Which suitor did I choose?

It was Valentine’s Day 1976 and I received two anonymous Valentine’s cards.  I can still remember my excitement.  The cards and envelopes were scrutinized as deeply as a Forensic Files crime.  If it was in 2022, I would have extracted the DNA from the saliva on the envelope…  Shortly after I received the cards, two boys in our ‘Glee Club’ asked me out and then I was convinced who sent which one.  But was I correct in my analysis?

I was so mortified by the Dragon card and the pink ‘tail’.  At 15 years old, I understood the implication but I was horribly naïve despite a clinical Roman Catholic health education which, as intended, put me off everything sexual.  Thank goodness Nana had passed away the previous year.  She would have declared it vulgar and made me wear a Burka to school.  Our uniform, which included regulation American tan tights with white knee socks on top, should have been enough to tamp down the boys’ lust!  My mum laughed out loud but I could see that she was thinking, “who sent that?”

The Tiger card was so different – sweet, beguiling and innocent.  The sentiment was delightful and the sender knew I loved all kinds of kitty cats.  The true love of my life was Tibby, my first cat.  I talked about her so much in school, that at our 25-year school reunion, old school mates asked me how she was?  She crossed to the rainbow bridge many years before. 

Kerry, idyllically happy with textbook and sleepy Tibby

Of the two suitors, only one appealed to me. V was an exotic half breed like me.  He was half Italian/half Scottish with black hair and pale blue eyes.  At the time I thought I was half Spanish/half Irish but I turned out to be a Heinz variety.  The other boy, W, was averagely handsome with a vague resemblance to Starsky of Starsky and Hutch fame but there was zero attraction from my end.  With that in mind, I determined that V. had sent the tiger card as he was a soft spoken, kind natured boy (liked by all mothers).  By process of elimination, that meant W. had sent the ribald Dragon card.  I turned him down and went out with V.

My short courtship with V. started so well.  He smelled so good and seemed interested in going further than first base but we didn’t.  We sat for hours listening to Tangerine Dream. His mother did not like me.  I can’t think of any reason for her to feel like that but I suspect she felt very uncomfortable with her oldest son, aged 16, having lustful thoughts for the pretty senorita.  She was lucky that Nana is always in my head or we might have got to second base…

After a few weeks, I was bored and dumped poor V. by kissing another Glee Club member in front of him.  My girl friends castigated me and I remember them comforting V. who was crying in the kitchen.  I didn’t even feel an ounce of regret – hormones make you behave terribly and I was only 15.  Later I went out with another Glee Club Member, M.  I dumped him on a boat halfway to an island on a school trip.  He spent the rest of the trip miserable.  What a heartless floozy I was… 😊

Much later I discovered there were some other boys who had a wee crush on me, so perhaps the senders are still anonymous.  Maybe sweet V. send the rude one – I could still extract the DNA… I hope you have a HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY!!!!

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My simple holiday decor

Many years ago I had a 7ft Christmas tree decorated with endless ornaments, some antique, with snow, a village and a train underneath! Now I can’t maneuver a giant tree out of the attic and some of the excitement of the holiday season has disappeared with less relatives and animals on this earthly plane.  The boxes of baubles make me feel sad, however, so I try to spread them all over the house.  Our bedroom above is decorated in blues, beige and a touch of pink – so are the baubles.

Even my perfume tray in the bathroom has a cat angel – why not??

Teddy has a maritime penchant so the other bathroom is decorated in blue.

Chandeliers are decorated – even the sparkly rocks are festooned in tinsel (Teddy is a geologist)

Teddy’s study (below) has to be decorated…

…and then mine (this sketch was drawn by my employer when I was 21)

Just add a Swedish Horse to add some color to the brass candles with Norwegian candles.  The clock, a wedding gift to Teddy’s parents in 1948, is always at 1.50 pm because the humidity killed the mechanism.

Even the spare bedroom is not ‘spared’…  Teddy painted the landscape many moons ago.

This is my Nana’s beloved walnut glass cabinet brightly lit by a glass container filled with red baubles and lights.

