I carved 6 of the 7 pumpkins from the garden today. (The 7th was drawn on with a Sharpie pen.) I made 4 “cat-o-lanterns”, 1 with crosses, and 1 with a kitty silhouette cut out of it. (Pictures will be posted tomorrow night.) While I was doing this, I had some “help”.

Edda making sure that the pumpkins are acceptable to carve.

Freya picking her pumpkin before it was washed.

Freya deciding that she would conquer the pumpkin pen for her own territory.

Edda making sure the pumpkins were clean.

Edda choosing her pumpkin and making sure I had the necessary tools to carve it.

My mother’s kitten returned about 4:00 this morning. No injuries, no explanation, and a coat full of burrs. He is royally grounded but Mom and Dad are happy to have him back.

I was out on my morning walk and had sat down outside the town cemetery to get some gravel out of my shoes when a small tabby patch cat trotted over to me. It rubbed against me, nuzzled my hands, and then jumped in my lap. I finished putting my shoes back on, petted the cat for a few minutes, and then got up to continue my walk. The cat trotted right behind me and followed me for the next half mile. I tried running (it ran after me), shaking my water bottle on it (it didn’t move, making me feel really bad for wetting the poor cat), and finally I walked back to the cemetery. I called Jon on my cell phone and asked him to come and get me because I didn’t want this cat following me on the rest of my walk because it could get lost, run over by a car, or hurt by a dog. Jon came and got me and dropped me off about 4 blocks away.

My hunch is that the cat was in heat and either smelled Freya and Edda on me or was attracted to me because I’m in that time of the month right now.

Freya’s little tummy was upset by her antibiotics, so she was vomiting and passing much gas. She was her normal little miscreant self in every other regard, so we were perturbed by this. We ended up taking her to see her vet who put her on orders of no food for 24 hours. This made yesterday really fun because we’d have to sequester the little terror while her siblings were eating. When she was un-sequestered, the food closet door had to be closed and this irritated the other cats muchly. She’s allowed to eat again, but only special bland food, so again we have to sequester to eat and close the food closet when she’s out. It’s a good thing that she’s cute because she is a hard cat to have with others!

Neck and Back Pain
I slept wrong on my neck and shoulder about two weeks ago and it was starting to really get on my nerves. I felt stupid going in to see my doctor because really all they could do is tell me to put ice or heat on it and de-stress myself. (It’s a place where I store stress.) I was wrong — my doctor gave me some stretches to do as well as some painkillers and muscle relaxants. The muscle relaxants have helped — I can do a lot more turning and such and the pain killers are OK but not great. (I also have Darvocet if I’m incredibly desperate.) Last night, I slept very well and even got in a 3 mile walk this morning.