The Week In Review

My last posting, a week ago (!) was, it turned out, the calm before the literal storm. Sure, it had been snowing nonstop since Wednesday, but as of bedtime Saturday night, the roads, driveway and sidewalks were clear. At cat feeding time, 4:30am I looked out and there were six inches of accumulation on the aforementioned surfaces. The new Sno-Thro came out for its debut performance at 8:00 Sunday morning. I did the driveway and sidewalk from the far side of Donnie's yard to the far side of Cheryl's yard in about seven minutes, in plenty of time to get to church by 9:00.

After church and the congregation's annual meeting, we returned home to find a high ridge of snow across the driveway entrance, plus about four inches of new snow. I "snew blew" again. Carmen backed into the garage, and the front wheel drive had trouble pushing the RAV4 over the packed snow left by the thrower. I also had to push. So I got out the snow shovel and scraped the driveway and sidewalk down to bare concrete. The whole neighborhood was out shoveling and operating snow removal machines. We bonded.


By Sunday evening I had drawn the outline of the donkey flats for the Christmas pageant and had it approved by the director/ producer/ minister. Snow was still pouring out of the sky when we went to bed.


Monday morning I snew blew and scraped again before Carmen set out for work, salting more for traction than for any hope of keeping them clear. I looked at the walkway from the front sidewalk up the steps and around the grassy knoll to the front porch. There were deep depressions in it from the newspaper delivery to inside the front storm door that morning. I felt bad for him and the postal person, but the path could not be cleared of its foot of snow by a Sno-Thro, and would take a long time with twentieth century wide-thing-on-a-stick technology - more time than I had. I got Carmen off to work, showered, changed and got myself off to work.

You'll remember I had some trepidation about working with Vinnie. Well, we had a fine day together. He imparted a lot of his hard-won wisdom about the job, and was very patient with my nearly complete lack of knowledge.

By the end of my workday Monday, the parking lot in front of the store was in need of a touch-up, so I snow shoveled the critical areas (as outlined by my buddy Vinnie) before I went home to start again on the critical areas at the house. I saw no evidence that anyone had muscled through the foot and a half of snow to the porch. No mail today. I guessed I'd better get it cleared. And yes, it did take a long time. Once again, I salted all areas for traction. Carmen had no trouble backing in.


Tuesday morning was the same routine. I blew and scraped for almost an hour, showered and changed for work, and shoveled the parking lot at the store. Snow was still pouring. Back home, same thing. Seven solid days of snow dumping on us, and still going.

Wednesday morning I got started earlier than usual. The plumber was coming at 8:00 to (FINALLY !) hook up the sink and toilet upstairs. When I looked outside I went into shock! There was nothing falling from the sky. So I scraped and salted the concrete surfaces as usual, then dug a trench across the back yard to Cheryl's back door. I hadn't been in to check on things in well over a week. All was well. I figured, while I was there, I'd read her gas meter, since she had asked me for a reading every month since September. So I came back, got out of my snowy boots and such, and wrote Cheryl an email describing my care of her sidewalk and my report on the gas reading etc. While I was attaching pictures to the email, I saw my inbox gain a "1" indicating that a new message had come in. So I sent the one to Cheryl, and the inbox appeared complete with a message from Cheryl asking me to "tunnel over to the house and get a gas meter reading." I thought it was funny, anyway. Oh, and by then it had started snowing AGAIN!

Wednesday at work was all about deliveries. The truck came in as I approached - Wednesday is its usual day - and there are usually items on the truck that customers have been waiting for, so Wednesday afternoon is pretty much a deliveries kind of day. I'm pretty much the delivery boy. So, Vinnie and I got things sorted out for four deliveries, loaded the van and were ready to go by 2:00. We set out into the pouring snow, and immediately blew off the delivery deep into Amish country many miles away. We got stuck in the first place we went, sacrificing a sand bag to the traction gods. The second place I never would have found on my own - a huge industrial complex out in the hinterlands. Vinnie had to call the guy to find out where we needed to go. The third place was the Red Lobster restaurant near the Walmart, where a contractor was working. There were some things Diane needed from Staples right nearby, and the last stop was at the Valu Home Center for more sandbags. Winter, after all, has only just begun.

