The Eyes

I just love his eyes. I’ve never had a cat with such piercing green eyes. When the twins would get the greenies, it’d just be a little green. Alex goes from green with yellow hints to full on bright green.

Curzon, Jadzia, happy gotcha week. I… I still miss you so much. Alex is no replacement for sure. But he sure as hell is keeping me on my toes! He’d have made great buds with Nimbus. I will never forget you guys. You were my OC (original clan), and it’s just not the same without you. That being said, Curzon… Alex finally squealed on you and showed me how you did the sneakies in the spare room…. lmao

Spacey…

If I had only known even the week before he died that Curzon was about to go, I’m not sure how much would’ve changed. We knew time was short, he was OLD for a cat, going completely senile, and fighting just to keep his bowels moving. I was convinced though he’d make it to his vet-appointed birthday of Sept 1 at least. He wasn’t showing signs of it being imminent until that weekend. Now that this year’s gotchaversaries for the twins are almost here, it’s hitting just as hard. Alex can never fill that gaping hole in my heart and it’d be criminal almost to even think he could. No one, human or furry, will ever even come close to him. I’ve had more than one thru the years say I was creepy close to him. No ya fool, he just listens better and cares more than most humans. Many know the basics of the early years, few know just HOW hard the first year was. Curzon was my bff before there was the CatDaddy to make a bunch of strays a family. So while there will not be celebrating this year like so many years before, Alex’s gotchaversary is close enough that his celebrating will continue on. It’s not all party here, but he’s gotten a new treat to add to his rotation and a couple weeks ago I think he got to totally nip out. I don’t ever want Alex to feel second fiddle. He’s his own monst… er cat! LOL.

So please pardon the silence here, it’s nothing beyond me sneezing my rear off and Alex wondering wtf is wrong with me.

And Alex, sorry one of those sneezes almost launched you off my lap, bud….. lol

Gotcha Day Weekend

As many of you know, Alex’s first gotcha day was Wednesday. He’s gotten 2 little things of stinky goodness, LOTS of cuddles (which he would consider torture I’m sure LMAO) and yesterday he got the nip ball for more than a minute. Watching him throw that thing everywhere was HILARIOUS and man was he stoned the rest of the night! He’s earned the right to be though. He’s made a LOT of progress through the last year now. I don’t regret it one bit. Never have, never will. Sometimes he does make me question my sanity but that’s normal! I love the little 4 legged terror. I apologize for not posting more later, but it’s been insane here lately, as usual it seems! Hope you all are well and will try to post more later.

Eerie

As many of you know, I get up early. This post isn’t scheduled; I started writing it at 5am, and already been up a couple hours. I ran up to one of the local convenience stores a little bit ago cause I was craving a krispy kreme donut (sorry you Dunkin’ heads, bleh). I had to drive right through the heart of town, right over the creek that a week ago was a raging river through town. This isn’t a big town, it’s only a few miles wide. So our “downtown” isn’t that big, but so much of it is still out of power because of just how much flood water they had intruding into their businesses. Most of them also have apartments upstairs and, while they were dry, I’m pretty sure their vehicles are not and they’re really uninhabitable as there’s still no power. Trust me, 5 days was rough enough. for those poor people, it’s been over a week now. The street is so eerily dark, not a single light on in a business window or on the side of the building, except the police station. The only noise is one business’ generator I’m sure probably powering a pump still working on the inside. I can’t even imagine… so as much as this week has sucked for us personally, it’s over. We’re back up and running, food replaced… So many businesses, already struggling due to the pandemic… one has to wonder if this will be the final nail for some of them. You have business owners who also lost homes. And those who can march on, can they replace their inventory with all the shortages going on? There are streets in other nearby towns that are still blocked, at least 2 roads that lead into town that the roadway gave away completely just outside of town… You would think by the aftermath that Ida was still a hurricane when she got up here! Even people I know down in LA who survived Katrina 16 years ago are saying that, while the flooding in New Orleans itself wasn’t as bad, the storm as a whole was so much worse. I’d have to agree. Katrina’s epic damage was more localized. Ida ravaged the south and then just kept going, leaving death and destruction in her wake. My heart goes out to everyone who lost so much this last week, and to all the organizations that are answering the call and trying to help in any way they can. We will overcome… it will just take time. And to those of you out west, if you figure out how to get all this wetness over there, you can have it!!!!!!!!!!! lol.

Ida

Ida is a name mama loves – well, loveD.

You see, this last week has been insane. It started last Wednesday. So, a week ago. I could tell mama was unsettled. She was in and out more than normal. She was stressed. And then the rain came. And it got heavier, and heavier, and HEAVIER. Mama came in smelling of foul stuff on her legs, and then a little later, some SEVERE HBO words. And then more stink smell. And then more HBO words. Mama and Daddy had some discussions as to how to “get rid of” whatever it was making mama smell (Daddy apparently had it too just not as bad). Something about flooding, and yuckies in the water. And the water coming out of our sink wasn’t any better at the time (I am guessing that’s what some of the HBO words were about). Mama has some non-bleach antibacterial wipes, and her and Daddy used that to de-stink their legs. Mama said it was gonna be the closest they got to clean.

