death of my neighbors' cat, Travelin' Jack. Tonight it seems there's a sequel. Jay was running errands, including a stop to donate old towels to the Humane Society of North Texas (they always need them if you have some to donate). Impulsively he went in to the cat room--and there he was. A five-month-old kitten, black, named Jack. Intrigued, Jay called Susan, who said she at first thought, I'm not ready. I'm still crying. She went to meet the kitten. Long story short: Jack, the kitten, came home this afternoon after being neutered this morning. Susan is debating about a name, but I vote for the way she described him: Just Plain Jack. He apparently was raised with dogs, doesn't seem alarmed by them at all, and the dogs are curious but much calmer than they were with Travelin' Jack.
Don't tell me our animals don't choose us. What made Jay step into that cat room? And what made Susan go to see a kitten, when she was still grieving. Just Plain Jack knew where he belonged, and he was calling them.
Our friend Elisabeth suggested that Travelin' Jack's spirit is hanging around, in no rush to cross over. He's just taking him time travelin' on. I like to think that his spirit lives in Just Plain Jack. Jay and Susan report two coincidences today--when she went to the humane society, a black cat watched her from across the parking lot but when she came out, it was gone; Jay reports a black cat crossed his path somewhere tonight. Me? I think Elizabeth is right--Travelin' Jack is hanging around in spirit until he sees that all is well with Just Plain Jack.