Wednesday evening was snow blowing and shoveling again. That night, the snow stopped, and to date, I have not shoveled anything since Thursday morning - that's forty eight whole hours now!

Thursday we both had days off. I loaded and ran the dishwasher and cleaned the kitchen. Carmen started work on her Sunday sermon. Our little girl Lucia had a vet appointment at 1:30, so we dashed out to do some shopping in the late morning before taking her in for her next round of shots and such. Then we pretty much came home and made ready for the "6:59er" pot luck at church. There we ate, sang carols and I danced with Miriam until she fell and broke her pelvis. Yes, it's all fun and games until somebody falls and breaks a pelvis.

Yesterday I did my monthly volunteering at the Soup Kitchen before I went to work. Once there, Diane was telling me about how I would be putting away stuff from Wednesday's truck - until Vinnie reminded her of three pending deliveries. So I loaded the van and set out on my first solo delivery adventure. I only made two wrong turns, which I thought was a pretty good first try. The last stop was where Jim Snyder works. He was on the search committee that brought us here, and he's a mover and shaker with the Community Theatre. He was standing right there when I brought in the stuff. "Well," he said, "you're in the history books now. You took down Miriam."

SO! Today I must must must get to work on my critters! The ox head needs much more papier mache, and the donkey flats need to be cut out and painted and assembled into a double-sided rolling donkey. Enough ruminating, I must get fabricating!

Family Dynamics

Cats love to play. Professor Remus J. Lupin is no exception. He loves it when I chase him through the house. He loves it when the belly rub morphs into a wrestling match. W-e-e-e-l-l-l there is one thing that loves to play even more than a cat, and that's a kitten. Getting ReLu a kitten has turned out to be an excellent move.

I have already mentioned the thundering hoofbeats throughout the house these days. They wrestle, they play the chair game and the door game. Now they have started curling up to sleep together, and they've even been observed licking each other's heads.

Lucia (some folks calls her Pickles) loves Carmen more than she loves me. For one thing, I don't make myself available for her to snuggle with. The main reason for this kitten was to have a cat that likes Carmen. That also worked out well. She'll come to me in a pinch, but she'll go right to Carmen if the opportunity presents itself.

So a tiny little black and white girl kitty hath wrought great changes in our household. Long may she wave.

Change Of Life

I worked four half days this week. Hell, I worked a lot more hours during more days when we were busy at Albuquerque Little Theatre. But there I was a volunteer, doing exactly what I wanted to do and no more. It's very different having an actual job, where the boss is boss and I am the part time new guy nobody. And there's a lot I have to learn before I'll be an asset to the company.

There's a lot of computer work. It was a good thing that I spent so much of my unemployed time on my computer, so that learning curve is shorter. Our time clock is the store computer system. There are training CD ROMs to plow through part of each day. The bulk of the paint mixing is computerized. All of the sales are entered into the computer. Any delivery that includes hazardous materials has to have a bill of lading that includes every item being delivered, and the computer generates that as well. I have an idea that I'll be doing most of the deliveries. I delivered to three places on Tuesday.

Wednesday morning I gathered up all the trash and took it out to the dumpster. In the afternoon I swept, mopped and vacuumed the store before I left. Any day now I'll be cleaning the bathrooms.

Thursday afternoon Diane (the manager) took me around the store and talked about the ptoduct information on the display fixtures ("You don't need to memorize all of this if you know where to find it.") Then she started talking about her plans to rearrange the store and modify some displays - "Now you're talking my language!" I said.

Anyway, I'm happy to have a job and so far I like everybody I work with. The assistant manager, Vinnie, was on vacation this week. He's the one who tried to scare me away when I was applying for the job. I anticipate some challenges on Monday when he is back. That's okay, I've had challenges before.

The real losers have been the kitties. ReLu has had me home all day most of the time for a year and a half. Poor baby, no-one to pester for food for three hours every afternoon. And the blogs are suffering as well.

We'll get over it.

A Long Time

If you had told me any of this on June 11th, 2009, I would have scoffed heartily. I mean, I knew that we were in the throes of the worst economic meltdown ever, but I was sure that, with the help of members of the Albuquerque congregation, I would find a job somewhere doing something. The pay rate or the tasks expected of me were not an issue. Distance was an issue but not an insurmountable one. If I found a good enough job that required me to buy a car, I would have bought a car.

