Yeah,   always been wondering about that — never been able to figure out what that means.   “Course, since I’ve never had enough money to call myself a true Republican anyway,  I never had to worry my little brain with such an ambiguous question, anyway.   Whatever…! I’ve had that little button in my images folder for a long time, thought I’d slap it on here and then toss it.   Unless someone wants it, in that case, be my guest — copy it and take it home with you.

But!   The cutesy banner you are looking at now  (cast your eyeballs just a tad downward, see the banner of which I speak??  — This is from what can only be from the “Olden Days”, which, in personal computer popularity describes the incredible pace in which humanity embraced the endless delight of  [drumroll please]  — Cyberspace.   The Internet.  (as some retarded mush-minds insisted Al Gore invented, where do these dingbats get their bizarre “ideas” anyway??)    As I was saying before I so rudely interrupted myself,   my kidlet fell into the personal PC fairy tale a couple of years before the rest of us numnutz stumbled onto the joy of our own ‘puter toy.  (I got my first computer for Xmas 1999)   She was working at our city’s huge and greatly respected hospital when she told herself…HEY!….I can design a website—complete with tutorials, graphics, bells and whistles required.   So she did.

And a lot of us happy but not terribly bright wanna-be-bloggers became newly minted  owners of our own domains —-we  had a heck of a great time yapping back and forth about how best to design our own blogpage  (using the graphics and every other  resource from FMW that  MzKitty came up with).   After 26 years as a competent Respiratory Therapist at the hospital I mentioned (where I volunteered my smiley services two days a week for 13 years after I retired in 1993 from a real job) Oh and Sunday mornings at Milwaukee’s beautiful Humane Society (volunteer), worked with wonderful Veterinary Tech and I just loved going there every Sunday…….since I am an atheist, I didn’t have to worry about going to *church*.  Whew.  I preferred caring for the cats and dogs, anyway.

A number of years ago there was a  neat little TV program I reeeeally liked and enjoyed……It was about a group of young people somewhere in England who were attending veterinary college.   It was filmed in what I almost believed to be a make-believe setting — I mean, Wow!  The school itself was situated in a dreamy and bucolic expanse of small rolling hills of bright green, big beautiful trees,  perhaps a couple of bubbly streams coursing over  shallow bedrock……..that’s what I mean by the scenery appearing to be almost surreal in its green perfection.  Hah.  Really beautiful.    The television series followed these [frequently] hapless young adults thru  very tough courses of animal husbandry.    There was just one itty-bitty distraction, though……….

I just had dinner~~~with “Vets in Practice” to keep me company. The TV picture was fine, it’s just the way the people talked that I had some problems de-coding. OK, maybe it’s me, maybe I’m not used to the real Briton as opposed to the enunciating perfection of British actors on TV. Know what I mean?

The British accent is so luverly, as a rule, why then is it so darn hard to understand when just ordinary people are speaking in the course of their ordinary lives? I sometimes stop chewing my food to see if that helps to understand what they are saying. Nope, that’s not it.

I turn up the volume. No help there, the mumbling I’m hearing is just exaggerated with it being louder. Here and there I get a few clear words……
The dog’s owner:: “ah so it’s a scan of her belly you’ll be wantingta borndlly signeeey farrrily blingera?”

Me:: WHAT?

The vet:: “Yeash I’ll corkknie dingalridiny
dkwooodkj not to mention her furry bottom”

Don’t where it came from, but I was doing some reminiscing about stuff. I think I’m ready for another article for my “Born in the U.S.A.–in 1930″ cardboard box.  I used to love “sleeping over” at my Gramma’s house. All  the  girls were married except the two youngest and they were the cat’s meow, the bee’s knees, etc. I slept with Connie, the baby of the family, upstairs where there was no heat in Winter (since no-one did anything but sleep up there, no sense wasting fuel). We slept under clouds, otherwise known as feather beds, the cover being a big poof of a quilt stuffed with feathers. It was wonderful. Until you had to crawl out onto the icy floor. Connie and my other aunt, Edna, went out on the town on most weekend evenings I was there. When Connie crawled into the bed, she smelled absolutely wonderful !! Cigarettes, perfume, whiskey……..heady stuff for a little girl.

Looking back, I was pretty lucky to have my grandparents and two aunts babysitting for me, I had a wonderful time at Gramma’s house. My Mom and two other aunts worked at Galoon’s Tannery, don’t really know what they did there, but it couldn’t have been a whole lot of fun. Just hard work. My Mother only worked part-time, though, ’cause she had a child, the others didn’t.

