Remember I told you that when Stephanie saw a woman driving all hunched forward with her cat draped across her neck she said “That would be you if you had a cat”

Well she hit the nail right on the head. During the night I turned on my side and Elvis curled up on my hip. I had to lie there in that position for over an hour until he moved.

Julie and Violet came for dinner last night. Elvis was walking on the table before I served the food.

“Waddaya think Julie, is he allowed on the table?”

Julie seemed to think it was my call. Although her dogs are so beautifully trained she still isn’t one to give advice.

I finally came to the conclusion that he could burn himself on the chicken so:

Rule number one – No being on the table during meals where hot food is being served.

I hope he doesn’t feel restricted . I don’t want him to feel like he’s in a military school.

Violet brought over my birthday present. It was something she made out of this craft thing she has that is something like stained glass only plastic.

It was a little teeny martini glass and a coaster that said “Happy Hour” on it. I feel that you have to be honest with kids so they know if they’re doing their best so I said,

“Violet I really love this. It’s so much better than that grey turdlike thing you made me last year. What the hell was that?”

I’m sure she appreciated my honesty.

Got a call from Captain Hugh this morning. He’s the guy who helped us with our boat about 10 years ago and calls on every holiday and near holiday asking for money, which I always send him.

He told me that he was sorry he couldn’t get in touch with me to wish me a happy new year,( although his groundhog day message was much appreciated and plenty good enough). I wished him the same and told him I’d call Western Union as soon as I hung up.

How come dave got the boat and I got Captain Hugh?

Oh yeah and here’s absolutely the last photo I’m posting of Elvis unless he learns how to juggle.

If I can keep my crazy under wraps this might be the perfect pet for me.

Last night I was a wreck because Elvis went under the bed and wouldn’t come out but during the night he jumped up on the bed and that’s where he slept.

I have purchased a variety of beds for him scattered about my house and he has ignored them all. Same with the toys.

This morning Liz, David and Rupert came over to see him.

Liz held Rupe and they just stared at each other. David got bored and went home.

After awhile we noticed that Elvis was gone. We looked all over and finally found him in Liz and David’s house on David’s lap. I have a cat with no taste.

I want you to know that this will be my final Elvis post. It’s even boring to me. I will however add my picture of Elvis and Rupert meeting.

I only have one more night here. Tomorrow my niece Randy is bringing Elvis to me and the two of us are going back to NYC to start our new life.
I’m both excited and scared.
Interestingly, for the first time in many months Rupert will be home. If he and Elvis hit it off, all my prayers will be answered (except the one about me and Robert Redford).
If they don’t, I don’t know what I’ll do.

Back to the present. So far no coyotes have eaten the dogs, which is very good news. As I’ve said before, my job is the dogs, the cats and something I didn’t mention before, I have to leave 13 piles of deer food half way down the driveway every day at around 5. They are all standing there waiting so I can’t miss a day.

Donna, Stephanie’s friend is in charge of the horses and donkeys and barn cats but yesterday I decided that I have to feed the horses because I have to pass them on my way to the deer and I can’t stand them staring at me and yelling “Nu?” (jewish for “What the hell? Did you forget when dinnertime is?”).
They’re a bunch of schmucks because Donna comes home between 5 and 5:30 but waiting isn’t their strong suit. Certainly not waiting without kvetching.

Speaking about schmucks, I have a blind item for you.
“What schmuck is planning a personal coup in the schmuckiest way possible? And what neighbor of the schmuck is going along with said schmuckiness to take her final step into Schmuckland?

I’ve just passed my first night at Stephanie’s house minding her animals.

It’s like Noah’s Ark here. She has 2 horses, 2 donkeys, 2 barn cats, 2 house cats and 2 dogs. I’m only responsible for the dogs and the house cats. Steph’s friend Donna is caring for the big guys.

Not that she isn’t helpful with my tasks. Why just this morning she suggested that if the dogs come in with muddy feet i might want to go over the floor with a damp rag.

Yeah, I said to myself, good idea. Since I have all this extra time that I might be pissing away watching my favorite TV shows, why not fill that with a little scrubbing.

My own kitchen floor has a grape on it that I was seriously thinking of picking up before I left yesterday but with all the rushing it slipped my mind. Well maybe that’s not exactly true. It was more that I figured it would be so much easier to corner, what with how grapes roll, when I get home on Friday and it’s turned into a raisin.

So wash Steph’s floor? I don’t think so. My job here is to hug and kiss these dogs and cats, feed them and (hopefully) keep them from getting eaten by coyotes.

