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Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Blog Challenges #16 and # 17

Wow, I can't believe it's been two weeks since I posted anything. I'm going to start with Suzanne's blog challenges. If you aren't into reading long posts, now's the time to bail!

Blog Challenge #16
Do you have pets? If so, how did they come to be furry family? Write about them and their personalities. If not, write about a past pet that touched your heart. Please include photos!

We have two cats and a dog. Jericho and Jessica are ranch cats, no that' s not their breed, but where they came from. They were from a litter of semi-feral cats that keep the rodent population at bay at the family ranch. My uncle feeds those cats every few days when he's up there feeding the cows and goats. We had had a couple of ranch cats before Jericho and Jessica (Checkers and Pumpkin) that DS#2 was very attached to, but Pumpkin followed DS#1 to school one day and never came back. Checkers was poisoned by anti-freeze, probably by a neighbor. So we got Jericho and Jessica. They were supposed to be mostly outside cats, but they are mostly indoors now. Jericho must remain indoors at all times because he was infected with Feline Immunodeficiency Virus in a cat fight. He can infect other cats, so we keep him inside. He misses outside a lot and spends every waking moment trying to figure out how to get out. Jessica has been immunized so she gets to go in and out. They both sleep with DH and I at night which drove DH crazy when they first started. He just kicks them out of his way now. Jericho curls up next to me at bedtime and puts me to sleep.

The two of them are somewhat schizophrenic because they'll be all cozy and cuddly licking each other and a split second later hissing and wrestling with each other. They've been sprayed with a water bottle so many times to break up the fighting that they pretty much ignore it now. They have learned that if they start wrestling at night to do it silently. DH has observed this, but I sleep through it. Jericho likes to hang out in my scrap room when I'm in there. He used to lay on the end of my desk, but since it's so cluttered, he's taken to laying on the top of the piano and staring out the window into the back yard. He's been trapped in there so many times now, that when I tell him it's time to leave, he'll get up, stretch, and casually make his way to the door.

Snickers was a stray that DS#1's cello teacher's wife found in the middle of the freeway on a rainy day. She coaxed him into her car with a Snicker's candy bar, hence the name. They kept him for a while as they tried to find the owner, but no one ever claimed him. He's a sweet dog and just hangs around waiting to be petted. We dog-sat him over Christmas one year while they took their dalmatian with them for the holidays and he got along great with Tango, our Australian Cattle Dog. We decided that if they were still looking for a home for Snickers that we'd take him as a canine companion for Tango. They were both outside dogs until Tango lost her battle with kidney disease. Now he's an indoor dog that loves to go outside with his people and for rides in the car. Doesn't matter whose car it is, he'll jump in and wait for it to go. Dumb dog.

Blog Challenge # 17
Where were you when something incredibly important happened on a worldy level? (i.e. the assassination of Kennedy, the destruction of the World Trade Centers, The Challenger explosion, etc.) Write about it.

I remember two major world events in particular - the Challenger explosion and the attack on the World Trade Centers. What is interesting to me is that for both disasters I was working in the industry most affected by each of them. I was working in the Space Sciences department at a research company when Challenger when up. There had been talk of my director actually being a mission specialist someday on a Shuttle mission. I was a college student at the time and I remember my "supervisor" came running into the room where all of us students worked and with real tears in his eyes announced that the Shuttle had exploded. I don't think he was so much affected by the loss of the souls on board than by the loss of any dream he had of being an astronaut. Not that this loser would ever be an astronaut! He really thought he would get to go in the director's place since he didn't want to go. I do remember, however, rushing to the conference room where they had set up a television for us to view the coverage. It was a really sad day.

On 9-11, I was working for a giant insurance and financial services company and I had gone to the cafeteria to get breakfast. As I was leaving the cafeteria I saw a large group of people gathered in the television room in the cafeteria. I stopped to see what was going on and it appeared that a plane had crashed into the WTC. I remember reading about a plane that crashed into the Empire State Building in the 50's, but the building was repairable, so I figured this was just another accident. By the time I got back to my desk, the word was out that a second plane had crashed into the other tower and I knew that it was no accident. Shortly after that someone in the area announced that the Pentagon had been attacked, too. As the news kept rolling in, people were achieving greater levels of shock. Since the company's primary customers were military folks and we handled a lot of their money, this was devastating to us. We prided ourselves on customer service and we had to be especially ready to deal with this event. Because they closed the Stock Market that day and the whole country was pretty much shutdown and everyone was frightened, senior management sent all but essential personnel home. I was allowed to go home. I know that at the time I didn't understand the full impact that event would have on our world, but I know now that our world will never be the same as it was before 9-11. I know that I won't be the same as before 9-11.

If you've hung through this long post, thank you for reading. Please leave a comment about your own experiences, or if you're doing Suzanne's challenge, then post a link.

4 comments:

GinniG said...

Great writing Karen! Brings back memories of my own experiences. I should start doing Suzanne's challenges, too!

GinniG said...

I think I wrote a longer blog entry than you did! But it's on my blog. Thanks for the push to do this challenge! :)

Suzanne said...

Okay, I'll need to do two separate comments, since I have the memory of a gnat. About your pets... your kitties are so cute! Cats personalities are so funny! And Snickers, what a cool story! Sorry about Tango, but Snickers looks very COZY in that pic! :-) LOL about car rides, our dogs HATE them because it means they're going to the vet! :-D

Suzanne said...

My blogging will be about these two events as well. Very sad, I think that stunning is the only word for them. Thanks for sharing your experiences!