Cats, Protests, and Teenage Boys

Boy oh boy a fresh sheet to write on.
It's about time I tell you about my new job.
But I also want to tell you about a recent protest.

So I'll start with three pictures that make my heart feel fizzy. Susan was throwing out old photos, so I snagged a handful of Big Bubba Brett when he was the opposite. Look at those little legs! And that belly!

It's strange to be able to see Brett in this very blonde teenager. I don't know him, and yet there he is.

Speaking of blonde teenagers, Brett, Erik and I went to a little pub to watch one of the World Cup games, and we were just minding our business, playing bingo (I won $15!) and eating fries when a seventeen year old boy plopped himself next to me at the bar and struck up conversation. I was shocked! The audacity! Erik was sitting between me and Brett so I got to see Brett lean forward to size up the little Casanova with an expression of disbelief. Erik laughed out loud while looking the kid in the eyes. Nothing shook Leo's nerve though and I had to talk to him for two hours.

 
During that time I learned that Leo wants to be a screenwriter or psychologist. He had recently returned from a school trip to Peru where he met a girl he thinks will wait for him. He talked on and on about himself and was shocked every time he found out that I have done many of the things on his radar. "Oh wow, you've also been to England?", "People had house parties when you were in high school?", "Really, you dated in college?" I began to wonder if there is something about me that suggests an unsocialized existence. I pleaded for help with my eyes, but Erik and Brett were busy enjoying the outing. 

Then Leo, who lacked the attention-span for a round of Bingo (I've never seen anything like it), pulled the cap off his Bingo marker with such gusto that the whole thing exploded. It splashed across his shirt and puddled in the crotch of his pants. It went all over the bar and dripped down onto the floor. He reacted with childlike confusion and looked to me, suddenly a mother-figure, to find a solution. I dabbed him off with napkins but the ink had stained his fingers blue. There was a blue puddle on the floor that he was unknowingly twirling his feet in and tapping around his chair. Erik laughed loudly at the explosion, offering no help and possibly embarrassing the child.

Moreover, the permanent ink splashed onto my white jeans and Leo was so focused on himself that he hadn't noticed the others affected by his ineptitude. I was not going to say anything or make him feel bad about ruining my pants but the more time that passed without him acknowledging it, the more miffed I became. When Leo went to the bathroom to wash his hands, I scolded Brett and Erik for leaving me alone with him but they didn't care one bit. Leo came back from the bathroom and rebounded from his blunder the way a seventeen year old boy would. He simply moved on. "You've had jobs before too? Wow. Interesting." 

Finally, I threw Erik under bus and made some comment about his assorted girlfriends and Leo became enlivened by the future possibility of being a ladies-man. He was enthralled with Erik, as though it had never occurred to him that one might be dating multiple people at the same time. Erik was surprisingly pleased by the awe bestowed on him by this child and began showing off. It was when Erik showed Leo a picture of a big-boobed girl he met in Georgia that Leo made fun of Erik for falling for an "AI bot" and then the two of them got into a spat about whether it was a real girl or not. I was still stuck between them, dabbing at my pants and checking the time, while Erik insisted he had made out with this person. 

We finally left Leo at the bar eating chicken wings, and within 4 seconds of stepping outside, a collection of blood-curdling screams ripped through the night air. My legs buckled. Brett froze. Erik leapt backwards. Turns out it was just a table full of my old pet shelter coworkers, with several dogs circling the table, who were especially excited to me. I received a barrage of hugs and rapid fire updates about several dogs and humans. Once the three of us recovered from the shock, I found it very flattering.

Here's a grandma Ruth style picture of Pipps sitting in front of the garden.  

Last year I got mad when I was driving Downtown on a day when my car thermometer read 103˚ and I found myself behind a carriage horse. The city has a "rule" about stopping the tours when it's over 95˚ but four different thermometers on breezy rooftops (not the hot asphalt where the horses are pulling overcrowded carriages) each have to show the temp for 20 minutes before the carriage companies will take them off the street. The result is that they rarely have to stop tours. The carriage companies are one of the biggest tourist attractions in town, and they pay certain city officials to ignore crazy rules about welfare. Well! I don't like that one bit. I found a group of other outraged locals (and tourists) and now we participate in peaceful harassment efforts to get the temperature threshold lowered to 85˚ - knowing they will still have the horses out when it is 90+. It's all were asking.

I brought some of my chicken group to my first carriage horse protest, and let me tell you, it is a contentious issue. The majority of people are either not interested or they agree that 95˚ is too hot. Fine.

