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The kitten saga continues

13 Nov

Many of you have been following my Lollypop kitten foster journey, especially since I posted last week about my first four fosters (pictured above) and what an adorable challenge they were. What most of you don’t know is the day I posted that blog, I had to take the kittens back to Lollypop for a check-up, especially since one of them was still diarrhea-ing up a storm.

Every day after they left, I anxiously awaited an email from the foster folks saying that the kittens’ spa day at the clinic was over and I could come back to get them. That email never came.

After five days, I finally came to terms with the idea that I would not be seeing my babies again. I decided to focus on getting a new bunch of furbabies to love. So I made sure my email notification sounder was on full blast so that the next time a foster plea went out, I’d be the first to respond (in the past, I discovered that if I was even a half hour delayed in answering, I’d miss out).

My plan worked. The foster plea email came early Monday morning, and a minute later — maybe less — I’d written back, not even taking the time to include a salutation or closing signature. And my email began, “Please, me!”

So by Monday afternoon, my husband and I were watching two three-week old kittens exploring our living room. In homage to the Teletubbies, their names are Dipsy and Po (I did not come up with those). They do not have diarrhea, and appear to be perfectly healthy little fuzzballs. Not sure yet if they’ve learned to use the litter box, so that adventure awaits.

I did, by the way, find out the status of my first batch of babies. They were just finishing up another round of medication, and will soon be scheduled for their spaying and neutering surgeries, so they’ll be put up for adoption soon. Just an FYI in case you fell in love with one of them through my blog 🙂

Dipsy and Po … or maybe Po and Dipsy?

And now a PSA for Lollypop Farm and their foster program. Even though I’ve only been doing this for two weeks, I can already tell you that it is one of the most enjoyable experiences of my life. I highly recommend to anyone and everyone to sign on, especially if you’re retired and need some new friends to help you pass the time (and we’re talking cats, dogs, rabbits, even horses). But I’m certain that even if you’re working, Lollypop would work with you to find a foster that would be perfect for your situation. Doesn’t cost you a thing; Lollypop provides everything you need.

Interested? Click here for more information.

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email me  at missyblog@gmail.com. “Like” this blog on Facebook and follow me on Instagram and Threads (@missyblog)

You can also get email notifications every time I post a new blog by using the “Follow Me” link on the right side of this page.

(posted 11/13/2023)

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Bygone Blog — A silly song for autumn

10 Nov
11122011 leaves

I’ve actually posted this Bygone Blog before, but it’s one of my favorites, and I can’t help but break out into song as I am raking every year. Maybe after reading this, you will too. (And, well, kittens. I need easy blog posts!) 

I wrote this when I was still living in Penfield and had to stuff hundreds (literally) bags of leaves each year for my trash hauler to pick up. Not having to do that anymore is another reason I love living in the village.   

Carol of the Leaves

(sung to the tune of “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year.”)

(Really. It’s much more fun if you sing along with it.)

It’s the most back-breaking time of the year,
When winter is calling,
the leaves are a’falling
And bagging-the-leaves time is here,
It’s the most back-breaking time of the year.

11122011leaf

Yes, the most colorful season is here.
From the leaves on the trees
To the frustrated screams
That fall on your ears,
Yes, the most colorful season is here.

I think shoveling is better
Though snow’s cold and wetter,
I just push it and that’s not so bad.
Then the plows come on by
And they sweep it aside.
And I don’t have to stuff it in bags.

It’s the most back-breaking time of the year.
Some day thanks to our pleas,
Penfield WILL pick up leaves.
They’ll finally get it in gear.
It’s the most back-breaking time,
Yes, the most back-breaking time,
It’s the most back-breaking time of the year.

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email me  at missyblog@gmail.com. “Like” this blog on Facebook and follow me on Instagram and Threads (@missyblog)

You can also get email notifications every time I post a new blog by using the “Follow Me” link on the right side of this page.

(posted 11/10/2023)

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Don’t worry, I’m fine. Just covered in kittens.

