Posts Tagged ‘Pequenita’
Holding Court
When the weather outside returns to single-digit cold, there is added incentive to spend a little more time indoors. After work yesterday, I sat down and leaned the recliner back for a little relaxing review of the latest newsworthy offerings from a multitude of front pages on the internet. 
It didn’t take long for our furry friends to join me at that location. Cyndie captured the moment for posterity. I was holding court with our crew.
I read them some of the most outrageous blurbs, but they both ignored the content. Delilah just wanted more scratching, while Pequenita simply wished Delilah would go away.
I switched to telling them tales from this week’s commute to and from work. One morning I had the pleasure of moving in a group of vehicles stuck behind the dreaded slow ambulance with flashing lights.
It moseyed along at a speed about 5 miles an hour slower than the prevailing desired rate of travel. No one dared to pass him, because if you are in front of an emergency vehicle with it lights flashing, you are supposed to pull over and let it pass. Meanwhile, other cars ahead of the ambulance were noticing the lights and pulling over, subsequently becoming added vehicles to our ever-increasing pack.
It was odd to see this huge group of cars slowly “rushing” down the highway together toward their diverse destinations.
On the way home, on a section of divided 4-lane expressway, I spotted a car ahead of me that was having dramatic difficulty maintaining position in the right lane, both crossing the center line and moving off to the right shoulder. It was a little scary to witness. I wondered if it was alcohol related or a case of texting while driving.
I decided to get around the car by passing in the left lane. As I made my way cautiously past, I glanced over to assess the likely reason for the poor lane management. I can’t swear it wasn’t alcohol related, but the easy explanation and my first impression was that it was probably age-related.
The driver was a little old man who could barely see over the steering wheel. I am fairly certain he wasn’t doing any texting.
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Full disclosure: No animals were injured in the creation of this post.
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Look Up
Some very interesting images can be found by looking straight up. A few days ago, I posted a shot looking up a concrete utility pole in Florida. Here is another version of the same pole, after walking around to the other side.
They probably deserve to be shown as a pair. I like the contrast of the opposing direction of the light source between the two.
Meanwhile, I’m back at the day-job, digging out from a backlog of work that piled up while I was away. I was so exhausted when I walked in the door after work yesterday, I laid down for a minute. Pequenita immediately took advantage of my presence and pummeled me with kneading and head-butting in a quest for attention.
I think she missed me.
In a blink, I was no longer blinking. My eye lids stayed down and my brain checked out. It just so happened, my labor wasn’t immediately needed outside. For the first time since Cyndie’s knee surgery on the last day of November, she handled the outdoor ranch duties!
I think the chance to do some extended walking while we were in Florida, away from the icy, snowy terrain, boosted her confidence. Monday night she walked Delilah while I cleaned up manure and filled hay boxes. Yesterday, she did morning and evening chores, drove to a physical therapy appointment, did exercises there, and then went grocery shopping.
Talk about getting back into action. Of course, after dinner it was quickly time to get horizontal for the rest of the night and ice the knee. Fair enough.
It feels like I have come out of the tunnel. Things are definitely looking up.
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Scratch Fest
When I walk in the door at home after work, Pequenita kicks it in to high gear, meowing and rubbing herself against my legs in a plea for attention. The second I settle somewhere to take a load off my feet, she climbs aboard.
I am at her service, giving her whatever she seems to want the most, in terms of massage and scratching. Her head shifts up and down, to and fro, moving to direct my fingers to the next sweet spot.
I suppose we both gain something out of the exercise, but I get the impression that she tends to enjoy it just a little bit more than I.
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Rainy Getaway
While a valuable soaking rain washed our world yesterday, Cyndie and I began preparations to drive to the lake. Delilah sensed something was up and lolled around, somewhat restlessly at first, and then fatefully. I think she figured out we had an agenda that didn’t include her.
She would be staying home to play with Mckenna, our house and animal sitter who has known our horses longer than the time we have had them.
Memorial weekend is the traditional work weekend at the lake place. Sounds like this year the main goals are cleaning up the beach area and preparing the water crafts.
The rain may have something to say about how much work actually gets done.
Shortly after noon, Cyndie and I were taking turns updating Mckenna with details of the latest animal escapades, when Delilah decided to help out with a demonstration of how she is becoming more aggressive in her dominations over Pequenita.
“Yeah, like that.” I said.
