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Category Archives: What’s She On About?

Housecats

08 May

100_1194Until a year ago, when some form of evil kitty cancer stole her, I had a lovely cat named Alina. She was strictly an indoor kitty, as her former owner had already had her front paws declawed when I adopted her from the SPCA. But even if she hadn’t been declawed, she still would have been an indoor kitty. I wanted a companion to sit on my feet while I worked in the office, a silent friend to listen without judgement when I talked to myself, a warm furry body to purr by my side on those nights when the hubby was away on business…and the cat would need to be inside to fulfill all those wishes. Tell me, what is the point of having a HOUSECAT if it is going to live outside?

Unless you have a farm and need a cat to hunt the mice that are stealing grain from your barn, I don’t understand the rationale for putting a cat outside. Why have a pet if you never see it? The Humane Society of America says that free-roaming cats live, on average, less than five years, compared to a life-span of around 17 years for indoor cats. Outdoor cats don’t die peacefully or painlessly; they are killed primarily by cars, but also by poisoning, animal attacks, traps, human abuse (you’ve heard that serial killers often start with animals, right?), exposure, and disease. With all those risks, it seems that only an irresponsible or uncaring owner would allow his/her cat(s) to wander around outside.

Plus, outdoor cats can really piss off the neighbors. Despite my general love of cats, I am quickly growing to despise the black and white feline that roams my neighborhood. First of all, it is a snob. It scorns all my gestures of friendship and trots off, snooty nose in the air, whenever I approach, which really hurts my cat-lover feelings. Secondly, it has crapped in every one of my flower beds–there’s nothing quite as revolting as the smell of cat feces emanating from my gardening gloves because I innocently scooped up a pile of dead leaves from under the rose bush. (Despite online reports, lavender is NOT a deterrent, as I have two thick rows of it on either side of the front walkway that are hiding plenty of evidence of its uselessness underneath.) Thirdly, the cat routinely sprays my car tires, marking its territory and making it impossible for me to roll down the windows on the back country roads without gagging. (If I didn’t live in a land of 240V mains electricity, I’d consider stealing a page from my grandfather’s book and hot-wiring the hubcaps as a deterrent.) Finally, and worst of all, the neighborhood cat kills the birds in my garden. Last year, I came back from a family-emergency trip to the States to find a decapitated pigeon on my patio. (I’m guessing the head was on a bedpost somewhere.) Ewww. This afternoon, I looked up from the kitchen sink to find it murdering a sparrow in the back yard. So now I’m officially a pissed-off neighbor.

If you are going to have a cat, keep it in the house–not only for the health and safety of the cat, but for peace and goodwill among the neighbors.

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Blogs I commented on today:
Spirit Animals (Underachievers Anonymous)
There Is No Tragedy in Falling (…So Help Me Cats)
A La Ronde, Exmouth Devon (Anglers Rest)  new blog of the day

 
6 Comments

Posted by on May 8, 2013 in Observations, True Life, What's She On About?

 

Rumination

01 May

survivor_[2013]

Whoo hoo! I did it, as did hundreds of other bloggers. We accepted the challenge to post every day in April and to somehow, someway incorporate the letter of the day into said posts (we earned Sundays off for good behavior–some, like me, used it as a free-post day, while others simply took the day off to let their brain cells recharge). Now that May has begun, I’d like to take a moment to ruminate on the past month’s challenge, my involvement in it, and what I hope to improve next year.

I stumbled upon The Blogging from A to Z April Challenge quite by accident. Joe Owens has his finger on the pulse of the blogosphere, and I’ve learned of all kinds of challenges and opportunities by perusing his posts over at Joe’s Musings. Following his lead, I went over to the A to Z Challenge site and added my name to the linky list; by the time the sign-up period closed and illegitimate blogs had been purged by the challenge organizers, I landed at 1187 in a field of 1656 participants. One of the best aspects of the challenge, and the reason I think it draws so many bloggers, is that there are no restraints on the content. As long as the theme of a post–be it a piece of flash fiction, a recipe, a personal observation, a travelogue, a photograph, a poem, a letter, or a painting–matches the day’s letter, it is acceptable. This means that no one is excluded from the challenge based on the established theme or structure of his/her blog, and no one is forced to abandon his/her chosen medium in order to join.

