LifePundit

The day a kitten fell from the sky -- literally!

You really need to see a picture of this guy. He's three weeks old and is a fluffy orange-striped tiger cat with bright blue eyes. His ears flop over slightly at the top. His belly bulges with bottle-fed milk. He's active, tiny and about the cutest thing you've ever seen. He's an orphan kitty who was dropped off at the vet's.

This was no usual drop-off-the-orphan-kitten-at-the-vet's delivery, in a car with the mother explaining to the children why they couldn't keep the cat.

No, this kitten was dropped off at the vet's -- BY HAWK! Yes indeed, this kitten fell from the sky. The hawk lost his grip, the kitten slipped, and, of all places, in landed in the yard of a vet clinic.

And to think he was almost lunch.

I saw him in the carpool line yesterday. One of Lily's friends' mothers works at a vet clinic, and she had the kitten in the car to take care of 'round-the-clock until he can eat solid food. It was all I could do not to bring him home with me. We already have three cats, two horses, a dog, rabbit and hamster. We are not short of cats.

When Lily got in the car, I asked, "Would you rather have a kitten or get to keep daddy?" I won't tell the answer. But if I'm ever an old lady living by myself, you're going to read about me in the papers. I'm going to have about 60 cats.

Jesus Didn't Have a Mother-in-Law

Paul's birthday is this weekend, so we are going out to dinner with his parents.

Did I mention that I am covered over with old people? We've got my parents, who are 95 and in frail condition. So Paul's parents moved down here so we could take care of them, too. They are in their 70s and at the retirement community where they party all the time. I couldn't keep up with them. It's like a country club and a middle-school clique, all rolled into one.

But I shouldn't complain about being covered over with old people, because I know that the clock is ticking pretty loudly for my own parents. And I grieve.

Still, some people are easier to deal with than others. And you won't find my mother-in-law's name on anybody's list of people who are easy to deal with.

I haven't figured out what is the Christian response to a person like her. I know I'm supposed to love her, but I'm not good enough to conjure love where there is none. Paul had to explain her outlandish behavior to Lily, and I think he summed it up well when he said, "You just have to understand that Granny is a dog who bites."

If you want to see Granny's picture, just google "Narcissistic Personality Disorder."

Granny has so damaged her relationship with Lily that Lily will hardly speak to her. We force Lily to be polite, as she must be to all grown-ups. She will never have to be alone with Granny again, though. Still, Lily is wary and Granny knows why. So what does Granny say? "Lily, you go to church, yet you aren't a very good person because you don't forgive me."

Incidentally, Granny has never admitted that she did anything requiring forgiveness. But now I'm getting cranked up and I am determined not to go there on this blog -- or any other area of my life. I cannot change Granny, and so far I cannot change my reaction to her, but I can change me. Surely.

I dread tonight's dinner, like I dread all interactions with her. I have tried to find a biblical approach to dealing with her. Sometimes I think she falls in the category of allowing me to shake the dust off my sandals and get the heck out of there. I have given up on getting through to her. She only hears what serves her. I know I'm supposed to love her, but I am not able. The best I can do is pray for her -- and even more for me.

You see, I don't like who I am around her. I don't like who I am before we get together, when I am stewing about what she might say/do this time. And I don't like who I am after we get together, when I am stewing about what she actually said/did this time. Truly, the best thing to do is to avoid her. I should be a bigger person, but I'm not.

But I'm going tonight. It is Paul's birthday. He hates to see his parents, too, but he is a Good Son so they are invited. And I try to be a good wife, lover and friend, so I, too, will go.

Happy Birthday, Paul.  At least we know the food will be good.

Domestic Rule #2: What to do about bacon

You are allowed to purchase bacon once a year. Otherwise, you are not allowed to buy bacon. Don't act like this is a surprise to you. Everybody knows what's wrong with bacon. Other than the taste, everything is wrong with bacon.

However, if you go somewhere and they offer bacon (such as a breakfast bar), you can have all you want. You can also have all you want when you are on vacation. In fact, as long as you didn't go to the breakfast bar just because they have bacon, you are required to have bacon.

These rules do not apply if your religion forbids it, though I think I would try to find a loophole somewhere.

For example, a friend of a friend keeps a kosher kitchen. Two sets of plates and cookware, two dishwashers, everything that is needed to follow dietary rules. Still, this is the South. Barbecue is good. If you live in the South, it is required that you eat barbecue. But how to do it without breaking the dietary rules and tainting your kitchen? Get take-out barbecue and eat it off of paper plates with plastic forks and knives.

I'm not making this up. This is what I am told that they do. I'm not here to judge. I'm here to eat barbecue.

Addicted to "24"

There's a long time between days on Keifer Sutherland's "24." We just started watching it last season. What a shock to find out that was the sixth season! Where have we been?

I guess we did just fall off the turnip truck.

So, we've spent the summer catching up. We just finished Season Five last week. Now that I know who is who and what is what, I'd like to see Season Six again.

Actually, now that I'm addicted, I need to see more. More. More! It doesn't matter what it is.

The next season doesn't start until January. I don't think I'll make it that long.

