Recent Comments

1. about 9 hours ago on FoxTrot Classics

   I never had assigned summer reading lists when I was a kid (over a half century ago). I recall one year in high school our English teacher gave us a ‘suggested’ reading list for the summer, but I had already read everything on the list years before.

   My kids (in their mid and late 30s now) only had a summer reading list for the summer before 12th grade. My sisters’ grandchildren (all in their late teens and 20s now) had summer reading list all through high school. I guess schools theses days don’t think children need a break from structured learning.

2. 3 days ago on Texts From Mittens

   Since Dollar Tree is where I usually get gifts, Sue Ellen is right, the wrapping often cost more than the gift. :D

3. 3 days ago on The Meaning of Lila

   Somewhere, in the past, the author explained that Lila’s mother is Jewish, but Lila was raised wasn’t raised Jewish because mom thought it would be easier for Lila to get dates and find a husband if she wasn’t Jewish.

   I’m not sure if the church she and Drew go to is Catholic, Episcopalian, or some other “high church” protestant denomination. I think the author is purposefully vague.

   By the way, “Jewish Mother” types come in all denominations (and no religious affiliations as well).

4. 3 days ago on The Other Coast

   I had a dog whose mother was a ‘mostly beagle rabbit hunting dog.’ Her father was a "collie who could jump a 6 foot high fence.’ She looked like a Shetland sheep dog with long ears. And she was an excellent herder. She herded kittens, children, and hikers. With hikers some of her mother’s instincts showed. When we’d be on a narrow trail, going single file, she would run ahead of the first hiker to scout the trail ahead, then trot back nosing the hand of each hiker until she came to whoever was last in line. She’d nudge that person up to the next to the last hiker, then run up and scout the trail again before coming back and bunching us all up again. Over and over. She must have run two or three times as far as the rest of us walked.

5. 5 days ago on Breaking Cat News

   Years ago we got a cat from the local animal shelter, hubby complained about the size of the adoption fee. Around the same time we got a kitten free of charge from a lady at church. Paid-for-kitty’s first shots, deworming, and spaying were all all taken care of by the shelter, the vet bill for the same necessities for the ‘free’ kitty made hubby change his mind about the amount of the adoption fee (as I recall, it was about half of the vet bill).

6. 7 days ago on Non Sequitur

   Before the smelting of iron ore was developed, most things made of iron were made from “found” iron. Copper, silver and gold can be found in their ‘native’ states (pure metal) but iron is usually found as iron ore. About the only place ancient people would find iron that wasn’t in the form of an iron ore would be in meteorites. That iron could be pounded into a knife. Often meteorites had nickel mixed in with the iron and that would make an even better knife. King Tut was around after people had learned to smelt iron ore in order to get iron that could be worked, but it wasn’t as good quality iron as that found in meteorites. So someone as important as a pharaoh would have a high quality knife made from the iron found in a meteorite.

7. 8 days ago on Texts From Mittens

   4 and a half years ago at age 69, I ended up with two 8 week old kittens. Not what I had planned on when I went to the shelter about 6 months after our 12 and who-knows-how-old cats passed on. (the younger one had a tumor, the older one stayed in the world until the younger passed, then she passed on 2 days later.) The first time I went to the shelter, looking for a couple 5 to 9 year old cats, all they had were kittens and cats older than the ones I was still grieving. A couple weeks later I went back again with instructions from hubby to “come back with cats, I don’t care if they are kittens.” Again all the available cats were either kittens or very elderly. So I went to the ‘kitten room’ and sat down on the floor to see what there was. I ended up with the most energetic kitten in the room (the one that everyone else was saying was ‘too busy’) and her nearly identical sister who was so quiet that no one noticed her. It was quite a ride having kittens (two of them!), but they have grown up to be loving companions. I figure that since both my parents lived well into their 90s, the cats and I will be elderly at the same time. (And I have kids who WILL take them if it’s me waiting for them at the Rainbow Bridge).

8. 16 days ago on Breaking Cat News

   Bert. I’m partial to engineer types. My Dad was a radio engineer, my father-in-law was an electrical engineer, my son is a computer engineer. Most of the people in my family are MacGyver types, I can relate to Bert – he gets things done.

9. 16 days ago on Two Party Opera

   I had to read it twice. My first response was “Wait, What?” Fortunately I had the time to read it again, painstakingly reading each word, one at a time, in the proper order. (which is not the way I usually read.)

10. 16 days ago on The Meaning of Lila

    Comment section is being weird today, not posting my comment at first. I thought maybe it was too long, so I broke it into 2 comments, but the second part still wouldn’t post until I took out some quote marks I had put around a couple of words.