the cat's in the cradle

i've always really thought zane was the most like me.  he talks like me, he's helpful like me, and he's compassionate like me.

this week, a second stray cat appeared IN our house.  not just on the front porch.  this little guy was actually IN the house.  he's a little grey baby, and he's so sweet.  i discovered him on sunday night snuggled up next to zane in his bed.  and since it was midnight, i couldn't just throw the little guy out on the streets. right?

zane with october

in september, the same thing happened.  an orange tabby appeared and just walked in the house with us one evening.  he immediately loved zane too.  he watches out the window for the bus every afternoon, and this guy lets zane carry him around like a baby.  zane named him "october" because of his coloring. 

so this week, we've have "shadow" living with us.  john most definitely does not want another cat.  the litter boxes are unbearable as it is, so i hate to force another cat on him.  plus, it's just weird to have 3 cats. i think it is anyway. right?

but i just can't bear to send him back out in the wild.  clearly, this is my mom & dad's fault.  right? they must have over taught compassion to me.  it should be noted that all of my cats have been strays.  hannah, my first cat, came to me during college.  i found her under a car, and i couldn't just leave her there. ;)

zane is so worried about the new little cat.  he's worried that john will throw him out.  he's pretty sure that i won't, but john could go either way.  zane tries to keep shadow hidden - i think he's hoping john will forget he's here. he's been making sure their food and water is full.  he's even cleaning up the water messes that october makes by dumping the water bowl.  i keep waiting for him to clean the litter box, but no such luck luck.

shadow watching tv

tonight, we had a scare with october and shadow though.  they disappeared. 


zane came home from school & was devastated.  i actually thought he might cry.  the kid launched an amber alert for these two.  he was outside looking everywhere he could think, and he was just really upset that they were gone.  (admittedly, i was slightly upset too)  and then, we heard them...  they were stuck in the basement.  zane couldn't stop hugging them when he found them - he was like a mama reuniting with her babies (except that he's a boy).

now he's got 2 cats following him around like he's a can of tuna.  he's feeding them and giving them water.  he shares his bed. he strokes their backs.  he loves them and wants them to be happy.  it's really a beautiful thing to watch.

shadow making himself comfortable

zane has definitely acquired one of my favorite traits of myself - compassion.  although, i suppose when we have 42 cats living here and are featured on the show "animal hoarders," perhaps that won't be a good thing.  but for now, i am happy that i taught compassion to zane. with more compassion in it, the world can only get better.  i have a feeling john quietly taught this as well - i just found him watching tv with shadow lying on his arm...

and they were singing... bye bye...

when i was little, my mom constantly had music playing.  in the house, in the car, outside - everywhere.  until about age 8, we listened to 61 country - am radio, baby.  everything we listened to then is now considered old school country.  dolly, barbara mandrell, juice newton - ahhh the classics.

one of our favorite songs was "family tradition" by hank williams jr.  i very clearly remember me and laura (probably around age 4 and 7) dancing around our living room in cutoff jeans and vinyl-appliques t-shirts singing about getting drunk with jim beam.  very age appropriate.

a classic shot of laura singing

another one we LOVED was "nobody" by sylvia.  another example of a perfect song for young girls to be singing - it's about cheating.
...well, your nobody called today
she hung up when i asked her name
well i wonder
does she think she's being clever?...
laura and i knew every single word to this song, including the background vocals.  background vocals are the forgotten jewels of a song.

at some point, in the 80's, i clearly remember my mom asking us if we wanted to listen to a new radio station - WHB.  uhhhh, no.  i was perfectly happy with 61 country, no need to switch.  well, i soon realized that wasn't really a question from my mom - we were switching stations.  so we were introduced to "oldies" at that point - the beach boys, franki valli, buddy holly.

laura and i really took to the beach boys, and "barbara ann" was added to our repertoire.  i was even known to give free concerts to my infant cousin, nick (who lived next door).  i would stand under his bedroom window and belt that song out until he woke up from his nap and sang along.

after a few years with WHB, my mom switched us to KUDL.  this time she didn't ask - she just changed the dial.  KUDL was light rock - jim croce, joni mitchell, simon & garfunkel.  we were well-rounded in music variety by the ages of 12 and 9.

