You Can't Always Get What You Want

There was a cat food commercial I used to find hilarious,it involved a family that adopted a stray cat on a dark and stormy night. No, I don't find stray or homeless cats funny, but the stray they patted off with a towel was either a Maine Coon or a Persian. Given the state of the cat' s coat he had obviously - and  recently been abandoned by a groomer. The Comercial makes me laugh because well, I've adopted cats off my porch, from under the house, under a bed, the pound and not one has been a Persian. My first cat was a tabby, much like the one I have now. I mentioned I would love to have a cat and a relative deposited one ASAP. I went to the pound for the next one, surely they must have one long haired cat. They might have but I could not see past desperate orange tabby trying so hard to get my attention. Mr Lee came next, born to the stray we took in under Adams bed. The mother took off ASAP, I re homed most of them and we kept the tiny black runt. We were not good at figuring out the boy or girl cat thing so it was intedesting when Mr Lee gave birth to 3 kittens, one of whom had long hair that we kept. We had one brief moment of that tiny longhaired cat- stolen and gone. Claw came next grey and white. Vincent, stray, starving and black appeared next, beaten to a pulp. And now Scout, teeny tabby dumped. I gave up on the persian years ago, I had a patient that put it all into perspective for me. She saved abandoned animals and one day I was admiring one of her rescues. He was a magnificent long haired dark grey cat with the most startling green eyes. I said what a beautiful cat and she rolled her eyes. That cat she said was too damaged and skittish to give to anyone. But,pointing to a half grown one "that yellow cat loves everyone, he is the nicest cat. I took him off a man who was getting ready to break his neck because he wouldn't go away. He just kept coming back and the guy threw him, and he came back again and again". She looked at that cat, angry. "Do you want him,?No of course you don't, who wants him - he's nothing, a nobody. No one wants a plain yellow cat do they?". She took a couple of steadying breaths and apologized for getting so upset, but I could see what she meant. So after that MY perspective changed - which is why my cats come off the porch, out from under beds and are retrieved from the garage. To quote The Stones you don't always get what you want, but if you try - sometimes you get what you need. 

Keeping Occupied

See

I got money for Christmas, but the sad thing about getting older is your need - and want of stuff seriously decreases. You still want big stuff - the second home, the Porshe, the Bahamas in winter.  But the general crap of my 20 and 30's is meh. Part of it is where I live, between a Gabes in every town and a ton of stores I can get anything in any color 50% most of the time. But there are only so many office clothes you can wear and when I'm home, well the cows don't care about my fashion sense and I don't care what the stupid neighbors think of course. I pretty much much blew my money on yarn, ebooks and, well, I still have the rest of it. David and I stopped years ago buying gifts for each other. We go out for a day a couple weeks after and have lunch and go shopping. I eventually find something I want. The eReader has changed my book buying, I bought a couple series and the latest ones, but even that was a low roar. I have more books than I can read now,adding more is not helping. The weather is perfect for reading, the temperature has been horrible. Yesterday my car read -6 as we were tooling along. It warmed up to a big 30 today, I am complaining a little but not too much. Up until now it has not been too bad and really spring is not far that off. We did a little house peeping today, nothing serious since the Bridgeport house is still in the pending file, but it's fun to see what's out there. The internet makes it easier to find houses but it's criminal the poetic license real estate use with the pictures. The house was on a couple acres. Outbuildings, pool, bucolic and straight out of a John Denver song. We sat in the driveway arguing if it was occupied. A call to the RE - estate sale. As we came up the driveway it became less John Denver and more Janis Joplin. Every door on the outbuildings hung open, the above ground pool had not held water recently. The siding and decking were suffering from rot or termites. I got out of the car while David talked to the agent,went around back for a little window peeping. Tried the door - not locked!! But David did the Felony Speech so I stayed out. I was able to see they had a huge hole in the floor and had pulled up the carpeting.  You don't do that unless there's a good or a bad reason. It also had a well and I am a super not big fan of wells, in my experience with Wells is they tend to dry up or get funky. When the power goes out you're out of water too. Our house must've had a well at some point because downstairs in our little root cellar are jars and jars of stored water, neatly standing ready for disaster. I don't have the heart to get rid of them. On the house that we looked at -we are gathering more information but it is most likely a no go, the rot is not fixable and even if it is, you would also need to fix the source of the rot and I'm pretty sure thathat is a horrible issue. So on we go. Right now the one house is uunder ontract and the other movinguys along so we will be window shopping for awhile

Oops!

I had to show my latest bruise to David twice - I showed it to him the other day and he was just meh about it. I thought it was impressive - I actually  managed to bruise the top of my foot, a pretty difficult feat if you ask me. How do you bruise the top of your foot you wonder - well, I was clearing brush in the woods with the dogs nearby. We started back and Molly started running, I started  too because that's what I do. We were jumping ditches and the third one, well not so much. I didn't realize the ground had defrosted enough to make mud. As I hit the other side my foot slipped, whacked it on a branch and back in the ditch I went. Molly hopped back in too since it looked so fun and then Reuben popped back. Descendents of Lassie they are not. So when I showed to David it had not quite gone technicolor yet so that is what led him to declare it was not my best work. It did darken up today but David remains not impressed. But that's ok, given my klutz nature there will be more opportunities. I fall probably once a month or so, there's nothing neurological wrong with me - I simply don't watch where I'm going and run into, fall on, fall off and fall over a variety of objects. But on the upside I have never broken anything, not a toe, not a finger,nada. Neat! I other news I got a new car this weekend. My Subaru was only a 2012 but given my huge amount of driving I've racked up almost 80,000 miles and am that far from the end of my extended warranty. I was at the point of needing new tires, new brakes, etc.. I was not overly happy with the car, not that there's anything wrong with it - it's a fine car but just didn't suit me. We had started looking a couple of weeks ago the used car market is pretty good right now. I ended up with another Subaru but the Forester. It's higher off the ground, same gas mileage, only had 2000 miles and was quite a bit less than the CRVs I had been looking at. The payments are about the same and I got a better warranty. It took longer than I thought it would - I usually give it half an hour including the free coffee. But they prefer it take like three long days or so in which you are forced to sit in the lounge and drink not so good coffee until your heart stops just for something to do. But like all good things it did end and I have a pretty super ride this week. We are still muckin around with the Bridgeport house, deal fell through again, that's twice. It's upsetting and annoying but we've been down this road before.  Our record for selling a house is four times, so here's to hoping we don't break our record.