I do have a nice lunch planned though. I’m meeting Shelby, the genius who did those wonderful drawings for my blog. She gave me detailed directions to her house. I told her she only had to give me her address because I have a gps hidden under the seat of my car so no one will steal it, although David says that I needn’t bother to hide it because stealing that would be like stealing an abacus.

Well gotta go now. I have a big morning planned. I have to stare into space until about 11 and then dress for lunch, busy busy.

I’m going up to my niece Stephanie’s house today.

My reason is threefold.

1. I adore Stephanie

2. She will help me pick out stuff for Elvis.

3. I am going to be staying there next week to take care of her animals and she wants to give me some last minute instructions. For example how to watch my favorite shows on TV while I’m there. Did I say TV? My mistake. THEY DON’T HAVE CABLE.

I digress.

When Steph and I discussed what we would be doing today she mentioned getting a manicure which seemed fine to me but at the end of the sentence she said “They do eyebrows too”.

I didn’t think much about this until about 4 a.m. when I said to myself, “Now why did she mention eyebrows?”

Then I got to thinking. Before I had my cataract operations I wore glasses all the time so I never did anything with my eyebrows. My glasses covered them and without my glasses I couldn’t see them.

Well my eyesight improvement was both a blessing and a curse. Sure I could see better but I saw things, like wrinkles that I couldn’t do much about. What I could do something about was my eyebrows.

I started putting eyebrow pencil on. To me it looked pretty good but I remember my mother thinking peds  with sandals were really happening. (Peds are those things they give you in shoe stores so when you try on shoes so you don’t give or get cooties.)

Are my eyebrows a joke? Do I look  “surprised” or “angry”? Why would Steph mention eyebrows?

I know it won’t be hard to get her to tell me. She can be cruelly direct.

Now that I think of it, that may not be a bad thing. I’m making a plea to my whole family. If you see me wearing something stupid please tell me before I go out in the world.

My job on this planet is to laugh at others. I will not like them laughing back.

When Liz first got Rupert she put a tasteful little ceramic plaque on her front door saying “Beware of Dog” in french.

Everything she does is like that, just a bit classier than the rest of the world.

David came home from Santa Fe last night.

This morning I went to put out the garbage and on David’s door was a huge paper target with bullet holes all over it. The figure on it was an alien because as David told me over dinner last night, they ran out of hombres what with the holidays and all.

You know, it’s like how in a regular part of the United States the holidays may make them run out of mistletoe.

He actually took that thing to the restaurant with us so he could proudly point out all the successful head shots.

Here’s the creepy part (like the rest of this isn’t creepy). He was regaling me with what kinds of bullets and guns he was using to put that alien in alien heaven but I was barely listening . I was scanning the menu so I could make up my mind between salmon and some kind of chicken.

He only caught my attention when he mentioned, while chastising me for not knowing whether Dirty Harry used a 45 or a 357 mango or something, that some of those bullet holes came from Miss Liz’ gun.

Now this is my sweet Liz who never even uses paper napkins, except the tiny decorated ones that she serves with cocktails and caviar. And this schmuck is her life partner.

I blamed myself. Just because he was there for me in my time of need I overlooked the damage he was capable of doing. I should have tried to sabotage that relationship years ago.

But then I got to thinking, He really does serve the best wine I’ve ever had. Why I bet there isn’t a bottle in his house that isn’t priced in double digits. And he’s really free with it.

Also with dave gone  it could get pretty lonely on the 18th floor. David isn’t much but he is company. And I really love his kids.

So I figure maybe Liz can take care of herself.

In fact, now that she’s packing, I’m sure she can.

It’s official. I am even boring myself with this cat stuff.

I’m  on the internet all the time trying to select the perfect food for Elvis. If I guess wrong it says he may get crystals and since I know nothing about cats and have never seen a crystal he’ll probably die of them because I won’t see the symptoms.

It will be weeks before he gets here and I’m already in a state.

Speaking of Tom Cruise. I saw Rock of Ages last night. Even though Tom is a Scientologist, has a crazy laugh and probably hates Jews, since seeing him in that movie I would consent to marry  him. After all it’s not like I’m committed  to that Jew thing anyway. Other than an occasional “oy vey” it doesn’t really play a big part in my life.

And except for that time they put rattlesnakes in non believer’s mail boxes,and I believe that they hardly ever do that any more, Scientology doesn’t seem any more strict than say the New York Library. I could do Scientology Light.

Plus you may remember that I’m a rebel. I’ve stepped out of my religious comfort zone before. True, it had disastrous results but that’s because he was a Methodist. You know how crazy those people are.

We had a big snowstorm here. David is coming back from Santa Fe tonight and I was going to pick him up at Newark Airport tonight but I changed my mind because, as I told him;

1. It will be dark

2. It will be icy

3. I’m old

4. He sucks.

This is an open letter to my friend Susan.

