CMAppleton

Must Love Cats and Dogs

This is Gizmo. He is sweet and a bit of a clown. He hates to be restricted in any way (like Toni) so if you pick him up when he's not in the mood he will whine and complain (like Toni). I am here at the Bermuda Dunes house (aka animal house) for a week of hanging out with Toni and Nat. We have done a lot of eating, a little movie-going, visiting with Judy, shopping, and stuff like that. Yesterday Judy came and we barbecued carne asada and chicken and had the most wonderful tostadas. Toni made a strawberry pie which was yummy. Natalie missed out since she was working, but we'll see her later today. Missing Georgannae a lot. We all are but with a tiny bit of healing under our belts we have been able to tell a few stories with her in them with smiles of happy remembering. There is a giant hole in our family. She would have so loved this past week. She also would have been able to make an assessment of Max's condition. He is 15, 16 in November and has arthritis. It is impossible to know if he is in pain and if so how much. He is stoic and gentle and quiet, and of course has no way of letting us know. He amazingly still has the heart and enthusiasm of a puppy. I wish I could take him home with me but that would only be possible if I were driving (which of course would take a car and ten days). Toni has two other cats named Koi and Milo (Milo actually belongs to Natalie but she has a cat who doesn't like Milo so he is here for now). Natalie has three cats (what's with all the cats, we went our whole lives having dogs and suddenly everyone wants multiple cats!) Her cats are Jinx (who actually belongs to Toni, not sure why Nat has him except that he is a bit of a bully), Pancho, and Bob. Bob lives under the bed for the most part because he is timid and not very fond of cats in general. Toni also has Brandy, a sweet furry lovable little girl she brought home one day when she was in high school. I didn't want another dog (at that time I had three already) so Georganne took Brandy and had her for years. When Georganne moved to the Chicago area Toni took Brandy back and she's lived at the BD house ever since. Almost forgot about Jixxer who belongs to Ty who is Toni's boyfriend. Jixxer is an American Bulldog and must be separated at all times from all the animals since she doesn't get along with them, especially the cats, whom she would just as soon eat as look at. Though, ironically, Milo seems to be smitten with Jixxer and seductively struts along the length of the sliding glass door when Jixxer is on the other side of it in the patio. They both seem to be in on this, occasionally throwing themselves on the ground and rolling on their backs while looking at each other with goofy looks on their faces. Odd. Below is the painting I did of Max several years ago. It's acrylic and four feet by five feet, it lives at the end of the hall in Studio 4 at Lorton.

Spring Deer

The deer seem to love the arrival of spring as much as we do. They rush to eat the flowers as soon as they rear their tiny bud heads. My first year here I was naive enough about the possibility of having lilys in my wild kingdom backyard, that I actually planted one smack in the middle of the flower bed in back, very close to where the deer are in this photo. They were there about five minutes. I'm sure it could be compared to say . . . if Dan were to leave a Hersey's kiss on the kitchen counter. (as if). We have a sweet lonely Canadian Goose wandering around the meadow next to the woods. There were two, they walked around the grassy areas together. Often they were on the driveway when I was trying to drive out and I just had to wait for them to waddle their fat butts off the road before I could pass. Suddenly there was only one goose. It was sad. Dan suggested we go find a goose someplace and bring it here for this goose. I was disturbed that he could kidnap a goose from it's own home and family. Then, after two weeks of loneliness, suddenly there were two again! But today we were back to one. I was thinking that maybe friends from the gaggle drop in and check on him. Maybe he lost his mate? There are also several fox sneaking around that part of the meadow but I am sure that if a fox was actually a threat to a goose, no geese would be there. We've had so much rain and every time it rains a lot, like now, we find toads on our deck. Almost like it's just too wet even for them. Last spring I picked up a fat American Toad off (I know their names now having painted a bunch of them recently) our deck and took him down to the creek, thinking he must be lost. But then a few days later, his twin (or maybe him) reappeared so I just left him there. He was gone in a day or so. The frog-singing from the creek is so loud when you're outside you can't hear yourself think. And then there's the cicada. And the sex crazed fox who scream weirdly when mating (Toni and I were watching them from the window). In the five years we've been here I've seen one turtle, and that was in the first six months. Never again did I see one but Dan did stop his car once on Fox Mill so that he could move a turtle out of the middle of the road. I wonder if turtles and frogs get along? Turtles seem like loners. Introverted. I'm kind of a turtle.