 The carriage companies and guides (understandably... I guess?) disagree. They go on and on about how well the horses are treated "at the barn", except that's not what were arguing about, is it? A tourist told us that if we really cared about the horses, we wouldn't protest in the shade. (Great point, Sir. You really got us with that one!) One tour guide said "the horse's muscles would atrophy if they didn't pull that carriages and that would make them depressed." Another said that the horses would be killed if they couldn't have jobs. (But wait, I thought you said you loved them. It's almost like you're just... using them?) One outraged "horse-lover" called for a counter-protest that day, but no one showed up. Instead she came to pick a fight with us and I'm man enough to admit to you that my knees started knocking as she yelled. 

I'm accustomed to receiving The Finger or being shouted at from a moving vehicle, but no one ever confronts us. We aren't usually asking for things that anybody disagrees with (except the folks making money off of it - but they're never around). When this combative horse woman came over with her video camera trying to get a rise out of us, I felt like a little kid on the playground before a brawl was set to begin and girls would tear at each others weaves. I got scurred. Then she looked right at me as asked if I owned any horses. Everything I know about animal welfare left my mind and I smiled at her as though she'd given me a thoughtful complement. Why did I do that? Someone else had to jump in and respond to her. 

The next day she plastered photos of us on the interwebs, calling the twelve of us "uneducated lunatics" and claiming someone spit on her. Commenters chimed in that unemployed people like us should be thrown in jail. Someone else said we were paid protesters - wouldn't that be wonderful?

Here I am laughing in the face of fear! (If I keep smiling, maybe she won't hit me.)

Now here I've rambled on so long, I'll save the rest for later. In the meantime enjoy this photo of all four animals sitting in the same room. This is quite an accomplishment.

Also, see how Cam doesn't stand out against the rug? This has become problematic in the kitchen. He likes to lay in there while we're cooking and we just can't see him. 

We constantly kick and step on him, but he never wises-up. He just keeps taking the hits. 

Spot the cat in this photo.

The Hot Weather Chronicles

This time last summer I was in the thick of inner turmoil. There was no eating nutritious meals or enjoying the twinkly twilight time before the sun goes down, oh no. I was too squeamish to participate in life. A few times recently the anxiety monster that lives in my brain has said, "This weather reminds me, aren't we supposed to be panicked? Yes, yes I think so. It was dinnertime wasn't it, when we'd take on a sense of impending doom?" 

And I've had to do my best to ignore the monster's calls. It's going well, thank you, but disadvantageous at times. Instead, I've been enjoying the hot weather season - an attempt to make up for last year. I've been in the creek, in the garden, in the pool, in my new oversized office chair, and frequently in bed during the heat of the day taking a nap to power-up for a wild evening of watching tv when it's still a little blue outside. That feels wrong, doesn't it? My favorite is a post-dinner walk around the neighborhood. Something about it feels very adulty. 

Since last summer's withering of body and spirit, I've put on weight in new, inconvenient locations. What was once hard is now soft and what was soft has fallen down. I don't understand what happened and why it happened so suddenly. Is this yet another level of degeneration for the mentally insane? Just when your mind gets better your body tags itself in? Or, worse, perimenopause. I often smell cigarette smoke, have itchy ears, and create night sweats that could irrigate a small lawn, and I feel like if I don't tell people about it I'll have to endure the demise of my only body on my own, and that thought genuinely frightens me. So now I abide by "if you see something, say something" and Brett is almost done feigning sympathy. 

Now, the office chair. I'm thrilled about it. It is extra wide and slightly more deep so that one may sit in it in a variety of unsupported ways; upon one's ankles, Indian style, or in an upright cannonball position. I have long lamented the standardized human chair because who finds it comfortable to sit with their legs at 90˚ and their feet flat on the floor? Sincerely? I can hold that pose for five minutes before my feet long to be elevated. I almost purchased what's called "a cross-legged meditation chair" but I felt mild embarrassment about how stupid they look. I then considered a kneeling chair, thought better of the age of my knees and settled on what is effectively an office chair you would find in the Big and Tall section at store for pre-teens. It's pale blue and fuzzy. Brett tried it out for a while and got jealous, so I'm definitely onto something. 