The “flood” didn’t go away until Thursday am, and then all day Thursday there was a LOT of noises outside and downstairs. Mama said it was the maintenance guy trying to get the bleh that was outside and had gotten on them out of the basement. And then Friday, around 2, in the middle of mama’s cleaning, BLEP. It got dark in here!!!! Mama said the guy in blue shorts that keeps our power on said it wasn’t safe to keep it on and turned it off! HOW RUDE! We were FINE! But no one listens to a 13lb cat…

Friday came and went, nothing.

Saturday came and went. The guy that could fix the light situation came out and fixed things. Still no light.

Sunday came and went. Nothing.

Monday came and went. Mama got hopeful. The man in blue shorts and the boss of the big guys in yellow suits (firefighter chief – poor Alex, has a lot to learn lol – TSB) came out, said NO.

Tuesday the maintenance guy and the big boss that had final say came out along with the fixer dude. Supposedly things got tinkered with because mama wasn’t home to tell me what was going on, but right before mama got home, LIGHTS CAME BACK ON!!!

It’s a miracle!!!!! Now I guess I’ll let mama fill in the details…

So yes, power came back on sometime around 4pm apparently on Tuesday, a solid 5 days plus without power. ANYONE that’s been without power that long knows what comes next… a LOT of trips to the dumpster later, it looked like we were broke, but the fridge didn’t stink and it got cleaned in the process!! I went out this morning to take care of that, but rest assured, Alex was in no way affected OTHER than the fact we discovered he does NOT like total darkness. Normal night time here, okay. Total dark, nope. But neither did we. 5 days without ac, water was off and on as was the water heater, cold food… Ice is expensive! And one cooler isn’t enough for 2 people, their leftovers and drinks! It was a stressful time, but we were VERY fortunate and blessed to be okay. Our vehicles were dry on the inside (the one car came close to flooding out a couple times, but it made it and I got it moved in time – FOR A SECOND TIME IN JUST A FEW HOURS) and we had no water in our residence itself. Our neighbor across the street lost a vehicle, a shed, and had some basement damage. People not even two blocks away lost everything. People were being rescued out of trees. One man died. I’d never seen the Red Cross here, through 15 years of floods. Floyd. Irene. All the nor’easters. NOTHING was this bad. The creek normally falls as fast as it rises, but this time it just SOARED up, and stayed up for hours and hours and hours. It rose in like a half hour or so, peaked, went down a wee, and then soared up again, staying high until early Thursday am. We received almost a foot of rain, which would flood anyone. The main branch of the creek (which most of you would think is a river, but it’s not) crested at a record 19’+ (normal level is <7′). Not too far southwest of here was where the first tornado started, but it really got going east of us. It’s really sad. Our local county commissioner is the former borough mayor, so he’s really involved, not just here, but in the entire county. He’s really marshalling resources to try to help everyone. When FEMA is going to come in, I don’t know. But this county – and the entire region – were just devastated. A fridge? Meh. While it hurts the wallet, it’s a small price compared to that paid by so many others here and in the region. I want to thank all of you who knew what was going on and why I went quiet as I tried to conserve phone battery to not deplete my backup packs too quickly for being so patient and understanding. It’s been one HELL of a week, but we’ll get through it. I have the best hubby in the world and through everything that went on this week, both flood related and not, we got through it. Now to get back to “normal” – whatever that is.

TSB

Aftermath

Like most people on the east coast we got HAMMERED by the remnants of hurricane Ida. 11.5″ of rain, normally 7′ creek crested at record 19.1′, flood waters on my sidewalk almost up to my waist. But the tornados missed us, our home and vehicles are dry, and we still have all our utilities. I spent the night crocheting my blanket. Or trying to……

The flooded out basement set off the master fire alarm and it took a good hour to get the thing to stay off. Alex didn’t like it but he coped well.

Yesterday was recovery and relax day. We all needed it. Vehicles were retrieved and the people that be are working to repair the damages caused. Thankfully I’m on staycation this weekend.

Alex still is hampering my progress.

Snoopervisor

As most of you know I’m a mobile blogger. I’ve done posts from both the laptop and desktop, but phone is my go to. However, nikon, in their infinite lack of wisdom, left at least one android OS version out of app compatibility. There goes the phone, so getting pictures from the camera to the phone isn’t so easy. New tablet, new OS. It took a little work but *ding* success! OK now how to phone…. drive sync app syncs the tablet to the cloud then reverse to the phone. Alex is demonstrating proper snoopervision technique because his mama isn’t the most skilled…. lol. The phone was definitely his target.

No dude no playing on or with EITHER.