All Creatures Great and Small.
Drop by the following link
http://roxannerustand.blogspot.com/2009/10/author-lyn-cote-her-four-felines.html
and read about my sweet cats and see a few photos of them.
Hope it's not snowing where you are. It is in northern Wisconsin!--Lyn
Showing posts with label cats. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cats. Show all posts
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Monday, August 24, 2009
Hi from Lyn & Your Last Chance to Win
Mind if I share a bit?
It's been a rough 10 days. My mil's funeral was yesterday. She was the
last of our parents to leave. (I found myself re-mourning the other loved ones of that generation and was weepy much of the time.) My mil was on a ventilator for the last two weeks in a Chicago hospital. An ordeal for everyone.
And while she was failing more and more, my daughter and I opened and sorted
through nearly 90 years of accumulation. My mil and her sister who lived under the same roof for almost their whole lives never threw out a
greeting card or letter. Not even ones sent by their bank and
insurance companies!
Some of it was great stuff. My daughter found the box of
letters that my in-laws wrote to each other while he served on the USS
Bunker Hill in WWII.
Unfortunately, many other of the letters were in Slovenian. My dh's
grandparents immigrated from Slovenia (it was part of the
Austro-Hungarian Empire then and after WWII, it was a part of Yugoslavia) before WWI. I found Staramama's (Slovenian for grandma) brothers' two passports 1913 issued by Franz Joseph of Austria.
PLEASE EVERYONE write the names of people on the back of photographs!
I didn't throw any of the vintage ones out, but it was extremely
frustrating.
Fortunately for us, they had had a flooded basement a few years ago
and they lost half of what they had accumulated. But we still managed
to have 7 solid days of sorting.
We've spent 10 days here in the house in northern IL that will be sold
and today we get to drive home to our lake in the woods. I am so
homesick for WI.
Oh, and we inherited the cat. Mootzie (mutza is Slovenian for cat)
will be going home with us--to our 3 cats (one belongs to our
daughter). Oh, it's going to be a fun homecoming! HHHHIIIIISSSSSSS.
Just wanted to chat and remind you that your last chance to be entered into a drawing for a copy of Her Inheritance Forever is this week and through August 31, 2009. I have been distracted by all this, but I will go through the comments weeks 2-4 and have a drawing for a winner for each week. As you can understand, I've been a bit distracted this month. But I promised to give away 4 copies of my August book and I will! Please be patient.
Well, that's been my week. And it has been good to be with family. Hope you all have a lovely last week of summer!--Lyn
Thursday, January 8, 2009
The Christmas Menagerie
The last time I posted, I was telling about my mom and how animals were drawn to her.
But this is the best story yet!
When I was in college, I came home for Christmas break. And I walked into a "once in a lifetime holiday."
My mother had taken in a stray dog and had advertised in the newspaper to find its owners. She had also taken in a litter of 5 kittens that someone had said they were going to drown. She put an ad in the paper to find homes for them too. And she had taken in a cat which was in the garage because its owner (who had also said he was going to kill the kittens) said it was feral, savage.
My little sister had a pair of pet gerbils. So that means in my parent's small two-bedroom house, we had a stray dog, 5 kittens, 2 gerbils and a "feral" cat. The phone kept ringing with people who wanted to see if the dog was theirs. Also people called asking for the kittens for Christmas gifts for their children. And I got the job of feeding the feral cat which I thought was really not that wild.
That should have been enough, right? No, the coup de grace came when my stepdad went out in the backyard and found a stray parakeet. Yes, that's right. A stray parakeet. He brought it in and my mom sent me down into the basement for the bird cage she always kept for such visitors.
As I watched her place the very friendly and appreciative parakeet in the cage, I said, "Mom, only you would get a stray parakeet for Christmas. On the stray animal grapevine, your house must be marked as an 'easy touch.'"
The owners came for the dog. All the kittens went to good homes. The "wild" cat was brought into the house where he lived another friendly and peaceful 19 years--however, he did finally "get" the parakeet by the time I came home for summer.
Strength comes out in many ways. And one way is the ability to show active compassion. Animals were drawn to my mother because they sensed that she only wanted the best for them. I'm happy to report that she was as kind to people in need as she was to animals in need.
Do you have any family stories of pets and how they have been loved?
I have more, but that's enough for today.
Hope you're having a safe and healthy new year.
Lyn
But this is the best story yet!
When I was in college, I came home for Christmas break. And I walked into a "once in a lifetime holiday."
My mother had taken in a stray dog and had advertised in the newspaper to find its owners. She had also taken in a litter of 5 kittens that someone had said they were going to drown. She put an ad in the paper to find homes for them too. And she had taken in a cat which was in the garage because its owner (who had also said he was going to kill the kittens) said it was feral, savage.
My little sister had a pair of pet gerbils. So that means in my parent's small two-bedroom house, we had a stray dog, 5 kittens, 2 gerbils and a "feral" cat. The phone kept ringing with people who wanted to see if the dog was theirs. Also people called asking for the kittens for Christmas gifts for their children. And I got the job of feeding the feral cat which I thought was really not that wild.
