Tag Archives: shelter cats

by Luanne | April 26, 2017 · 5:20 am

Urgent Need of a Patient, Loving Person in the Phoenix Area

Wedding week is here, so our family is busy and scatterbrained. But before I sign out for the celebration days, I need to share an important message. I jabber about Perry a lot. He’s a cat who is somewhere on the continuum between feral and socialized. I hope with my loving care that he can become socialized enough to make a very good house cat. He showed up in the right yard if he wanted to find somebody who was willing to give him a chance.

But at our shelter for the past full year we have had two little brothers who are just like Perry. They even look a little like him–furry and grayish. I’ve posted about them in the past, but they are growing older and are now fully adult cats. They have become socialized enough that they love to play games with people. They looove other cats. All they need now is a home together where they get the attention of a patient human family who wants to experience the rewards of finishing the socialization process of these two gorgeous cats.

Life at the shelter is not a path to socialization.

Check out the video:

Please pass this information on. Post it on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, wherever you can.

We need to find a home for these sweet boys. They deserve a chance. They wouldn’t survive being sent to live in a barn.

Contact Home Fur Good at 602-971-1334

Closing for comments, but please SHARE!

1 Comment

Filed under Arizona, Cats and Other Animals

Tagged as #wordpresscats, animals in need in Phoenix, Arizona, cats, feral cats, Phoenix, Phoenix area animal shelters, rescue cats, shelter cats, socializing cats

by Luanne | October 27, 2016 · 5:20 am

Memoir Writing Lesson #9: Check

Today’s memoir writing lesson from Natalie Goldberg’s Old Friend from Far Away:

Tell me about a time you washed the dishes. 10 minutes, go:

Until I read Thich Nhat Hanh, the only big events that involved washing dishes were the holiday dinners where the kids wash the dishes for me. I put the good china and silver away, after they scrub and dry them. But when I discovered The Miracle of Mindfulness I saw the daily routine of dishwashing as something more than one more chore to check off my daily list. He teaches that when I wash the dishes, I need to wash them in order to wash them. Period. I need to be in the present and feel the soapy water on my skin, the temperature of that water, and the adhering crumbs of food under my fingertips. I need to experience the slippery surface of the plate when it comes clean and watch the clear water rinsing off the dirty, seeing it come down in little rivulets. In short, I need to become “one” with the experience. When I wash the dishes this way, I am part of the little sink area, the double stainless basins, the graceful chrome faucet, Planet detergent, foaming handsoap, and the big window–unblocked by curtains or shades–that opens out on the green of our trees, the oleanders and bougainvillea, the flagstone walkway, and the little brown fountain. In the morning, the big gecko performs his pushups and suns himself directly in front. In the summer, hummingbirds fly up to greet me. In the evening, I can better focus on the washing itself without being distracted by the “moment” of the gecko, the hummingbird, or the buds and seedpods hanging from branches.

###

What a difficult one. You know how when you park your car in the same lot you park all the time you can’t find it because you can’t remember where it is? That’s because all those times have blended together–and it’s hard to isolate that one time today you parked it. Same thing with washing dishes. I wash them almost every day!

But I’ve written about dishwashing twice before, both related to the concept of mindfulness. The first post was on January 19, 2013, and the second was almost exactly two years later, on the anniversary of my mother-in-law’s birth, January 29, 2015–right when my father was so sick and we didn’t yet realize he was dying. So while I didn’t focus on one time I washed the dishes (oh, there was that time I cut myself in the water and turned it red), at least I wrote about dishwashing.

So was what I did good for memoir? The general rule is to write the specific event. The one time something happened. If it happened a zillion times, choose one time and write it that way and have it represent all the times it happened. I didn’t do this here. The assignment I give myself is to go back and re-write the above into a single occurrence.

Is there a place for this overlay of experiences in memoir?

Go ahead and try it. Start here: Write about a time you washed the dishes.

My dear Kana

18 Comments

Filed under #AmWriting, Cats and Other Animals, Creative Nonfiction, Flash Nonfiction, Inspiration, Memoir, Memoir writing theory, Nonfiction, Research and prep for writing, Writing, Writing prompt

Tagged as #amwriting, cats, Creative Nonfiction, Creative writing, Memory, Natalie Goldberg, Nonfiction, Old Friend from Far Away, shelter cats, shelter cats in Phoenix, The Miracle of Mindfulness, The Practice of Writing Memoir, Thich Nhat Hanh, Writing, Writing memoir, Writing prompt, Writing tips

by Luanne | October 26, 2016 · 5:20 am

Memoir Writing Lesson #8: Check

Today’s memoir writing lesson from Natalie Goldberg’s Old Friend from Far Away:

Write for 10 minutes about Jell-O. Go.