As for my birthday, we did burgers on the grill and then bobbed in the creek:

And later had a family dinner at one of my favorite spots. Lee's dinner came with a side of fries that were so good we ordered some for the table, and Mom even found one of the chefs and told him how great those fries were. Interestingly I'm sure, my favorite french fries in all the town are located at a restaurant across the street from this one, so now I feel torn and delighted. When I need fries, I'll know exactly where go. We will park the car, make our way up the road, and only then, when we stand directly between the two restaurants, will I choose chunky sweet potato to the right or herby regular to the left. The spontaneity. The anticipation! Which one will she choose?

In cat news, Nora has decided to revoke the curtesy she was extending towards the disabled cat in our home. She is now being rude to both me and Cam, though she happily tolerates Brett. Ferguson is over all of it and just wants snacks and cuddles. Cam is usually drunk and just wants someone to play with.

Oh! Also, he escaped on the fourth of July and spent the night out setting off fireworks and vandalizing personal property. I worried the celebratory bombing would scare him too far away and he would get lost and then eaten by a predator who spotted his jimmy-legs from miles away, but he was in the driveway in the morning, just happy to be alive.

My garden meanwhile, is nearing its most productive state as well as what looks like the beginning of the end. There are lots of colors and tiny edibles in there but there are also some yellowing leaves, droopy stems, and an occasional self-implosion. The heirloom tomato and the bell pepper plant, who sat across the aisle from each other, participated in an early morning shinju last month and now their little empty plots remind me that I wasn't good enough for them. The tomato plants however, are as tall as Brett and just as busy.

Currently growing in the yard:

Tomatoes

Eggplants

Cucamelons

Bramble berry

Scuppernongs

Figs

Persimmons

Basil

Parsley

Dill

And a single pomegranate on a tree planted too far into the shade. We're really rooting for it. 

And then there was the fourth of July. There was a Guy/Union family gathering with the usual summer fare. The centerpiece was Dad's "yard art" to celebrate America. Later he added some American flags.

 

A mere 48 hours later, Brett and I were over at Jeff's house celebrating Julian's 10th birthday. How did that happen? He was just five!
Highlights include a wonderful taco dinner, all four boys sporting their new cuban-linked chains, and a water stain that has developed on the ceiling over the dining room table that is remarkably phallic. When I noticed it and pointed all four boys (and their mother) burst out laughing. I got tickled at the idea of an important gathering taking place there while that is just up there on the ceiling. What if their pastor came over? 

Kitty Cat Chaos

 - Long cat post incoming  - 

It is not lost on me that I’m doing an entire post about cats right here as I close in on my thirty-sixth birthday. While I’ve never seen any realistic reasons to scoff at a “cat lady”, the closer I become to earning the title, the more concerned I am that I’m not seeing what’s happening, that perhaps there is some strange reality to “cat ladies” and I’m falling into that fuzzy, comforting pit. But maybe my concern neutralizes the cats? Awareness counts for something, right?

This is all to say that we’ve acquired a third house cat. Now to recap, we never set out to have any house cats. Did we both grow up with plural numbers of cats in our homes? Yes. Do we both enjoy a biscuit-making, fuzzy friend? Of course! Did I secretly want one around? Absolutely. But I’m reiterating that we were normal. 

Then we bought our house and found sickly Ferguson in the bushes. 

The progression of thoughts was:

We can’t feed him.

Ok, we can feed him but he can’t come inside.

Fine, he can come inside but he’s not staying the night.

He can stay the night but we aren’t getting a litter box.

He was neutered and treated for fleas shortly after. Not long into his tenure as a house cat, he brought his girlfriend around. We know her now as Nora. Nora was a nervous wreck so we didn’t have to have conversations about her coming in, because she wouldn’t get anywhere close to me. 

Six months later she was sleeping inside.

Then Brett went out and bought a litter box because Nora tinkled on a pile of dirty laundry. I saw it as a one-off accident and was not ready to commit to a litter box but those cats immediately loved the sandy digging opportunities and then we couldn’t take it away. He won’t acknowledge it, but the litter box is Brett’s fault. Ferguson and Nora go on to become and bonded pair and it is genuinely wonderful to watch them care for each other. Brett won’t acknowledge it, but he hustles over when I say, “Quick, go look at the cats!” 

Meanwhile, outside, Ned showed up. 

The broken arm made us sad so we fed him. He also had fleas and a sizable head wound - we thought he was going to die soon, so it was the least we could do. Ned would show up with a new life threatening injury every week or so and we marveled at his ability to beat the odds. Then he brought his girl, Clara, around. 

