RIP Rusty 1992 - 2010

Rusty was our little girl. We found her as a kitten, a few months old, with her mom, Sheba. Sheba and Rusty just showed up in our yard one day back in Islip. No one knew where they came from. We already had two cats, Pindar and Shadow. But we couldn't ignore these two strays. Sheba was very people friendly and would come up to us to get petted and we brought food out if we saw them. The apartment complex in Islip was full of stray cats, but these two were different. It was obvious they had been house pets at some point. The kitten Rusty was afraid of people and we couldn't approach her. There was also a larger male cat who was orange and white and we 'named' him Rusty, so this kitten was 'Little Rusty'.

One day we saw Sheba and she didn't look good. The third eyelid was coming up on her eye, and in cats, that is an indication of illness. It also looked like something was wrong with her rectum. I remember we left our door open and she walked right up the stairs into our apartment. That's when we knew we couldn't just leave her out there sick. So we brought her to our vet. She wasn't seriously ill, she had a parasite, most likely from drinking the water outside, and that caused diarrhea which caused a prolapsed rectum and the eye condition. With antibiotics she'd be fine. BUT, and this was a big BUT, she had to be kept inside. We had to decide if we wanted to go from 2 to 4 cats. Because if we kept Sheba, we had to keep her kitten too.

Easier said than done. Trying to catch Rusty was going to become a past time that would occupy us many times for the next 18 years. We tried to corner Rusty in the woods in the complex. No go. The vet recommended a humane trap. Put a little tuna in it and WHAM, you got yourself a cat. Or a squirrel or a raccoon. But we had to try. We left the trap out there. George left for work early. I had to make the later train. I went in the back to check the trap and there she was. I only had a few minutes. I brought the trap with Rusty into the apartment. Foolishly, I let her out in the living room. She took off, she was terrified. Eventually she ran into the small bathroom we had there and I was able to go in and close the door. I tried to grab her behind the toilet, she bit me, hard. But when I picked her up and had her in my lap, she relaxed and really responded to me petting her. She wanted, no, she craved love and affection but was very afraid of people. She simply hadn't been exposed to humans early enough and never became acclimated to them. But she was a very sweet kitten, about 5 months old.

We thought we were home free, but a few days later, my husband opened the sliding door to the patio and Rusty ran out there and leaped right off the patio (we were on the 2nd floor). Luckily we hadn't returned the trap yet and were able to re-catch her the next day. I think that counts as 2 lives for Rusty.

We certainly didn't count on her going into heat that winter. She was only 7 months old and the vet thought too young and then wouldn't go into heat until spring. But she did, at it was LOUD. We had to beg the vet to spay her while she was in heat. They don't normally like to do that. But she managed to howl while she was at the vets office and I think he took pity on us. Even after the spay surgery she was very active and ran away from us. She was still afraid of us, although she loved not only her mom, Sheba, but our other cat Pindar.

Pindar and Rusty became best buds. If Pindar was there, Rusty was there. Pindar was a beautiful Maine Coon looking cat, but he was a mutt we got from our friends in New Hampshire. He was our first cat. Pindar was male and neutered, but that didn't stop him from mimicking a mating act with Rusty, which she loved despite her screeches. She would also stuff herself into the little cat bed Pindar used and they would appear to be busting out of it:


Pindar also used to groom Rusty. She and her Mom, Sheba had a falling out and Sheba would no longer cuddle with Rusty. It was sad. Rusty was at the vet and when we brought her home, she must have smelled funny because from that day on, Sheba wouldn't have anything to do with her. But Rusty and Pindar were inseparable.

Another Rusty adventure happened when we moved. in 2000, we moved from Islip, Long Island to Buford Georgia. When the movers came they boxed all of our belongings up. The next day the truck came to haul everything off. We thought we had all of our six cats accounted for, but we couldn't find Rusty. We were afraid that with all the activity going on she had become scared and managed to get out. We were frantic as the movers continued to haul stuff out into the truck. Finally one of the last pieces they moved was my recliner. As soon as they picked it up, Rusty came tumbling out of the bottom of the chair and ran into the bedroom. Apparently she had crawled up into the bottom where the reclining mechanism was and was there the whole time. Another of her 9 lives gone! We breathed a sigh of relief and were able to drive down the next day with all six cats. Yes, six.


Unfortunately in 2002, Pindar died suddenly and Rusty grieved the most, except for me. But from that point, she became much more friendly and would seek us out for company. If we remained still, she would climb on our laps and allow us to pet her. This was a big change for her. And it was nice for us. In 2006, Sheba died and Rusty pretty much became my lap cat. Especially when I was on my lap top. I used to joke that Rusty wanted to chat on the internet, because she was always trying to get on the keyboard:



Rusty also loved being outside. She would climb up the hill and find a secluded spot and just curl up there and sleep all day. She was so good at hiding, a few times we were convinced that she got out of the fenced in back yard. But she was always there. She never figured out how to use the pet door, so she'd have to wait by the deck door and howl for us to open it to let her in. Or she'd wait right outside. One of her favorite spots was under the grill because it was shaded from the hot sun:



Four years ago, I brought Rusty in for a routine teeth cleaning. She had a bad reaction or they screwed up, but she wound up with a double ear infection and went deaf. Her eye was messed up too, but recovered. Being deaf was actually a blessing for her. She was still something of a scaredy cat, but now that she couldn't hear us, we could sneak up on her and pick her up, or she could sleep peacefully without jumping at every noise. Sometimes it would scare us because she would sleep so peacefully, I'd have to check her breathing to make sure she was still alive! Also, now that she was deaf, she would meow very loudly. She would go outside and howl at anything she saw. A bug, a bird, a stick that she thought was a snake. Even our neighbors would comment on it. I think they thought we had some type of wild animal locked up in our yard.