It’s New Years Day.

I had quite a New Years Eve. I went down to Times Square to rock in 2014. The good thing about not being married any more was that I was able to kiss anyone I wanted. And I didn’t miss a cop.

Even though it was really cold and really crowded it didn’t interfere with my two block tap dance.

Ah who am I kidding. A little “Murder SheWrote” and I was sawing logs at 9:30.

I woke up during the night and decided to list of all the things I’m thankful for.

1. My family;  of course I have to say that because if I say my real favorite thing which happens to be TV the world will look down on me. But it does show how much I love my family because I’m going up to Steph’s house next week to mind her animals and she doesn’t have cable.

2. My friends. (see above)

3. Elvis:  Now this is a leap of faith.Sure he’s good looking but he could turn out to be a real prick.

4. New York City: And not why you think. It’s because we elected Bill DeBlasio as our new mayor. Already from the get go I can see that this guy is going to drive David nuts. Maybe he’ll get off Obama’s back this year..

5. That politician from Toronto because he actually chastised the  press for saying he was eating some woman’s pussy (his words) because he’s married and he has plenty to eat at home.

Well that’s it folks. Thanks for sticking with me this year. I hope you all get at least 6 of the things you wish for in 2014,

I’m a dog person.

Unfortunately I’m also a crazy person. Any dog I’ve ever had has ruled my life. If I couldn’t take him with me I didn’t go. The solution used to be Rupert but he’s pretty much taken up residence in Santa Fe.

I think it’s the right to carry guns that drew him.

I may not have mentioned it before but my husband is on the lam. Anyway I’ve thought for awhile that I needed someone to share my life with, obviously a dog .

My niece Randy once gave me two parakeets. They hated me and I felt sorry for them for being in a cage. Whenever I let them out, instead of sitting on my shoulder and singing sweet melodies into my ear like in Cinderella they flew up into my curtains and hid and one time one of them fell in the bathtub. So no birds.

Even with my crazy pills, or anti crazy pills, I feel like I’m standing on thin ice and I’m afraid to upset the applecart. I keep trying to think of a way to get a dog without threatening the life I’ve built in the past two years.

I figured it would have to be very tiny so that I could put it in a bag and take it with me wherever I go. That way I wouldn’t have to feel guilty if I left him home. See? I told you I’m crazy but I know myself. I used to think a million times before I left the house when Rupert was here. I was tied down by a dog that wasn’t even mine.

I went back and forth on this and then about a month ago I went to dinner at my friend Brenda’s house. I was enjoying a cocktail and chatting when in walked Brenda’s cat. It felt like the room came to life.

Before that a cat had never occurred to me. I never had one and dave was allergic to them so the thought never came up. I did mind Liz’s cat, Puss and I loved him in spite of his occasionally murdering pigeons that had the bad luck to land on his terrace.

Stephanie has two really sweet cats. They too are killing machines but they live in the country and you know those country folk, always killing stuff.

Once the idea of a cat entered my mind it wouldn’t leave. It seemed like a perfect solution to my empty house.

What kind of a cat owner would I be though?  I was driving with Steph a few years ago and there was a woman driving in the next car all hunched over with her cat lying across the back of her neck. Steph remarked that if I had a cat I’d probably be doing something like that.

And Liz said that I ruined Puss. She claimed that he was a great cat before I started minding him. For some reason Liz thought it was bad if a little kitty jumped up on the table during dinner and ate out of your plate. To me nothing could have been cuter.

I had pretty much decided that that might be the answer for me when once more Randy came to the rescue.

It seems that she rescues cats. I mean RESCUES CATS. I believe she has about thirty. She made it clear that any cat I got should be gotten by her. She would find me a cat that was affectionate but not needy and was fixed and healthy.

Then she sent me a video of the kitten of my dreams. He is grey with white feet and a lovely smile. I fell in love.

Never one to mince words, Randy said that although she never lets anyone over 65 get a kitten she would make an exception for me and take it back if I corked off.

Since he wasn’t quite ready to be adopted and I have plans to take care of Steph’s animals for a week in January, it was decided that he will come to live with me on or about January 18.

I’m both excited and scared. I know nothing about kittens or cats. I will have to get a bunch of equipment to care for him and make him happy. I hope he likes me.

Since I have a bit of a wait I decided to choose a name. I thought of Stuart, and Bob or Stephen but none of them seemed to stick.

Then in the middle of the night I started thinking about this new experience I was venturing into and I thought of my first love. The one who got my  heart beating in a way it hadn’t before. When I said it I knew it was right.

I can’t wait to meet Elvis.