We wouldn’t have fed her but she caught us feeding Ned once and then sat on the stoop and waited for her plateful. When it didn’t come, she began arriving with Ned so that she could eat his breakfast. He needed the fuel to recover, so fine, we put out a second scoop. 

And then somehow, this other cat, Stacy, found out about the sweet deal taking place in the driveway and she just pushed right on in. She was bossy about it too. 

At this point, Brett and I had to have a family meeting. “We can’t feed anymore cats. They are multiplying.” 

“I agree.”

“Good.”

“But…”

“No.”

“It’s too late. They’re expecting it. How to you look them in their little faces and tell them to starve!?”

We agreed that Stacy was the last cat I could feed. Brett even had the nerve sometimes to not feed any of them even though they showed up on time for breakfast and dinner everyday. Not too long into her tenure as a driveway grifter, I found Stacy dead in the backyard. Stacy was my favorite of the strays but the upside was that we seemed 

one-less-cat crazy. 

Just as we settled into our two indoor and two outdoor cat reality, Ned and Clara had to go start a family, and that’s how we wound up with Cameron and Barkley. 

Look at the family having breakfast.

Back inside the house, Ferguson and Nora were living the dream. I’m honored to say that both of them sleep next to me (Ferguson usually on my head) and come to me for cuddles and love-time. Earning trust from Nora is one of the more satisfying accomplishments in my life. (No need to read into that.) The two of them would play together after breakfast, nap in the sunbeams on the floor in our bedroom, and then spend the afternoon outside, before coming back in for dinner and cuddles. 

Clara kept Cameron and Barkley tucked away for months and when she finally brought them around to see us, they'd all stay out of petting range. At some point, maybe a few months, Barkley stopped turning up with the rest of the family. We have assumed the worst based on his status as a tiny kitten. Again, sad, but one less cat? At about six months old, Cameron’s curiosity about me got the better of him and he and I became friends. Clara watched all of our interactions from a safe distance. Six or seven more months of driveway meals brings us to present day.

In a positive turn of events regarding our neighborhood status as “that house with all the cats”, Ned, Clara, and Cam began showing up for meals sporadically. They’d leave for a few days and maybe one or two of them would come by for breakfast, or often no one at all. Two weeks passed without seeing any members of the driveway clan. A lady down the street told me they’d been hanging around her house. She was feeding them.

It seemed to us that we finally shook off the opportunists and had a perfectly respectable number of pet cats in the house. Another week passed. “I think we’ve done it!” A month went by. “We’re normal.”

Then one morning Brett shook me awake. “Cam is here. He doesn’t look good.” There on the stoop was my littlest friend. He was way too skinny, had patches of missing fur, was covered in fleas, and was barely using either of his back legs. 

Here, a 4-5 day saga of finding vets to help him took place. I got a referral from one place. X-rays at another. He was turned away at a third, and finally admitted to a fourth. In the interim time he was living in our hall bathroom and purring about pets and gobbling up any plates of food he could drag himself up to. 

The diagnosis - he was likely hit by a car. He has a broken femur on one side, a broken hip on the other, and a crack or two in the pelvis. The one vet said amputating the broken leg after a surgery on the hip might be the best way to go. “You can keep him inside right? He can't go out anymore. He won’t survive.” I had never considered having a third cat, let alone one that never left. 

“I was actually wondering if the best thing to do would be to put him to sleep.” I sheepishly admitted.

“Oh no, he’ll be fine. Lots of kitties live long healthy lives as tripods. He's so young. He'll recover.”

My precious, secret-softy husband accepted the news immediately. 

(Ole Dead-leg Cam)

While the threat of amputation lingers, Cam is back home under a “strict bed-rest” to see if parts of his bones knit back together. He goes back in six weeks for new x-rays. Meanwhile he’s hopped up on drugs and is living his best life. He follows me from room to room with his John Wayne/ Dancing Elvis saunter, sleeps on his back with all his legs akimbo, and heartily partakes in three meals a day while we try to put some weight on him. He spends mornings and evenings lounging on the screen porch and recently discovered the (slightly more sedentary) thrill of a Skitter Critter. This seems sweet doesn’t it?

Well Ferguson and Nora are furious. 

Not only is that grifter inside but he’s drinking from our water bowl!

