Other weekend drama.

Aside from mom's birthday and all the left-overs from Thanksgiving, Denise and I had a few more little dramas over the weekend.

First, Friday night, as we were beginning to drift off to sleep, I heard one of the cats making a weird noise. It was a strangely muffled but loud meow. I got up from the bed in time to see my little buddy Tiger...

This is him, a week or so ago, sacked out in my chair. he's my buddy. The only one of the six cats that I feed that acts like he loves me. He was the runt of the litter, shoved around by the others when they were kittens. I'd always make sure he got to eat, so he learned to love and trust me early on.

Anyway, he was makin' this weird noise that night, like he was meowin' with a full mouth. Sure enough, he had a rat in his mouth, and he'd brought it in to me to show it off. Thing is, as soon as I got out of bed he dropped the little offering, and it scurried off into the darkness of the living room. Of course, this isn't the first time one of the kids had done this. But it's been a hell of a long time.

When I first moved in here, in 2003, they used to do it all the time. They'd bulldozed the field in front of the house to build the HEB, and there were rats and critters all over the neighborhood. the boys had a field day. I used to leave the front door cracked, like I did at my last apartment, so the cats could come and go at will. But pretty soon after movin' in it got to where I had to leave the doors closed. I was sick of the chase.

By the time I put in the cat door in the guest bedroom, this sort of thing was long forgotten. I felt sure the cats had killed everything in sight. Still, every now and then we find the pieces of a bird carcass, usually a pile of feathers, in the guest room. The dead rats, when we find them, are found out in the back yard. Recently though, instead of finding them in the yard, the kids have gotten into the habit of bringing them in and finishing them off in the house. Denise will wake me up some days with that look on her face and say "You need to get up NOW!" I always know what that means.

I usually laugh as I'm putting the poor dead critter in a plastic bag, tyin' it shut and walking it out to the dumpster. And there's always a part of me that wants to chase her around with it, if only briefly. But I've learned that that can get out of hand really quick. I thought she was gonna have a heart attack on me a while back. And that was just with a little dead garden snake. Again' a present from the boys.

Anyway, so I turned on the lights in the living room and located the rat, which was hiding under my stair machine. Tiger was pointing the way. When I leaned the StairMaster over it skittered out and under my recliner, Tiger in hot pursuit. He was watching every move that rat made.

I lifted up the recliner and there he was, shifting from one side of it to the other. It's little rodents life must have been flashing before it's eyes. I put the chair down again and went and got my BB pistol, thinkin' I'd plink the little dude when I lifted up the recliner again. But when I did, he bolted, and tiger bolted after him.

That was the last I saw of the rat. Next thing I know, Tiger is relaxing in the guest bedroom, seemingly unconcerned that his dinner has escaped, and I have no clue where the little bastard is. I looked all over the living room while Denise sat there in bed, watching.

"Well, where is it? Did you get it?" she asked as I strolled back into the bedroom. "Uh, nope. No clue," was my response. "Well, close the door," she said. "It can't get in here can it?" "Naa," I said, lyin' my ass off. I put a towel down on the floor by the door. I reassured her that there was no way the little dude could get into the bedroom, or into bed with us (shiver me timbers), and put my trust in the cats. I figured that when all the commotion died down, they'd come back in the house and do what cats do.

The next morning, there was no sign of ether the cats, or the rat. I hoped that some time during the night, the cats had done their duty, but there was no obvious sign of it. Then, some time Saturday afternoon, Denise noticed something under the footrest of my chair. I looked and sure enough, there sat about the last inch or so of a rats tail. Yep, something like a death struggle had gone on while we slept. But it wasn't until late Saturday night that I found the real evidence.



It was when I went in to the hallway bathroom, to make an evenings offering. I was sittin' there on the throne, checkin' out the deals in the latest C.I. catalog, when I saw a little swath of something crimson there on the tile next to the magazine basket (which normally sits in the corner, up against the bathtub and wall). Blood on the floor tile. When I pulled back the basket, the full scope if the carnage was revealed.



Look closely. You can even make out little bloody rat footprints, and what might be the last scatological offerings that were involuntarily given as the feline hunters took their fatal bite. Yep, I live with some deadly ninja kitties, fer sure. I just wish they'd do their killin' outside.

The other drama this last weekend was much less bloody, but much more expensive. By the time we returned to the house Saturday night, after having that nice Birthday dinner with mom, I walked down to the road to get the mail and noticed a lot of water in the gutter. I soon discovered that water was gushing out of my water meter box.



It was a gusher. I called the city water department and they sent someone out to turn off the flow. I could have done it myself, but I thought you needed that special tool to do it. you know, the one they always have. I now know I could have used a wrench. Live and learn.

The city water guy turned off the water and dug out enough mud to see that it was going to be my problem. The pipe that was busted was mine, and not the cities. Also, he told me that I'd have to pay for all that water that had been gushing out into the street for God knows how long. We'd left to go to mom's about 4:30, and returned at about 10PM, so that could be a LOT of water.

I assumed it was broken PVC, and though about fixing it myself. But I don't trust myself to do it right. I called my usual plumber Sunday morning, but they don't work weekends. Eventually, after calling around, I finally got someone to come out and deal with it.