Along with the deafness, the vet also detected a heart murmur. It was so bad that a year later we had to bring her to a kitty cardiologist. The cardiologist did not think Rusty had a heart condition, but rather thought she was hyper thyroid and that was causing the murmur. A full T4 panel revealed that she was hyper t and we had to start her on meds. This was a bit difficult because Rusty did not like being approached and I would have to hunt her down twice a day to pill her. As I said, her being deaf helped. But I learned it was better for me to wait till she came on my lap and then give her the pill. It became our routine and she accepted it for a lap sit and some pets and brushing.

So life went on fairly well for Rusty. But recently we noticed she was losing weight. And was sleeping more and even thought she would cry for food, she did not eat much. Yesterday morning she didn't come when I was feeding the other cats. I found her in the basement, just sitting there. I brought her up and put her by the food, but she didn't want any. Later I saw her outside huddled by the water bowl. I brought her in and gave her water and she just sat by the bowl and from time to time would take some sips. I decided to take her to the vet. I was concerned about kidney failure which took one of our other cats.

The vet was alarmed at her weight which was down to 4.9 lb from 6 the last time she was in. At one point Rusty weighed 10 lbs, so she was very thin. He wanted to keep her and do some tests. He called later and said the blood work looked good but he detected a mass when he was examining her and wanted to do an xray. When we hadn't heard from him by 5pm, we called and he told me that the xray and sonogram had showed a large mass in her abdomen. He had aspirated cells and they were a fast growing cancerous type. He said he could do surgery, but with her age (18) and weakened condition, it was 50/50 if she would survive the surgery and even then if they could get all of the cancer.

We decided not to do the surgery and told him we would come in. We've been there before. They have a special room to do the euthanasia in. Each time I go to the vet office, I see that room at the end of the hallway and look away. I never want to be in that room, but here we were. He talked to us first and said we were doing the right thing. That meant a lot because our vet is the type that would go the extra mile for any animal, and if he thought it was the right thing, it was. We paid the bill first and then they brought her in. She looked a bit better because they gave her IV fluids, so that perked her up. But she was still very frail and wasn't meowing as she normally did. She passively let us hold her and purred a bit. As George said, she looked ready to go. We took some pictures of us with her and then it was time.

It's never easy, but you have to know that you are doing it to help your baby and end her suffering. It' hurts you, but you have to do it. You have to hold her and tell her you love her and everything is going to be ok. You will be young and pain free again. You will see your Pindar and you and he will be happy together again. All your fear will be gone. And one day, we will see you again. Until then, goodbye little Rusty...

Anticipation

Ok, all the hard work is done. The roses have been pruned, fed and compost added. They have leafed out and been sprayed for blackspot. All I can do now is sit and wait. While there are some blooms here and there, the majority of rose bushes are full of unopened buds. There's lots of green, but not much else.




Some rose buds are taking their sweet time opening, like a slow strip tease:


You can see the many buds waiting to open on this picture, this is Reve d'Or which I have over an arbor:



One problem I have this year is aphids. They are little bugs that will suck the juice out of your rose buds and ruin them. I don't remember every having this many. They are really gross because if you touch them they squish and your hands turn green or orange, depending on the color of the aphids. Many of my rose buds are covered with them:


You can either remove them with your fingers, or if there are a lotlike the picture above, a strong spray from the hose will knock them off. Or if you see one of these guys below, it means that help has arrived.

That's right. Lady bugs, or more importantly Lady Bug larvae eat aphids. I'm also seeing a lot of Lady Bugs, so the aphid problem should be under control soon. And hopefully I'll have many more rose bud pictures to show you all like this one:

First Bloom of the year 2010

Golden Showers won this years first bloom contest. Although this bloom doesn't look very golden. GS blooms tend to 'blow' very quickly and this is the second day for this one. Even though it's been nice and cool, the sun shines right on this rose and the once very yellow golden petals have opened and turned a pale orangey pink. When it's very hot, I don't see this color on GS.

I have Golden Showers growing on the outside of our porch railing. It took a few years for the rose to get to the point where it could reach the railing. The base of the rose is behind a shrub and it apparently didn't get enough sun, but once it's reached a height above the bushes, it took off and almost engulfed the porch. I've managed to arrange the canes so that it forms a screen around the corner of the porch. My husband loves to sit here and smoke a cigar and he's invisible from the street.

Cat Thermometer

After a very cool and wet early spring, it finally got HOT this past week. Yesterday it was 86 and very sunny. Too hot to work in the yard. We even had to break down and turn on the AC last night so we could sleep. It gets very hot in the bedroom at night because the afternoon sun beats down on that side of the house. When I turned on the AC at about 8pm, it was 88 up in the bedroom. YIKES.

Anyway, a sure sign that it's hot is the first sighing of the 'Cat Thermometer'. If you have cats, you probably have seen the Cat Thermometer. When it's warm, a cat will find a cool spot on a floor or on cement and lay itself out as long as possible to cool off. The more the cat is stretched out, the hotter the temperature. Same with winter, the tighter a cat is curled up, the colder it is.

Here is a Cat Thermometer scale:

1. Curled up in a ball = 60 degrees
2. kitty loaf style = 65-70 degrees
3. On side with legs out = 70-80 degrees
4. Layed out on side with body and legs stretched way out = 80-90 degrees

My first official exposure to the Cat Thermometer was from the comic strip Mutts:



One of my cats, who coincidentally is named Moochie after the cat pictured above from Mutts, was in about an 85 degree Cat Thermometer position yesterday. I tried to get a picture, but he moved. So we'll have to make do with the cartoon..

Inn Cats

What is it with cats at little inns and Bed & Breakfasts? Everytime we go away, there seem to be cats there. Even when I went to Aruba, there was a cat roaming the hotel grounds that wanted to follow me around.

