It's cold and snowy outside!

Hi.. meet SuZee, our Siamese cat. SuZee was found in a barn, the survivor of an attack by some kind of "varmint". She spent the weeks that she should have been with her mama, living with two dogs who let her have some food if there was any left in their bowls after they had theirs, and who apparently terrorized her. But, she was able to hold her own in some scuffles and even pushed one of the dogs out of his bed and slept there in relative safety.

We were given SuZee as a free gift and she has been a joy to us for almost two years. I especially like that she hasn't realized the range of noises that she could create. Now, she has only a small "meow" and a few other soft sounds. Elaine has tried to teach her the "AARP AARP" song that she used to sing with her former Siamese cat named BufFee. No success yet.. thank heavens!

SuZee does make a unique sound whenever she see a bird perched on the topmost part of the neighbors' roof. I wonder if this is an in-bred mannerism developed over the years in Siam when these cats were guardians of the temples. Yes.. she is warning us that something is desecrating the temple next door.

OK.. time for another dozen observations.

01. Graduation: My beautiful granddaughter, Bridget, graduated from Towson University last week. She is the first grandchild to get a Bachelor of Arts degree. I hope that her success will motivate my other grandchildren to continue their educations.

02. Red heads. Bridget has beautiful red hair. So does AnnE in the movie, Anne of Green Gables. Elaine and I watched this 3 1/4 hour flick last night. It was filmed in beautiful Prince Edward Isle, Canada, and is a monumental tear-jerker. (I defy you to watch it without blubbering!)

I visited PEI a number of years ago and feasted on some of the most delicious seafood I have ever had (outside of New Bedford, of course).. I understand a bridge has finally been built to get to the island. When I went, I spent five hours waiting my turn to get on the ferry. But PEI certainly was worth it, despite the fact that they monopolized on the fame of the book.

Folks.. forget about a European trip. Visit Canada. There is so much to see there.. and you can do it in your own automobile.

03. Where's the Rev? For some time now, I have been trying to find tapes of the shows of Reverend Ike, my favorite preacher. You remember his motto: "I've got what it takes, to take what you've got." One of the few preachers that I have met who were not hypocrites. If anybody knows how to find such tapes, please let me know. I gave away all my BetaMax tapes and I had some of his shows taped on them.. I wish I had kept them.

04. Deep thought: Stephen Hawking says that God did not create the universe. He says that the Big Bang was inevitable and didn't need any help.

05. Thieves in high places: In Greenbelt, Maryland, a Federal employee was found guilty of obtaining over $600,000 in erroneous disability benefits. Also in Maryland, an official at the Maryland Legal Aid Bureau stole over a million dollars from court orders.

Now, if that is almost two million dollars being stolen just in a small area of Maryland, there probably are other thefts going on throughout the U.S. by people in positions of trust. (Of course, if there were no scumbags, thieves and scammers at work, who would be able to afford those multi-million dollar homes that are advertised? Oh, that's right, I forgot about the lawyers.)

06. Grades? Letter grades are now being given to automobiles, based on fuel economy and tailpipe emissions. .. I have been buying groceries and prescriptions at the Giant grocery store in Westminster, Maryland, for several years, and now they have a program where a percentage of money savings is given for Shell gasoline, based on the amount of money spent in that store. Recently, I have had 30 cents a gallon taken off one of my gas fill-ups and 40 cents a gallon taken off another one. I think its a good deal. I wonder why other stores are not copying the program?

Hey.. I remember when gasoline cost 16 cents a gallon. At that time, I had a 1935 Chevrolet with bald tires and broken wheel bearings. I could fill up for $2, whenever I could spare that much money, which wasn't too often. Luckily, I could coast downhill the mile from my house to the high school. (Coming home was the problem.)

Also, my future spouse lived three miles away and by a judicious usage of coasting and light gas usage, I could use very little gas to get to her house and back.

07. Calendars: Many people are are concerned that the world will end in 2012. They base this on some old predictions which failed to take into consideration calendar changes.

