Cats!!

There are some things that I can't comprehend and one is how I ended up with Cats in my life. I have never liked cats, I see them as the devil incarnate with their beady eyes and whiskers and how they ignore everything and everyone. My nemesis, Jake, ended up with an incurable disease and had to be put down. Darla was tremendously sad over the end of her time with Jake and I had to box up the animal and take him to the vet to be put down on Friday. I walked in and had a tear in my eye and the vet said that I could stay and be there with Jake at the end. I quickly explained that I was sad over the impending vet bill that would come from the procedure. Darla's Dad, Earl, had told me that I needed to get Darla another cat soon after we put Jake down. I stopped at the SPCA on the way home from leaving Jake with the undertakers. They had a whole passel of cats that had been abandoned or picked up by animal control. I looked through all of the cats and what I saw was, well, a bunch of cats. There were big cats and long haired cats and weird looking cats and some kittens. Now kittens are cute, but I've found that they always tend to grow into cats. If I could get a kitten and have it stay a kitten, I'd be happy. The only cat that really caught my eye was a tabby named "Ricky Bobby" and I think that I just liked the name.

Darla came home from an outing with Alicia Friday afternoon and we went back to the shelter to look at the cats and see if she could tell the difference from one to another. She was completely confused and liked about six of the cats. They have sibling cats that they call "perfect pairs" that they only adopt out together and there was NO WAY I was getting two cats. We left to think it over.

I played golf on Saturday which I'll get to later while Darla entertained her two nieces from the Bay Area, Shea and Taylor. Darla's folks came into town and they all went to the new bowling alley in Rocklin. Steve Matthews played in my foursome on Saturday and I told him about the cat being put down and Darla's sadness. He offhandedly mentioned that his mother-in-law had two "snow point" cats that she was looking to give away. A snow point is a cat that is white with blue eyes and with marbled brown markings. I thought nothing about it, but mentioned it to Darla when I got home. Darla immediately went on the internet and looked up snow points and started to get excited. I suggested that perhaps we could take the baby cat (about a year and a half old) and Alicia could take the mother cat who is about four years old. Steve's mother-in-law was out of town for the holiday and would return home today. Darla called Steve and talked to him about the cats and asked if she could see them on Sunday. They arranged to meet us at noon after church at Brenda's mother's house in Sun City Roseville. Brenda had a key. So, Alicia, Darla and I all headed over to the house to see these cats. Darla really fell for the cats, calling them "Beautiful". And then like a slow motion accident, the cats were loaded up and both of them ended up at our house. I still don't know what happened, it was like a game of three card monty. One minute we were talking about Alicia taking the Mom cat and the next, I live with that weird cat lady that has a house full of cats and no friends.

So far the cats are so skittish that they hide all day under the beds and venture out only infrequently to look at Buddy or jump up on the couch, look at us and then run away. Darla says this is just a phase, that they are getting used to us, but I'd like this to be the norm. It's like not really having cats, because they aren't underfoot all the time. The baby cat came home and hid for three hours. Darla was afraid that it had snuck out of the house, but like a bad smell it showed up after awhile and the Momma cat was able to relax. So there it is, I got rid of one cat and ended up with two, although I'd say the combined weight of these two cats is probably equal to the weight of Jake alone. Daniel said that we'd probably not even notice the fact that we have two cats in the cost of cat food as Jake ate like it was constantly his last meal. The baby is the first picture above and the Mom is the second picture. They have names, but the prior owner called them Baby and Momma and we are looking to rename them. I suggested Rory and Lorelai after the Gilmore girls, but was voted down. Well, they're not my cats, so who cares?

I did see the Bowen therapist last week and she managed to straighten me out at least temporarily. I walked out of the session standing straight and feeling good, but was hunched over by the time we drove the several miles back home. I felt better on Wednesday and still better on Thursday, but cancelled a game of golf I had scheduled for Friday. I thought, Why chance it? Saturday was our annual "stuffing party" for the golf league, where the first newsletter of the year is mailed out. We used to send out about 300 letters which had to be addressed and stamped for mailing, but now about 85% of the club receives the newsletter by e-mail. The tradition of the stuffing party is still intact, but it is more an excuse to play golf on the Saturday after Christmas. I set up two tee times and decided that I would not play and would fill the foursomes with other players. I quickly got six players to commit, lost one of those and filled two other spots with Bob Pando, my friend from life group that I was supposed to play with on Friday and Steve Matthews. I sent out four other invitations and decided to leave it to the golf gods as to whether I would play on Saturday. If someone responded, I would back out and let them play. If not, I'd give it a go. As fate would have it, no one else stepped up and I decided Saturday morning to hit a bucket of balls and see how my back held up. I was tentative and careful and decided to give it a try, but I took a cart and decided if I felt even a twinge, I'd shut it down. Unfortunately, I also got in a skins game with Bob and Steve. I was overly cautious, making sure not to swing too hard and ended up shooting 46 on the front side and fell way behind in skins. I threw caution to the wind on the backside and shot 37 (with a bogey on 18) to win the skin match and shoot 83. Bob shot 82 and Steve shot 79, but my chip-in birdie on 16 was worth $8.50 in skin money and that followed a three carryover greenie on 15 that was worth $2.50 with a poley putt for par.

My back was so good that I decided to do some work Sunday on the backyard and fix the mess that the fence guys had left me with. I disassembled the middle gate and rebuilt it and cemented two more posts behind the raised waterfall for the remaining retaining wall. Monday I finished the retaining wall and David helped me reinstall the gate. I then went out and added additional screws to all of the fence posts, refilled some of the dirt into the trenches on the side of the house and then sprayed down the deck from the sliding doors out to the pool area. It was alot of work, but I feel alot better about the backyard and how things look. Premier Pools showed up on Friday and installed the equipment on the side yard, hooked up the waterfalls and installed the lights in the pool. They also had the tile crew back out and they completed the decking on the deep end of the pool from the pool to the existing stamped concrete deck. It looks really good.

The fence guys did show up on Saturday while I was golfing and removed all of the old fence boards and posts, but didn't remove the sprinkler pipe and bushes that they told me they'd do. The adage, "you get what you pay for" has once again rung true. I don't expect to see them again. They were going to install an enclosure on the side yard for our trash cans, but I'm not holding my breath. David and Daniel and I will change the auto gate they installed on the side yard from a swinging gate to a sliding gate as the gate is ten feet wide and will put two much stress on the middle post. We were going to install a wheel after the driveway is poured, but decided that a sliding gate makes more sense. It also will allow me the opportunity to open the gate just enough to either walk through or bring the mower through. I will use the gate that they built, but install tracks and wheels and have it operate as a slider instead.

Well, this is wordy and long, but I'm full of energy in the new year and looking forward to seeing what the new year holds in store for all of us. Happy New Year. Ciao.