my point is that we were never without music, and we were always singing along.  laura and i knew all the words to all the songs - from "ring of fire" to "duke of earl" to "rhiannon."  as an adult, i assumed this was normal.  i always have music playing in my car - always.  now that i choose the tunes, it's typically dave matthews band, counting crows, coldplay, a little hootie now and then....

so why is it, that my boys can't sing one song in it's entirety?  they can't even sing the chorus to one song!!  since zane was born, i've quizzed him on "who sings this song?"  it's always one of 6 choices - dmb, cc, coldplay, hootie, u2, or pearl jam.  i may as well be asking him who invented the radio.  he has no clue.  and neither do zander or zaiden!  how can this be?

is this a generational problem?  is it a boy thing?  i mean, their dad looks at me like i'm crazy when i open the sun room and rip out my version of "no sleep til brooklyn," so maybe it is a boy thing.  i have no idea.  it's devastating to me. 

last week, on a road trip to ikea, i made a special cd for my mom and sister to listen to.  we had 3 of the 5 boys with us in the car when air supply's "making love out of nothing at all" faded in.  laura and i screamed out that song (with background vocals) and even nailed perfect air-guitar and air-drum solos.  the boys never even looked up from their video games.  never. looked. up.  either they aren't impressed by our spot-on performance or they don't like music.  (i guess deafness is always a possibility too) 

where have i gone wrong??  i suppose i should find happiness in that when i am ready to change the station someday to "oldies" music from the 90's, i won't have to ask the boys for permission.  they won't even notice.

saying goodbye to old friends

first off, no laughing.  but, i openly admit that i love soap operas.  it is truly one of things i look forward to on my workdays from home.  at 11am, i turn on the tv for "the young & the restless." at noon, i flip it abc for three glorious hours of "all my children", "one life to live", and "general hospital."  i used to watch "days of our lives as well," but when marlena became possessed, i just couldn't take it anymore.  i mean, come on, we all know that couldn't really happen.  especially in a town named "salem."

now, before you judge me even more, i don't sit and stare at the tv.  i do my work and listen to it.  i mean, i do look up whenever nikolas or jax or sonny appear on gh, but who wouldn't.

me & my mamaw are on the right (my mom and sister on the left)

i have seen characters on these shows evolve for 35 years.  i guess actually 36 since that is how old i am.  my mamaw would have the shows on when she babysat me, and whenever i was home sick from school, she'd let me watch then too. 

the summer of my sixth grade year, i discovered that i could actually watch the shows independently, and i was hooked.  if i remember correctly, that was the summer that cricket and nina on y&r were tricked into a baby-selling scheme, and nina's baby was stolen and sold.  oh it was devastating.

in high school, i was super excited because we got out of school at 2:27pm, and if i drove fast enough, i could get home for the last 15 minutes of general hospital.  let me just say - i didn't waste any time hanging out at my locker after school. 

when i left for college at MU, i was ecstatic because i could plan my schedule around my shows.  i forced my roomate, christine, to fall in love with general hospital.  she was able to understand why i loved frisco and felicia so much, and her heart broke too when tony & bobby agreed to let maxie have bj's heart when she unexpectedly died.  oh it was gut wrenching to watch tony lying on bj in the o.r. after she'd died.  we sobbed.

the sobs of our freshman year were nothing compared to the shrieks of our junior year.  by then, we'd sucked our other roommate, leigh, into our shows.  this was the year of robin and stone.  there may never have been a more beautiful storyline.  robin was always the girl good, and stone was the bad boy.  stone unknowingly passed his h.i.v. to robin, and it was devastating for all of us.  robin was able to get her h.i.v. under control with meds, but stone was just too far in to be saved.  his death was one of the saddest times on television.  the day stone died, leigh, christine, and i recorded the episode so we could watch it in primetime and really concentrate on it.  the three of us sat in our living room and sobbed for 60 straight minutes.  and it wasn't normal sobbing - it was full-on hysterics.  tears, snot, sucking air - all of it.  we cried for days.  we still cry when we talk about it.  and when a blind stone squeaked out his final words to robin, "robin, i see you..." in the moments before he died - oh, that was it for us.  we lost it.  i could cry now as i write this.  i have never seen a better love story.

