The Neighbor’s Cat

The neighbor’s cat — Pepper, aka Sweetness, Pepperoni, and Peprika — headed over the rainbow bridge the other day. I stumbled onto this post about her today and re-posted it in memory of her.

Michael Seidel's avatarMichael Seidel, writer

An old, sweet callie, she seems in pain, and tired. Our neighbor for fourteen years, sShe’s a frequent visitor, singing at doors until we let her in, letting herself in if the pet door is open, and then launching an opera about getting fed until she’s paid for her efforts.

This morning, I’d let her in, fed her, and returned to bed. After a bit, I felt a cat get on the bed, an effort noted for the sounds of climbing up the duvet. I thought it was her because of the lightness of being that tread across my legs and confirmed it with a glance. This was a first for her; she’d never visited us in bed before.

She began a purring lullaby as she came up the bed. Stopping by my face, she greeted my nose with a soft tongue touch and amped her purring to eleven. Going…

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Puzzle #11 Is Finished

We finished the “Dream Garage” (Michael Fishel) jigsaw puzzle today. Took us three days to assemble the 1,000 pieces.

While the odd shapes put me off, I enjoyed the puzzle details and vivid colors. Remember how gas stations often blazed with neon signs? Seeing those logos invited television jingles into my head.

Lots of Coca Cola memorabilia, but give me A&W Root Beer!

“STP is the racer’s edge.”

“See the U.S.A in your Chev-ro-let.”

“Only Mustang makes it happen, only Mustang makes life great. Mustang, Mustang, ’68!”

“You can trust your car to the man who wears the star, the big bright Texaco star!”

Then the cars. Four of them were the sort of cars I slobbered over as a fourteen year old in 1970: Mustang, Corvette, Camaro, and Challenger. I ended up only owning a Camaro. It was a fun, memorable car, good gas mileage, excellent performance, and reliable. It was just a 327, though, not an SS 396 featured in the puzzle.

Besides the Coke and car stuff, there was a cigarette machine (how long since I’ve seen one of those?), a Wurlitzer jukebox (in the puzzle’s center), a pin-up calendar (over above the purple Challenger) and movie posters for Some Like It Hot and Bullitt. (See Steve McQueen up there in the right hand corner by the clock?)

Be a few days before we begin the next one. We have several in the closet awaiting their turn, but I’ve been eyeing a few on the net, so…we’ll see…

Jigsaw Puzzle #11 Has Begun

We’ve begun “Dream Garage”, the name of the challenge of jigsaw puzzle #11.

It is a challenge. We love the bright, vivid colors, and detailing, but man oh man, I dislike the weird, uneven shapes. That’s really turned me off.

Anyway, it’s begun. It’ll probably be July before we finish the 1,000 piece beast.

Guardian Angels

He used to be a believer, but then he’d drifted away. Yet the thoughts were on his mind that God is great and everywhere. The lake’s cool majesty amidst the mountainous green serenity prompted such thoughts every year.

It was an annual tradition (twenty-six years, he realized, although he usually had others with him — his wife, most years, but his daughter (and then her boyfriend and husband) a few times). Still, he took care as he backed the boat trailer into the water. After releasing the boat from the trailer, he tied boat to the dock with a the rope, returned to the truck and pulled the truck up out of the water. Pausing to catch a momentary breath (he was eighty-nine years old, for crying out loud), he gazed into the clearing sky and smiled at the day, and then ordered himself, quit dawdling, and turned briskly back to the lake.

His jaw dropped. The boat was drifting out into the lake. But he’d tied it off. What the heck. Rushing down toward the water, he saw another boater veer in his direction. In a moment, the stranger had wrangled his boat and returned it to him. “Looks like your rope broke,” the woman said. Thanking her, he nodded agreement.

His wife arrived as the savior in the boat pulled away. He’d been expecting his wife for the last hour. Frazzled looking, she explained that she’d had a flat tire. “I was trying to find Cathy’s place, and I wasn’t sure about where I was going, but when I pulled onto the main road, the tire just blew.”

She was in the middle of nowhere (with no bars on her cell), but she was capable, even if she is seventy-five; she set about changing it. Unfortunately, the little tool provided by Subaru was insufficient for her to turn the nuts. Just as she wondered what the heck she was going to do, a man and his son arrived in their Chevy. Within a few minutes, they’d dug out a toolbox, found a wrench and swapped out tires. Thanks was all they’d take in exchange for their work.

A hectic morning, both agreed. It could’ve been worse, but these were minor problems, given the world’s state. Still, as easily as they were resolved, they must have had a guardian angel watching over them that day, and for that, they were thankful.

Busy Dreams

So much happened in dreams last night. Putting it all together…well, I probably failed that. But, here goes.

My wife and I were in a new car, a small vehicle, made of gold. I was driving, and the car pleased me. I was very happy with my new acquisition.

My wife was in the passenger seat and there were two people in the back. We were going through a tunnel, perhaps exiting a parking complex. She told me that I’d missed the turn. I couldn’t turn the car around, so I backed up. Not able to see where I was going, I hit a support pillar with the car. This upset me, but we kept going. When I finally parked, I checked the bumper for damage. There was none.

After parking, my wife and a friend were going shopping. I decided to check into a hotel. But first, I spoke with Jerry.

I haven’t seen Jerry since 1977. We were stationed together at Wright-Patterson AFB in Ohio. Smoking a cigarette (as he often did back then), he was laughing and talking about how he’d changed. “I used to be a survivalist. You wouldn’t believe the stuff that I had.”

Laughing, I said, “I find that hard to believe, knowing you.”

Dead serious, he replied, “You don’t know me. You think you do, but you don’t.”

I went into my hotel room, got into bed and went to sleep. A while later, noises in the room awoke me. It was Jerry’s wife. She said, “Hey, do you need anything, baby?”

I said, “I need you. Get into bed with me.”

She said, “No.”

Shrugging, I sat up in bed. Her long dark hair was now a short bob. Looking right, I saw a pile of hair on the floor. “Have you been in here cutting your hair?”

“Yes.”

“While I was sleeping?”

“Of course.”

My wife rushed through the room. I realized that she was going shopping again.

I dressed and hurried to work. When I arrived, I found hundreds of people milling around, waiting for something to start. The man in charge gave me several lists. “There are forty possibilities in here. You need to match them up from the different sources so that we have the information we need.”

Looking at the lists, I saw that many were printouts, but some were newspaper articles. Some had circles in red markers, but others were highlighted in orange. Another man came up to help me.

“Can you do it?” the man in charge asked.

“Yes.” I was confident that I could. He left, and I got busy. It soon became apparent that the information was more difficult to sort and mass than I realized. He expected results for forty but there were hundreds or thousands of possibilities. I struggled with finding a scalable way to do it.

The man with me said, “It can’t be done.”

“Yes, it can,” I replied.

The man in charge came up. “How’s it coming? Are you almost done?”

“No,” my helper said. “Far from it. I don’t think it can be done.” He and the man in charge argued.

I said, “I can do it. Give me time and space.”

The man in charge said, “Okay, we’re counting on you.”

End of dreams.

 

 

 

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