So a year went by. I was an extra on Breaking Bad for a day. I was an extra on Crash 2 for a day. I was paid a stipend for my work on White Christmas at Albuquerque Little Theatre. I worked two days on a museum exhibit for the Albuquerque Museum of History and Science.

Then I had my deep vein thrombosis - five days in the hospital, a month on oxygen - and then it was February. There were five months left in Albuquerque before we moved again. I was an extra on In Plain Sight. I was paid a stipend for my work on The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas. Then in June I was able to work two days, with the company I worked for in Ocoee, Florida for nine years, doing an installation at a TV station in Albuquerque. That's it for one year.

In mid-July we came to Meadville, Pennsylvania, where the house we bought required a LOT of work. But once that work was pretty near completion, I poured on the steam to find a job.

Today I begin my new job, starting work for the first time since June of 2009. I'm a little nervous about it. Is that normal? I forget.

Thanksgiving

My boy didn't wake me up until after five this morning (yesterday it was 2:30.) I fed the kids in our new style. Before Yin died, I used to feed Remus in a separate room, to prevent him from bullying Yin out of the way and eating her food before eating his. For a couple of months we got used to feeding in the regular food dish location. Yesterday morning, Lucia (Aunt Karen calls her Pickles) came nosing around the canned food distribution operation, so I scooped out some for her. She gobbled it up, then went after Professor Lupin's dish. He cast me a wounded look and walked away. I grabbed his dish from Lucia and put it in the separate room, and here I am again with two separate feeding stations, for the opposite reason. The good part is, Lucia doesn't take very long to eat, and neither does Remus. I let the boy out and went back to bed for a few more hours.

We awoke to thundering hoofbeats. Lucia and Remus were chasing each other from one end of the house to the other, up the stairs, one end to the other up there, back down the stairs and around again. They really seem to have fun together when they are both in the mood to play.

My next gig was to get the percolator going and make breakfast - 0atmeal for her, peanut butter sammich for me - then start cleaning the kitchen. We have company coming from western Massachusetts tomorrow. Then we called and talked to my mommy and daddy in the Georgia mountains while I loaded sixteen more Lucia pictures onto my computer and posted them on Facebook.

A shower and a change of clothes got us ready to drive ten miles north to Cambridge Springs for Thanksgiving dinner at The Riverside Inn there beside the river. It was good, and somebody else cooked and cleaned up which made it even better. So now the kitties are fed for the night, and my Neal Stephenson book is calling my name.

That is what I am thankful for today.

The Whole World Is A Toy

I knew this. It has always been thus. A kitten comes into my life, and suddenly everything in the house is swatted, nudged, pounced on or bitten to see what caliber of toy it is. Lucia has swatted the floor to see if it will skitter away for chasing purposes. Furniture, windows, doors, cabinets - none of them make very good toys.

We did have one calamity this morning. Even without claws, (her previous humans had her hands ruined) she can leap up onto the high backs of our dining room chairs. Fifteen pound Professor Remus John Lupin saw her do it and tried leaping up there his own damn self. The resulting crash of the chair careening over backward scared the living crap out of all four mammals in the house early this morning.

Yes, Remus has stooped so low as to actually play with our new little girl on rare occasions. She chases him through the house, attacks his tail, and plays the chair game with him between naps. With her boundless energy and his massive bulk, I can see how walking into the house after work is going to be an adventure every day for a while.

Back To Basics

"Confessions Of A Cat Juggler" started out with stories of my cats and our cats, and kind of evolved into just an online public diary. W e e e e l l l l. . . as of an hour ago, we begin a new chapter. Her name is Lucia.

When Yin died, she left a big empty space in our lives, especially Carmen's. With Remus as our only kitty, Carmen could never have a lapfull of cat, because, for whatever reason one might conjure, Remus just doesn't like her very much. People heard about our loss, and many knew people with kittens to give away. We resisted for a while, but then last week it was time. When we went to a parishoner's birthday party last Saturday, Carmen met a woman with a kitten she had rescued at three weeks old and nursed to robust health. Problem: she and her husband are going south on a sailing adventure until spring and don't want to take ten week old Lucia along.