This year was going to be treeless because it doesn’t seem like Christmas without cats ripping off ornaments or peeing in the ‘snow’.  Then I felt compelled to decorate a tiny little tree and I love it.  I hope you have enjoyed my homespun little tour – it doesn’t have to look like an interior designer was involved for it to feel like the HOLIDAYS!

 

The Last Cat

Rest in peace, baby cat

I can still remember the first moment I saw Toffee, 16 years ago. Her mother, Mrs Stripe, came through the hedge at our villa in Egypt closely followed by two 6 week old kittens, soon to named Toffee and Treacle. Toffee was a dark tabby and Treacle, coal black. I sobbed and laughed because I feared that I had scared Mrs Stripe away forever after trying to trap her. It was almost as though she said, “See, this is why I couldn’t be trapped, I had kittens to wean.”

Toffee was precocious and adorable. There were little dusty footprints all over our walls because she propelled herself with a back legs leap to chase everything from lizards to ping pong balls all over our Cairo house. The stairs were open plan and she would talk to us from the half landing, through the wrought iron banisters, with her head on the side. We called her ‘Little Eee‘ and thought she was the cutest little kitten.

When we arrived in Houston from Cairo, with three wild cats, I can remember the look of joy in Toffee’s eyes. “Mummy and Daddy are here with us!” Of all the cats she settled into our tiny one bedroom apartment with delight after leaving a luxurious four bedroom villa with gardens and staff. Eventually she settled into our forever house. That first Christmas in Houston was magical because we had snow and a ham dinner!  Right to the end of her life, Toffee had a fetish for ham. I told her Allah was watching but she paid me no heed. Perhaps she was a pagan or Copt?  For the last three years she has been a spoiled ‘only’ cat after the deaths of Mrs Stripe and Zhenny.  Katniss joined our household for a short time and Toffee enjoyed their shared solitude.

Toffee had a serious illness at the beginning of this year and the writing was on the wall. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine a feral Egyptian cat would live to 16 years old with almost perfect health. After a short but serious illness we made the sad decision to have her put to sleep on Tuesday 20 August 2019. That morning, I gave her an overdose of cat Xanax and Tuna. Her eyes started to dilate then she got the munchies. In between, she kept jumping on the couch to purr and cuddle with her mum and dad, each time stumbling a little more. Then we took her to the vet, feeling no pain. Her death was quick and we took her home for a quiet wake.

I laid her on her Tempur Pedic cushion, wrapped in her shroud and favorite blanket, then cuddled her for most of the day. She was so undomesticated that this was the first time in 16 years that I could hold her to my heart and tell her how much I loved her. Teddy dug a deep grave in our terrible forest soil. The heat index was about 108 degrees. With both people and animals, I can’t bury them until rigor mortis has set in, so Toffee sat in our living room until night fell.  On reflection, it would be a tad speedy to bury a human any earlier…(some dark humor there and watch out, Teddy.)

Our hearts are broken, especially knowing that this was the LAST CAT. We cannot endure the worry of who would look after our animals in the event of our deaths, which will be sooner rather than later.  I have always had a pet so  feel bereft but also feel guilty about enjoying a litter free laundry room and a smell free house. We can go on vacation whenever we want but what we would do for one last cuddle or vocalization.  As much as we enjoyed the other 10 pets we have had, Toffee was truly the best cat.  Sweet-natured, loving and unique.  My health has not been great in 2019 with a sad family funeral in Scotland and now Toffee’s passing.  I hope she is enjoying catching neon colored lizards over the rainbow bridge and some kindly angel releases them, as Mummy did so often.

Isn’t there always an anti-climactic reason to laugh?  The next day we noticed that an animal had dug up Toffee’s grave but hadn’t got quite deep enough.  With a sigh, I put all the soil back and put a board over it, sprinkled with vinegar.  That night we set out the camera, baited with an apple.  A raccoon and baby possum visited, as did armadillos.  We couldn’t get the armadillos on camera but turn the sound up to enjoy the summer cacophony that we attempt to sleep through.  The most raucous noise is the frogs and the high chirrups are the armadillos.  The  baby possum has the starring role.