In my mother’s grocery cart I was used to seeing a few boxes of Jell-O, along with Campbell’s chicken noodle soup and Chef Boyardee ravioli, which my mother pronounced raviolah and the neighbors called raviolee. For years I didn’t question why Jell-O was one of the main food groups. Meat, potatoes, vegetable from a freezer box, store bought dinner roll, and of course, Jell-O. That’s what we ate too often for my taste. Jell-O was a suitable dish for church potlucks. And when it came time to bring dishes to Grandma’s for holidays, Mom or one of my aunts had to bring the Jell-O: two-sided, one cherry and one orange; mint-green made with the lime-flavored mix and cream cheese; or a plain color with mandarin orange segments or canned fruit cocktail floating like thumbs and pinkie toes in formaldehyde. Jell-O was tolerable when other parts of the meal weren’t: lima beans, beets, and brussel sprouts. Then Anique moved in across the street. She wasn’t part of the family. They had six kids, all under the age of ten, and I babysat for those kids. When Anique arrived as an exchange student from France (although she was German with a German last name—the W like a V), I no longer had to babysit, but walked across the street to see her anyway. On the day we met, I asked her what surprises she had found so far in America. She didn’t even have to think about her reply. “Jell-O!” She shuddered when she said it. I asked her if they had Jell-O in France. She laughed and told me that French people would never eat anything so disgusting. Although I didn’t really change my opinion of Jell-O—I’d never respected it or even loved it, but it was tolerable on its own (i.e. no floating garbage)—I could see it from her perspective. I no longer took it for granted that Jell-O was a major food group.

###

I realized after I wrote this that the memory of Anique’s words was so vivid to me because it was a defining moment: I no longer had to see the world through the eyes of my family.

Go ahead and try it. Write about Jell-O for 10!

We always have black kittens and cats available at the shelter–except around Halloween when they are not up for adoption.

23 Comments

Filed under #AmWriting, Cats and Other Animals, Creative Nonfiction, Flash Nonfiction, Inspiration, Memoir, Memoir writing theory, Nonfiction, Research and prep for writing, Writing, Writing prompt

Tagged as #amwriting, cats, Creative Nonfiction, Creative writing, Jell-O, Memory, Natalie Goldberg, Nonfiction, Old Friend from Far Away, shelter cats, shelter cats in Phoenix, The Practice of Writing Memoir, Writing, Writing memoir, Writing prompt, Writing tips

by Luanne | October 25, 2016 · 5:20 am

Memoir Writing Lesson #7: Check

Today’s memoir writing lesson from Natalie Goldberg’s Old Friend from Far Away:

Write about coffee.

Ten minutes on coffee? Goldberg figures everybody drinks it, or if they don’t, they stopped for some reason. But I have never had a cup of coffee. I don’t know why. When I was a kid my mother’s two younger siblings, my aunt and my uncle, didn’t drink coffee either. All three of us liked ice cream, and we all preferred it with baby spoons so we could stir it up with Hershey’s chocolate and then mince our way through it with those tiny spoonheads. But coffee? No. My dad was a big coffee drinker. He never drank water, but drank coffee instead. His blood must have been part coffee. My mother also drank coffee, but a human quantity (unlike Dad). Whenever Dad wanted to rest from his relentless expression of hyperactivity, he’d hold out an empty coffee cup and ask my mother to pour him some coffee. I never liked the smell of coffee, a smell I associated with an odor of garbage, something that is over and done with, discarded. Like cigarette butts. Empty cups and overflowing ashtrays. On road trips with my parents, we had to stop for “a cup of coffee.” It was never for a Coke or a burger or a snack. But a cup of coffee. And my father took that quite literally, ordering himself coffee. When I was young, it was coffee with cream. When I got a little older, he drank it black. Until the year he died, my father drank coffee at 11PM every night, just before bed. By the time mom climbed into bed after him he would be asleep. That last cup never kept him awake. Maybe my father’s relationship with coffee had something to do with his undiagnosed (except by me and, later, my father himself) ADHD.

###

Go ahead and try it. Start here: Write about coffee.

Simon who lived at the shelter and just went to his own home!