This week we took a short trip to South Carolina to buy some roses. There are two specialty rose nurseries that are about 3 hours away so we decided to stay over night. A few years ago, we went to a pruning seminar at one of the nurseries, Ashdown. We stayed at a B&B called the Mimosa. It was awful. The rooms were musty and in need of repair. The breakfast was awful and the hostess was weird. But they did recommend we go to dinner at another nearby B&B, the Pine Crest Inn. We had such a great dinner there, we decided to stay there this time.

The Inn only has 3 rooms, but they have other outside cabins. We were able to get the Pine Room. After our initial drive to our first stop, Roses Unlimited, We headed to the Inn. We got there about 4pm and decided to take a walk around the grounds. And that's where we saw them...the Inn Cats. We first came upon a long haired black cat with yellow eyes. Since it was a hot day in the 90s, he was cleverly lying on a cement path in the shade. Must have been very cooling.


Right after we saw him, we saw his short haired twin brother:



They both were a bit cautious, but with a bit of coaxing became very friendly and wanted to be petted. Then the long haired one came running after us when we walked away:



After awhile, they and we became tired of the heat. We went inside and the black cat brothers continued their snooze on the grass in the shade:



Later that evening, we saw another long haired tortiseshell cat. We didn't get a pic of him. We did see one of the cats curled up on a telephone stand on the porch. He seemed to like that perch.

The dinner was great and the breakfast that morning was even better. When we came down for breakfast, the two long haired cats were lying on the porch in the sun. I talked to the waitress and the cats aren't allowed in the inn (boo) but some people allow them in the cabins. So I guess on our next trip, we will be in one of the cabins :)

Giants Season Ends on an Unhappy Note

My thoughts: an epic fail by Eli Manning (who was saved from the most epic fail of the playoffs by Jake Delhomme's incredibly awful performance) and also the failure of the Giants offensive coordinator and head coach.

How can you not let the other team take the ball when it means you will be facing the wind in the 4th Qtr? Tuna would never do that. And how can you pass when your QB has already looked horrible and can't throw in the wind and you have the beast RB on the sidelines?

I wanted the Giants to repeat. To prove that last year wasn't a fluke. To shup up all those Pats and Cowboy fans. And now we have to listen to the Eagles fans all year. I hope they don't win the SB, that would be unbearable.

To cheer me up, here is a countdown to Spring Training. When the real sport starts.

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Lost Cat

Are there any more depressing words? I've lived this drama more times than I care to remember. The most recent being today. First let me introduce the cast. Shadow, Rusty and Moochie are our resident felids. Shadow is our child, there is no doubt about it. Rusty and Moochie are pets, but we love them all to distraction.

Felids is a take off for the term for the family of cats, felidae. I first began using the term Felids (which is the name of this blog) because of a talk board. A long, long time ago, when I first discovered the internet, I was on a talk board called Tabby Talk. It was part of Prodigy (remember them?). Tabby Talk was a bunch of people who were crazy about cats. Or just crazy cat people. But not as crazy as another talk board ABC, Absolute Best Cats. Those people were insane. They would have mock romances and weddings between their cats complete with outfits and menus. Weird.Anyway, Tabby Talk was just plain weird people. In Tabby Talk, cats were referred to as felids. Not tabbies, felids. Got it?

Moochie was the last cat we took in. At one point we had six. One day, in our old apartment complex in Islip, a group of kids approached our car with a black and white kitten. The kitten yowled. The kid asked "Is this one of yours?". "No" we replied. Little did we know... Fast forward to the winter. It was a particularly cold and snowy winter. From our front window, I could see the black and white cat out on the stoop across the parking lot. Day after day. Just sitting there. One morning I left for work in the cold and saw him there shivering (do cats shiver?). I came home that evening and he was there. I couldn't stand it anymore. I told my husband with dread. We already had 5 cats in a one bedroom apartment. Three of them were strays we took in. So I didn't think he'd want anything to do with this latest one. But it turns out, he was watching the cat too. So we walked across the parking lot and approached the cat. He was apprehensive, but so hungry he couldn't stay away from us and the food we offered him. As he ate, I grabbed him. He was skin and bones. I gathered him in my arms and went back to our place. I had no concern for the people who's stoop he was sitting on. Obviously they did not want to take care of him.

So he became adopted. Since we had five other cats in the apartment, we had to keep him somewhat segregated before we found out his FIV status and to prevent mayhem. Plus he was intact. We left him in our bathroom over night. In the morning, I checked on him. He hadn't peed at all. I was concerned. We took him into the bedroom and were playing with him and cuddling him. Sure enough, he peed right on the bed. That should have been a sign for us, but it was too late. We even had a name picked out for him. Moochie, after the black and white cat in the comic strip Mutts.

Moochie has had a few outside adventures. The most memorable was one night when I went out with friends and then we went back to our apartment. The apartment was on the second floor, so as soon as you opened the door, you went upstairs. We had a regular door and a screen door. The screen door didn't close by itself. When we came in, my friend entered last and figured the screen door would close and though he closed the regular door. We were upstairs for awhile watching TV and I felt a draft. I looked down the stairs and both doors were open. It was a fairly windy night and the wind must have blown the door open. I did a head check, Twilight and Rusty were inside. The other four were missing.

So my friends and I went on a frantic search of the apartment complex for the cats. I found Sheba (Rusty's mom) right outside. Shadow and Pindar were also close by and were caught easily. My heart soared when I then saw my friend Patty approach holding a cat. They are all safe! I said to myself. But it was not to be, the cat she held was not mine. After releasing the cat and looking a bit more, my friends had to go home. It was cold dark and late. My husband convinced me to give up the search for the missing Moochie. After all, he had survived before out in the complex, he'd be fine.