This afternoon they brought Lucia over, complete with food and her dish and her large complement of toys. It was obviously very hard for them to give her up, but they stayed with us for a half hour or so and were assured Lucia had entered a cat-friendly household.

Soon after they left, Remus J. Lupin came out to investigate this new arrival. Overcome with curiosity, he slowly approached this tiny little girl. She let out a growl that sounded like a foghorn, followed by a hiss, and Remus backed away. I guess she showed him!

We were hoping a kitten would knock our bratty little boy off of his high horse. I think Lucia has already done it.

YAAAAAAAY ! ! !

YAAAAAAAAY ! ! !

Sherwin called at 2:55 and offered me a job. A year and a half later.

The Limbo Rock

Today is the fourth cold and rainy day in a row, welcome to northwestern Pennsylvania. The Meadville Tribune classifieds sported zero jobs which I might conceivably fake my way into. The CWDS (Commonwealth Workforce Development System) website has had nothing that I haven't already applied for. The plastic mold assembly/cleaning entry level jobs I applied for last week have been filled, leaving the geezer high and dry. Craigslist has nothing. I even tried the Tribune's employment partner Monster again, despite repeated disappointments at that site - disappointed again. Just like last year, many places advertised UPS seasonal driver helper jobs available here, but just like last year, I jumped through hoop after hoop to the end of their gauntlet only to be informed that there are no positions open in my area. What else can I do? Go door to door in the rain begging for a job? Can you spare a dime?

Yesterday I made myself useful by getting the toilet and vanity as ready as possible for the plumber to do her/his thing and doing a little cosmetic finishing on the throne platform. Last week I did the chicken wire sculpture of my annual ox head for the Christmas play, now waiting for a half gallon of glue for the papier mache skin. I could install plastic over the outside of the french doors, trapping rain water in tight spaces until May or June, but my Spidey sense tells me that drier is better, so wait for a non-rainy day - in May or June?

Limbo. Come on, Sherwin Williams! Rescue me from limbo!

Stronger

My Friday interview with Diane at Sherwin Williams went really well, as far as I'm concerned. I'm hoping to know how she thought it went by the end of the week. I told her I'd bug her Friday afternoon if I haven't heard anything by then.

Meanwhile, we hosted the UU Church of Meadville Search Committee part two Friday night - five guests for dinner. Once again, Carmen cooked! What the hell?! Anyway, they were all properly impressed with our funky house and the monstrous bookcases.

Saturday we cleaned up the place for our Sunday event while we had the chance, because we went to a 70th birthday party for a church member Saturday afternoon. On the way home we stopped at the grocery store for supplies for our Sunday event, put them away and went to the church "Dinner of Thanks" until late in the evening.

Sunday morning was the church service, which I recorded as usual, and then I walked home while Carmen met with her committee. I did some more cleaning and rearranging for our open house for everyone involved with the pledge drive. Forty people RSVPed that they were coming. We were ready for them, too. But it turned out to be a cold and rainy afternoon and evening, and only ten people showed up. The last one left at 9:30. We put the food away and crashed.

So our much-anticipated weekend has come and gone, and it didn't kill us. Did it make us stronger? I guess it did.

Today I spent pretty much the whole day washing dishes and cleaning up the kitchen, then Carmen called wanting to go to the Humane Society to look at kittens and cats. She didn't see any that called her name. Believe it or not, we came home empty handed! That never happens!

So now it's back to job hunting, in case Diane takes leave of her senses and hires somebody else.

A Breakthrough!

Carmen asked me to let this be known to my vast readership. I have not mentioned this before in this forum, but our boy Remus J. Lupin is my cat almost exclusively. He spurns Carmen's affections regularly, unless she has the bag of cat treats in her hand. This was not a biggie when Yin and Yang were around. She could always conjure up a lapfull of kitty. Since Yin died, Carmen has poured on the steam trying to win over this Mozzarelly Belly brat - who is, at this moment, perched on my desk, hoping to convince me that it's two hours later than it is (four thirty feeding time.) She has the electric blanket on on her side of the bed, but he sleeps on my unheated side. She tries to pet him and he runs away.

