Mother’s cat, Tiffany, who is being cared for by Summer is having a problem with Sydney. Der Bingle noticed that whenever Sydney walks into the same room Tiffany is in, she immediately starts to hiss and act as if she is being threatened by a terrorist. Der Bingle mentioned that this is the way Summer reacts when her brother Cameron walks into a room she is in. Only she doesn’t exactly hiss; it is more of a “HE’S BOTHERING ME” response.

This situation makes us miss our trusty and feisty Little Ann, who would have cocker- spanieled everyone into their place.

I have a PUR water filter on my faucet; it has started to spray water everywhere. I just looked it up with the keyword troubleshooting and found everyone complaining about this. Like me, they thought it was a fluke; but no, even the free replacements keep breaking. They have expensive filters with no working housing . . . like me. They wish they had read reviews first . . . ditto here.

What bothers me the most is that this company just keeps making a consistently defective product.

Summer is taking care of Mother’s cat, Tiffany. Der Bingle says they are absorbing each other’s personality. Of course, he also says he doesn’t know if there was much difference between them from the get-go. “Get-go” looks so odd in print, kind of like it should be a small creature peddling insurance – but that’s how the spell checker is telling me to spell it, so the heck with it.

Summer and Tiffany seem to be of the same mind: they consider each other “staff” ; Tiffany thinks of Summer as  Her Girl Friday and Summer considers Tiffany Her Cat Friday. Summer was astounded when Tiffany woke her up to “play” unsteady of waiting patiently at Sleeping Beauty’s feet. We are steering clear of them as this hierarchy is worked out.

That about sums it up. I decided the yard at Mother’s needed to be mowed. It was just too long to go into winter . . . just the tiniest bit too long, but no doubt about it, too long. So I spent a long time on the big mower with lots of horsepower and an accelerator. I almost bounced off a couple of times, but managed to both hold on and not get my head clipped off by low reaching limbs. And there was enough gas in the cans to keep the tank filled. I won’t say it’s the best job that has been done, but it was effective.

The sky was iron grey, but still the trees were stunningly beautiful. I chose not to take a picture, but keep the one in my head.

It’s about eight now; well, a little after, and I’m sitting here in my flannel pajama pants and a blanket around my shoulders. And at noon we’ll be heading out to go to the cemetery for the 1 pm service. It won’t take long. Then it will have been one week almost to the hour since Mother died here at the Peanut Butter Cafe & Roadhouse and when she was laid to rest beside her father in the old part of Oak Lawn in Sturgis, Michigan.

It will take some getting used to  this business of Mother having passed away. Yesterday, I found myself thinking I’d have to tell her about the surprise caller at the visitation . . . then I remembered.

Scrolling up the page, I came upon these pictures of Mother and Tiffany in better days:

Sarah E. Grismore and Tiffany

I went looking for a picture of LZP – whose birthday is today – in his banana suit, but I couldn’t find it right off the bat in iphoto. I going to have to refer you to a previous post – THIS ONE – and before you click to view, remember he is a trained professional. Do not try this at home until you have completed the relevant classes from the LZP Correspondence School of  It’s So Crazy It Just Might Work.

Clearing throat sound . . .  One, Two, Three

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU. HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DEAR BANANA HEAD. HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU.

* I just remembered LZP was the one who sent us the Peeps CD and Summer loved it and played the chirping songs over and over and over again.  Suddenly, from out of the blue, I am thinking Banana Split. Or, we could put him in a plastic bag so he will be all brown and spotted and rotten by Halloween . . . with gnats hovering around him.