Morning came and I went out and looked but he was nowhere. I was a bit frantic. I went to Kinkos and had fliers made up with his picture on it. We put them everywhere. I received a call from someone in the complex that saw Moochie. I went to that area. I saw him in the bushes. I approached carefully. There he was black with a bit of white on his right snout, white chest and white paws. I went to grab him, he ran away. This went on for a bit. Then I closed in and realized it wasn't him. It looked exactly like him, but had different color eyes and the meow was different. It was a Moochie look a like. A Bizzaro Moochie! What are the odds on having a cat that looks exactly like yours in the same apartment complex and you've never seen it before until your look alike cat disappears?

So one day went by, then two. We had a few calls, but no Moochie. I was in despair. I went to work but was sick to my stomach with worry. Then I got a call at work about someone who saw Moochie. I asked to leave early. I had about an hour and half commute, so the chances that the cat was still there were slim. Still I went from the train parking lot right to the spot, but no cat. I went home. As I got to my parking spot, there on our front stoop, was Moochie.

I didn't even turn off the engine. I put the car in park and ran up to him. He howled a hoarse meow at me and let me pick him up. He smelled like the outside and had no voice left. I brought him in and hugged and kissed him. Then I remembered the car was still running. So I went out and parked it. I saw my neighbor, a little old Italian lady named Frances. I told her that that morning I went to a church right near my office and lit a candle by St. Anthony (the patron Saint of lost causes) and Moochie came back! She asked if I said the little St. Anthony prayer. I didn't even know there was one. Then I beeped my husband and called my friends to let them know Moochie was back. We still have no idea where he was for those four days.

Since we moved to this house with a yard, we have spent a lot of bucks to put up a fence and secure the backyard so the felids can go out and enjoy the yard but not roam. It's worked out well. Except for Moochie. When Sheba was still alive, she managed to find every crevice under the fence that she could fit through to get out, but she always came back. I was able to plug up those escape routes. Shadow could jump over the fence, but didn't really care to. Rusty got out once or twice, but was too petrified to do anything except howl at the fence to be let back in.

Moochie, on the other hand, has made it his mission to get out of the yard as often as the can. After we had the fence, it took him two years, but he figure out how to jump over. So we put up Cat Fence In Railing, which contained him for awhile. Then he managed to climb up a tree and get over the fence that way. So we devised a baffle of sorts out of a plastic garbage can cover to keep him from getting up the tree. Then he would find another tree and another, until we covered every tree within jumping distance of the fence. So we thought we were safe. But every year around this time (Christmas/New Year) he gets out again. We think it's because the trees loose their leaves and it's easier for him to see how to get out. Anyway, I spent one New Years Day morning going through neighbors yards after I discovered him missing and driving though the development, spotted him in the next cul-de-sac up on a hill. That was fun.

So this morning around 10am when I realized that Moochie wasn't in the house or in the yard, I was worried, but not overly so. The only issue was that we wanted to go out shopping and there would be no way for the Mooch to get back in if we weren't there. He usually just mills around the gate to the back yard or scratches on the front door to get back in when he's done gallivanting. One day my husband was home and didn't even realize Mooch was out until he heard the scratching and opened the door.

Since he usually goes in my neighbors back yard which has woods that circle around the entire development, I made a preliminary search there. Nothing. Well, two neighbors cats, but no Mooch. We waited. I went back to the next cul-de-sac where I saw him that New Years Day, nothing. We decided that hubby would go shopping and I would wait/look for Moochie. I went out a few times and even went outside the sub-division a bit. When I pulled into a development that was under construction just to turn around, I saw a black cat in the distance. I couldn't be sure it was him or not. Surely he wouldn't be this far from home and cross that busy street! I got out and tried to find the cat, but it went over a fence into a junkyard of sorts and I couldn't see it. I went home waited a bit, had lunch and went back out. I was just driving up my own block when I saw a black cat with white chest in the house across the street and up a bit. I stopped and tried to back up, the cat ran in the back yard. So I put the car in park and went to look for it. I went in the yard, but it then went in the next yard over towards the back. I couldn't tell for sure if it was Moochie or not, but the tail was puffed up and his tail does that a lot when he's spooked. I called out to him and said 'It's Mommy!' but he kept running from me. I followed him until he ran into a big mess of brush in the back of the yard and I couldn't follow. I heard a meow, but it was still another cat. A white stray that a neighbor tried to convince me to take in a few days ago. So while this cat would gladly have gone home with me, my own cat is running for me.

I was a bit distraught. I felt as if Moochie was merely 100 feet from home, maybe was coming home and I spooked him. So I drove around a bit and walk up and down the block, but couldn't see anything. Finally I decided to call my husband. He was still out shopping and I told him I would call him when Moochie came home. It's bad at home waiting, but it's also bad being the one out waiting for the phone call. I started telling him what happened and went out the front door to check one more time. As soon as I did, Moochie popped out from the bushes and jumped up on the porch and ran in the house. I could not believe it. I don't know how long he was there, or even if he was the cat I saw across the street. But I don't care he's home.

We now have to keep him in until we can watch and see where his new escape route is (and I put his collar back on). But he's home, safe. I can sleep tonight.


based on this entry, I think I qualify for this.

The Great Georgia Drought

Hi, I can't believe it's been more than 2 years since I last blogged. Lots of things have happened, but lots are still the same.

Right now the big thing is the drought. I live in North Georgia, and we are in an 'exceptional' drought. You can see this on the drought monitor here. Basically it hasn't rained as it normally does in this area. The last rain was over 10 days ago. And we had a much hotter summer than normal, even for 'Hotlanta'. Plus this area is booming, adding tens of thousands of new people each year. Something had to give.