Last evening I was busy fixing supper and the boy was following me around like a puppy (our little dog Remus) so I picked him up and put him in Carmen's lap. He stayed there for a long time. So maybe her hard work is paying off. I hope so. This cat adoration is definitely a double-edged sword!

Woo Hoo

The nice lady at the local Sherwin Williams store has been too busy to look at my application and resume, therefore she did not call me yesterday as promised, therefore I called her today. Harried and hurried, she made an appointment for an interview Friday morning - my first interview since Marshalls in Albuquerque a year ago, and my fourth since leaving Massachusetts a year and a half ago. Here's hoping it leads to actual paid employment. It's part time and within walking distance, and it doesn't get any better than that!

I told the guy at Career Concepts Staffing Service that I feel like I have fourteen strikes against me, and I haven't even been up to bat. Number one: thare are always many many applicants for every job I've applied for; two: I'm the old guy they can eliminate quickly; three: I gots no eddycation past high school; four: I haven't been employed since June of '09; five: I had four employers from '05 to '09, although two of them were during a Mystic layoff; six: I've moved four times in five years, covering four states; seven: my career during the past twenty two years has been in an industry that does not exist in or near Meadville (maybe Pittsburgh?!) eight: I have "benign essential tremor" which causes my hands to shake, which I believe is perceived as a drinking problem, of which I have none (although I do drink a heavily spiked egg nog at least once every December;) nine: I have no vehicle, which was an asset in Boston but is perceived as a severe liability in Albuquerque and Meadville; ten: I am overweight, which is a consequence of a) not working and b) quitting smoking; eleven: I have applied for, probably two hundred jobs during the past year and a half, and had replies back from about six of them, which makes me angry that these companies will make me (us) jump through so many hoops to submit an application to them, but can't be bothered to call or email a notification that they've even received it! twelve: I am very disheartened by all of this, and I fear my cynicism might show. Ya think? So that's twelve. I'm sure at least two more will occur to me as soon as I publish this.

So that is why an interview is such a big deal. I hope I can go in there and calmly convince her that I have the physical and emotional durability she is looking for, even if I am an old geezer!

This Masquerade

I'm sequestered here in my office (wow, can you believe I've got my own office?!) while Carmen continues to work on her sermon for tomorrow. Good thing the clock is falling back tonight, because it's midnight. That extra hour will come in handy. Anyway, I've got, I don't know, maybe a thousand of my all time favorite songs on my computer, and headphones so I don't disturb any sermonics.

George Benson is playing - one of my top ten favorites - and once again I was gobsmacked (one of Neal Stephenson's favorite words) by a song, written by Leon Russell, I first heard by The Carpenters in the early seventies, and done very differently by Benson on his "Breezin'" album in '76. It always makes me melancholy because it was the (Carpenters) song that forced me to realize that my first love with the girl who used to live next door was - stick a fork in it - done. The line "Thoughts of leaving disappear every time I see your eyes" was the lullapalooza, because that was the thing I couldn't reconcile with the "Searching but not finding understanding anywhere" part of the situation. Being lost in a masquerade is a hard thing to face up to, but I did it and I ended it. That was the trigger for the deepest, blackest depression ever, spiraling down from April 1974 to Christmas Day 1976. Coming out of it was nothing short of miraculous. I was lying in bed, tired after working all day, and a strange feeling came over me. I didn't recognize it for a long while, but slowly it dawned on me that...I felt good! That hadn't happened in a long long time, like ten years. If I was going to make up a story to explain it, I'd say it was "This Masquerade" by Benson on the radio that snapped my head around that late December.

I consider myself something of an authority on depression. My brother was plagued with it for fifty years or so, and spent that whole time blaming our parents. I came to realize that it's a chemical thing more than anything, and the best way to fight it is to let it come and go. I spent ten years clinging to it, making it worse by succumbing to it and eating a lot of crap.

Anyway, when I hear that song it reminds me of lost love and a whole lot of lost time. I've enjoyed my life so much during the past thirty years, it makes me sad to remember the many long years of making myself miserable. I won't do that again.