8 Nov

My regular blog readers might have noticed that I haven’t been blogging with the regularity that you’ve come to expect from me. No worries, though; I’m not sick. Something else has been distracting me.

Specifically, four seven-week old kittens.

I have recently signed on to foster kittens through Lollypop Farm. It was a decision I’ve been toying with for quite some time, ever since our Lilly passed away a few years ago. I needed something to fill the hole in my heart that she left.

After going through the sign-up and online training process, it took what seemed like FOREVER (actually only two weeks) before I was matched with some seven-week old kittens who needed a little extra TLC. The description Lollypop offered for the four siblings warned me that they were struggling with diarrhea. But I was so excited to be able to get some kittens, ANY kittens, I let that warning bounce right off me. After all, how bad can it be?

Turns out, pretty bad.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Gordon, Carmel, Mo and Gerry are indeed adorable. And they’re all very affectionate. And they love to cuddle up in a ball together in our laps to sleep. So that part of being kittens has been great. The let’s-drop-stinky-poop-all-over-the-living-room-rug-and-kitchen-floor-and-JUST-outside-the-litter-box part has been rather exhausting.

It’s been a learn-as-we-go experience for my husband and me. We realized pretty quickly that we hadn’t kitten-proofed the house anywhere near enough, especially for kittens that seem to consider pooping an Olympic sport. But we’re smart people. When every new challenge, we came up with a solution.

  • Kittens going upstairs and soiling the carpeting? Build a barrier at the base of the stairs.
  • Kittens able to leap over the barrier? Extend it with cardboard boxes.
  • Kittens able to find a way AROUND the barrier? Attach planks of wood to the side of the steps with bungee cords.
  • Kittens can’t get to the litter box in time? Put a second one in the living room.
  • Kittens soiling the upholstery? Put towels and pee pads on every chair and wrap the couch in a plastic tablecloth (thanks Becky for that idea).
  • Kittens pooping on the area rugs? Roll them up and put them on the porch.

So right now when you walk into our house, you’ll enter a living room with a bare floor, litter box in the corner, and plastic pads and towels spread EVERYWHERE. There’s a box of floor and carpet cleaning supplies within easy reach, and a basket of rags which gets accessed regularly. We’re doing two loads of laundry a day.

So you see that we’re kind of on duty all the time, and pretty much every hour or so we have to run around behind the kittens to make sure they’re getting to the litter box or — especially with Carmel — cleaning up a half dozen little messes. Things are slowly getting better, but it’s been rather time consuming.

BUT. I love having these little stinkybutt kittens around. My husband is clearly getting a little aggravated (especially since he gets up before me and so has to clean up all the overnight messes). But when they look up at me with their adorable little kitten faces and huge purrs, they melt my heart.

So no regrets, and I will miss them when they’re old enough to return to Lollypop for adoption. In the meantime, I’ll try to keep blogging, but it’s often hard to accomplish with four balls of fur climbing all over me.

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email me  at missyblog@gmail.com. “Like” this blog on Facebook and follow me on Instagram and Threads (@missyblog)

You can also get email notifications every time I post a new blog by using the “Follow Me” link on the right side of this page.

(posted 11/8/2023)

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Did you see the moon dog?

3 Nov

The moon put on a spectacular show last Saturday night; perhaps you saw it. It was called a “moon dog.” I didn’t notice it, but learned about it instead from Jackson Thomas, one of my loyal readers, who sent me the following description and photos from when he attended the Webster Recreation Center’s Pumpkins on Parade event that night:

In addition to the amazing activities and decorations (at Pumpkins on Parade), participants were also treated to a somewhat rare astronomical event: moon dogs.  This atmospheric phenomenon is the night-time equivalent of the sun dogs sometimes seen during the day when high, thin cirrus clouds create a bright, colorful spot on either or both sides of the sun. 