24 Comments

Filed under #AmWriting, Cats and Other Animals, Creative Nonfiction, Flash Nonfiction, Inspiration, Memoir, Memoir writing theory, Nonfiction, Research and prep for writing, Writing, Writing prompt

Tagged as #amwriting, cats, coffee, Creative Nonfiction, Creative writing, Memory, Natalie Goldberg, Nonfiction, Old Friend from Far Away, shelter cats, shelter cats in Phoenix, The Practice of Writing Memoir, Writing, Writing memoir, Writing prompt, Writing tips

by Luanne | October 24, 2016 · 5:20 am

Memoir Writing Lesson #6: Check

Today’s memoir writing lesson from Natalie Goldberg’s Old Friend from Far Away:

“Name three times when it came to you clearly that you wanted to write a memoir. Go. Ten minutes.”

Just after we moved to Phoenix, the gardener handed me a piece of junk mail and asked if I wanted it. The brochure from Gotham Writers Workshop offered online courses. Since I work at home (now that I’m retired from teaching) for our business, an online course appealed to me because I could fit it in “whenever.” When I looked at the genres, I suddenly knew I wanted to study memoir writing. I had an unfinished story that I’d inherited, so to speak, and I wanted to be able to share it. Maybe I wanted to be able to monkey around with it, try to figure things out. Maybe I wanted to solve the mystery and air the secrets. If only I knew them. I’d already studied poetry and fiction years ago when I got my MFA. Creative nonfiction barely existed in those days–and our program didn’t offer them. I wasn’t smart enough to think about memoir as a vehicle for my story in those days, although I tried over and over with poetry. Most of those attempts fell flat. So I signed up for my first memoir course.

Another time I knew I wanted to write a memoir was when my father did something that upset me very very much. I was middle-aged and he was treating me as if I was a kid. And as if I was wrong. When he was irrational and vindictive. Rather than talking to me, he mailed me a letter. When I got it, I was so upset I picked up the phone. Luckily (not) for my mother, she answered it and got my wrath dumped on her. After a conversation where she tried to defend my father as I accused, I finally had enough and said, “This is why I’m writing a book!” While my comment was as vindictive as my father so often was, I don’t think my intent was: I needed a place to vent and sort out the insanity of what I’d been put through for so many years.

The third time I clearly realized how it important it was that I write and finish my memoir was when my father died. While he was dying, we talked every single day. It wasn’t all small talk. My father was compelled to talk to me about the past and our relationship. He apologized. He explained. He told me things I didn’t know–about himself and about me. I finally had the ending for my story, and I also had the reason others would want to read it because it became a story of forgiveness as much as a story of survival.

###

I find some of the structure of Goldberg’s sections amusing. After naming this exercise, she goes off on a tangent of how important it is to find writing friends (thank you thank you for my writer friends–I love you!) and going to readings (and similar writing or writer-based activities). I’m not sure how that subject connects with the prompt, but I think the prompt is important because knowing what made you want to write a memoir helps you to find your (true) story.

Go ahead and try it. Start here: Name three times . . . .

Moe is one of two long-haired feral brothers living in the roaming room at Home Fur Good in Phoenix. They are doing well at getting socialized. Moe’s brother Maverick is perhaps more social than Moe. His fur is darker in tone, and he is a bit bigger than Moe. But Moe is the one who wanted to pose for my iPhone. Gorgeous boys, they need to be adopted together.

25 Comments

Filed under #AmWriting, Cats and Other Animals, Creative Nonfiction, Flash Nonfiction, Inspiration, Memoir, Memoir writing theory, Nonfiction, Research and prep for writing, Writing, Writing prompt

Tagged as #amwriting, cats, Creative Nonfiction, Creative writing, Memory, Natalie Goldberg, Nonfiction, Old Friend from Far Away, shelter cats, shelter cats in Phoenix, The Practice of Writing Memoir, Writing, Writing memoir, Writing prompt, Writing tips

by Luanne | August 1, 2016 · 5:20 am

The Many-Dimensioned Cat World

Unlike other creatures of planet Earth, cats live in a world of more than three dimensions. This means that they are suddenly appearing and disappearing from our limited viewpoints.

Here’s a recent example. The other day, Pear Blossom was missing. She didn’t come to breakfast. I looked everywhere in the house for her. She had not been let outside, so if she was accessible within three dimensions, I would have found her. But she was not under a bed, in a corner, not even behind the toilet.

Eventually I decided to scoop the upstairs litter box since I was up there looking for a little tuxedo cat between my hanging clothes and in the shower. While I was bent over, Pear materialized behind me. Science fiction, but fact.

I don’t have a good education in math and science, so I can’t figure out exactly how many dimensions exist for cats. If their world is four dimensions, then Pear must have slipped into a different time point than I was in. But maybe she lives in five dimensions. All I have for an understanding of that world is a 60s singing group with an amazing lead singer called Marilyn McCoo.

I’m glad Pear decided to show herself to me. She’s my oldest cat, and I do worry about her health.