Domestic Rule #1: When making your bed involves a sleeping cat

A new addition to LifePundit! Domestic Rules to help you improve your life.

Domestic Rule #1: Everything you need to know about making your bed

Make your bed every day. You will earn an allowance for this, though you may never actually collect it. However, the rules change if making your bed will disturb a sleeping cat. If you cannot make the bed without disturbing the cat, do not make it. If the cat gets up later and you are still at home, you must make the bed then. However, if you have already left for work or wherever it is that you need to be, you are excused from making the bed that day and you will still receive your allowance, though you probably will never collect it.

Changing Churches

Paul drops off Lily at school in the morning on his way to work. This morning was yet another switch in the carpool line. It was such a mess that Paul decided in desperation that he should stop on the road so that Lily could hop out onto the sidewalk and run across the school grounds. Lily was afraid some one would honk at her, which would of course make her wither and die. I can hear her thoughts, "My dorky dad stopped on the street so somebody honked at us and EVERYBODY saw I was with him...."

So, Paul stopped. And the guy behind him honked. Not once. Not twice. But a whole bunch. Paul was about to make an obscene gesture but had the rare good sense not to.

Thank goodness! The honker was our soon-to-be former minister. He drove up beside Paul, rolled down his window, and said, "We miss you already. Lots."

We miss our soon-to-be-former church, too. I never thought we would leave there. I want to be buried in the church memorial garden wall.  Paul and I joined together, before we were married. We were married there. Lily was baptized there. They loved us and held us together through bad times. through pain and doubt and miscarriages and lay-offs. I had a difficult pregnancy, and when Lily was happily delivered alive and healthy and ready for life, one of the ministers I was very close to was at my side, smiling and filled with joy, before I was even off of the delivery table.

When I was admitted to the ER for other reasons, the minister who honked at Paul this morning was there beside me almost before the doctor. He told me words I will never forget, words that keep me going when there doesn't seem a reason to put one foot in front of the other.

We tried to give back, too. Both Paul and I served as Deacons (never the same years). We taught Sunday school, led small groups, tried to help out when we were called and led. What a joy and comfort to be a part of such a church family.

So why are we leaving?

Lily, of course. She is twelve. We have her for six more years at home. Six more years to put her in the right path. She doesn't feel connected to our soon-to-be-former church. There are many reasons and you can probably guess them. Basically, the kids her age aren't as nice as their parents. There's even the bully from school that I could write about at length, but I won't.

So, we have found a better place for her. A church where the kids are welcoming and she's made friends. She's even become best friends with the pastor's daughter (actually, her friend is the daughter of TWO Presbyterian ministers -- her mother and father. A double PK -- preacher's kid). We have spent the summer going there, and it's clearly where we are supposed to be. Lily even cares what she looks like when she gets dressed for church, and will go to youth events without being beaten, or at least not being beaten hard. (Just kidding.)

I long for our home church, for the place I never wanted to leave. But I can see already how God is at work in this new place. Maybe if I'll get over my despair about changing, he'll even find a way to use me there.

Fire Ants and an Unsafe World

Back in the good old days, you could stand in your yard without fear. You could stretch out on the ground and watch the clouds. Sure, there were ants. Native ants that were busy with antly things, like carrying off food if you had a picnic. Now, you have to worry about fire ants. I hate them. I want to watch them die.

I know a man who set up a ladder over a fire ant mound. He put each leg of the ladder inside a water-filled can, a moat to keep the fire ants from coming up the ladder where he was. Then he rigged up some kind of contraption where he could stick a probe down deep into the mound and torch them. Yes, torch them. He said it was enormously satisfying. Then, he moved the ladder, poured gasoline on the mound, and set it on fire. This probably felt better than actually accomplishing anything, but I know the feeling. I'd torch the suckers myself if it wouldn't burn the house down.

I've had to switch the dog to canned dog food so that he eats it quickly before the fire ants can get on it. The rabbit hutch has Vaseline around each leg, and has been sprayed with pesticides, too, to keep the ants from coming up and attacking the rabbit. We have to check it constantly. The barn cat food has to be put in a bowl that sits within a larger bowl of water, yet another moat that will keep the ants out until a piece of straw or something creates a bridge. They'll even get in your car if your child has dropped a French fry or something edible.

These are insects from hell. And it seems like there are more and more every year.

They've started coming in the house. I have to keep the dry cat food in the freezer. My husband got stung this morning while getting his coffee. I keep all the doorways and window frames sprayed. There are 12, yes 12, ant bait stations in one part of the laundry. They are supposed to kill the mound in 24 hours. They've got about three hours left before I fumigate the house and go down with it.

When Lily was a baby, I found them entering her nursery. Oh, dear God! Don't let the ants get my baby! And they didn't.

The horses stand all the time (except in the stalls) because the ants would swarm them, too. The ants swarm the blue bird houses and kill the babies. They kill anything weaker than them.

I tell Lily it didn't used to be like this. The world was a much safer place. Even your own back yard.

And then I don't tell her about all the ways that her world is unsafe compared to when I grew up, when we only had to worry about being nuked. We don't talk much about terrorists, child predators, packs of pit bulls, school shootings or crime. We do talk about Internet safety, personal morality, how to make good decisions and what we expect, and what we believe God expects. I pray that God keeps her safe, because I cannot.  Still, we  do all we can.

