I have a cat named “Ed.” Actually, he’s been called “Edwina Scissorhands,” and “Edward Scissorhands,” but now he’s just plain “Ed.”
He’s about 10-12 years old now. One winter he adopted us. It was bitterly cold outside, and he found his way into the garage. I saw him resting on the seat of the lawn mower. Of course, I asked DH to let him into the house, and his response was to bring a heater to the garage.
Well, the temperature dropped drastically outside, and the heater had to be moved to the attic to keep the pipes from freezing upstairs. Of course, without the heater, the garage was freezing, and that’s when Ed managed to get into the house.
The rest is history.
He’s needed a lot of loving lately. You have to give it to his specifications or he’ll swipe a paw at you in irritation. He’ll also swipe a paw at you if you quit before he’s done. Right now, he’s laying next to my elbow, with his head upside down. Give it a minute or two and I’ll be able to look into his mouth when his lips flap open.
As much as I came to love Defer, I’ll always be a cat person. I like their independence. There are two things that interest me about Ed. The first is that he is a creature of habit. He wants to be let out before sunrise, and he wants to be fed (for the first time) several hours later. We expect him to return to the house by two in the afternoon, and for the most part he obliges us. He comes to me for a snack at six in the evening, and a second snack at nine. Each time he expects to be stroked and loved up. Then, if I sit to read, and pull a quilt over my legs, he’ll join me for a bit.
The second thing that interests me is how he’s become more socialized over the years. Ed must have been someone’s pet. I’m sure that he was abandonded after he had become accustomed to being touched by people because he loves to be stroked and scritched. But, when he first came to us, he was well on his way to becoming ferel. Our son worked with him, patiently offering a hand, a pat, some loving…..a bit at a time, until Ed was comfortable around him. Now, he expects us to “love him up,” and that includes from the tip of the nose to the tip of the tail.
Each year he has sought us out more. If we are gathered in the living room, he’s likely to check on us before finding a spot for a comfy nap. While he’s still independent, it’s as though he needs the reassurance that we are there. He’s in and out a dozen times a day, ostensibly for a nibble, but more to make sure that we are there to do his bidding.
Right now, he’s dead to the world. I can expect the snoring to start at any moment. He makes life look easy.

I stole this meme from Leg’s blog. You’re welcome to steal it from me, if he doesn’t mind.

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We have two bird feeders outside the kitchen windows. Yesterday we discovered that there is an albino bird who visits the larger feeder. I suspect that he is a red-winged blackbird, and I think from his behavior that he is in his late teens….not quite an adult, but on his own.
His feathers are almost a light cream color. He has the size and shape and beak of a blackbird, and the area on his shoulders where we would normally see the red and yellow bands seem to be slightly ridged. He is more gentle than the mature birds. I’d say he plays well with others. *G*
This is our first experience with an albino bird. I took pictures with an instant camera today, and I’ll see if I can get my stepson to catch the bird with his digital camera. Perhaps we will have something to share with you in a bit.

…Billy. It’s a book meme.
…the rules are…steal it, post it on your site, bold the books you’ve read and add three of your own….
And, a word of warning. I did this in Word, and transfered it to Moveable Type, and had to go back and bold about a fifth of the list. So….transfer the list, and THEN bold, if you’re working in MT.
And…..I think I’ve read Watership Down, The Little Prince, War of the Worlds and Ethan Frome, but movies or TV may have lulled me into just thinking I’ve read them, so I didn’t count them on my list.

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Update:
I wonder what happened here? I was sober when I posted!
I’m sure it was the best post ever written, an astounding entry of great virtuosity about life with mother, or motherhood, or something along those lines.
My apologies to those of you who missed it.

This should give you an idea what my week has been like. Today is Wednesday and I just got to visit the Friday Five. These are the questions for the week:
1. What do you do for a living?
I am the office for my husband’s masonry corporation. I am the receptionist, the bookkeeper, the filing clerk, computer repair person, human resources specialist, the OSHA officer, legal laison, typist, and general all around dog’s body.
2. What do you like most about your job?
The freedom to work around my other obligations
3. What do you like least about your job?
Incessant repetitive paperwork.
4. When you have a bad day at work it’s usually because _____…
Some jerk in another office who doesn’t know how to do their own job has dumped their problems on me and expects an instant fix. I’m good, but I’m not perfect.
5. What other career(s) are you interested in?
I’d like to own a quilt shop or a book shop, or teach adults how to read. There are days I’d like to be a hired hand at a garden nursery, and I think it might be interesting to be a conference planner or a concierge at an elegant hotel.