Our main water source is Lake Lanier. It's a man made lake that was made from the damed up Chattahoochee River in 1957. The dam is the Buford Dam and I drive over it every day when I go to work. They have this nice little electronic sign with the water level, so every day I can see how much it's dropped and fret over it. Today it was about 1054 feet, down from a high of 1080 feet. The Atlanta Journal Constitution (AJC) posted a pictorial essay of the depleted lake on it's website today. Quite startling. Most of the pictures were of the north end of the Lake, which I don't get to see. But the view I get each morning and evening isn't much better.

To make matters worse, the Army Corp of Engineers (the same guys who brought us the New Orleans levees) which built and maintains Buford Dam, has to release a certain amount of water each day to ensure a flow of water down the Chattahoochee all the way to Florida to make sure some muscles have enough water. Heaven forbid the muscles have to deal with a drought. Alabama also depends on a certain amount of water from the Lake. You've probably read about the fighting between the Governors of Georgia, Alabama and Florida over water. They went to DC to hash it out. Our governor, Sonny Perdue, has even called for a prayer service to help.

Depending on who you listen to, the Metro Atlanta area has either 120 days of water left, or more, or less...Once the lake gets below the 'dead zone' it would be very expensive to pump the water out (it would be below the current outtakes) and that water is not potable and would have to be treated. Still I guess it's better than nothing.

Besides the obvious, the drought concerns me because one of the changes over the past 2 years is that I now have over 75 rose bushes. Yes, 75+. It sounds like a lot, but I could have more, trust me. Roses grow really well here, they like the heat, the sun and surprisingly, the clay soil. But they like water too. Up until mid-August, we were on a watering schedule. We could water 3 times a week, from midnight to 10am depending on your street address. Odds could water on Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. Evens (me) were Saturday, Monday and Wednesday. There was no watering on Friday. So I was keeping everything fairly well watered. And one good thing about clay soil, it hold the water, and if you have enough mulch it will stay moist. Then we were put under a total outdoor water ban, no watering, except for food gardens.

So what does one do with 75 rose bushes and no water? Well you have to get creative. We can use grey water, which is basically water used in sink, bath or shower and trudged downstairs to the yard. And rainwater. Apparently for each inch of rain, you can get 600 gallons of run off for each 1000 sq feet of roof. That's a lot of water. We have 6 downspouts, five of which were buried back when we had too much rain and our yard (and basement) would flood each time we had a downpour. As an experiment, we put a plastic garbage can under the one unburied downspout. During the last brief rain, we collected over 30 gallons from that one downspout. So we ordered two rain barrels from Rain Barrels And More. They are recycled plastic barrels that originally held olives from Argentina (The barrels still had a slight olive scent). The ones we bought come with hose connects and a spigot and a top with a screen. We set them up last week under two downspouts . So far it hasn't rained...but we are using the barrels to store the grey water we are collecting when we take showers. I even had the idea to rig a pvc pipe from our deck down to one of the rain barrels so we don't have to lug the water all the way down to the back yard. We are collecting about 3-4 gallons a day, and hopefully that will get us through the dry spells.

We had our first frost this week.The bemuda grass has gone dormant, as have most of my roses. I deliberately forced them into dormancy by not deadheading them for the past few weeks and not fertilizing. I also have some trees that have been planted in the past year or two that will need watering. This past spring, we planted three Okame Cherry trees which seem to be doing well and hopefully will flower next spring. And we have four cryptomeria and three Little Gem Magnolias that are doing well. I've been supplementing them with water from the shower for weeks. The ground around them is so dry, it's like dust. I have noticed the most of my pines have needles that are turning rust and falling off. I think this is normal, that is where pine straw comes from, but last year I lost one Virginia Pine, and there is another one that doesn't look good. Only time will tell. I can't hand water the 3 dozen or so pine up on the hill.

So that is it for now. I'll try to keep the blog updated with drough news. Sounds like fun, doesn't it?

I’m Totally Sirius!

Last November my husband took pity on me and gave me a Sirius satellite radio receiver for my car. I had become increasingly disgusted with the quality of broadcast radio in Atlanta. I’m originally from New York (see Red State, Blue State…), and was used to a wide variety of radio stations.

Not that I have anything but the most pedestrian of tastes in music. I’m a classic rock/oldies/Lite-FM kind of gal. I was also a huge Howard Stern listener since 1994. So when I made the move south, I suffered. The Stern Show is not available on any station in Atlanta and my other choices were limited. For awhile I found some replacements. I actually listened to Imus in the Morning for awhile during my morning commute just to give me some New Yorkness. Plus he would have Chris Russo from WFAN’s Mike and the Mad Dog Show on sometimes. I was also a regular listener of that show in NY and would switch from Howard to WFAN-AM. But Imus got replaced by a local sports show called Mayhem in the AM. They weren’t bad, one of the DJs was from Boston and another from Long Island (where I grew up), and so they talked about the Yankees a lot. But I think they got pressure from the station and started covering mostly college football and NASCAR (even though they admitted they needed a NASCAR tutor).

I found an oldies station, originally 105.1 FM with Randy and Spiff. They got canned one day and moved to 105.3, which then went Spanish language (I still have my alarm clock go off to that station, even though I don’t know what they are saying). There was one classic rock station at 92.9, but they went to the Dave-FM format, which in case you don’t know, is a DJ-less eclectic array of songs mostly in the classic rock format. But it was too diverse for me. Plus the ads for it with the monotone voice always made me feel as if the station was programmed by Hal from 2001. ‘I’m going to play something from the Who, Dave’. Too spooky.

So by last fall, I was desperate. It wasn’t just the lack of good stations. It was the constant commercials, the endless cloned news and weather. But mostly it was the inane DJ chatter and the forced group discussions about American Idol or The Apprentice, two television shows I couldn’t care less about. In my 45 minute commute I would be lucky to hear one or two good songs.