Ferguson growls and hisses at Cam whenever he staggers by. Cam tries to sniff and submit but Ferg isn’t having it. Ferg often runs away grunting. Meanwhile, Nora is somewhat tolerant of Cam (mostly ignores him) and is being surprisingly mean to me. She will not let me pet her. She will not come into the house. She took a retaliatory dump in our closest. She turns away when I call her name. Sometimes Ferg turns on me when he sees Nora being mean and suddenly remembers that he is mad about the interloper.

In fact, Nora has spent so many of the last nights outside, that she came in yesterday with a huge, open wound on her back. (We’re too exhausted to take her to the vet. It will heal on its own, right?) (I go to the vet so often they joked about putting me on the work schedule.) 

As of today - two weeks of Cam living in the house - Ferguson will mostly ignore him, so this is good progress. Nora will let Brett pet her and will sometimes come in, but only if Brett is the one who opens the door. I’m shocked that sweet precious Nora is capable of vindictive thinking. Pippa, by the way, is entirely indifferent about the new cat and has even patiently worked around the fact that Cam took over her preferred dog bed. 

But the bit that bothers me is that Cam is always off by himself. Imagine living a wild, adventurous life outdoors with your family, and then you get kidnapped and kept inside and suddenly have no friends. I know he's lonely. Do you think he's sad? I'm also put-off by the idea that he might "fall asleep" one day and wake up without one of his legs. How do you explain that to cat? 

Anyways. We have three house cats now. But no driveway cats - Ned and Clara haven't been seen in two months. Ned may have finally made it through that ninth life. 

So there goes Cam's family. We're happy to be his new family (We got him some little stairs so he can get onto the couch with us.) (I know.) but we can't compete with the sociable, intrepid life he was living. A Skitter Critter can only do so much.

Current Cat Status:

Back To Normal

Now that everyone is home and settled in, I can continue with my everyday dulldrums reporting. Dad scampers around town. Ellen and Lee wrangle children. Mom and I look for a purpose in life. Brett taps away at his keyboard and spontaneously leaps through the living room to excite Pippa and scare off Ferguson. Brett has decided that Ferguson doesn't bring anything to the table.
We've had a couple Sunday Dinners, one much needed rainstorm, and Nick received a harrowing haircut from his mother. A true right of passage in childhood.

Here is a grainy photo of the UniBartonHauers after a Top-Golf birthday celebration for Papa U. Popples U isn't a big fan of his birthday. We find this absurd, because what a human to celebrate, you know? But he doesn't want to make a big deal of things, so we all played it cool this year and did some family golfing. This was Ellen's first experience wielding a golf club and my first experience watching Lee's sense of competition. As the less experienced players, it was fun for us girls to watch the fellas really whacking the balls with masculine intention.

 

Watching the very tense Champions League final. 

Ellie's Etsy shop has made it through the busy season, so my precise packing practices are no longer required. I have enjoyed spending time over at their house when it has not been polished the way we do when friends come over. They always have spotless floors and few knickknacks laying around, but not in real life. In real life they don't fold their couch blankets or wipe down the island after breakfast. Its nice to be reminded that we are all slovenly when left to our own devices. 

Look at that rainbow!

I do have pet and occupational news but I don't have time to type it right now. We've had a bustling few weeks with lots of moving parts and I haven't had time to sit and consider them for storytelling purposes. I know everyone says time goes faster as you age and it's no joke. I didn't really even realize it's June already. I thought maybe it was April.

As you may know, it's World Cup season so we've had the tv on constantly, which is particularly luxurious in the daytime. You feel like you're breaking a rule. It's been fun to have the TV on while Brett and I are in our offices and when we hear the announcers' voices get loud, we both come rushing into the living room to watch the replay. I've always thought soccer was a fun sport to watch, but since hooking up with EisenEars who tells me the back-stories of all the players, well I always fall in love with them and then can't look away. What lovable (and sometimes loath-able) characters. 
I understand why you might watch other sports if you were rooting for a particular human.

We've been just standing here a lot lately.

My last tidbit for now: When I was working over at the pet shelter, there was one dog in particular that I adored. He is big, strong and has "scary" eyes, so no one ever wanted to meet him or take him for a doggy-day-out. Most of the staff assumed he was difficult because he was surrendered to the shelter for growling at a kid that would come mess with his food bowl. So sure, maybe he's not great with kids, but that's no reason to treat him like a risky, bad-apple.
I like a big meaty dog, so I went out in the yard and wrestled with him right away, and that's how I found out that he loves really high bouncing bouncy balls and ticklish belly rubs. He is THE sweetest and I would sit in the yard with him during my breaks and he'd just snuggle up next to me. 

