I can’t help but love Lucy. The way she’s always getting into such mischief. You just know from the look in her eyes that there’s hijinks afoot. I could watch her all day long. Oh, you think I’m talking about the screwball comedy red-head. No, I’m talking about the five… Read full post »

People like to throw around the phrase ‘it doesn’t matter’ with all degrees of cavalier frequency. Don’t worry about your hair, it doesn’t matter... Forget about the run in your stocking, it doesn’t matter... No one’s going to care if we’re late, it doe… Read full post »

I know neither the author nor the origin of this heartwrenching prayer. I know only that it says better than I seem able why I founded Irving House. If the words you read here touch your heart in any manner, please go to www.irvinghouse.org and help us to keep helping them.… Read full post »

My cousin’s son got married last May. I hadn’t seen him in more than a year and I didn’t attend the wedding. Instead I chose to remain at home to nurse a cat who had suffered an insulin related seizure the day before. My cousin did not understand this and only… Read full post »

I couldn’t wait to be a grown up. Watching my parents get all dressed up just to go out to a friend’s house seemed so glamorous and exciting. My father always wore a jacket and tie and my mother would always carefully choose from her ‘good jewelry.’ I thought they were… Read full post »

When I was a year old my father gave me a plushy stuffed toy lion. Poppy was a loyal and constant companion and though I am still fuzzy on the details it seems he is credited with the success of my early potty training. I’m told that when it was deemed he was trash/… Read full post »

As a rule cats are not notorious guardsmen. I mean how many times do you ever hear anyone say they have a cat for protection? Still, I always ask repairmen and deliverymen if they are afraid or allergic to cats. I figure it’s the polite thing to do. And they always… Read full post »

I was at the park last week enjoying the beauty of what my exuberant taxes help pay for and while I sat alone on the duck poop covered bench my gaze caught a small girl feeding the ducks with her father. It reminded me of my own father and I had… Read full post »

I am certain that when my Creator molded me and sent me line to line to collect this or that before sending me on to my parents, the line for ‘patience’ must have been too long and opting not to wait I jumped right on over to ‘generosity’ because while I… Read full post »

When recently out to lunch, I overheard part of a conversation on the topic of motherhood and what it means to be a mother and I couldn’t help but stop a moment and ponder the complexities of such a simple word.

While motherhood no longer bears the likeness of June Cleaver… Read full post »

It is a precision movement resting in all the delicate timing of Swan Lake. One false move, one miscalculation by either party and the beautiful easy rhythm falls to utter chaos. Personally, I’d rather drop a swan than catch a cat’s tail beneath a rocker runner.

Why cats seem to del… Read full post »

Whether in the wild or in the home, an animal needs his space. Cats more so than dogs, need a private little corner of their environment where no other dare trespass (this includes you), but that’s not to say that your canine buddy couldn’t benefit from a little spot to call his… Read full post »

We emerge from the winter of our cocoons shedding our woolen coats like a heavy skin. Summer has arrived and brought with it barbeques, picnics, and long days spent lazing in the sun. Even the cars are different as proud owners roll back the tarp from their shiny sports cars and… Read full post »

Ever since childhood and clear to present middle aged adulthood, there remain only two things I have no fear of; the dark, which is no surprise given my being half blind, and animals. I have never been afraid of any animal, big or small.

I can’t say for certain where this… Read full post »

Some would have thought, nay hoped, that with the decade ending my twenties so too would have ended my acting on impulse without concern for any potential consequences, the indiscretion of youth and all that being replaced by level headed maturity. Well, one can hope but the simple truth is that… Read full post »

Ah, childhood, it is a magical time when the heads of little girls are filled with illusions of the handsome prince.  From the toys we play with; Barbie, Ken, even the rugged, tormented GI Joe (for those of us who found Ken a bit of a milk toast), to the books/… Read full post »

I remember with great fondness turning forty, the big FOUR-O. I loved it, I embraced it, and I bragged openly about it. I invited conversation that would ask the question of my age. I couldn’t wait to tell people. I felt as if everything up to that point had been a… Read full post »

Growing up Italian is, in a word, loud. We are loud at parties, we are loud at home, and we are even loud at funerals. This I know from recent personal experience when several of my uncles were shushed by the funeral director while paying their respects to my father. But/… Read full post »

Do you see her and pretend that you don’t? Do you look away from her as you pass her by on the street? Does it embarrass you that she is out there picking up crap in all sorts of weather sometimes without so much as a pair of gloves to keep… Read full post »

There are those who are drawn to the laugh of a child~

There are those who are drawn to the call of the wild.

Some cannot can not sleep unless beside a mate,

While others are content with just the occasional date.

You might be one who finds all you need… Read full post »

It’s a nauseating thought, really, pickles and ice cream. I mean I like pickles and I like ice cream but I have a really hard time imagining liking them together. I don’t think I could come up with two more opposite things than pickles and ice cream. So where then does… Read full post »

Bruno was the bad ass of the neighborhood but he was cute and I was young and I wanted desperately for him to like me. He lived with Charlie and it was rumored that they’d once gone head to head and it’d ended with Charlie losing two fingers. Pish-posh, I thought.… Read full post »

Each day around 3PM the school bus rolls up to the STOP on the corner and there’s always one kid who feels the need to announce to the others, while pointing to my house, ‘that’s the house where the old lady with all the cats lives.’ Okay, time to get a… Read full post »

I’d never been inside one of those places before and whatever I might have been expecting I surely wasn’t prepared for what I found. Its appearance from the outside is of faint memory for me. I was too nervous about what was on the inside to really pay much attention but… Read full post »

It was like going to school in Transylvania. By my junior year in high school half my class was sporting oddly shaped bruises on their necks with much the same pride as securing a learner’s permit. Not having one put you on par with the likes of the Hunchback, Cyrano, or… Read full post »