So when Sirius announced that Howard Stern would be joining then in 2006 and had a $50 rebate offer on equipment, I jumped. It was my Christmas present from my husband. He researched all the receivers and decided on the Audiovox model. The receiver is portable and I could take it out if I decided to get the boom box or home kit. It was $99 with a $50 rebate, plus I had to get the auto adaptor kit. This allows you to wirelessly link the Sirius receiver to your existing car radio so the sound will come out the speakers. If I had to do it all over again, I would splurge for an entire new car radio with a Sirius receiver included. We had to resort to crazy gluing the auto adaptor to my dashboard because the adhesive pad the kit provided would not stick. Not to mention the wires hanging all over the place. You also have to put a magnetic antenna on your roof and run the wire into the receiver (I had mine snaked through the rear window, trunk, floor and up onto the windshield to the dash). The cool thing is you can then collapse your normal AM/FM antenna because you will not need it.

I signed up for the 12 month subscription because it is the most cost effective. I paid $142.50 for 11 months and got one month free. A few clicks on the internet and you are ready to go.

There are several very cool things about satellite radio. The first and foremost is that the music channels are virtually commercial free (for someone who worked in advertising for 25 years, I really have bitten the hand that fed me so well). There are some promos, but that’s about it. Also no news or weather, there are separate stations for that. The talk radio stations of course have commercial breaks, (hey, the DJs have to pee too!) But many of the talk shows are UNCENSORED. That’s right…UNCENSORED! I’ll never get over the shock the first time I tuned into The Radiochick and heard the F word! There is one station called Raw Dog, which is supposed to be just that. I haven’t tuned it yet, but it might be fun. And I can’t wait to hear Howard uncensored.

Another really cool thing about Sirius is that once you are a paid subscriber, you can listen over the internet. Many of the satellite radio receivers will not work unless you have a clear view of the SW sky, so that leaves out any cubicles in an office building. But if you have internet access and earphones, you are all set.

The music selections are grouped into categories. As I said, my tastes are pretty bland. I have most of my favorites as presets on my receiver.

#1     60’s Vibrations
#2     Classic Vinyl (I love the scratch needle to record sound effect they play at the beginning of each song..)
#3     Totally 70’s (Barry Williams from The Brady Bunch is one of the DJs.)
#4     Big 80’s (Madonna is still Queen here.)
#5     Starlite (similar to lite-fm)
#6     Movin’ Easy (Soft and easy favorites from the '60s, '70s and '80s.)
#7     Sirius Love
#8     Sirius Gold (50s)
#9     Talk Central
#10     The Bridge (softer contemporary rock)

Because I’m mostly in the pop category, I have noticed that a title will be recycled through out the stations. I can hear xxx on 60s vibrations and then the same on Sirius Love, if it is a love song or perhaps on Movin’ Easy. The 70s station has something called Jukebox from Hell, which features songs that were awful and played to death on the radio back in the day. It is so bad, it is good, and brings back lots of memories that maybe would be better forgotten. It actually helped me identify the extremely annoying tune the neighborhood ice cream truck played this summer, Musicbox Dancer.

I should also mention that another cool feature is that all of the song titles/artists and in some cases, year are all displayed on the screen of the receiver. I can’t tell you how many times I had the distinct impression that a song was performed by one artist but it was another. Good for Trivial Pursuit!

If you must listen to news, they have a full array of cable news stations. But it is mostly the TV feed and can be distracting without the picture. You can get local traffic and weather by ‘jumping’ to that station. The traffic/weather stations are shared by 2 cities, so you may have to wait. Atlanta shares with Boston. So I press the jump button, and when the traffic/weather switches to Atlanta, it jumps in.

The news stations have come in handy when there is a breaking story. On the day the Michael Jackson verdict came out, I was driving home and tuned right into Court TV and heard it live. I also listened to Fox News on my drive in the morning of the London bombings. For some reason the TV news channels don’t work over the internet, probably some kind of black out.

But the best by far is driving in your car, tuning to a station and getting back to back to back songs that you love with no commercials. There are some days where I will have the tuner set to Totally 70s and just sing all the way to work and not have to change stations. There are so many different genres to choose from. There is an all Elvis station. There is Christian music. Hip Hop, Rap, Jazz, Country R&R/Urban, even Classical and Latin.

There is conservative talk, and liberal talk. There is a new Martha Stewart channel coming in September. There are all sorts of sports stations, including coverage of all the NFL games, from both team’s broadcasters. College Football, NBA, NHL Hockey, Soccer etc. Satellite radio is becoming a favorite of truckers. And when we rented a car on a recent trip from New York to New Hampshire, we made sure we had Sirius on board. A complete list of stations can be seen here.

And I have to mention the DJs. When there is a break in the music, the DJs name will appear. I was stunned to see Pat St. John on the screen one day. Pat was a staple on the old rock oriented WPLJ-FM back in the 70s-80s. (I’ll still never forget my shock one day when I came to work, tuned in PLJ and heard pop music. It was, to me, the beginning of the end of FM radio). Carole Miller also of PLJ is also here. Dennis Elsas who was on WNEW-FM is on too.

Sirius also picked up Cousin Brucie Morrow, who was a staple of WCBS-FM, which was the ever present oldies station in New York for as long as I can remember. (CBS recently ended the oldies format). Morrow hosts an oldies show from the Rock and Roll Hall of fame three times a week.

Sirius recently added old MTV VJs, Martha Mark Goodman, Nina Blackwood, Alan Hunter and now Martha Quinn to the Big 80s station. I was never a big MTV fan and Alan Hunter talks way too much. I actually screamed at the radio the other day while he was yakking over the intro to a song.