At least we will never be alone…

Happy Hibiscus Hues

Variegated Peach and Coral

I don’t think I had seen a hibiscus until I moved to Egypt.  Our villa garden was gloriously full of the original red hibiscus.  Since living in the States I have discovered so many other shades but never as many as I spotted in San Diego at Balboa Park.

Pale pink

Aren’t the colorful stamens pretty?  Such perfection in a flower.

Deep orange

Lemon

I love the matching lemon stamens.

Look at those stamens!

I would love dresses in all of these colors, especially this clear red above.

Pale yellow

This was the first time I had seen clustered blossoms of hibiscus.

Deep pink

Cream and crimson

Mauve

Sometimes it is the small aspects of life that make us happy.  These hibiscus were a distance from the Botanical Garden in Balbao Park and outside the zoo.  Only I seemed to be fixated with the variations of color and taking photographs.  Perhaps they are more common in San Diego?  Ironically, my camera had lost battery power, so all these are taken with my Samsung phone.  My beloved Nikon camera is getting old and slow, so Teddy and I bought me my first proper camera at the weekend.  It is a Sony with a Zeiss lens but most importantly it is really light for my neuropathic fingers to manipulate.

Lush flowers in our garden in Cairo

This is a shot of our beautiful garden in Cairo.  Can you see Toffee hiding in the flowers?  Look for the tail in the path…  Click here if you would like to know more about our adventures in Cairo – Letters from Cairo

 

 

Katniss loves her new house…

Words fail me.

What is this?

A mystery…

Those strange markings in a circular pattern; flying saucers or just saucers?  Did a small alien land in my garden?  No…just a very fussy feral kitty called Katniss who decided that she doesn’t like gourmet chicken with tomatoes.  I fed her first and then went in to tend to Toffee who was wailing because Katniss was fed first.  I glanced out afterwards to check on Katniss and she was standing staring at me through the window.  Her dish was missing too, so I went out to see what had happened.

She stared at me with her little round green eyes and I started laughing when I saw that she had covered (the very expensive) food with stones and dirt.  “Would you prefer something else, Princess?” “Yes, please, strange human mummy”  She deigned to eat the crunch but was silently condemning me for my poor grocery shopping.

I suppose she looks rather well fed and spoiled for a feral.  She has a strange psychic ability over me and I can sense she has arrived in the garden waiting for food, even when I can’t see her.  My car noise is immediately identifiable and that often brings her running.  Toffee often knows when her Dad is turning into the street before he arrives at the house.  Animals have amazing sixth senses.

I caught a cold this week, just a regular snuffly nose one, but it turned my brain to jelly.  During a phone call I could not remember my home telephone number which I have had for 14 years.  My recent travel photos are waiting for me to turn into a Postcard from Kerry but they will have to wait until my brain recovers.

My heart goes out to our neighbors at Santa Fe, Texas with another school shooting by a disturbed young man whose father’s guns were available.  They should be locked in a gun case.

My heart glows to see Prince Harry marry a biracial American.  As Teddy knows, all the smart guys marry one of those…❤

Toffee won’t get out of bed…

The Preamble –

When Teddy is out of town, Toffee sleeps with Mum. We both slept in late but it was about 11 am and Toffee wouldn’t get out of bed. I wanted to change the bed for Teddy’s arrival. So why didn’t I just push her off?

Toffee is the last surviving cat that we brought from Egypt to the USA. When she was a feral kitten, she went missing for a night and I was looking for her frantically. Our gardener had found her and put her in his shed. Whatever happened was traumatic, perhaps a near miss with a car or a fall of the balcony, and she had injured her leg. We could not take her to the vet until she was more tame and by that time the injury had healed.

Every so often she would limp and so she now has Gabapentin to help with that. At almost 15 years old, we still can’t lift her and I don’t like shooing her (off the bed) in case she hurts her leg. She still runs around chasing a laser pointer so the meds are working. Now, enjoy!

