Well, it was some kind of tick that I pulled out of my cat. It came out very easily, and I can’t seem to find any sore on my cat’s skin where the tick had attached itself. From what I can tell by looking at images of a bloated tick, that’s what it was.
While I pulled it out by its end that was stick up and not by the head in the skin, like it seems I was supposed to, it came out very easily, almost seemed to back out.
I realize now that I should have stuck the tick in a jar and took it somewhere to be tested for Lyme Disease, but….
I’m keeping an eye on my cat, who seems fine and doesn’t seem to have any sore spot in the area where I found the tick. But I’ll keep watching.
Thanks for the advice left on my previous post. It all helped.

I was sitting outside in the sun with my mom, and I was petting my cat. who likes to hang around with us. Especially in the sun.
Uh oh. What is this? A mole? A tumor? Something stuck on her skin under her fur as a result of her traipsing through our acres of weeds?
It looked a little like the tail end of a smooth (unsegmented) gray worm sticking out of the skin. Or maybe just a little pile of schmutz that landed between tufts of fur and stuck. I touched it with my finger. It moved
Uh oh. I go and get a pair of tweezers. Maybe I can pull it out, brave and stupid cat owner that I am.
Well, I did pull it out of what might have been a little hole in my cat’s back and placed in on the cement step. It looked like a small, smooth flat oval gray pebble, maybe one-half inch long. I poked it with the tweezers. What looked like little antennae appeared out of the end that had been on (or in) the cat’s skin.
I lifted my foot and smashed it. Splat. Well, a little splat. It was rather small.
After the fact, I googled around looking for what it might have been. The closest I could come was the botfly larva. If that’s what it was, oops. I wasn’t supposed to try to remove it by myself. Uh. Too late.
Only I’m not sure that’s what it was. I can’t find any hole or sore spot on my cat from where I removed the little creature.
I wish now that I had taken a photo of the specimen, before I splatted it, of course. Maybe someone on the Net could have identified it.
Maybe I’ll never know what the damned thing was, but I’m going to keep checking my cat for more moving bumps. And I’ll keep my tweezers handy.

For most people I know, taking time out to sit down and eat lunch at a sunny spot of their kitchen table and pick up the mystery book they’ve been reading is not a big deal.
For me, it’s an event.
So, on Sunday, when she finally fell asleep after a day and a half of constant crying and moaning and whining and refusing to respond to any comfort, I finally had a few moments of quiet. And sunlight.
Her bouts of wordless whining are like Chinese water torture. At times like these I feel like I’m losing it. I threaten to go off my antidepressants and have a nervous breakdown just so that I can get some extended peace and quiet. Just so that I no longer have to live every day under the tyranny of her dementia. I am trying to convince my brother that she needs antidepressants. Dementia and depression are often all mixed up together.
When I start feeling like that I go into the garage, close the door, and loudly vocalize my anger, my frustration, my restlessness, my powerlessness.
But Sunday, there was sunlight and quiet, so after lunch, I scooted outside to walk up and down the long crunchy-leafed driveway, picking up tree limbs tossed there by the wind a few days earlier and meditating on the creative projects I will someday do when this trying crying time is over.
I take my little camera and stomp around the property, looking for roots, old roots that will become part of one of the projects I’m imagining that I will get to do someday.
I find several large trees that had been unearthed 30 years ago when the land was cleared to build the house. Good old roots.

I’m intrigued by a huge mound of unearthed rotting tree roots. In the afternoon shadows, forms and shapes emerge that become almost abstract art. “Autumn Art,” I muse.


And, maybe this, a watercolor.

In case you’re wondering what’s in my colorful sunny luncheon dish, it’s a concoction I make periodically when I get a hankering for food with flavor. (Cooking for my mother means no spices — she thinks the specs are bugs — so it’s basically onion powder and garlic powder and not too much of those because she has a sensitive stomach.)
So, every once in a while, I make a big bowl of assorted healthy stuff that I refrigerate and eat for days on end. The basis of it comes from jars: marinated zucchini, roasted sweet red peppers, green and black olives; a small can of diced oregano and garlic flavored tomatoes; frozen mixed vegetables (carrots, peas, corn) that I partially cook and then marinate while still warm in whatever vinaigrette salad dressing I have on hand; chick peas (which I also warm and throw in the marinade); chopped red onions. Then I mix it all together, adding some of the liquid from the jarred ingredients so that I get the tangy taste I crave, and I put the very large container in the refrigerator and every once in a while give it all a good mixing.
When I want to have some for lunch, I add other last-minute ingredients (whatever I have on hand), such as mushrooms, chunks of fresh mozzarella, pepperoni, salami, and even walnuts.
Obviously, my life is so devoid of flavor that I obsess on food. At least I don’t drink.

