Need Posting Help

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2981786/posts ^

[MasterMason]

I just re-joined FR and I would like to post to my local NC state board but I am not able to. How do I get the ability to do that?

[Tax-chick]

Good to know it wasn’t your cats. Jake is out in the herb garden hoping Tom the mockingbird won’t notice him until it’s too late.

[Monkey Face]

I’m ready to go lie down because I’ve had the chills off and on all afternoon, but I remembered that I didn’t charge the Nook or the Kindle, and the way I’m feeling, I really need them both.

So I will let them charge for the next hour and then get parallel to the deck.

It’s going to cool off tomorrow to a chilly 83, but the wind will still be with us.

[Monkey Face]

I’m doing good if I have four visitors in as many months. But there is something to be said for solitude. I can’t think of what that would be, but there must be something good about it...

How are you feeling, Lady?

[TheOldLady]

We have never let any of our cats outside. Most of them have been content to stay
inside and observe the outside world through window screens and screen doors.

The only cat I ever let outside was my late Rocket. He was just a perfect gentleman.
He came to me when I called him, and we walked around together.

He chased chipmunks and ate grass, and when he was done, he would walk over to
the man door at the side of the garage and stare at the doorknob until I let him in.

Egad, but I miss that cat. There is definitely an empty hole in my heart the size
and shape of my Rocket.

Sometimes at night, I swear he’s sleeping on my hip like he used to do. I still cry.

[Monkey Face]

I’ve never let my cats out, either, and in this area, it’s more of a safety thing than a preference. There are some coyotes in the arroyo to the south and west, and they prey on cats and small dogs, both of which are plentiful because people just don’t care.

It sounds like you miss Rocket about as much as I still miss The Late Great PV. *hug*

[TheOldLady]

I’m doing okay, thank you, Face.

Tomorrow is my next chemo session, but without the nasty drugs.

My oncologist wants me to undergo radiation. I refused. Radiation
causes cancer, and it destroys healthy cells to the point where they
cannot naturally repair themselves. IOW, they cannot heal properly.

I will be getting an infusion of Herceptin, which has a few side
effects, more than I realized. I looked it up, and it causes tachy-
cardia (the worst one) and other heart problems, sleep disruption,
depression, and a few more in descending order of unpleasantness.

I have to get it every three weeks until the middle of December.

[NicknamedBob]

"Egad, but I miss that cat. There is definitely an empty hole in my heart the size and shape of my Rocket."

If you live a long life, and have a lot of pets, you probably end up with so many holes you look like SpongeBob.

[Monkey Face]

Hang tough, Honey. We are here for you, and prayers are always being said in your behalf. <3

:o])

[TheOldLady]

I will miss my Rocket until we meet again at the Rainbow Bridge,
in which I firmly believe. He is waiting there. We have a bond.

[TheOldLady]

Yes, Bob. We have our little collection of ashes in wooden boxes arrayed on the stereo in the Sun Room.

The only cat we ever buried was the one who started coming around one year right around Thanksgiving.
We weren't able to get her to come in the house or make friends with us at all.

From the condition of her dead body, Bryan deduced that she had been hit by a car, and she just made it
back to her "safe place" that we had prepared for her, in time to die. Something was eating her, quite
literally, and we took her remains, wrapped her in a burial cloth, and gave her a nice deep hole in which
to sleep. She has a little headstone as well. She never got a proper name.

[trisham]

That’s so nice, TOL.

[TheOldLady]

And I cry like a baby over every one of them.

[trisham]

I hear you. It’s hard.

[Darksheare]

Oh well, Errorbot 404 might actually be my fault.

[NicknamedBob]

"She never got a proper name."

It's amazing how well this fits what you were describing there. Among other things, I think you can conclude that I have "been there, done that".

Down on the Road

My wife’s cat got killed down on the road the other day,
Expending all of its lives in a futile, final moment.
Probably, it’s better that it happened quickly,
We wouldn’t want the beast to live in torment.

We never got around to giving it a name,
Translating just as friendly sounds,
And we were just some folks it saw,
In making its appointed rounds.

The necessary burial detail fell to me,
I’ve had too much of practice in the task.
I’d just as soon it fall to someone else,
To let me shrug and wonder if she’d ask.

"So, have you seen the cat of late?
The poor thing must be ready to come round …"
"No, Dear. I haven’t seen it,
It’s probably in another part of town."

The comfort of not knowing would be welcome.
Instead I have the dread of knowing truth;
That cats will go a-hurrying across a road,
As if the hounds of Hell pursueth.

Cats and highway vehicles don’t mix too well,
The feline wiring won’t admit,
That there are times and circumstances,
When cat-quick reflexes don’t fit.

And thus the grisly task inherits me.
Holding back my tears with stoic face,
I perform a silent duty to a former friend,
Caught between a wheel and a hard place.

Then walking back to put away the shovel,
I have a little time to give it thought.
Please let someone do the same for me,
When I have lost the final battle that I fought.

Just put me down where frost won’t make me shiver,
And cover with a blanket made of grass,
Amidst the roots which always smell so pleasant,
Of soda-scented sweetened sassafras.

NicknamedBob . . . March 19, 2008

.

Although this was written a few years ago, that doesn't indicate how long it festered and gestated in my mind before I was able to give voice to it.

It's sad, and poignant, and with a somber kind of sweet resignation.

[NicknamedBob]

Looks like sassafras growing there too! Save some room for me, will you?

[TheOldLady]

There will always be room for you here, if you wish to come.

Sorry about your wife’s cat. Glad you never told her what happened.

[stephenjohnbanker]

“Kinda spooky when a robot says something like that. “

Kinda spooky when a robot says ANYTHING.

[Darksheare]

Bots tend to be really creepy, even when saying something within normal parameters.
“Systems normal”
Yeah, that’s why it is strangling the entire population in that high rise.

[stephenjohnbanker]

“We have big blobby glops of semi-congealed globul climate change falling.”

Silly goose, that’s Hillary,she’s back in Chappaqua....