On a final funny note, I sent this to friends and family. One of my aunts replied, “What are you McHugh girls like with your pusses!” She was referring to my Irish mother’s side of the family and my two cousins, her daughter and two nieces. We are all crazy about cats and have no children. I am the oldest crazy cat lady but I suspect there will be more…

Katniss with snowflakes

Too cold for a sub tropical cat!

Most of you know that we have an inside cat and an outside cat. Katniss (the outside cat) is utterly feral and I can’t touch her (so is the inside cat…). We live in the sub tropics and she normally uses my deck as shade but the weather is crazy right now. Here she is with some snowflakes in her dense black fur. She complained bitterly to me but doesn’t believe that I am only the Goddess of tinned food, not the weather.   Fortunately, I have been feeding her like a Christmas Goose and she has a nice layer of blubber.  Houston has just closed for two days because of a ridiculous cold front. It went down to single digits (F) in some places.

Here are icicles still frozen on my bush.

Icicles!

I drove to the airport today and it was scary to see how much ice there had been. Not only do we not have the capacity to deal with this kind of weather but none of us know how to drive in it. I learned to drive in Texas so my only skills are driving fast (breaking fast when I spot state troopers), avoiding flash floods and parking under the only tree in the summer.

Poor cold aloe

Even my poor little Aloe Vera is completely frozen. About 10 years ago I planted an inch of aloe and it grew and grew like Topsy. I hope she survives this freak ice storm.  Teddy flew to Oklahoma (I always burst into song when I say that) and it will be even colder there, brrrrr!  I am desperate to share my adventure in Mexico with y’all amigos but am too tired to do it justice. Next week…

Until then, keep warm my friends.

Puerto Vallarta

Los Muertos Pier

Our Hacienda was located in the Zona Romantica and this beautiful pier was just a short walk down the hill to the beach.  The sands are almost white despite how they look in this shot.  I liked this area because you could see locals along with tourists enjoying the beaches which are all public.  Shouldn’t all beaches be public???  As you approach Puerto Vallarta by air you can see dense jungle and hillsides and suddenly the most beautiful coastline much of which is taken up by resorts.

The view right outside the Hacienda

I love this shot – it takes me straight back to Cairo.  Cobbled streets, flags across the street.  It was a curious mixture of a wool shop here, a gay nightclub there, beautiful small hotels, street food and exquisite small restaurants.  The mixture was tantalizing.  When I chose the Hacienda, I noticed it was aimed at the gay community but welcomed straight folks.  Even more intriguing… When I researched the area, the guides said it was particularly safe, with a strong police presence.  Teddy and I went out to a lovely little restaurant called Casa Naranjo.  I think we were the only straight couple there but we were all the same age.  My appetite had disappeared and the host went out of his way to cook some mashed potatoes and also some buttered home-made pasta just for me.

Isn’t there always a little yellow dog wherever you visit?  There were many in Cairo and Istanbul.  This one resided at a restaurant and was well cared for.

Teddy and the cat

…and then there are the cats.  This one was not a stray as you can see from her lovely red collar.  She looked just like Katniss.

Teddy and Bunny with funny hats

 

All Hallow’s Eve!

Mouse eating grin

When I first moved back to the States, I couldn’t figure out what Renaissance Festivals were all about. Twelve years later, I got it – you wear something as funny, provocative or revealing as you can in the general theme of the weekend. This weekend at our local Renfest, it was All Hallow’s Eve so I decided to go as a black cat(ish). Teddy said that I was getting plenty of attention from children and young men. I guess they both wanted a cuddle, of sorts…

Teddy made a minimum effort with his outfit, as usual. He looks pensive but he is really just overwhelmed by the amount of cleavage and ass on view. This is one of his shots.

Barbarian Wench

It is a disability friendly venue and I just loved Death – both the concept and the effort

These ladies made it feel medieval…

I really liked the big black bunny rabbit…

Easter Bunny

I loved this giant fairy (on stilts)

I thought I misheard when someone called out, ‘watch out for the llama!” but no…

It was as hot as hell, so I have no idea how this knight in shining armor coped.

There was an arial Hawk show and I love this shot of a King Vulture getting ready to fly. All the birds were disabled or unable to be released into the wild.

King Vulture

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!