Check the pond, dump the dehumidifier, switch for the ceiling fans is over there, the door handles latch upward, animal food in the cupboard, ‘fridge and freezer stocked with people food, paddock gates can be left as is. Good to go!
Our drive north was painless, requiring windshield wipers about 60% of the time. Gray and wet is the pattern for the time being. We were the first to arrive and got the water turned on and a fire started in the fireplace. I changed a burned-out lightbulb and Cyndie prepared a late-afternoon appetizer for those who would be arriving soon after us.
About the time darkness fell, Cyndie’s phone rang. She could see it was from Mckenna, but couldn’t get the connection to hold. She tried returning the call using the cabin’s landline. After several misconnections, success revealed news that Pequenita had flown the coop and couldn’t be found.
Hours earlier I had been describing to Mckenna how surprised I was just a couple of days ago that ‘Nita had dashed out the sliding screen door before I even got my first foot out.
Seems our little feline might have been making a practice run with me. I texted Mckenna not to worry, but of course she felt horrible. I suggested that our sweet little cat may have finally decided she has had enough of Delilah’s repeated harassments.
Although I’m sure that it felt like an eternity for Mckenna, it wasn’t long before we received text messages that our escapee was home again, safe and sound.
Maybe Pequenita was just jealous that we went away for the weekend, and she wanted a getaway of her own.
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Reconciling Melancholy
Every day isn’t always rainbows and unicorns. Sometimes transplanted trees don’t survive and balanced rocks fall. In and of themselves, individual issues are not really that big of a deal. What I noticed over the weekend was that the little things have a mysterious power to lurk below the surface and weigh down the ambiance of an otherwise wonderful series of days.
Fortunately, I have access to an incredible antidote in the form of some fine animals in a very special setting. Photos by Cyndie.
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After a short span of time, the rocks that I used the tractor to lift into place on the tall tree stump, have already fallen. Since it happened so quickly this time, I have decided not to try again. I was thinking I could cut the stump to a lower height, where I would be able to reach without needing the tractor, and then select some rocks that aren’t too heavy for me to lift. But then I remembered that we have another bird house that was given to us, and that could be a great spot for it.
It was probably a bird that landed on, and tipped, the balanced rocks anyway. What do you figure?
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Overwhelmingly Loved
I am living a charmed life lately. Really. It’s a bit overwhelming. How do you adequately thank someone for loving you?
Pequenita has been dishing out so much affection for me that I am almost feeling smothered by her. At the same time, who can resist the charm of a cat who repeatedly seeks a perch somewhere on top of you?
She can be so insistent for attention when I get home from work that I have to pick her up to protect my legs from becoming her scratching post. If I make the mistake of choosing to lay down with her for a few minutes at that hour of the day, I usually become the victim of an unplanned nap.
She oftentimes finds a suitable spot on my legs and joins me for a snooze.
My lovely wife has been spoiling me with extra special attention by choosing healthy options for my goal of eating a reduced sugar diet, and tweaking her bread recipes to incorporate more diverse grains with extra substance. Lately I have a thing for millet in bread, along with a fondness for wheat berry and sunflower nuts, in addition to the usual whole grains.
Yesterday, Cyndie nailed it with a couple of excellent loaves, hot out of the oven at dinner time, while she was simultaneously whipping up some fresh homemade pasta to serve as a base under her delectable leftover beef bourguignon that was recently pulled from the freezer.
It certainly feels like being loved, to be fed like that.
My mom gave Cyndie some special training on how to make the bread I grew up with. Talk about love!
Last night, while looking at the beautiful loaves she created, I suddenly noticed an insight about how my father must have felt about the bread mom baked for him throughout their life together. Mom told us stories about how she first learned to bake bread when they were newlyweds stationed in a fire lookout tower in Glacier National Park.
By the time I was born, over 10-years later, she had definitely mastered the craft. Her homemade bread was a staple in our kitchen. Dad was a stern scolder when we didn’t cut straight slices. We toasted it and fried it, and I recall Dad used a slice to soak up the juice on the meat platter when the menu involved steak.
My parents weren’t very demonstrative of their love, but looking back, those years of homemade bread reveal a pretty good version of it.
Now I am blessed with the same. It is overwhelmingly lovely.
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Cat Love
For the last ten minutes, when I could have been typing with two hands, I have instead been thoroughly preoccupied by a certain cat who plopped down on the corner of my laptop, strategically beneath my right hand. In our house, I appear to be the cat magnet.