Library Bound

I haven't posted in a while because I've been determined to do two time-consuming things - find a job and finish volume three of Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle. I got the first book, "Quicksilver" for my birthday in January, 2009. I read it and "The Con-fusion" during my weeks of unemployment that January and February. "The System Of The World" I have been checking out of libraries and trying to read ever since then. While living the life of a minister's spouse, I've been vacating the minister's study (742 Chestnut Street) for whole days (such as right now,) spending many hours reading (and using the computers) at the Meadville Crawford County Library, finally arriving at the two hundred fifty page climax of the many intertwined stories last week. I checked it out on Monday night and finished it (!) yesterday, between applying for and calling about a half-dozen or so jobs within walking distance of 742 Chestnut Street.

The best looking job in a year or more is a "Sales Associate" position at the local Sherwin Williams store. The one guy who works there tried to scare me off with the strenuousness of the work, lifting cases and buckets of paint, loading the van for deliveries. He's obviously never seen me work! The manager says she'll call me on Tuesday. Fingers crossed!

Is It November Yet?!

I think it's over now, the month-long Hallowe'en Extravaganza. Last night was the Meadville Hallowe'en parade, the largest nighttime parade in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The UU church had a table selling coffee, hot chocolate, hot cider, bottles of water and various cookies. We didn't sell much, because the church is situated just past the end of the parade, where the various entries split off in different directions and disassemble themselves.

This morning on the way to church, we saw the remains of pumpkins smashed all up and down Chestnut Street. The sidewalks are still littered with the spills of candy here and there and wrappers strewn everywhere. Humans is humans, even in meadville.

Next time I walk downtown I expect to see the yard four houses west cleared of ghosts, skeletons, black cats, coffins, mannequins and headstones. I'm guessing he'll blow everybody away with his Christmas crap, and he'll probably start on it as soon as the Hallowe'en crap is safely stored wherever it is he stores it.

Luckily, the over-the-top decorating thing is not mandated. Some do and some don't. I'm coming down on the side of don't.

High Holy Days

In Meadville, Pennsylvania, "High Holy Days" means the whole month of October, leading up to Hallowe'en. Decorating actually starts in September. In the City of Meadville, Trick Or Treat night is the Thursday night before Hallowe'en. The kids are out of school on Friday. The huge Hallowe'en Parade is Saturday.

Last night from 6:00 until 7:30 people brought their kids from miles outside of Meadville to Chestnut Street, the trick or treat capital of Crawford County. The street was crammed full of kids in costume (or not) and containers ranging from plastic grocery bags to the fanciest plush candy-hauling technology I've ever seen. Parents with babies sleeping in strollers collected candy. Teenagers who needed a shave begged for candy. Little ones who were as yet unable to say "Trick or treat" got candy anyway. I ran out at 6:55. My next door neighbor saw he was running out, sent someone to the store for more, and still ran out at 7:10. Two neighbors keep a count. The one on the north side counted 387; the guy across the street had 422. All I know is - it was a lot!

Yesterday late morning I was still thinking about what I wanted to do. I didn't want kids coming up to my porch. At last I pulled out some scrap plywood from the bookcase project and built a portal for the sidewalk at the top of the lower steps leading partway up the hill. I painted it with leftover purple paint from the living room project, stapled our orange lights around it and stationed myself in a chair beneath it. It worked great - until 6:55.

Next year: twice as much candy and more decoration. I'm posting a picture of the yard four houses west of us. Now that's Hallowe'en!

A Reason To Explore

Karen is here visiting for a few days. She and Carmen met at a big law firm in Orlando in 1988 and have been best friends ever since. She has visited us in two houses in St. Cloud, Florida, our house in Orlando, our apartment in Watertown, Massachusetts, twice during our Albuquerque year and now Meadville, Pennsylvania.

Karen flew into Pittsburgh and rented a car to drive the ninety miles to Meadville on Saturday morning. She's sleeping in the living room on two Aero beds stacked like a box spring and mattress. These can be turned up on their ends out of the way during the day, then laid down quickly and easily for sleeping. Easy peasy.

Although she's Southern Baptist, she nearly always comes to church with us when she visits, especially if Carmen is preaching like today. She has a fairly good grasp of the Unitarian Universalist mindset, having hung out with Carmen since we first joined the Orlando church in 1990, and stayed with her through Lesley University, Andover Newton Theological School, and ordination in Albuquerque.