i've watched a lot of love and loss on these shows, but i've been loyal through everything.  some of it seems unbelievable, but that's what makes things exciting.  my mom teases mamaw and i for watching these shows because she says "this could never happen."  however, i would argue that her favorite shows probably couldn't actually happen either.  take "csi", for example.  do we really think that as a crime scene investigator and scientist, mac taylor of csy:ny would actually be the one chasing the criminals into empty warehouses, guns ablazing?  really, i think not.  everybody knows that's andy sipowicz's job.

soaps are just a fun way for us daytime viewers to sneak a peak into the lives of other families.  perhaps the chandlers, the buchanans, & the quartermaines were the first reality tv families.  we all know it's not really true to life, but it's fun.  and for me, it's a connection to my mamaw.  my mamaw is 82 now, and we've shared this passion since i was born, literally.  mamaw is as clear about soap storylines as she is about her own childhood. 

most of her "cronies" watch soaps too, and i think they like to talk about it during coffee & donuts on monday mornings.  i believe the art of the soap opera is a dying one, sadly.  i just read that in 1970, there were 19 soaps airing, and by the 2012 there will be 4.  that means that either soaps are just too far fetched for the world today, or more likely, the world thinks they aren't real enough. the influx of reality tv and talk shows seems to prove that point.

today is a very dark day in history as abc has just announced the cancellation of "all my children" and "one life to live." they are being replaced by 2 new talk shows.  i love a good talk show, don't get me wrong, but i really don't think we need 2 more.  at least let us mourn the departure of oprah for one year before we have 2 more thrown at us.  i can't imagine what my day will be like without amc and oltl.  there will be a huge chunk of time in my day with nothing to listen to.  my mamaw's vcr is going to be all sorts of confused.  she's been recording these shows since the vcr was invented (literally). we would give her cases of vhs tapes for christimas & birthdays.  mamaw never has enough tapes - she may be the last person still using a vcr instead of a dvr.  we have had several vcr emergencies where myself or my mom has had to run over and reprogram it so she doesn't miss her shows.  but, of course, it's worth it because we all know that if you miss one episode, you will be totally lost for the rest of the week.

so now that the news has broke that my shows are no more in a couple months, i'm sad for two reasons.  i'm sad that i will no longer be able to follow the romances of erica kane, the shady dealings of the chandlers, & i guess i will finally give up hope that zach is coming back from the dead.  i will also miss the split-personalities of viki buchanan, & i will miss watching david and dorian and their crazy love escapades.  and now, oltl has only a few months to prove that john mcbain is the real daddy of natalie's baby.  i am just so sad to have to say goodbye to all these characters.

i'm also more sad that mamaw and i will no longer be able to chat about the goings-on in pine valley and llanview.  for the two of us, this is a huge connection that will be lost.  we'll still have port charles to discuss, but llanview was always mamaw's favorite.  maybe some of the characters can move to port charles - the buchanans, the chandlers, jesse & angie (who were just reunited after 20 years apart), the mannings...  surely this isn't their swan song.  port charles would welcome them all i am quite sure.  i'd like to see todd manning up against sonny corinthos - now that would make for interesting story-telling.  or viki buchanan hanging out with tracy quartermaine - that could be pretty cool too.  what about jr chandler going into a business deal with luke??  and a love triangle, we'll need one of those.  hmmm.... what about blair and jax and amanda?  could be fun, right?

i'm not sure i'll be able to officially say goodbye to these shows.  they have been a part of my life for too many years.  i don't want to say goodbye.  saying goodbye would mean that i'm letting go of a little bit of my childhood.  i loved being able to watch these shows with mamaw.  it was our thing.  as i've grown up and she's grown older, this was something that was constant.  i guess as the years go by, we can continue to talk about old storylines.  or heck, maybe we can pull out some of her old recordings and rewatch them.  i think i still have the "stone's death" tape in one of my memory boxes somewhere...