Even with that, it is hard to find fault with Sirius. It is a vast improvement over local radio stations. Since I used to work in advertising, I have kept up with what is going on with the media. The merging of media conglomerates and the take over of local radio stations by outfits such as Clear Channel has ruined it. I know the politically correct thing to say is that it is a vast republican right wing capitalist scheme to control news and information. But I know it is all about streamlining costs (for news and other services) and trying to tie up advertising dollars. But what it has done is made radio very bland and repetitive. The DJs try to talk up the parent companies TV shows by pretending they watch and worse, actually like the shows and try to build up viewer ship. It is so blatantly obvious it make me sick. The other thing they do is plug other radio stations in the same market! Hey, if you like our station, you might also like WKKK 88.7 FM! Unheard of. Radio stations have been losing listeners and ad dollars in droves. They are now attempting to win back listeners by having exclusive deals with some artists. But I don’t see it helping.

The other advantage Sirius has is that it is NOT controlled by the FCC. Since it doesn’t go out over public airways, they can pretty much do whatever they want. Hence the uncensored talk. I do think the FCC will try to get their puritanical little hands on it as they are attempting to do with cable TV, but they are in for a fight on that score.

So if you are tired of spending your morning commute switching stations to find what you like and are on the fence about investing, I am here to tell you that it is worth it.

Now, if Sirius could only do something about the traffic……

Red State Blue State? How about Purple.

Some background, just like neo-neocon I grew up in the very blue state of New York and lived there for most of my life. Five years ago, my husband and I relocated to Atlanta, Georgia, for a job opportunity.  My husband had always wanted to leave New York, getting sick of the traffic and the taxes. I was a dyed in the wool New Yorker, and proud Long Islander. I couldn’t imagine living anywhere else.

But a 40% increase in salary, a promotion, and the chance to live in an area where the cost of living was less were too attractive to pass up. I commuted between Atlanta and Long Island for a few months (McArthur Airport became my best friend!), then made the permanent move in October of 2000. We actually drove down the same day as the first Subway Series game, catching bits and pieces on the radio.

This was prior to 911, prior to the 2000 election. Because we moved so close to Election Day, we couldn’t vote in Georgia, and did not have time to get absentee ballots for New York. No matter, I knew Gore would take New York easily and my lone vote for him in Georgia would not be enough to beat Bush here.

I remember watching the election coverage and breathing a sigh of relief when it was announced that Gore won Florida. I was about to go to bed when they said ‘wait a minute..’ and Florida was up for grabs. I stayed up till all hours waiting for the results that wouldn’t come that night.  After a few days it became obvious that Bush was the winner, even to me. I was in shock to say the least. I realized that Gore ran a very weak campaign, but really, who would vote for George Bush!

Unfortunately I seemed to be the only democrat that felt that way. Over the next few months I became increasingly sick and tired of the tirades of the democrats about the election. It was the beginning of my awakening. They sounded like spoiled brats, sore losers, how ever you want to put it.

It was about this time that I became aware of the blue state/red state issue. Of course as a New Yorker, I had plenty of times joked about the south and ‘rednecks’. Now I lived here. While Atlanta was not the cosmopolitan city I thought it would be (The Empire State of the South? Please!), I began to enjoy the laid back atmosphere.

There were adjustments, mostly to my attitude. I remember one of my first forays into a local supermarket. I became paranoid that the people working there were following me because they thought I was a shoplifter. When the bagger insisted on wheeling my cart out to my car and putting the bags in my trunk (no tips allowed!), I envisioned this nice young man whacking me over the head, stuffing me in the trunk, and taking me to an abandoned lot raping and killing me and dumping my body there.

Fast forward to the election of 2004. As things began to heat up during the primaries, I was a little lost. I supported the war, sure, almost everyone did. But I was still hoping the Democrats would put up a candidate that could beat Bush. His father was defeated after a successful war, and GWII was not going as well. The economy was still down and besides, who would vote for George Bush!  My early favorite was Lieberman. I prayed that Gore wouldn’t run. Howard Dean was interesting, but too obnoxious. I never liked John Kerry.

All this time I was on my favorite talk board, Guardian Talk Unlimited, or GUT. The Guardian is a newspaper in the UK with a decidedly left bent. I had become one of the ‘freeper invasion’ there, even though I still considered myself a democrat (I suppose my first user name, ProudAmerican, didn’t help). As the election debate heated up on GUT, there were many calls to ban red states from voting or allowing their votes less of a value.

When Kerry turned out to be the nominee, it became obvious to me that I couldn’t vote for him. I didn’t like him, I hated his wife. To me he stood for nothing but the same old same old. While I was still a ‘social liberal’, very pro-choice, etc, I had always been in favor of a strong foreign policy and was very pro-Israel. Kerry scared the crap out of me on both accounts. I had almost decided not to vote at all, but in the end came to the conclusion that I would vote my conscience and vote for Bush.

When I announced this on GUT (I have never spoken to my old NY friends and family about it), I was of course attacked. I had some credibility with the lefty crowd there because of my pro-choice views but that didn’t seem to matter now. I now became ‘Georgie’s Girl’.

After the election there was the usual uproar and the blue state/red state issue heated up. My sister even sent me the map showing the US during the Civil War and the Election results as an overlay. There was almost an exact match. On GUT there were calls for secession or a new civil war between the red and blue states.

But what does it all mean? Have you ever looked at a map of election results? There are of course large blue areas, mostly urban areas. There are large red areas, most of the sparsely populated west and the areas outside of metropolitan areas, even in the bluest state. But for most of the US, the map is purple. A good illustration shown here.
With a few exception (small state such as Idaho, Nebraska, Utah, Wyoming, DC) most of the percentages were between 50-56% of the vote for the winner. So is a state with 45% voting for Kerry a red state? And is a state with 45% voting for Bush a blue state?

In my old home state of New York, as I well know, once you venture outside of the big city, the percentages of democrats to republicans shifts. I grew up in Nassau County which borders on New York City, but was run by republicans for as long as I can remember. As more and more city dwellers moved there and the population aged, it became more democrat, but still not as much as the city. Once you go into upstate New York, it is a different story. While refugees from the city have made inroads there as well, for the most part these people are conservative and republican. Still, New York State went 57% Kerry, 40% Bush.