Since I had already committed on 1 January to blog every day in 2013, the April A to Z Challenge did not present a daunting posting regimen for me. However, I really enjoyed trying to fit my own self-chosen routine of themes to the challenge’s prescribed letter of the day–well, at least until mid-April when my mom arrived, at which point I bailed on my daily schedule and posted willy-nilly for the duration of her visit.

The point where I fell short, and the key area where I will make a concentrated effort to improve next year, is reading and commenting on other A to Zers’ blogs. Well, not the reading so much, as several times I got lost for hours in an amazing array of blogs, going past the A to Z posts and deep into the archives on several. But I was VERY lax in posting comments on those blogs. I’m bad about this in daily life as well; it wasn’t an aberration during this challenge. I’m not sure why I allow this to happen, as I know how much I value comments on my own blog as proof that there really are people out there reading my ramblings. In fact, I am so ashamed, that I am setting myself a personal challenge for May: I will comment on three blogs each day, and one of those will be a new blog I have not previously visited. At the end of my regular post each day, I will make a note of the blogs I have commented upon (linking to the specific post), both as a way to hold myself accountable during my little May challenge, but also so you can check out some of the wonderful offerings out there in the blogosphere. Who knows, maybe you’ll find a new second-favorite blogger to follow (if it turns out you find a new first-favorite, don’t tell me I’ve been replaced, okay?).

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Posts I commented on today:
juggling mice with both paws  (helenjameson)
Zen like a Zebra  (An Expat’s Journal) new blog of the day
Zen  (Phenomenal Lass)

 
3 Comments

Posted by on May 1, 2013 in Challenges, Observations, What's She On About?

 

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Incomplete

10 Apr

101_3451

Yep, you’ve seen that photo before. Day before yesterday, in fact, as the poster child for “Grime” in my Gallimaufry post. That’s because nothing has changed–the project is incomplete. Yesterday didn’t progress in quite the way I’d envisioned, so all 100+ bottles are still soaking in my husband’s bathtub. Now, because of a full schedule and a tulip-peeping trip, that’s where they’ll sit until Monday. Often, I can hide the fact that my best laid plans got derailed and a project wasn’t completed on schedule. But in this case, the evidence is pretty blatant. On the plus side, my husband never takes a bath (his bathroom has a separate shower stall that he uses instead). A five-day soak is certainly not going to hurt these bottles, and might actually make my impending attack with the scrub brush less arduous. On the down side, I’ve junked up my husband’s bathroom for longer than I intended. Although using the bathtub was his idea, I still feel guilty for invading his space–he’ll return home on Sunday night, tired from travel, and have to start his new week faced by this chaos. I’m sorry, hon, and I promise not to drag home any more scrungy bottles from the antique fair on Monday unless your bathtub has first been restored to its customary vacant condition!

 
1 Comment

Posted by on April 10, 2013 in Challenges, How It Is, True Life, What's She On About?

 

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Dare

27 Mar

APRIL-2013-CALENDAR-001

I love that ideas are practically falling in my lap these days…it’s been a couple weeks since I’ve found myself in front of a blank screen, struggling for something to post. The blogosphere is a gold mine of ideas, and the only manual labor involved in the mining process is sliding the mouse over to click the “Follow” button on other bloggers’ sites! Joe Owens, over at Joe’s Musings, just wrote about his intended participation in the 2013 Blogging from A to Z April Challenge, which he himself had found while scouting around on other blogs. From his page, I clicked over to the challenge link for more details, and decided to accept Joe’s dare (oops, I mean invitation) to join him in this month-long challenge.

As you can see from the calendar above (graciously provided by Jeremy, one of the A to Z Challenge hosts) each day in April is assigned a letter, “with Sundays off for good behavior.” The idea is simple…each challenge day, we bloggers will craft a post around that letter. This challenge can be adapted to suit any type of blog–writers and poets can obviously incorporate a word beginning with that letter into the theme, title, dialogue, etc. of their entry. Photographers could post a gallery of photos centered on any word beginning with that letter (Bob Mielke at Northwest Photographer has got April 13 covered…L is for lions!). Food bloggers can include recipes whose main ingredient showcases the featured letter. The possibilities are just endless.