It turned out to be pretty simple problem, right there in the meter box. There was no serious digging required. I dodged a bullet on that one. Having watched the dude do the fixing, I think I could fix it again myself if it ever breaks again. It was just this piece of angled PVC, which had become unglued and popped out, causing the gusher.



When I rubbed some of the mud off of it I saw a hair line crack in it's side, which probably contributed to the failure. God thing is, it's probably the original item, put in place in 1996 or so when the house was built.



Thing is, the first time he fixed it, the bond didn't hold up to the pressure. I was sanding there, about to take a picture of the fixed pipe when WHOOSH, the seal burst open and the water sprayed out, and he had to jump in and turn off the water again.



It took the dude three tries to get it to hold, but in the end it was fixed. At least, it's still holding. We'll see how long it lasts. There's something like a two year warranty on the work... $485 later. Just what I need right now, and unexpected expense. Next time I'll do it myself. Cheers!

Last Friday, and all the weekend events.

Last Friday was a good outing with Mom and Denise. We went to Zabcikville, east of temple, and had burgers at Green's Sausage House.

They're famous for their sausage, stuffed with peppers and anything else you want, but they also make wonderful burgers and sandwiches. Mom had a super ham and Swiss, Denise had a sausage burger and I went for the big bacon cheese burger. we shared fries and onion rings and it was all wonderful, and relatively cheap.

After eating, since we were out on the east side of Temple, I asked mom if she wanted to go check on the plots in the cemetery out there where some of her relatives are buried. Both she and Denise said yes, so we headed over there.

It's called the Little Flock Cemetery. My mom's grand parents and a few aunts and uncles are buried there, mostly under those huge pecan trees. there's a reason for that. When her great grandparents died, her grandfather planted those trees right next to his parents graves. The trees have since grown to a tremendous height, and produce wonderful crop of pecans.

After wandering around the cemetery, taking pictures of some of the older headstones and checkin' on the old relatives, the three of us headed back to temple and made a side trip to Dairy Queen for dessert. We each got a blizzard, heath candy variety, and took them home to Mom's house.

After finishing the treats we busted out the booze and sipped some Chateau Monet, finishing off the bottle.

We were all in a reflective mood, partly from the trip to the cemetery but also from the crap that's goin' on in the family now. I won't labor you with details (I think I've already unloaded that crap on you anyway). Suffice to say that the drama between my mom, sister and I has heated up lately.

Sis has been cut off from the support the folks have been giving her for the last five years, the money train having hit a huge wall when dad died and mom's income was cut in half. Since then she's had a line on a job in Midwest City, East of Oklahoma City, and so she and mom are drivin' up there this week to check it out and see about getting sis an apartment up there.

It turns out that dad's death has been the catalyst for getting my big sis off her fat ass and back into the adult world. It's too bad that it took that to get it done, but at least something good is coming from the loss.

Denise and I also started to tackle some yard work around the house Friday, cleaning up part of the front yard and trimming back the rose bushes. They had been pulled away from the wall by a high wind a week or so earlier and were blocking access to my front door. It's not something I worried a lot about, keeping unwanted visitors away and all being a boon to my serenity, but it was unsightly and had to be fixed.

Part of the urgency behind this explosion of yard work was due to the fact that we were gonna have a visitor on Saturday. I'd gotten an email a few days earlier from Holly sayin' she was comin' down to Killeen and wanted to get back together.

She'd come down a while earlier and we'd taken her to one of our best Chinese food places, but later attempts to connect were always derailed by other plans. Trips to Fredericksburg and such. So I was looking forward to seeing her again and showing her around BJs, which has become a favorite haunt of ours.

The food at BJs was wonderful, as usual, and we had a great time. The dinner and subsequent after dinner tipple at my place was a huge blast, and we hope she gets to come down again soon. She's a hoot, and we love to get together with her and commiserate about family drama and the world in general. Ya gotta love a woman who carries a Colt 1911 in her little purse, and knows how to use it!

Saturday afternoon we began to tackle the back yard, which had been allowed to turn into a jungle again. You might remember a post from about a year ago, the last time I spent about 8 hours clearing this mess.

The cats always gather in the yard to watch the festivities. This is Sandy and Rusty, the twins, checkin' out the strange goings on from the steps at the back of the yard.

One of the things we discovered in the yard was a little present one of the cats had left for us.

Back when I moved into this house, in 2003, my cats went on a rampage and left rat carcases all over the place. In stead of being grateful for the free extermination services my neighbors were horrified and disgusted, wanting me to ether keep my cats in the house or get rid of them. City folks!

These are the sort of people who move to the country and then complain that the deer are eating their flowers, but won't let you hunt them. Eventually I put a cat fence up along the top of the wood fence and the issue was solved. However, about a month ago I realized that a few of them were escaping. I'd get home from work in the evening and one or two would be sitting in the front yard waiting for me. So part of this flurry of activity was to plug the hole in the fence and get the cats back in the yard before one of my Nazi neighbors calls Animal Control.

We left several piles of weeds in our wake. By late Sunday, the yard was almost cleared and we were thinkin' about what sorts of plants and flowers we were gonna get to plant , to replace the weeds. One more weekend and we'll have it all set up right, or good enough to let go for another year.

Anyway, that was the weekend, Exciting eh? This next one looks like it might be just as exciting. I'll keep ya posted. Cheers.