I was visiting the English blogs this morning and came across the Mr. 5000 war on Billy, Kev and Elsie’s blogs. It seems Elsie has had 5000 visitors, and both Billy and Kevin claim to be number 5000.
That prompted me to go check my stats. When I wasn’t looking it rolled past 8,000. I was the 8,088th visitor since late June, 2003. At this rate, by the time I reach one year of counting I should have had more than 10,000 hits. Unfortunately, probably a quarter of them are mine (or more).
April 23, 2004 is my first anniversary as a blogger. It’s hard to believe that I am close to having blogged for a year. When we shift over to the new ISP I’ll be able to edit out my own visits, and then we’ll REALLY see how many people I put to sleep each night! *G*

I have three e-mail accounts. Long ago I got to the point where I used just one of them, and I actually forgot my password for my second AOL account. I let it lie fallow until tonight when I noticed I had 44 e-mails. I had to go in and change the password so I could access the account.
I’m sure you’re way ahead of me at this point. What I had was 44 pieces of spam, which had come in over the past 30 days. I realize that this is a very minor amount of spam; I get a lot more than that on my active account. I’m astounded that it has crept into an account which isn’t used. I never surf with that account, and have not even opened it in more than two years.
AOL seems to feel that I should open that spam, collect the addresses and then report the mail as spam. In return, they will identify the mail as (spam) when it hits my mailbox the next time around. Why don’t they delete accounts which send spam? Why do I have to risk opening mail from strangers in order to do their work?
I noticed that AOL was proudly announcing that they had seriously cut back complaints about spam. I suspect that members have simply stopped talking to them about it. Until they develop a better method for deleting it, why should we bother?

Yes, that’s right. It will cost advertisers 2.3 MILLION DOLLARS for a thirty second ad on the Super Bowl this weekend.
Doesn’t that figure astound you? The Super Bowl is considered to be the most watched time period on TV, based on statistics from previous years. The volume of viewers in the past is the basis for determining the cost for ads for the current year. I wonder if the teams playing this year will generate as much interest as previous competitions? Or, is it possible that people now tune in just for the ads?
There’s a limit to the number of slots available, and it’s the big hitters who already have well known names who vie for those slots. They know they need to keep their names in the spotlight, to keep generating sales. They want you to remember frogs in a lily pond, or Jordan and Bird drawing up the guidelines for impossible basketball shots. You can see that those images stay with us for years.
But….how many others can you remember? And were are all those dot.com companies who spent that kind of money two years ago??
Wouldn’t it be lovely if they chose to donate their $2.3 million to Habitat for Humanity, or a food pantry, or Head Start? It’s too bad that we don’t give them as much acknowledgement for generosity of that kind as we do for goofy ads.
I can tell you that I’d be more likely to support a company that did good deeds than was just all talk. What about you?

DH and I drove into Chicago Friday night for the rehearsal of my niece’s wedding. The rehearsal went well, and the rehearsal dinner was a LOT of fun. This is a very social group and they worked it hard right up to the time we were all being encouraged out the door.
The wedding was absolutely beautiful. The bride was in an elegante white satin gown with beading, and her attendants each wore the black formal dress of her own choosing. They looked spectacular! The groom and his groomsmen wore black tuxes.
One of the groomsmen pasted a Cubs sticker on the sole of the groom’s foot, so we had a chuckle when they knelt during the service. I managed to do my reading without crying. Well….maybe a sniff or two.
I wasn’t warned that this was a formal wedding. My outfit was on the edge of being too casual, but the long skirt, and black shoes and hose pulled it off. Thank you, all of you who reassured me, and encouraged me to be myself.
The reception was held at an Irish American Association hall. Everything was buffet style. They set out quite a variety of hot and cold appetizers so everyone could catch the Cubs game, and then the dinner buffet was set up around 7:00. Everyone had a great time. I’ve never heard so much conversation! We left about half an hour after the dancing started. It was time to drive Mother home. (Actually…..it had been a long day for us, too.)
So…..TWO wonderful weddings this year! When the brides finally get their pictures, I’ll see if I can post a couple of them.