I read somewhere that there was a calendar change in the year 1750. The day after September 2nd became September 14th. Crowds of people rioted, demanding: "Give us back our 11 days!" I can't find a reference to this, but if you are interested in calendar changing, please check out:

http://www.suite101.com/content/the-calendar-change-of-1752-a141775

08. Prayer heals all? A French priest, mad because of the expulsion of gypsies, said: "I pray, I beg your pardon, that Mr. Sarkozy has a heart attack."

Another person who wasn't happy about the expulsion was EU Justice Commissioner Vivviane Reding who called it "a disgrace" as well as something she "thought that Europe would not have to witness again after the second World War."

09. Poor Ming: My Snapple diet drink bottle cap says: "The oldest living animal ever found was a 405 year old clam named 'Ming.'" After all those years, he was dug up, and died during the assessment of his age!

(Hey.. look it up in Wikipedia if you think I'm kidding you.)

10. Marriage of convenience? A marriage announcement in a June 2010 edition of the Carroll County Times reads: (married) Carroll County Department of Social Services and Michael E. Francis, of Hanover, Pa., June 15.)

11. Crooked banks? A recent Harper's Index says that the number of Wall Street banks so far which have been tried on criminal charges related to the financial crisis is 2. It also says that the number of banks which have been acquited is also 2.

12. Honoring our veterans? Harper's Index also says that an estimated 2,266 U.S. veterans under the age of 65 died in 2008 because they lacked health insurnace.

So that I won't leave you completely depressed.. let me tell you the words on a birthday card I received from my late friend, Bob Whisenand: "If you think I sent you this card just because it's your birthday... you're wrong! ... it's also out of respect for the elderly!"

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Kindles and Bits (Ships and Cats)

Do you like gadgets? What red-blooded American doesn't? One of the newest gives us a way to read an e-book wherever and whenever we want to. I'm talking of course about the Kindle. Actually the Kindle-1, the Kindle-2, or the Kindle-DX (which sells for $489) I'd like to get in on this "reading revolution", but that's way too pricey for an old man like me.

If you are thinking of buying one of these reading devices, you might want to first check out Nicholson Baker's analysis piece in the August 3rd, 2009 New Yorker magazine. (Baker is usually a novelist: next one: The Anthologist to be published in September)

I don't think Baker was impressed with the Kindles and suggested that if you want to read an e-book, you might just want to buy an iPhone and upload the free "Kindle for iPod" application onto it. Much easier to manipulate and read book pages. Sounds good to me... however, at the moment, the iPhone is also a bit too pricey for me. Maybe when my income tax return comes in.... or when "my ship comes in"....

Speaking of ships coming in.. over many many years, my Massachusetts Vaughan family has been serenaded with lawyer promises of great wealth when Spain settles with the owners of ships that it sunk during the Spanish American War in 1898. One of the ships had cargo that was the property of my great, great grandfather, who had a few bucks. I don't know how much money in lawyers' fees has been extracted from my relatives over this promise of a fortune. Luckily, I have never been contacted. Would I have gotten hooked?

War reparations take a long time to resolve.. some are still going on from the war in the Balkans. But over a hundred years? Doesn't sound good to me. Since I am involved in warning people about scams, if my relatives get contacted again, I will have to let them know that I believe it is a cruel scam.

I'm missing my cat, Lucky, who is spending the night at the vets. He is suffering from hyperthyroidism and had been pulling out his fur. He had lots of bald spots for a while. However, recently he stopped that and has instead been biting his rear end. Also, he has been having a hard time eating. Today, the vet said that he had a hole in his tongue that had become infected.. and that was causing the horrible stink that he was wafting throughout the house.

So, Lucky gets a night away from us.. a nice bath.. some special medication and shots.. and he gets to come home tomorrow afternoon. I hope he realizes that this treatment was done to make him feel better. He is a very intelligent cat you know.

There were two appointments at 4 pm.. my Lucky and a Siamese cat also named Lucky. The Siamese Lucky was not happy to be there at all and was growling as only a Siamese can growl. I hope that our little Su-Zee never learns how to make those sounds. I read somewhere that a Siamese has a repertoire of 150 different sounds. So far, Su-Zee only knows a few of them. ......................................................................................