Moon dogs, like sun dogs, appear within the 22-degree halo surrounding either the moon or the sun, although this halo of refracted light is not always visible around the sun, unlike the brilliant halo we witnessed that evening surrounding the moon.  Sun dogs are colorful and appear to be miniature rainbows as sunlight is refracted through ice crystals at high altitude within those cirrus clouds.  Moon dogs ordinarily lack the color of sun dogs, because moonlight is not strong enough to activate the color-sensing cones in our eyes, but, as you will see in my photos, there was a slight touch of color due to the moon’s brilliance that evening.

Jackson also attached the informational photo below, and a link to more photos of these beautiful phenomena. Click through either or both if you’re interested in learning more.

Thank you Jet for sending this along!

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email me  at missyblog@gmail.com. “Like” this blog on Facebook and follow me on Instagram and Threads (@missyblog)

You can also get email notifications every time I post a new blog by using the “Follow Me” link on the right side of this page.

(posted 11/3/2023)

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The man in the yellow truck

10 Oct

You’ve probably seen the yellow truck parked along the Rt. 104 access roads, most recently near Phillips Rd. And you may even have seen the guy in the bright yellow vest filling trash bags. That guy is Stephen Anderson, who for several years has made it his personal mission to clean up the highway.

I, too, had noticed Stephen several times, and thought, “I need to hear his story.” A couple of readers even write to suggest I do a blog about him. But I never did find a good opportunity to stop and talk to him.

Which is why I was pleased to find out that my friend Katie Kovar over at the Webster Recreation Center had done that job for me. She recently tracked Stephen down and wrote an article about his efforts, which was published in the most recent Webster Today town newsletter.

Here is that article.

The Yellow Truck and the American Flag

by Katie Kovar, Recreation Director, Webster Parks and Recreation

During the height of COVID, Stephen Anderson was diagnosed with diabetes, The directive from his doctor was straightforward: stay active. With limited access to fitness facilities, Anderson had to get creative. At the same time, Anderson noted an excess of litter along the expressway … something that also reached its height during COVID. The Webster resident took matters into his own hands and paired his diagnosis with a community need and got to work, It was simple — stay active, give back, do good.

Geared up in his bright yellow truck, Stephen began efforts by picking up trash along Route 104 in Webster. “I was my form of exercise, and I wanted to clean. That’s it.” His truck became even more noticeable when he began to fly an American flag each time he cleaned. It started as a “social experiment,” he says, to see how many people would beep their horns, It turns out it’s a lot! Keep them coming, Stephen says, “I love it!”

He added,

People think they will startle me if they beep their horn … but they won’t. The simple horn beeping makes me feel appreciated and happy. Please beep anytime you see me.

After some time, the battered flag he was flying was replaced by a group of Webster School District bus drivers, one of whom is a former Marine Corps officer. “They wanted to do something for me and after thinking about it they got together and gave me a beautiful new flag.” Stephen now displays this American flag every time he stops to clean the expressway.

Stephen Anderson, the man in the yellow truck and the American flag, has become a bit of a visual staple along the Webster highways. Given a permit to clean, outfitted in reflective gear, safety goggles, a hard hat and gloves, he has cleaned multiple times a week for years. He says he has learned a variety of things including how heavy to load up the bags, They typically hold everything from dirt, diapers, food containers and car accident debris. Once the bags are loaded, they need to be lifted and disposed of, so they can’t be too heavy. This means one thing: he goes through bags quickly.

photos by K. Kovar

Stephen recently ran out of the orange garbage bags provided by the state and has made a call for more on social media. The orange bags provide an element of safety, as they can be lined along the roadways to provide a visual barrier where he’s working. It’s also easier to notice them for pick-up afterward.

IN order to keep giving back to his community, Stephen needs more bags. If you’re interested in helping Stephen continue his clean-up efforts, you can leave garbage bags in the bin in the Webster Recreation Center vestibule located at 1350 Chiyoda Dr.

Although Stephen loves his work and wished he had the physical capability to do it every day, he does have a message for the community:

Stop throwing garbage out on the roadways. We are supposed to be giving this land to our children and we are destroying it.”

To find out other ways you might be able to help Stephen in his efforts, email Katie Kovar at kkovar@ci.webster.ny.us.