She and the other cats seemed happy to welcome the foster cat Slupe to our family for good over a week ago. We revised her name to Sloopy Anne Castle, and when I call for her, that’s what I call her–Sloopy Anne.

Arizona is so hot that Felix doesn’t want to leave the water bowl. Just in case he wants to drink some, he sleeps with his chin on the rim.

I’m no longer even pretending I’m going to write this summer. Maybe in a few weeks!

Lots of new cats at the shelter–and a few that have been there too long. Check out Home Fur Good’s cat roaming room if you’re in the Phoenix area.

Gigi came as a little kitten to Home Fur Good with her sister Dora. Dora was adopted months ago, but Gigi is growing up in the shelter. She’s a spunky little sweetie pie.

We have lots of kittens right now at the shelter. This little cutie is just one of many cuties of all colors and patterns.

Hope the rest of your summer is beautiful and restful. Or furry like mine haha. Gonna go on blogging break to recharge the brain batteries.

More Arizona Exploring

To get away from the record heat in Phoenix, we went south for a day. Tucson, at 2,589 ft, is a higher altitude than Phoenix, which is 1,086. Plus, Tucson is protected from the sun by the mountains and thus has more cloud cover. But we didn’t stay there long. We went to the real mountains. To Bisbee, AZ, to be precise. 5,589 ft.

There are those darn lines again!

It was a lovely temperature for summer. I don’t know what temperature it was, but it felt perfect. There was even a drizzle part of the day.

See that B up there on top? Stands for Bisbee. No kidding! The population is about the same as the altitude. About one person per foot of altitude.

Bisbee is a very charming looking town because in the downtown area there is very little new construction. It’s almost all “antique.”

The museum had a lovely garden.

And the shops were interesting to me. A honey shop. A custom hat shop. A dress shop where I bought a hat in my favorite color (coral called peony). And a shop with a window after my own heart.

Dolls, masks, old photos, and memento mori. What more could I want?

The only thing they had very little of: gluten free food. Yikes. OK, I won’t go into that rant again.

On the way back from Bisbee, we drove through Tombstone (yup, that Tombstone), where we’ve been before.

I had to take photos out of the car window . . . .

We also drove through St. David, a town founded by LDS pioneers. It’s still mainly Mormon, and it appears to be a farming community, but maybe the farming was in its past. I was glad to get home, though, to my 4+1 cats. Slupe is doing so well! She’s now been out with all the others cats, and I am hopeful that they can be one happy group (when Tiger watches her back so Kana doesn’t sneak up on her).

Slupe

My new writing project is a play. I’ve been working on the play with my daughter. I find it fairly easy to write dialogue, but more difficult to conceptualize how it all works onstage. That is her expertise. As an actor, she has a good feel for the physical parts of the play. I expect it to move slowly because of being the work of two people.

Have you ever worked on a project, writing or otherwise, with someone else that you were used to doing by yourself?

38 Comments

Filed under #AmWriting, Arizona, Cats and Other Animals, gluten free, gluten free travel, History, Inspiration, playwriting, Sightseeing & Travel, Vintage American culture, Writing

Tagged as #amwriting, Arizona, Arizona mountains, AZ, Bisbee, cats, playwriting, rescue cats, shelter cats, sightseeing, Tombstone, travel

by Luanne | June 9, 2016 · 5:20 am

In the Between

I’ve always had a thing for liminality. Yup, liminality. Doesn’t it feel good on your tongue? According to Merriam-Webster (remember her?):

Definition of liminal

1: of or relating to a sensory threshold

2: barely perceptible

3: of, relating to, or being an intermediate state, phase, or condition : in-between, transitional<in the liminal state between life and death — Deborah Jowitt>

I love that in between space there. You know, anywhere. Passageways like cupboards and rabbit holes and wardrobes. The place of process, like focusing on the process of art instead of the finished product. The place of change where you are different at one end than you were at the other.

I thought I’d let my camera start searching for some of those liminal spaces. If you find any, please share!!!

This one is at the Virginia Dare office and shopping center in Rancho Cucamonga, California.

On Monday I have such a deal coming for you! Watch for it!

In the meantime, life with Slupe is sweet.

Did you think I’ve forgotten about Kana and Tiger (and Pear and Felix)? Nope. I think I have mentioned that Tiger has a little window seat that is all hers. It’s her happy place. I put an X of double faced tape so that Kana can’t lie there and annoy her. She has an ice cube tray with toys so that I can hide treats under the toys. And I placed a mini litter box behind my antique trunk in case Kana blocks her from the ones in the laundry room. Lots of quail and bunnies and lizards for Tiger to watch.

