Pawprints From Space

More than once friends and others have asked "why". Why am I still Catholic? As if being a woman, and of a certain "liberal" frame of mind being Catholic is at odds with everything. I don't think it IS at odds. I don't find myself torn. I was raised Catholic. I went to CCD classes during grade school (since I went to public school) and I attended a Catholic high school - my choice, not my family's insistence. I had the opportunity through world religion classes in high school and college to explore other faiths (I learned about transcendental mediation from one of the brothers in high school), to visit temples and synagogues and talk to Buddhist monks, Rabbi's, Islamic scholars, followers of the Hindu faith, various protestant pastors ... and through all of that the more I learned about other faiths the deeper my own became. The more I saw how the faiths of the world are interconnected. We are all part of one family and as with all ...

I mean it this time. I know, I've said it before. I pledged never to do business with Sears again more than once. But this time I really, really mean it. And here is why: In July my dehumidifier decided that it was full all the time a refused to fire up and collect water even when the collection bucket was empty. I called every repair guy in the phone book. NO ONE worked on small appliances like dehumidifiers ... even the ones who claimed to work on small appliances. I have an occasional wet basement. We've had some nasty rains this year. I had water. I needed a way to dry the basement out. Last resort: Sears. They advertise online that they offer a carry in repair service. You will never pay more than $89 in labor costs. What they DON'T tell you is that you will pay $45 up front to diagnose your gadget's ills. So that was "discussion" number one with the staff. But I paid it because every scrap of paper, every receipt they gave me said very clearly (in ...

New kittens mean new craziness. Sparky had her second regular vet visit today although it was her third actual visit. Ten days ago she was rushed in to the vet's office due to an unexpected sighting of blood on her fanny. Ten days of liquid antibiotics later and that trauma is over. No today was the last of her kitten shots. When she gets bigger we'll do the rabies shot thing ... maybe before her surgery but maybe after.  She's been here three weeks now and the others are mostly used to her. Honey of course continues to snarl and hiss although not as much as she did at first. Purrcy seems to be happy to have someone to play with but considering the size difference he plays WAY too rough. She squeaks and he seems to think she's a squeaky toy and doesn't let go. Rumba is learning what it feels like to be chased for a change. There have been some awful fights between Honey and Rumba as well as Honey and Purrcy. This has happened before and appears to be ...

Rumba is a goofy cat.  You may recall she is a foundling from the local park who had her 15 minutes of fame in The Lima News thanks to the wonderful Tom Harrison. She is now 4 years old and has gone through the wonderful kitten and terrible teenager phases to end up an extremely affectionate goofball. She chatters (as all feline members of the household do) out the window at the birds and seems desperate to get out there and go after them. In fact the screens on the porch need to be replaced due to SOMEone's dexterity with her claws. She has successfully escaped the confines of the porch to go after the aforementioned birds. But Rumba's relationship with a certain indoor bird is really amusing. Figuring it out all by herself, Rumba has decided that the game of "fetch" is fun. She picks up her bird and wanders around the house crying until I come to play with her. She drops it, I throw it and she goes through amazing acrobatics to catch it (which she alway...

If you know me you know I have little tolerance for voluntary stupidity.  By "voluntary stupidity" I mean the sort of stupidity that people willfully, gleefully it seems, embrace. There are several kinds: The ones who choose not to read the announcement, ad or other printed documentation and then ask a question CLEARLY answered in said documentation. Such as:  Sign posted Hours 10:00 a.m. - 9:00 p.m. Question asked by a person who has the sign in their field of vision: So when are you open? That sort of thing is annoying enough and since I manage several Facebook pages for folks I see those kind of questions a LOT. Post some information and people will ask questions that clearly indicate they did not bother to read what you posted beyond the first three or four words. Really? Obviously you are literate enough to use a computer/smartphone/tablet to access the page and type in your question. Can you not perhaps maybe READ what we posted BEFORE you ask your si...

July 8, 2013 Verizon Wireless Attn: Correspondence Team PO Box 5029 Wallingford, CT 06492 To Whom It May Concern, I am so furious right now I can NOT begin to tell you. Your chat online service is “unavailable”, the idiots at the local store are well ... idiots and you have no email contact on your web site. Therefore I am forced to write a letter that will not get me swift action and no doubt result in you telling me that I should have spoken up sooner or some other such bunk. I purchased a new phone on July 1, 2013 as my old phone had finally died. I have been a loyal and happy customer of Verizon since I purchased my first cell phone in 1997. Cell #xxx.xxx-xxxx. I am NOT happy now and seriously considering switching providers. When I purchased my new phone all of a sudden I was not allowed to keep my previous plan DESPITE your own announcements that those of us with unlimited plans would be grandfathered in and still allowed to keep our plans. Okay I was annoyed an...

A few thoughts on Egypt and the current situation there. Warning: it is going to be a ramble ... Some call it a coup by the military. Others say no signed petitions led to the ouster of the president. Still others say it is a bit of both. Thomas Friedman for example in today's New York Times is going for both.  Ambassador Twafik says no it wasn't a coup , that the military had to step in to keep the violence from getting out of hand. Of course he sort of has to say that because if there had been a coup by law they would lose the $1.5 billion dollars in aid America sends them. Meanwhile the news out of Turkey is saying ... yup it is a coup and it happened Monday not Wednesday. And all parties in Turkey's parliament have issued a statement condemning the situation. I'm inclined to go with the coup theory myself. Why? The elected president is in custody of the military who have appointed an interim president. Sounds like a coup to me. Military calling the shots i...