The following post is by MYRLN, a non-blogger who is Kalilily Time’s guest writer every Monday.
IMAGINATION?
The latest episode of SOUTH PARK was part one of a trilogy around a main theme of a nature that hilariously out-smuts much of the show’s previous smutty themes. But the smut-driven alleged main theme is really secondary to the show’s thoroughly insightful and satirical treatment of the supposed “war on terror” as our dubious prez Dumbya likes to articulate it. (“Articulate” is used in its loosest sense there — oh, and by the way, doesn’t “war on terror” mean fighting feelings of fear?)
In any case, what this SOUTH PARK trilogy pursues and characterizes is the stupidity surrounding so much of this “war.” We — as pseudo-residents of South Park — are informed that Muslim terrorists have successfully attacked and hijacked our imagination. It is only a matter of time, we are further told, before our imagination starts running wild. In all the words spoken and written since 9/11, none more accurately than those describe where indeed we have come to: imaginations run wild. Furthermore, we’re also shown, terrorists have destroyed the barrier between the light and dark sides of imagination, allowing darkness to overwhelm good and innocence.
All of that’s exactly what’s happened to us and allows the lunacy we now confront daily to prevail.
We actually make believe it’s not clear what constitutes torture. We have a man in the White House who believes he was honestly elected and that he can hold discussions with god. We have a government that actually thinks the U.S. Constitution is a debatable document and can be disregarded at a whim. Grade school kids who draw characters shooting at each other are suspended and referred for counseling — no matter they’re simply replicating fantasy scenes from cartoons and comic books. Guy on a college campus wears a helmet and bulletproof vest (perhaps as protection?) and is arrested then released but “warned about his outfit’s appearance.” A girl soccer player is told she can’t wear her Muslim hair covering in a game “cuz people might misunderstand.” More and more cameras are installed around city streets because of “this day and age.” And for the same reason, government is allowed to spy on us and “detain” us as prisoners in total disregard of our constitutional rights.
And why is all this going on? Ask SOUTH PARK. Its smutty, supposed main theme of the trilogy is symbolic of what we’re being asked — and forced — to do for fear of terrorists.
Part 2 of the trilogy airs Wednesday night at 10. Maybe they’ll precede it with a repeat of part 1.

I have to admit it. Occasionally I’m a sucker for those “seen on tv” ads. Once in a while I get stung.
But not lately.
I am totally sold on the Swivel Sweeper. I make such good use of ours on our low-pile rugs and bare floors that I bought one for my daughter. My grandson has become the official family sweeper at his house. Even my mother can use it. The ads for this product tell the truth. It picks up everything from dust and cat hair to stepped-on Cheerios. This is not a paid advertisement. I’m just sharing info about something that actually works.
The other purchase I made is the Spin Spa, figuring I need all the access to relaxation that I can get. I liked it so much I ordered two more microderm abrasion heads, since that’s the one I use most (you know, on that rough skin on elbows and knees).
Finally, while I won’t put a bumper sticker on my car, I have put a car magnet or two on. IMHO, this site has the best ones. The one I have on my car right now appears at the end of this old post
So, now I’m thinking I might buy one of these:

There are hundreds more on that Stamp and Shout site. I could cover my whole car with them.
Maybe I’ll just settle for this one:

I stole this right off Doug’s blog. Even better than underground resistance is blatant above-ground resistance.

The piece in The Oregonian reprinted in Truthout starts with:

In “1984,” the novel that most baby boomers read in high school, George Orwell creates a theoretical modern-day government with absolute power – a state in which government, called the Party, monitors and controls every aspect of human life to the extent that even having a disloyal thought is against the law.

It ends with:

Al-Qaeda hates Americans of all creeds and races and will do whatever it can to destroy us and our way of life. James Madison warned, “If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.” With the mightiest military and strongest technology on Earth, democracy can stand up to terrorism without becoming the mirror of our enemies.