Our little tortoiseshell, Pequenita, always comes to the door to greet me when I get home from work. If Delilah happens to be in the house, ‘Nita waits for a turn, but she makes a point to visit. She has this wonderful/terrible habit of reaching up my leg for a stretch, and flexing her cute little front paws so that her sharp claws pass right through anything but my heaviest Carhartt jeans to make startling contact with my delicate flesh.
I know she means well, but the reaction it involuntarily evokes involves spontaneous reflex flinching, some yelling, occasionally cursing, a bit of anger, a dash of sadness and hurt feelings, and perplexity over her lack of sensitivity to my plight. That all leads to my questioning why we have a cat.
Then I remember, we have a cat so we will have something to clean off the coils under the refrigerator whenever we get around to checking it. I assume, as ironic as it would be, the mice around here are thrilled over the vast resource of nest material that piles up in every out-of-sight nook and cranny in our house.
After the ten-minutes of head scratching and full-body massaging that she gets from me when I crawl in bed and she arrives for her session, there is a small blizzard of cat hair sticking to me, my keyboard, the comforter, her back, and floating in the air currents of the heat vents.
What can I do? She loves me.
I’m her pin cushion and her masseuse.
I must admit, it is kinda nice to have one pet in the house who doesn’t go into barking fits over sights and sounds outside these walls. Maybe I should work on getting the cat to try out the stretchy clawing maneuver on the dog every time there is an eruption from Ms. Barksalot.
The old stimulus / response model thing.
Delilah’s smart. She’d probably figure out she shouldn’t go all panicky barking at squirrels after a few sessions from Pequenita, don’t ya think?
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General Goodness
It’s been a quiet day in Lake Wo-Wintervale-begon. The weather was mild all weekend, the trail cam continues to capture rabbits and squirrels, and progress on my wood sculpting art project has advanced, but not enough to stand out in pictures. Trust me. I considered showing them here today, but the results were too emphatically underwhelming.
The horses have been emanating incredibly peaceful vibes, Delilah is mostly behaving, and Pequenita endlessly seeks hands-on attention from me. Cyndie has been extraordinarily productive with creative abundance from her kitchen. I stand around wondering how to at least be ‘above average,’ never sure how to achieve the ‘good looking’ descriptor that Mr. Keillor tosses around.
We’re at one of those points where, in my past life, I would respond with a multitude of reasons for a gloomy outlook. It is a precious thing to have forged a path above and beyond that inclination, and to be able to relax and absorb the absence of dilemma today; to actually feel joyous, in fact.
Sure, the Check Engine Light still comes on in my car after every time the shop resets it, but I’m not stressin’ that. It is what it is. Things are mighty fine in general, and being able to appreciate that goodness, without struggling so to do, is icing on a cake that I get to have, and eat, too!
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Fun Friday
In the morning on Friday, Pequenita was stretched out at the end of the bed while Cyndie and I were studiously working on our laptops. I know I was working because I can see by the screen that I was in my work email account.
I had stepped away for some reason, and when I returned, I got this view of our cat, stretched long at the spot just beyond where my feet had been, with her front paws tucked beneath her.
How cat-like endearingly appealing that looks.
We had plans for the day that involved creating some fun food to bring to a gathering of a group of futsallers with whom I had played for many years, before my degenerating disks forced my retirement from the game.
I suppose that may have helped to inspire the coincidence of our spontaneously deciding to pull out the giant soccer ball for the horses to play with in the relative warm sunshine of the afternoon.
I recorded a short video so I could provide proof to my old friends that there is soccer still in my life on the ranch. Well, sort of.
The hours after the horse-play were filled with experimenting in the kitchen, where I helped with some taste testing and cutting & wrapping home-made caramels that Cyndie cooked up late Thursday night.
Then it was off through Friday afternoon rush-hour traffic to get to the party where we enjoyed hours of wonderful food and fellowship. I relished the opportunity to catch up with friends and hear stories about the ongoing morning games and the growing participation.
It was nice to meet a couple of the newer players and particularly precious to reconnect with my old favorites. The food was exceptional, to the point we packed a doggy bag of leftover foods that captured our fancy, when retrieving our dishes as our target departure hour arrived… and passed.
Brief moments after I had made the rounds, saying goodbye, a group photo was requested. While we were posing for that, Cyndie’s brother and his wife arrived, prolonging our visit for, I think, two more rotations of saying, “Good night. We have to leave!”
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Relative Something 