That should have been enough, right? No, the coup de grace came when my stepdad went out in the backyard and found a stray parakeet. Yes, that's right. A stray parakeet. He brought it in and my mom sent me down into the basement for the bird cage she always kept for such visitors.
As I watched her place the very friendly and appreciative parakeet in the cage, I said, "Mom, only you would get a stray parakeet for Christmas. On the stray animal grapevine, your house must be marked as an 'easy touch.'"
The owners came for the dog. All the kittens went to good homes. The "wild" cat was brought into the house where he lived another friendly and peaceful 19 years--however, he did finally "get" the parakeet by the time I came home for summer.
Strength comes out in many ways. And one way is the ability to show active compassion. Animals were drawn to my mother because they sensed that she only wanted the best for them. I'm happy to report that she was as kind to people in need as she was to animals in need.
Do you have any family stories of pets and how they have been loved?
I have more, but that's enough for today.
Hope you're having a safe and healthy new year.
Lyn
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
I Remember Mama
Do you recognize the title of this blog post?
If you do, you're over 30 or an old movie or early TV buff. I Remember Mama was a book first, then a movie, then a charming TV series.
It was the story of a Swedish family that immigrated to San Francisco early in the 20th century. If you haven't seen this move, rent it. It is all about how Mama--kind, good and wise--keeps her family together and loved.
I lost my mother over a year ago. Unfortunately the end of her life was nothing like the days I most treasure, the days when she was a young and loving mother. Dementia and its unpleasant side effects separated us at the end.
But today I want to remember Mama, the way I loved her.
My mother loved animals. Our house was always filled with them--some ours; some of the neighbors. It wasn't unusual to come home from school and find the house filled with all the pets on the block. We had turtles, ducks, fish, cats, dogs, a baby robin. (The robin's another story for another day.)
One special memory is the cat from down the street who obviously didn't trust her kittens with her owner. She had her kittens in her own home. But after a few hours after delivery, she carried each kitten one by one up the hill to our house. My mother "got" what the mama-cat wanted and set up a box with an old blanket in it. The cat nestled all three of her mewing kittens to that box and moved in. Once or twice a day, she would go down to her house and visit her owners but then she would come back to our house.
Our neighbor was not amused. But what could she do? When the kittens were old enough to give away, my mom found homes for them. And the mama-cat moved back to her owners.
One Christmas memory I have is of my first cat, a very large, a very loving tom who thought that we had put the Christmas tree up just for him. He climbed it every night!
And this was in the days of glass ornaments. Every night for three nights we woke up to CRASH!!!! We had to pick up the tree, sweep up the shattered glass ornaments and redecorate.
Now most moms would have banished the cat until the tree came down New Year's Eve.
Not my mom.
She put a cup hook in the all and tied a narrow rope to the tree. Then the cat could climb the tree and not knock it over. Now most moms would not have wanted a cup hook in her living room wall. But to my mom, the cat was more important than the wall.
Now I'm going to stop rambling for today. But drop by Thursday, New Year's Day and read about my mom's most unbelievable animal Christmas.
Blessings,
Lyn
If you do, you're over 30 or an old movie or early TV buff. I Remember Mama was a book first, then a movie, then a charming TV series.
It was the story of a Swedish family that immigrated to San Francisco early in the 20th century. If you haven't seen this move, rent it. It is all about how Mama--kind, good and wise--keeps her family together and loved.
I lost my mother over a year ago. Unfortunately the end of her life was nothing like the days I most treasure, the days when she was a young and loving mother. Dementia and its unpleasant side effects separated us at the end.
But today I want to remember Mama, the way I loved her.
My mother loved animals. Our house was always filled with them--some ours; some of the neighbors. It wasn't unusual to come home from school and find the house filled with all the pets on the block. We had turtles, ducks, fish, cats, dogs, a baby robin. (The robin's another story for another day.)
One special memory is the cat from down the street who obviously didn't trust her kittens with her owner. She had her kittens in her own home. But after a few hours after delivery, she carried each kitten one by one up the hill to our house. My mother "got" what the mama-cat wanted and set up a box with an old blanket in it. The cat nestled all three of her mewing kittens to that box and moved in. Once or twice a day, she would go down to her house and visit her owners but then she would come back to our house.
Our neighbor was not amused. But what could she do? When the kittens were old enough to give away, my mom found homes for them. And the mama-cat moved back to her owners.
One Christmas memory I have is of my first cat, a very large, a very loving tom who thought that we had put the Christmas tree up just for him. He climbed it every night!
And this was in the days of glass ornaments. Every night for three nights we woke up to CRASH!!!! We had to pick up the tree, sweep up the shattered glass ornaments and redecorate.
Now most moms would have banished the cat until the tree came down New Year's Eve.
Not my mom.
She put a cup hook in the all and tied a narrow rope to the tree. Then the cat could climb the tree and not knock it over. Now most moms would not have wanted a cup hook in her living room wall. But to my mom, the cat was more important than the wall.
Now I'm going to stop rambling for today. But drop by Thursday, New Year's Day and read about my mom's most unbelievable animal Christmas.
Blessings,
Lyn
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