In between is a documentation of just how bad things are.
It’s happening here, folks. Big Brother Bush and all the rest of it.
It’s gotten to the point where AOL, Microsoft, Yahoo et al have been preventing the delivery of information from Truthout
This is what Truthout reported in the document linked to above:

It is becoming increasingly apparent that the Free Email Services – all of them – are a morass. You are a commodity to these administrators and as far as they are concerned your rights are your problem, not theirs. If you are serious abut receiving TO, or any other content they are not supportive of, you are pretty much on your own. Bluntly stated: AOL, Microsoft, Yahoo and all of the domains they control restrict what you receive in your inbox. And it is at their discretion, not yours.

I know it’s been said so often that it’s not even shocking any more, but there’s a real similarity here between us and the Germans in Hitler’s Germany. Take me, for example. I see this stuff going on, but it’s all going on outside my small sphere of influence. I have not really felt the effects — on my own personal life — of this wave of fascism
The difference, of course, is that we can still speak out. Which lots of us do.
I can’t help wonder if we’re being left alone to shout into the wind because those Big Brothers can pretty much ignore our noisiness and continuing doing what they’ve been doing. Who’s to stop ’em?
I think of the citizens of Poland during World War II, who were betrayed by the Allies and left to survive the best they could. What the Poles did was form an Underground movement called “The Polish Secret State” that included both military and civilian participation.

The rationale behind the creation of the secret civilian authorities stemmed from the fact that the German and Soviet occupation of Poland was illegal. Hence all the institutions created by the occupying powers were regarded as illegal and parallel Polish underground institutions were set up following Polish law.

In a very real sense, we have an “occupying power” here in America that is destroying this country and what it has always stood for.
There’s something to be said for an Underground State, for Solidarnosc, for an organized refusal to accept fascism, injustice, and the denial of citizen rights.
It’s in my Polish blood, this refusal to submit. When the revolution comes, you know what side I’ll be on.

The following post is by MYRLN, a non-blogger who is Kalilily’s guest writer every Monday.
THIS IS YOUR COUNTRY...
…in bits and pieces.
A lady in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, was refused entrance to a courthouse ’til she removed her underwire bra which set off the security gate alarm. Gotta prevent them underwire bra bomber terrorists looking to take over Idaho and harming the baked potato crop.
Senator Hypocrita Clinton wants for us to make her Prez and turn the whole country over to her keeping when she couldn’t see what was right there under her nose (figuratively speaking) when she was last in the White House.
A new Walmart under construction required the use of dynamite, so the company went to court and forced the owner of the adjoining property to vacate home and land in case of accident. No mention of forcing Walmart to guarantee no damage. Not every home is one’s castle if Walmart’s involved.
Latest lead concern involves lipstick. From cheapest to designer brands, lead showed up in all those tested. Perhaps this explains how so-called “fashion” designers convince women to stupidly subject themselves to shoes with 5-inch heels. Lead does affect the brain.
Thanks to a recent Parade Magazine, we know another reason why the U.S. is in trouble around the world. A list reveals about one-third of our ambassadors are non-diplomats. Their qualifications? Buddies with Bush. For example, ambassador to: Australia, Skull and Bones with Bush at Yale; Poland, close Yale friend; Hungary, dated Bush at Harvard Business School; China, fraternity brother at Yale; Japan, partner in Texas Ranger ownership; Sweden, prep school friend and frat brother at Yale; Belize, Yale roomie. Don’t bother George with no qualifications crap.
Friday’s New York Post graced its front cover and two inner pages with photos of a Brooklyn guy running around naked in Times Square. But he did have his cellphone so he could yak as he meandered.
Finally, a recent WGBH gift catalog included a tee-shirt inscribed with what it called Vegetable Psychiatric conditions. Among others, they included:
fennel retentive
hummus-cidal
garlic depressive
pea-ness envy
Yup, all sounds like U.S. all right.

While I am here ranting about my right to godlessness, my son, the OneTrueb!X, is posting some eloquent stuff about his “devout agnosticism.”
He writes of hope and purpose and dignity and choice, and quotes something penned by the should-be-more-famous Joss Whedon:

I got this in an email and tried it.
AND IT WORKED.
I’m one of those people who still sometimes figures on her fingers, so I’m reluctant to speculate about how it works. (But I do think it has something to do with the numbers you use to multiply, add, and subtract.)
The point of it all is that one can tell your age by your preferences for eating out. Try it. You’ll like it:

Who are the people who sit around and make up these things!!