This life is crazy. By that I mean as a species human beings are both exasperating and enchanting at the same time; and yet we are also stupid and intelligent as well; oh and then we turn about and TA DA! we are suddenly both good and evil. Makes a spiritual person wonder what God was thinking when He decided oh what the heck let's create "Man"... In my job I see all sorts of bad or just plain stupid behavior, and lately I am seeing a lot of flat out vindictive lying. Why the hell would you set out to destroy an organization you used to work for out of spite? How does it benefit you to bankrupt your former employer? One whose mission is to help the less fortunate? How does it benefit you to lie in court? To lie in charges filed through various regulatory agencies? It just boggles my mind. Your actions (or inaction) caused you to be removed from your job. Own it for cryin out loud. Grow from the mistake and move on. Be a mature person. You are not entitled to a ...

She had a lucky life. Well maybe not the first 4-ish years. The last 13 though weren't too shabby although I was really the lucky one after all. Lucky Her name was Lucky.Why? Because on a cold icy day in early January 2000 (the 11th actually) I found her in the middle of the road bleeding and cold ... she was lucky to be alive. I was on my way to meet with a client about a web site. Driving along in the ice and snow down Route 66 going through one small town after another. I passed a vet's office and made a mental note of "how nice" and continued on my way. Not more then 10 minutes later I spied a lump of white and gray in the center of the road. An on coming car passed and the lump flinched. I spun about and dashed back. The lump was a long haired white, gray and tan calico cat. She was bleeding from the face. There were no houses nearby, just fields so no indication of where she had come from. I scooped her up and flew back to the vet's office, sayi...

I have a guilty pleasure. I can admit it. I watch a daytime soap. One of those dinosaur programs slowly dying on the air ... except that mine is roaring back in many ways (ratings included) but ... First some perspective : I grew up watching General Hospital with my grandmother. Before I even went to kindergarten - which was a half day event for me - Grammy and I would watch every day at 2:00 p.m. (Central Time). After I went to school she would catch me up and on days I was home sick - which with asthma was a lot - we'd watch together. When I went off to college I continued to watch and actually tried to schedule my classes to me back at the dorm at 2:00 (especially on Wednesdays and Fridays when all the action happened). In fact. I had a very large dorm room so everyone on the floor gathered there. It was the 1980s the heyday of Luke & Laura and GH was all the rage. On to the work-a-day world and time got in the way, although VCRs helped over the years to stay in to...

Back in August a nasty infection of ear mites hit all cats in the household. The current vet was amazed that all of them had the little buggers. The previous vet (from whom the "new guy & wife" bought the practice) had stated on numerous occasions that if one animal in the household got 'em, they all would. Especially in my household since they sleep in a big pile of fur half the time. Anyway the mites lead to lots of meds since they simply would not die and at one point Lucky ended up going deaf. Now true she had been getting hard of hearing for quite some time so perhaps it wasn't entirely unexpected. But the trauma of going deaf had her hiding out in the basement for over a month. The world is very very scary when you can't hear and your siblings can (and do) sneak up and pounce on you. Once deaf she became vocal for the first time in her life.  Finally, Lucky came back upstairs to live only to end up with a nasty bladder infection a few weeks late...

Those of us who grew up south of Chicago - which is 98% of the state - are sick and tired of all the Illinois bashing thanks to the various shenanigans of the former governor and various other elected folk. For the record, Illinois was a great place to grow up. I would go back in a heartbeat. I grew up in Peoria, back when the City was two and a half times larger than it is now - like much of the Midwest a lot of major industries have moved on but still that river city has a lot to offer. Oh sure there are the usual issues you have in any city that size (well over 100,000 currently). But there is history, art, theatre (will it play in Peoria?), good schools and corporate heaquarters of international companies (e.g. Caterpillar). Heck there's hockey, minor league baseball and the government's agricultural research center. You want it? Odds are Peoria has it. It also has great people. Peoria has a nature center I practically grew up in that is a true gem. Private and public u...

So ... whatcha reading? Better yet ... how are you reading it? Are you a gadget junkie? Did you rush out and get an eReader as soon as the first one rolled out of that factory far, far away? What kind is it? A Kindle? Which version? A Nook? An iPad? A Kindle app on some other device? Or maybe you're all hipster and old school. You actually picked up a volume made from GASP!! paper. You breathe in that luscious smell of new book ... or even old book. The sweet dusty, musty richness of an old tome that weaves its spell around your senses and takes you on journey of the imagination.  Better yet you went to the LIBRARY!! You borrowed a book, or six, for FREE!! You have in your possession the one most valuable thing a person in this country can have. It is a ticket to faraway lands, to rich literature, to ancient cultures, to current yet different cultures and learning from all over the world. It opens doors, increases knowledge, sets the mind free to dr...

A little retrospective musing seems in order. No worries, it isn't a full "year in review" rant or rave. Merely a way to mull over some things. The things that have stuck with me all year. By no means everything that happened or even things that others might consider important. Just a handful of things that continue to dance around my thoughts... Globally - Malala Yousafzai is a true heroine. At a tender age of 15 she stood up for what she believed in (education for girls) and was shot for it. By the Taliban, who apparently afraid of little girls. She has survived and continues to receive treatment in Britain  She is an inspiration. The Taliban were revealed for what they truly are: frightened, ignorant, small-minded, misogynistic men who prefer living in the 12th Century. The "winner" of this conflict was school girls.  Of course it isn't over yet. They are still vowing to kill her. Nationally - President Obama was re-elected. It was a long, ugly...