The whole time I was there, only two people wanted to meet him and even though both of them said they'd come back to get him, they never did. It sincerely crushed me both times. As the shelter got more and more crowded, I worried about him being sent to the county shelter (where you only get so many weeks) to clear space for puppies and "more desirable" dogs. I'll tell you that I spent a lot of time advocating for him. Everyone on staff heard my plea, so when I left earlier this year, I had to hope that they'd keep giving him a fair chance. 

Today, after eleven months, bored and overlooked in the shelter, my sweet baby boy Jasper was adopted - and my coworkers made sure to send me this picture of him headed out to start his next chapter. 

I love this dog and I love those women. It made my whole day.

The Big Italian Wedding

The long-awaited destination wedding of Uncle Tootie and Aunt Hea-Hea finally arrived, and all the friends and family members (and about half of Folly Beach's food and beverage staff) packed their bags and made their way to Sorrento. Aunt Georgia and I (and Brett) stayed home on pet and plant patrol, so the details I have about the trek have been gathered from brief text messages and occasional Facetime calls from Ellen. The consensus from the Union family is that it is the nicest wedding they've ever been to. Everyone looked and did great. I hear there were a couple days of partying on either side of the wedding day. Jordan, Margie, Uncle Dave, and Lee stayed up until the wee hours of each morning, huddled around a tiny table on the patio, surrounded by bougainvillea and lemon trees. The house they stayed in had an exciting garden. I believe this is my precious foursome standing in it - note Mom's purse that seems to have been hurled into the yard in an effort to keep it out of the photo.

The following are the beautiful photos I seemingly received in real time. Dad's photo updates in particular made me feel like I was included in all the fun. I was at Ellie's house packing her Etsy orders as the photos came in and I kept running from my duties to show her my precious family. I was just SO excited for everyone. 

I never got a clear photo of Alston and Halee but those will be coming.

Meanwhile on James Island, I kept myself busy creating my first in-ground garden. I went to Alston's everyday to feed his cats, Carolyn's every couple days to water plants, Ellen's house to let in the cleaners, and Mom and Dad's house to move some cars around. Those jobs mixed with my Etsy packing efforts kept me entirely busy the whole time my family was gone. I barely had time to lament their absence. 

Marcia kept Nick and Liv for the week and then brought them back into town in time for Livvy's Kindergarten graduation, and then I took over the babysitting until Ellen and Lee came home that night. I had to entertain them for just six hours - a mere moment of their lifetimes - but I felt every minute of that six hours because I am not accustomed to the lacking mental stimulation of such undertakings. I love those kids - would take a bullet for them - but gracious watching them for an afternoon is dull. You're really trapped and cooped because leaving the house is too much trouble. So there you sit, in a slightly damp spot on the sofa, while both of them talk at you at the same time. Nick threw a tiny tantrum each time I wouldn't let him eat candy, and I couldn't get either of them to eat a real dinner. Neither of them wanted to wear anything except their underwear and Nick understandably became frustrated when he lacked the dexterity and brain-power of Liv, so then there would be more crying. I'd thought ahead and brought some really big cardboard with me and that did a great job keeping them busy for a while. 

What I did enjoy about the experience was watching Liv manipulate Nick. She is entirely in charge and when things don't go her way because of Nick, she comes up with clever but cruel ways to make him do right. "Well Nick, if you're not going to do it, I might have to take away that toy I gave you last week." Even when they played out make-believe scenarios, it was really just Liv telling Nick what to do. "You're a dog, so you barked when you saw the bad guys... bark Nick." and then Nick would bark. "But you miss your Mommy so you started to cry... you have to cry Nikki." So he would play cry. 
"Why are you walking? You're a dog, they crawl."
I think we all can see how this relationship will work until the end of time.

Other tidbits: Bubbs and I have moved into our favorite season - porch season. We have a magical, nearly year-round breeze in our yard, so we just about live on the porch all summer long. It's my all-time-favorite thing. 

Cameron, the surviving kitten from the Cameron and Barkley pair, has taken to butt-scratches and suddenly understands the benefits of the house-cat life. He has recently begun stepping inside to inspect things for an hour or so before darting back out into known safety. He loves to dine in the threshold between outside and in, and will alert you to desires for pet and scratches. Brett tells me we can't have a third cat but I frequently catch him trying to lure Cameron into the house. Mostly Cam hangs out on the porch or watches me flounder around in the new garden. He's a chatty little guy - makes both of us laugh.