Throughout this challenge, I intend to keep to the overall blogging routine I’ve set for myself, maintaining my own daily themes while incorporating the day’s given letter. It seems counterintuitive that setting more and more restrictions on my posts, and combining so many prompts and challenges within them, is actually boosting my creativity (you probably didn’t even notice–unless you’re following Rarasaur, which I highly recommend–but I just responded to this week’s Prompt for the Promptless). In order to publish quality posts, I’m having to think outside the box, which I admit had gotten pretty small as one by one I let most of my right-brain pursuits fall by the wayside when I entered adulthood. When I meet a creative challenge these days, I get the same high as when I have completed a strenuous workout at the gym…endorphins galore!

So, thank you, Joe for pointing me in the direction of this new challenge. I accept, and am eager to see where the 26-day exercise takes me. If you dare, you can join Joe, me, and the 1400+ other cool kids who’ve already committed to the Blogging from A to Z April Challenge, but hurry, the doors to the clubhouse close April 1!

 
5 Comments

Posted by on March 27, 2013 in Challenges, On Writing, What's She On About?

 

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EquiNOT

20 Mar

101_3430Dear Spring,

I am writing to you on the happy occasion of the 2013 vernal equinox, and I hope this letter finds you well. I imagine you are busy preparing for your imminent arrival in the UK…aren’t you? We seem to have been left off your itinerary in 2012, and though we waited eagerly to welcome you, we simply watched as winter faded into, well, winter. April came with its showers (and drizzle and downpours and gully-washers) and never actually left–flooded fields all around the village testify to that. There have been one or two rogue days of sunshine in the past eleven months, but never enough of them strung together to resemble anything like a shift to warmer seasons. I searched through more than 700 photos taken during what should have been spring 2012 (20 March-20 June) but alas could only find a single image containing both sunshine and subjects wearing anything less than two jumpers layered under a raincoat (see above). This photo was taken on 28 May, and I had to search a further 800 photos before I could find a “summer” photo that met the same criteria (that one was date stamped 19 August).

I see by the extended forecast that snow is predicted several days next week, so it’s clear you had no intention of arriving as scheduled today. That’s okay…I can understand wanting to be fashionably late. But in my etiquette book, anything later than 1 April is just plain rude. You stood us all up last year, so there are those who loudly proclaim their doubts about your current intentions. I continue to have faith in you though, and even believe that you will come bearing gifts of sunshine, blue skies, and warm temperatures to win back the love lost by last year’s unexcused absence.

Don’t let me down, Spring. This is my last opportunity to experience your pleasant nature on this side of the pond. I’d sure hate to have to go back to the US and perpetuate the ugly rumors that are floating around over there about the weather in the UK…

Sincerely yours,
Michelle

 
1 Comment

Posted by on March 20, 2013 in Observations, True Life, What's She On About?

 

Poo

13 Mar

Poo. And I don’t mean Winnie. This is a rather indelicate subject, I’m afraid, but one I encounter often on my walks around the local area. In the UK, dog fouling is a serious issue, as it should be, since there are an estimated 7 million dogs on these islands producing 365,000 tonnes (about 800 million pounds) of feces per year. To ensure walkers aren’t slogging hip-deep through the stuff, most districts have erected disposal stations along sidewalks and footpaths, and enforce fines for those who refuse to scoop the poop. In my district alone, there are several hundred dog bins (I pass at least six on my three-mile circular route around the neighborhood) emptied regularly by a disposal company contracted by the local councils. Across the nation, the minimum fixed fine for dog fouling is £50, but could reach as high as £1000 if the case goes to court. It is interesting to note that fouling offenses and the accompanying penalties do not apply to working dogs or guide dogs. The anti-fouling scheme seems to be working, because not once have I returned home from a walk with dog crap caked in the soles of my shoes.