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email me  at missyblog@gmail.com. “Like” this blog on Facebook and follow me on Instagram and Threads (@missyblog)

You can also get email notifications every time I post a new blog by using the “Follow Me” link on the right side of this page.

(posted 10/10/2023)

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Happy birthday Dorothy!

10 Sep

Saturday afternoon I was honored to be on hand for a 100th birthday party held for Dorothy Humphrey. It was held at Cherry Ridge, and attended by a large crowd of friends and relatives, some of whom had come from as far as Colorado.

While Dorothy is technically my neighbor — she still owns the house a few doors down from me on Fuller Ave. in the village, which she and her husband built 75 years ago — she’s lived at Cherry Ridge for several years now. She’s been there since I moved onto Fuller four years ago, so I’d never met her before the party. This was a great opportunity to get to know her a bit better.

Dorothy and I had a very nice conversation, and I met many of her family members, who delighted me with their stories. Like how Dorothy was your stereotypical lunch lady at Spry, how she’d send a dollar bill to every one of her nieces and nephews on their birthdays until they were 16, and how she was a world-class quilter.

Dorothy with my friend Shirley, and sons Dave and Skip
Dorothy visits with Rita, a friend and fellow quilter

Thank you to my friend Shirley, Dorothy’s daughter-in-law, for this opportunity to finally meet my neighbor. And happy 100th birthday Dorothy!

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email me  at missyblog@gmail.com. “Like” this blog on Facebook and follow me on Instagram and Threads (@missyblog)

You can also get email notifications every time I post a new blog by using the “Follow Me” link on the right side of this page.

(posted 9/10/2023)

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For the love of pickleball

4 Sep

I’d like to give a quick shout-out to a group of people I met Monday who really embrace the idea of community. They are the pickleballers who gather every morning to play at the Ellison Park courts.

I’ve played pickleball before, pre-pandemic, when my Plank North teaching colleagues and I would organize pick-up games after school. I really enjoy the game and miss playing it, now that I’m retired. But I’ve always been hesitant to join an organized league or even go to the Rec Center, because I’ve heard so many stories about how clique-y pickleball players can get. Even though I’m pretty good with a paddle, I wasn’t sure I’d be embraced by a group of established players.

When my friend Carl found out that I play, he invited me to join the Ellison Park gang, assuring me that they were very welcoming. When I arrived at the courts Monday morning, it was immediately clear to me that he was right. I hadn’t even walked all the way up to the first court before someone waved me out to play. He didn’t ask me how long I’d been playing or how good I was. It was just, “C’mon, you wanna play?”

For the next two hours, I played pickleball with Bob, Janice, Bill, Charlie, Goldie, Michelle, Julius and lots others whose names I can’t remember or didn’t get a chance to meet. There were so many players that morning — more than two dozen — that I didn’t play with everyone, but those I did were all friendly, cheerful, encouraging and helpful.

So thank you, Ellison Park pickleball players, for welcoming me into your community so readily. I’ll be seeing you again soon.

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email me  at missyblog@gmail.com. “Like” this blog on Facebook and follow me on Instagram and Threads (@missyblog)

You can also get email notifications every time I post a new blog by using the “Follow Me” link on the right side of this page.

(posted 9/4/2023)

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Thank you, my Webster neighbors, for the cowbells

2 Sep

My personal thank you to everyone who came out for Friday night’s First Responders 5K. This annual race takes runners on a 3.1-mile course from Webster’s Fireman’s Field through east-side village neighborhoods and back.

As usual, I ran the race — it’s one of my favorites since it runs right by my house — and am always appreciative of the families who set up lawn chairs and sit along the route to cheer us on, many with cowbells in hand. (I love cowbells. You can never have enough cowbells.) I especially like it when I can get children to give me high-fives as I pass; they always give me an extra boost of energy.

There were also plenty of volunteer road marshals, which I was happy to see since the call had gone out a few days earlier about the need for more volunteers. They were all smiling and friendly, cheering us on as they directed us down the next street. This race could not happen without them, so thank you very much to all.