Fire ants are awful but easy by comparison. Mind you, what we do doesn't really work all that well, either. Our whole neighborhood tried a fire ant eradication day a couple of years ago. The theory was this: If I treat my yard for fire ants, they'll just move next door. So, if next door is also treating for fire ants, we'll have a fighting chance. We did make a dent in the fire ant population that summer.

It seems like we're always dumping poisons and the most it does is lower the infestations and reduce the attacks. I don't like to think about what it's doing to the well water or the rest of the environment, or even to the toxic levels inside the house. But I do know that I'm not living in a place where we get bitten just for walking in the kitchen.

"They" say it's only a matter of time before we have suicide bombings in the mall or another 9/11-type attack.

Americans will put up with a lot. But when it comes to human fire ants, there will be a reckoning.

"Fat" is the F-word

How is it that nearly 24,000 people die every day from hunger-related causes, yet I've got the opposite problem? And I'm not alone! To find out how your state ranks in obesity, go to Trust for America's Health and click on your state.

But I feel guilty enough about the 20 lbs. I ought to lose without feeling like my appetite for brownies is killing people in the Sudan. For now, it's all I can bear that this excess weight is killing me.

"Fat" is the F-word. We're a smart bunch of people. We ought to figure out how to feed the hungry and not over-feed the chocoholics.

I know exactly what to do. It's the doing it that's the problem.

I wish I had other people's vices. It would be so easy for me to NOT fight or injure pit bulls. It would be so easy for me NOT to shoplift, since I never have. It would be so easy for me to stop smoking, since I'm not going to start. But at least three times a day I need to eat. And what happens then is not easy for me. Food is good. I like food. Food likes me. So why aren't we living happily ever after?

Because I AM NOT going to buy Bigger Pants!

How to tell twins apart

How do you tell twins apart? Help me!

I have cousins who are twins. Two sets of cousins who are twins. I doubt that my aunt could tell her sons apart; they were that alike. The other twins I could tell who was who but could never remember which name went with which one, because that was the era when twins were dressed alike and had twin names.

Now I've got nephews who are twins and they are easy to tell apart. They don't look alike and their names aren't twin names. Thank you, thank you to my brother and sister-in-law for making things easy.

But here's the problem and I need your help. Lily is great friends with a set of twins who are absolutely identical. One had a spot on her nose that helped for a while, but the darn thing went away. When they come over, I try to associate the colors they are wearing with their names. Then they put on their bathing suits and the jig is up. I think I've quit calling them by name, which isn't fair or nice.

But! What do I do? My daughter says one's face is rounder than the other. I can't tell.

Any strategies for telling twins apart so I can treat these nice girls right? (I'm so embarrassed I've asked them so many times....)

Another day in the ER

I spent most of today in the ER with my father, who fell twice over the weekend and broke another rib. The assisted living place sent him to the ER because his hemoglobin is low and his blood pressure is even lower. Since he arrived by ambulance, he was put in a bed so our 8-hour wait was at least in a private room in the ER. (Sometimes we get rooms, sometimes we get curtained cubicles. I asked the ER people why that was and they couldn't tell me. The mysteries of the ER.)

So much sadness and literally broken people all around. The lady with the second broken hip across the hall. The young person with heart trouble. Those people being trolleyed up and down the hall. So many naked great big jostling bellies! Gosh. Great inspiration to eat healthy, exercise and enjoy every day.

I tried to think of things to be grateful for while I was in there. I tried to be grateful that we have several nice ERs (and hospitals) in our city. I tried to be grateful that my parents have lived to be 95 and enjoyed really good health up until recently. I tried to be grateful that he finally got a room. I tried to be grateful that I got to the hospital cafeteria 15 minutes before it closed.

I tried to read. I tried to write. I tried to be cheerful and bolster my father. Sometimes the ER just weighs too heavily. That was today.

They finally admitted him, after 8 hours, for blood transfusions and pain meds. As his doctor said, in his condition with his problems, he could legitimately be admitted to the hospital any day of the week.

My father and I talked about his garden, his plans for next spring, and how he can't wait to eat the asparagus he planted. It will finally be ready for harvest next spring. He is planting blueberry bushes on a hill that I will inherit. He has a list of things he needs to do, and he hasn't checked all the items off. He never will.

That list keeps him going. He can hardly walk. He has lost 55 lbs. He has to carry oxygen with him and take frequent naps. But his garden and his plans give him a reason to live. Hospice recently dropped him because he no longer qualifies. He wasn't supposed to live until last month. He's putting in his fall vegetable crop now (he supervises a man he has hired.) But he shouldn't be out in that heat.

Today was bittersweet. My father has lived a good life and is still sharp and funny. I am grateful that today I was actually a comfort and a help to the man who has given me so much. And I am grateful that Lily and Paul had a great father-daughter afternoon in my absence. They went to church and lunch, then came home and ordered an indoor bunny cage for refuge for when the weather is too hot. They got to go swimming and even cleaned up around the barn.

Life is good. But eventually, life does end.