That does not mean my outings are feces-free; I am constantly dodging road apples in our rural village, and am confused about why there are no horse fouling laws. DEFRA estimates that there are somewhere around one million horses in the UK. While this is less than 15% of the dog population, the beasts are poo machines, letting loose 8 million tonnes (18 billion pounds) of dung annually. Much of this manure falls harmlessly in fields and stalls, posing no hazard to innocent pedestrians, but it only takes one pile of equine excrement to completely ruin a hiker’s high. Horses and walkers share many of the same paths around here, those paths often being the neighborhood roads. Without going into a complicated physics lesson about dung density, vectors, and angular velocity, suffice it to say that poo exiting a moving horse’s backside tends to cover quite a bit of asphalt, unlike the humble dog pile which is delivered from a stationary pose with a much lower trajectory. It’s not always easy or safe to navigate around horse droppings on a single track road where cars are whizzing by at 60mph. So why aren’t horse owners responsible for clearing these minefields for the good of the wider public? Why is there such a doo-doo discrepancy? Why are dog owners persecuted when Fido fouls the footpath, but horse owners ride off into the sunset with impunity when Mr. Ed litters the landscape? I’d look more closely into this issue, but I’m too busy watching where I step.

 
2 Comments

Posted by on March 13, 2013 in True Life, Uncategorized, What's She On About?

 

Brwaak!

06 Mar

Yesterday, on a windy little country road, I found myself playing a game of chicken with…wait for it…a chicken!  I’d just come ’round a bend at about 40 mph (20 mph below the posted speed limit, thankfully) and found myself hood to beak with a puffy brown hen strutting around in my lane. I fully expected that when she looked up and saw my little silver cheese-wedge of a car bearing down on her, she’d make tracks for the safety of the grassy shoulder. Not this gal. She stopped dead in her tracks and faced me head on, not the least bit ruffled by the rapidly decreasing distance between us. I nearly punched a hole through the floorboard trying to brake in time, closing my eyes at the final second in anticipation of a sickening thud and an explosion of fluffy brown feathers. The car stopped; the thud never came. I squinted one eye open, and I could see the hen’s red comb hovering just beyond the nose of the car. It was at a height that I was confident I hadn’t squished her, so I opened the other eye and idled in the middle of the road, waiting for her to brwaak in victory and parade her bad self to the shoulder. Apparently, she had not yet learned the finer points of sportsmanship, for she wouldn’t budge; I was forced to make a 90-degree turn from a complete standstill in order to swerve around her. In the rearview mirror, I could see her pivot on the spot to follow my progress, unabashedly gloating as I slunk off in defeat.

As the surge of adrenalin slowly drained away, the vision of my car eating up the limited pavement between the hen and me replayed itself on an endless loop, accompanied by a soundtrack of increasingly ridiculous questions.

  • What should I have done if I had hit and killed the chicken?
  • Is a chicken considered livestock, and if so, is there a law in the UK that I must find the owner and report the incident?
  • If I find the owner, do I have to pay for the chicken?
  • How much do chickens cost? Do I have enough cash?
  • If I pay for the chicken, do I get to keep the dead body?
  • If I get to keep the dead body, can I take it home for dinner?
  • How does one clean a chicken?
  • Do I have anything sharp enough to cut off the head and feet?
  • How many feathers does a chicken have, and how long does it take to pluck one?
  • How do you clean out the guts? Can you just reach in the top end, grab hold of the bottom end, and pull it all inside out on itself like peeling off a sock? (Perdue always makes everything so neat and tidy, tucked discretely away in that little plastic bag.)
  • Is there going to be a lot of blood? I don’t want to have to mop up a crime scene in my white-tile kitchen.
  • What will the garbage collectors think when a pile of guts and feathers comes tumbling out of my “garden waste and other compostable items” bin on Friday?
  • Will the naked chicken have a big bruise where the car hit it? If so, is that part still edible?
  • Fry it? Bake it? Put it in the crockpot with some wine and garlic?
  • If I eat a chicken I killed with my car, is that the same as eating roadkill?
  • Does that officially make me a redneck? Or worse??

Wanting to keep the answers to those questions on a strictly need-to-know basis, I very cautiously approached that fateful bend in the road today. The pavement was clear, but pecking around in the tall grass of the shoulder were my opponent and at least a dozen of her closest friends. It wasn’t clear as I inched past whether they were daring each other to reenact yesterday’s classic game of chicken, or working on their material for the ever popular “Why did the chicken cross the road?” gag, but they all looked decidedly shady.

I am fully aware that is a rooster in the photograph–I had to dig through my personal archives for a poultry picture as I was late for work yesterday and had no time to jump out of the car to snap a portrait of my feathered foe standing victoriously in the road.

 
1 Comment

Posted by on March 6, 2013 in True Life, What's She On About?

 
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