So now we get to see the sights of Meadville with her. Today we ate lunch at Montana Rib And Chop House, our favorite local restaurant, then drove around the area to places I'd never seen before. Then we walked part of Woodcock Dam, and stopped at a wonderful ice cream stand on the way home. It's good to have company. And the weather! It was seventy degrees and sunny, probably the most pleasant day weather-wise we've experienced here.

Rain is forecast for tomorrow and Tuesday, but we are going to try to go to Pymatuning Spillway, where the ducks walk across the backs of the fish (look it up, I'm not kidding.) We've heard about this, evidently the premier attraction in northwestern Pennsylvania, since we first started talking to the Search Committee in January. Several locals have threatened to take us there, but we've held out so far. Looks like tomorrow might be the day we become official residents, having passed the rite of Pymatuning.

Maybe we'll hit a deer on the way back. That's the other thing we haven't done.

Another Hard Lesson

It's easy to get disheartened with this blog business. I hear others talk about their blog as if it's the greatest thing in the world, and I have absolutely no desire to check it out. Therefore, I can perceive my three blogs in the same light - something I am very proud of that I want everyone in the world to read, while everyone in the world is blithely ignoring them due to total lack of interest.

Then, suddenly, I go to the sites and see comments, and the comments tell me that someone out there IS reading them and even getting some sort of enjoyment and/or enlightenment from them. Who knew? And tonight I even got a personal email from a friend. I didn't even know that she had ever heard of Cat Juggler, yet there she was, telling me how reading it had changed her perspective on an issue we are both struggling with.

Years ago in Orlando, I wrote and delivered over a dozen sermons about issues I was struggling with. After the services were over I would stand at the door as people filed out, receiving hugs and handshakes and hearing people telling me what little piece of my message had touched them. Now, as the minister's husband, I am not in a position to do that. My outlet for that part of my psyche is Confessions of a Cat Juggler. No hugs. No handshakes. Only very rarely a comment or even any indication that anyone is reading it.

Evidently, there are quite a few stealth readers out there. I guess this means I'll have to keep writing the damned thing!

Changing Seasons

When we arrived here in western Pennsylvania after a year in New Mexico, we were kind of blinded by green. Everywhere we looked the world was green, very different from Albuquerque.

Lately, one by one the trees have been turning bright yellows, oranges, reds and golds, filling the scenery with blazing color - even the ground. Today we went out to Woodcock Lake and walked across the dam. The air was crisp and cool, making the warmth of the sun a welcome thing. There were a dozen or so people walking or jogging or scootering. And, yes, we even saw someone we know from church! Such is life in a small town.

Therein lies part two of the changing seasons. Rightly or wrongly, it has slowly dawned on me that, along with giving up show business as a breadwinning pursuit, along with the sudden realization that I have become a geezer, and along with trying to figure out what this geezer's next breadwinning pursuit might be in this wrecked economy, I also need to get over myself.

Many of the one or two of you who might still be reading these ramblings know me as a smart-ass with a penchant for leaping as far as necessary to drive home a smart-ass remark or a silly notion. That is who I am, it seems, and it is who I can no longer be. I can no longer be the minister's wife. I can no longer be "Damn it, Jim!" I can no longer be "old, beat up and tired" as my status. My position, under the microscope of the congregation we serve, in this small town where we cannot go anywhere without seeing someone we know (or who knows who we are) is that of the gracious, courteous and discreet minister's spouse, with a tightly reined in sense of humor.

Is it possible that I'll bite my tongue enough that it will turn bright yellow, orange and red, then fall to the ground?

Kitten?

Kittens are cute, there's no denying. Even Remus J. Lupin was a cute kitten once. Now he's a huge overweight cat.

For twenty four years we've had at least two cats, and sometimes as many as four. Even if they hated each other, they still kept each other company. I remember good ol' Peanut - he didn't get along with Harvie, Itty Bitty, Yang or Remus, but he loved our little blind girl. They curled up together whenever he came inside.

Lately we've been contemplating getting Remus a kitten, whether he wants one or not. We're thinking, if nothing else, a kitten will help the "Mozzarelly Belly" weight loss program. Nothing keeps a grown up cat on his toes like a kitten.

We know of a dozen or so people with kittens to give away, and they all know our little girl died recently. So far we've managed to stave them off. But it's just a matter of time. ReLu needs a kitten.