Lucky in a Tuxedo

My Tuxedo cat, Lucky (alias: Luciano Houdini de Tuxedo) began to pull his fur out last week. We took him to the vet and found that he has hyperthyroidism, a rather common malady for middle age cats.. he's around ten years old.

Pulling fur out is one symptom of hyperthyroidism. Another symptom is weight loss, and he has lost five pounds since September.. this is quite a weight loss for a cat who weighed 16 pounds.

What do we do about this? We could remove part of his thyroid gland surgically, subject him to chemotherapy, or treat him with a prescription drug called methimazole. We decided, of course, to do the drug and since it might be impossible to get him to swallow a pill, the vet melted it down into a tuna-flavored liquid. We give it to him twice a day by means of a syringe. I hold him tight and Elaine opens his mouth and squirts the stuff in. He does not like this very much and kicks and scratches with all of his paws. Luckily, at least for now, we had the foresight to have his claws cut down while he was at the vets.

Unfortunately, after we started to get ready to begin the medication program, the vet let us know that he has a mild infection as well. We got an anti-biotic for him in liquid form and now we get to squirt him twice as much. The anti-biotic does not taste as good as the tuna flavored medicine and this adds to his discomfort. However, if all goes well, we may be able to discontinue the anti-biotic when the bottles get empty.

We have now been treating Lucky for two days and thought that we might see some quick results, but when we came home tonight we were greeted by a cat with a bald spot on the side of his stomach. Poor kitty.

My granddaughters Bridget and Kaitlin helped me pick Lucky out at the "pound". (I had recently lost my wife and was very lonely. The girls felt that having a pet would make me feel less lonely, and that became true.) He was the quietest cat in the whole building. While the kittens were running around raising the devil, he sat there like a New York Public Library lion surveying the chaos. At that time, he was a TV star.. his picture was being broadcast on Carroll County Maryland cable TV, during an ad for the Humane Society.

Lucky did not then, and not now, enjoy automobile rides. On the way home from the "pound" he made sure that he threw up all over the place. Once "home" he did not treat me as a friend. My arms and legs were a mass of scratches and bites for some time. However, by being very kind to him, even when I would have really wanted to strangle him, he came to tolerate me, and eventually become my good friend.

I named him Luciano Houdini de Tuxedo because of the following reasons: The sounds that he made at first, while he was being a bit uncooperative, sounded a lot like Luciano Pavarotti, and one night when I relegated him to a downstairs room so that I could sleep undisturbed, I was awakened at 3 am by his crying.. he was in my bedroom! How did he accomplish that when I had carefully closed the door tightly on the room he was in? This remained a mystery for some time until I saw him stretch himself up to the doorknob one day, turn the knob with his paws, and open the door! Hence his middle name of Houdini. His last name was given to him because he is indeed a black cat, with a white cravat and white shoes.

I call him Lucky for short.

A few years ago, he met Elaine's Siamese cat, Buf-fee. Besides a few hisses now and then and an occasional bop on the head when Buf-fee got on his nerves, they got along rather well. When Buf-fee passed away, I do believe he grieved for her.

One year ago, another Siamese cat came to live with us: Su-zee. This was (and still is) a wound-up energetic kitten/cat, probably related to a Meer-Cat.. from the way that she perches on her hind legs to survey the terrain. Su-Zee, at first, terrorized Lucky 25 hours a day. She would lay in wait for him to pass by and then jump on his back. I think he tolerated it because she was a kitten (whose mother had been killed in a barn by a "varmint" and therefore had not learned some basic cat politeness.)

However, after a few months, Lucky felt that it was time to let her know that he was the alpha cat in the household. Instead of letting her chase him and jump on him all the time, he now took the initiative once in a while to let her know who was the boss. She then gave in and they now have a kind of truce. Sometimes she jumps and teases him, and sometimes its the other way around.

Anyway, we want to make sure that Lucky recovers quickly because he is a vital member of our family and we love him.