Tiger has a little squeak like a mouse and runs from Kana which prompts Kana to chase her. Sigh. I guess it’s all that liminal space ;).

56 Comments

Filed under #writerlife, Blogging, Cats and Other Animals, Liminality, Writing

Tagged as blogging, cat behavior, cats, liminal, Liminality, passageway, rescue cats, shelter cats, threshold

by Luanne | March 7, 2016 · 5:20 am

No Music in My House

Usually I think I know myself pretty well. But every once in a while I get an epiphany that shows me something I hadn’t quite realized. Maybe the knowledge was somewhere inside my head or even my body, but it hadn’t come to the front of the brain yet. Then, snap, there it is. Today it was about my relationship with music.

I love music. Sometimes I go to symphony concerts, classical and pops. Sometimes I go to old-timer concerts. I love Broadway musicals and have a ton of “soundtrack” CDs. I have an eclectic assortment of music on my iTunes. When I hear country music, I love it. My favorite is bluegrass. And jazz. In the car, I always play music (my daughter’s singing some of the time).

But I rarely play music at home. And I can’t talk country music with people because I’m not familiar enough with it. Or jazz. Or pop. Or blues.

So why don’t I listen to music at home? I thought I was “busy,” but today the reason occurred to me.

I’m a Highly Sensitive Person. Don’t laugh. You can read my old post about it, if you don’t know what that is.

Too much stimulation is the devil to an HSP. And music in the house is too much stimulation. Hubby has the TV on so often that when it’s not on, I crave the silence as a way to heal the synapses or slow down the neurotransmitters in my tummy and my limbs.

Maybe if I had a quiet house I would crave music. My mother does. But we have our offices in the house, and it’s often like Grand Central Station here. So it is definitely not a quiet house.

So. Am I weird? Nope, wrong question because if you’re not an HSP of course you think I’m weird. How about this question: anybody else out there like me? Easily over-stimulated?

On another topic, I was saved by the bell. I don’t want to say dodged a bullet as will become clear.

We got a new kitty at the shelter. She is a beautiful very young long-haired tortie with the absolutely sweetest personality EVER. Makes all my cats appear to be suffering from personality disorders. Anyway, they found a BB in her collapsed stomach, and they fixed her stomach. Her front leg is limp with neurological damage–also from the abuse she suffered.

They wanted to amputate her leg, saying it was dangerous to keep it. I felt that the reason for that decision was because it’s not possible to call in specialists and give special physical therapy and surgeries to a shelter cat. I offered to foster her (I KNOW, I KNOW, I’M CRAZY) and take her to specialists and for alternative care and give her therapy. But a lovely young woman came in the shelter today and adopted her along with a male kitty. She says she has a friend who is a vet who works with brain and spinal injuries. I asked to be kept in touch with her so I can follow our sweet kitty’s recovery.

Working with the shelter kitties calls for a lot of wine–or whiskey.

67 Comments

Filed under #writerlife, Arizona, Art and Music, Cats and Other Animals, Nonfiction, Writing

Tagged as abused cat, fostering cats, Highly Sensitive Person, love of music, music, over-stimulation, shelter cats, types of music

by Luanne | January 11, 2016 · 5:20 am

My Angel Survived the Ball Breaking and Other Miscellany

Today is a grab bag post. Know that this mirrors my mind right now–an assortment of miscellany.

I have both poetry and prose writing projects in the works, a post to write about Sheila Morris’ new book The Short Side of Time, a book review to write for Adrienne Morris (loved The House on Tenafly Road) for Goodreads and Amazon, and Mom arrived this weekend. She’ll be here in Arizona for the next two months, trying to catch some sun rays. Her knee is in a brace, as it’s bothering her lately, but it’s so nice to have her here. The kitties at the shelter need lots of help, and Kana and Tiger still don’t get along (sigh). If only Tiger realized that she only has to make an assertive move toward Kana and she would earn some respect. Or not.

And then it’s time to start pulling everything together for the TAXMAN (how come it’s never the TAXWOMAN?) for our businesses and personal. So much tedious work on top of regular work. If you can’t tell, I resent this extra burden.

I had a flash fiction piece accepted by Story Shack. They will assign an illustrator to illustrate the story, a feature I love about their magazine.

Remember those German glass ornaments I keep in my antique trunk? Did I mention that daughter’s boyfriend accidentally broke one last year? It was a silver ball that was open on one side (like a little diorama) with an angel in the snow. The ball broke away, and all that was left was the angel standing on a glass shard. I just found it in a drawer where I tucked it because I couldn’t bear to throw it away. I hope I’m not going to turn into a hoarder, but she doesn’t seem like something I can throw away as if she were trash.