I joined my friend Dave again this year for the race, and we both did very well. Could have been the perfect weather, could have been having a good friend at my side pushing me along, but I managed to beat my time from last year.

As usual, my husband and some friends set up a water and beer refreshment stand in the driveway, which I understand many runners took advantage of. The beer especially is a welcome distraction for a lot of participants near the end of the race.

I’m already looking forward to next year.

(Thank you to my friend Karen for the photo above.)

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email me  at missyblog@gmail.com. “Like” this blog on Facebook and follow me on Instagram and Threads (@missyblog)

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(posted 9/2/2023)

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There are fairies among us

1 Sep

I first noticed the fairies a few years ago.

I often head down Dunning Ave. in the village on my morning and evening walks. Shortly after we moved to the village, I began to see fairy doors propped up against several trees in front of the house at the southwest corner of Dunning and Elm, complete with fairies frolicking on the doorsteps. They charmed me so much that two years ago I mentioned them in one of my blogs, where I also wrote about the porches, flowers and other beautiful and whimsical things that make our village so charming.

It wasn’t until a year or more later that I found out the fairy doors are the work of a friend of mine, Peter Elder.

Peter described the fairy-door-making project as an “evolution” which began several years ago with his decision to ring all of his trees with soil and stones. The next step was to plant flowers and various other growing things in the rings. As those gardens matured, he had another idea.

“There are these legends in Irish and Scottish folklore about fairies coming through trees,” he said. So, “I thought it would be a cool idea to do fairy doors.”

That was about five years ago, and the doors stood by themselves for a few years. It was actually his wife Pam’s idea to place fairies near the doors.

What was just a few doors back then has grown to a fairy village of ten doors. Most of them are propped against trees, one is actually nestled in a knot about head-high, and one adorns a butterfly bush in the side yard. Some of the trees have doors on two sides, and most of the doors have fairies in front of them, much to the delight of the adults and children who walk by each day.

Peter tries to get everything planted and set up by Memorial Day, and takes the fairies in at the end of October to protect them from the winter. He’d like to continue adding more doors, perhaps placing a second one at each tree that doesn’t already have two, and finding more hollows to tuck small doors into. There’s always room for more fairies, too.

So keep an eye on the fairies as you make your way down Dunning, because their little village will continue to grow.

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email me  at missyblog@gmail.com. “Like” this blog on Facebook and follow me on Instagram and Threads (@missyblog)

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(posted 9/1/2023)

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Reconnecting with “the boys” — part 3

29 Aug

Those of you who have been following my story of how I became acquainted with “the boys” will be pleased to read this latest installment. (Not familiar with the story? Check out this blog first, then this one to fill in the blanks.)

Early Monday morning, while I was still hugging my first cup of coffee and trying to wake up, I got an email from Tony, one of my original “boys.” Apparently one of the group had seen my blog on Facebook and told the gang about it. They were still meeting at Burger King every day, and he invited me to stop in some morning.

No way was I going to wait for “some morning.” It took me less than a half hour to get myself together and drive to Burger King.

As usual, I was welcomed with big smiles and open arms. Carl brought me a coffee and everyone filled me in on how the group’s been managing. Some old friends have passed away, very few new ones have joined. After bopping around from Hegedorn’s to Bill Gray’s to Guida’s to McDonald’s, they finally settled into the Burger King in Webster Plaza, where they’ve been for more than ten years. The pandemic didn’t even slow them down. When they couldn’t gather in a restaurant, they brought folding chairs and set up in a parking lot, tailgate-style.

The conversations haven’t changed much, focusing mostly on solving the problems of Webster and the world at large. By now, the boys have pretty much got all those problems solved. But that won’t keep them from their regular morning meetings, because, they all agreed, getting together with old friends is a great way to start the day.

And meeting up with old friends was a great way to start my week.

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email me  at missyblog@gmail.com. “Like” this blog on Facebook and follow me on Instagram and Threads (@missyblog)

You can also get email notifications every time I post a new blog by using the “Follow Me” link on the right side of this page.

(posted 8/29/2023)

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