Now take my newly adopted state of Georgia. The City of Atlanta is overwhelmingly democrat. It is run by a democratic mayor and city council. It has a large African American population. Outside of the city we again have a different story. The county I live in, Gwinnett (named after the Georgia signatory of the Declaration of Independence) is overwhelmingly white and republican. In my congressional district, we didn’t even have anyone running against John Linder, republican. And there were no opposition to any of our state senators either. Bush took Georgia with 58% of the votes and we also now have a republican governor and two republican senators.

So it seems that the divide is not really by state boundaries, but more by urban/rural divide. If Atlanta was higher in population in proportion to the state of Georgia, as New York City is to New York State, then it’s likely the democrats would win Georgia. The biggest state margins of blue Kerry votes are in states with large urban populations. California, DC, New York, Massachusetts. And states that went largely for Bush are states that lack big cities, Utah, Wyoming, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma.

So would dividing the country into two separate ones really help? Would the 42% of blues in New York be happy? Would the 40% of reds in Georgia be happy?

The answer of course is no. We may have blue and red areas, but the country as a whole is purple.


Some additional reading here.

Journalism Objective or Objectionable?

The Washington Post dropped its sponsorship on Monday of a walk organized by the Pentagon to remember victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and to support US troops, saying it was possible the event would become “politicized”.

The editor of Time feels that the supposed ‘outing’ of Valerie Plame by Karl Rove is “one of the biggest stories of our time”.

The New York Times launched an investigation into the details of the adoption of Supreme Court nominee John Roberts two children. They quickly withdrew after a maelstrom of criticism.

The Guardian had to sack two of its editorial writers after it was revealed that they belonged to extremist Muslim groups. The two regularly wrote about Muslim issues without disclosing their memberships.

Reuters refuses to label the 911 hijackers as terrorists “in an internal memo reminding our journalists of our policy in the immediate aftermath of the September 11 attacks, a statement was made that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.”

That other bastion of impartiality, the BBC, banned its reporters from using the word terrorists in coverage of the 7/7 and 7/14 London bombings.

Just what is going on here? Has the world suddenly turned upside down, or has it always been this way? I understand a journalists need to be objective in reporting news, but does it have to go so far that the news loses all sense of perspective?

And do we actually believe that journalists can be completely objective? All of us are colored by our background and experience - that cannot be helped. We can certainly gain insight and broaden our horizons and even change our views, but deep down, even subconsciously, we all have a viewpoint. And it is impossible for any human to suppress that completely.

One of the regulars on GUT (guardian talk board) who is a journalist defends positions such as the BBC’s. Her take is that not calling anyone a terrorist prevents a journalist from calling someone like George Bush a terrorist.

You know what? If a journalist really thinks that Bush is a terrorist, he should say so. I want to know what this journalist is thinking. Because whether he, or anyone else believes it or not, that view is coming out all over his reporting anyway.

In the case of the two Muslims that were fired from the Guardian, I don’t have a problem with them writing for a paper and expressing their views, no matter how different they are from mine. I have a problem that they did not disclose their associations. Not that it was really that difficult to tell they had extreme views.

The New York Times is a perfect example. The paper of record has had some tough times lately. The Jason Blair fiasco is just the tip of the iceberg. I must admit my bias, having worked in advertising for many years, and being exposed to the business end of the NY Times. Quite frankly, they think their $#!t doesn’t stink. ‘Because we are the NY Times, that’s why’ would be heard over and over again. It is obvious that this arrogance comes across in both their news reporting and their editorials. But going after adoption records of two little kids is really low, even for them.

We know now that most of the press are liberals. They vote democrat overwhelmingly. They have a very thinly veiled contempt of Republicans and anyone who isn’t ‘like them’. They fall all over themselves for John Kerry and any other democrat who is running for anything.

I don’t believe in a vast ‘Jewish controlled media’ or even a ‘liberal press’. I think these people have their heads so far up their own butts that they don’t even realize their own bias. And neither did many of us until recently.

The advent of 24 hour a day news, the internet, blogs and of course – Fox news, has been a blessing. There is no longer a monopoly on the news and the viewpoint that goes along with it. IMO the more views, the better. It makes me laugh when liberals attack Fox News for being ‘conservative’ at best and the ‘Karl Rove news outlet’ at worst. Simply because Fox presents a different bent on the news they are immediately branded ‘wrong’ and dangerous. It seems the only correct viewpoint is the MSM liberal viewpoint.

So what do you think? Do you think the press can be and should be objective? Or do you want to know what their true feelings are so you can determine for yourself if what they are saying is legitimate or not?

Well this is my first crack at this. Ain't the internet wonderful, it lets complete strangers like me put my POV up for all the world to see! It's a know-it-alls dream.

Felids is derived from the scientific name for cats. My first venture into the internet world was on Prodigy (remember that!) on a talk board called Tabby Talk. It was a bunch of people talking about their cats, and then some. I was hooked.

Then Prodigy imploded and I lost touch with my fellow Tabby Talkers.

Fast Forward to 2002, right before the Olympics. I happened across an article on The Drudgereport about how America was being 'jingoistic' regarding the upcoming Olympics. The article was from a newspaper I had never heard of before called The Guardian. I had to respond, and became sucked into the vortex known as GUT.

For those who have never ventured into GUT, it isn't for the faint of heart. I had the previous impression that Brits (they hate to be called that BTW) were polite and stuffy. Well, let me tell you. If you have a thin skin, or don't like being called a cee u next tuesday, then GUT is not for you.

Anyway, I regularly spout my mouth off there under the same name, AmericanWoman. I have my fans, and my sworn enemies. Why not check it out:

GUT Unlimited

This is me with a friend.