Oooooh, the memories are flooding back…………I was born in that house, in my gramma’s bed, even  a real doctor came over and gave my Mom a hand (literally, haha). So I guess I’ll write from when I had my first memories. Don’t know about you, but I’m looking forward to reading this blog, might be kind of interesting.

Hey…….someone stop me before I hurt myself  — well OK, one more tidbit. I remember my gramma washing the white strips the “girls” used then as menstrual period protection. Yup. The girls had these pieces of fabric—-white flour sacks, I think—-that Gramma bleached and washed for re-use the next month. Try to picture a busy wife and mother doing something like that today !!!  But then came  that  momentous moment when I got the intimate Mother/Daughter *talk*, after which came her gift of a cellophane-wrapped “sanitary belt” and a box of thick  *Kotex sanitary pads*.   (I was told to save this icky gift till needed)  Sheesh!

My grandparent’s house was in a neighborhood mostly populated by Jewish citizens.   This was a real bonus for ME, since Gramma and I would stroll up to the bakery to get a couple loaves of bread and a few schnecken………and just for me, a  small square of  halvah.   Oy, is there any other candy as overly sweet as this stuff?

Did you ever notice?

~~~When people see a cat’s litter box, they always say, ‘Oh, do you have a cat?’
Just once I want to say, ‘No, it’s for company!’

Copyright © meandthecat  2001-2010  All rights reserved

“High” School

I feel sad that teenagers today will never know just how much fun high school was then, and how inconsequential our big so-called problems were compared to today’s schools and students. That loss of innocence, how sad. Our idea of wild rebellion was to congregate during lunchhour in “the field” about a block from the school and—-gasp!! smoke cigarettes. I was always with my “gang”, all six of us, we were the snotty, infamous Fickle Pickles. We were carrying on a tradition from previous members who, when they graduated, bestowed the title on the most worthy girls they knew. That was us. When we graduated, we decided there were no girls good enough to carry on with the Fickles’ lofty standards of excellence, beauty and all-around wonderfulness. What a bunch of brats we were.

Hard to comprehend, I suppose, but just like “Happy Days” we too had our place to hang out after school. In our case, it was Militzer’s Dutch Treat and we apparently never tired of cherry coke ’cause that’s all I remember drinking. Along with a platter of french fries. It was a great place to schmooze and make goo-goo eyes at the boys. They mostly ignored us, but we were so conceited we thought they were just being shy. Oh, some would swagger over to our booth and sit with us, but they made sure we knew they were just doing us a favor. And honestly, we were not exactly skaggy wretches, I’d say all of us were pretty damm cute.

I was 5′ 8″ tall. Many of the boys were not. If there’s any tall girls reading this, they’ll know what I mean when I talk about how miserable it was to slow-dance with your knees bent and trying not to let your butt stick out in this exercise in futility.

But it wasn’t until our senior year that the boys had a final spurt of growth and I finally found some taller than me. What a relief! We all “went steady” a lot, in fact, one really neat guy went steady with me AND four of my Pickle sisters  (not all at the same time…eeuuuu!)  – Our idea of passion was to lie on my bed (obviously my mother wasn’t home) and “neck” a lot, and doing what we called “dry humping” thru our clothes. Gawd, those poor boys, it was a wonder they could walk home with their cojones all blue like that. We didn’t care because “good girls didn’t” in those days. And “reputation” was everything as I recall—it must have been important since I was a virgin when I graduated. I know, hard to believe, ain’t it?

4 September 2002
Another Moldie Oldie

Breaking News!

~~~Rambo doesn’t know it yet but he’s going to a new veterinarian tomorrow. Their peticures are $9, compared to that snotty place that charges $18. Maybe I’ll bring his carrier out into the living room later so he can start getting nervous, maybe even puke now instead of waiting till we’re on the way home tomorrow and doing it in the carrier.

He will be royally ticked off with me for keeping him away from his beloved vet tech at the other place, but that’s just too bad.  I’ll tell him when he gets a job and pays for the peticure himself he can go wherever he pleases.  As long as he lives under MY roof, he’ll do as I say.   Sort of.  If this new vet technician is wearing black net stockings, chains, black leather vest and carrying a whip, Rambo-Man may just pack up and run away from home……on the other hand he may just go for that rough stuff