Tag Archives: cat

My Newest Book, Last Breath


I recently published Last Breath, which is the sixth in my Last Healer Mysteries series. If you want to read about where the idea came from, check out my blog post here.

As I mentioned in a previous post, the victim in the story had a cat which Katie and Joe adopt. The cat becomes a minor subplot as it wakes Joe up early every morning. He also adds a little bit a humor to the story as in this snippet:

After Katie hung up, she sat on the sofa with Joey and started reading him a children’s story. Max lay on top of the sofa, casually watching them, but the smell of bacon and eggs drew him to the kitchen, where Joe was cooking breakfast. He rubbed his face on Joe’s leg, then sat, looked up, and meowed.

“I fed you already,” Joe said.

Max meowed again at Joe.

Joe sighed. “This is not going to be a habit.” He picked up a piece of bacon that he had already cooked, blew on it to make sure it wasn’t too hot, then put it on a small plate. He put the plate on the floor next to Max and whispered, “Katie doesn’t need to know about this.”

Max sniffed the bacon and picked it up. He then ran into the living room with it. Joe put his hands on his head, both in surprise and dread.

“Joe!” thundered Katie’s voice from the living room a few seconds later. “The cat is eating bacon on our clean floor!”

As always, I need reviews, so I hope you consider checking out my books and reading one that sounds like it might interest you. Now I need to get on with writing Chris’s memoir.

Back From Vacation


We returned late yesterday afternoon from our trip to Nova Scotia. While we had a wonderful time, we both were eager to get home to our cats.

Our cats were happy too, especially Frankie who wanted nothing but attention most of the evening.

Our next-door neighbor, Mom of the other Frankie, was nice enough to take care of our boys while we were away. We thought they might have gotten used to a later breakfast and wouldn’t bother us early in the morning, but we were wrong. Frankie woke me up at around 3:15 but I did not give in to him and went back to sleep. By 5:30 he couldn’t hold back any longer and insisted I get up and feed him. Oh well. It’s still good to be home.

Katie and Joe Get a Cat and Other News


I am in the final editing stage of Last Breath, which is the sixth book in the Last Healer Mysteries series. I decided to add a minor subplot to the story that involves a cat.

In the story, they are expecting a second child and learn of the death of a woman who had stolen Katie’s identity. They also find the woman had a cat. They couldn’t leave the cat behind, so they adopt him. Joe expects the cat to be a pleasant addition to the family but soon learns the cat is very needy, especially at 5 a.m. Sound familiar?

While I am editing that book, I started my next book. It is one I hope many of you will be interested in: a retelling of Chris’s story from Chris’s perspective that I am tentatively calling For the Love of Chris.

Here are the first few paragraphs of the book. Keep in mind it is a first draft.

Telling my life story was not something I had ever thought about. In fact, I was incapable of doing so until recently, but then something life-changing happened. I died.

Some say Heaven is only for humans, but I can say for certain that Heaven is also for cats. Perhaps our heaven is different from the heaven that humans experience. I don’t know. I can only say that for myself, there was a profound sense of enlightenment after I died. Everything that I didn’t understand as a cat suddenly became clear.

Often, when humans describe a near-death experience, they talk about going into the light. I have come to realize that “the light” actually refers to enlightenment. It is a time when one learns the meaning of life.

I’ll tell you a little secret: the meaning of life is not important. What is important is that which gives life meaning. When I was alive, I knew the thing that gave life meaning. I knew it deep in my soul. Unlike other cats I knew, I embraced it and lived my life in a way that was meaningful to me and to those around me.  

The story starts with Chris as a feral kitten with his mom and siblings. This part of the story is pure speculation, so I emailed Terry from Brian’s Home for advice. He had experience with TNR and described in detail what happens to feral kittens that are young enough to be domesticated. I am grateful for his help.

I am still very early in the story so it will be a while before I have anything new to report about that, but I do hope to have Last Breath published relatively soon.

Photo Friday: Brave Squirrel


This squirrel bravely came onto the sidewalk after Frankie walked outside to start his walk. Frankie looked at him momentarily, then turned and walked away from the squirrel.

It seemed unusual, since Frankie used to love chasing squirrels, but perhaps he is so used to seeing them outside the screen that he doesn’t find them interesting anymore.

The New View from Our Catio


After I threw out our last bird feeder because it attracted a rat, we missed our visit from a couple of cardinals that chose to grace us with their presence a few times a day. I did some research on feeding birds without feeding rats and came up with a couple of solutions.

First, I learned there are a couple of bird seeds that rats don’t like. Not many, but one of them, Safflower seeds, is a favorite of cardinals. The other is nyjer seeds, which is a favorite of finches and other small songbirds.

I ordered the seeds as well as a squirrel resistant bird feeder and a stand for it. My wife and I like squirrels and didn’t want to lock them out, but it needed to be done.

We then decided to buy a separate squirrel feeder that holds peanuts. Even though rats will eat peanuts in the shell, it’s not their favorite and I read that if you kept it above four feet it would help keep them at bay. Since rats can climb, I’m not sure why four feet would matter unless they can’t smell that high.

It took a while for the squirrels to notice the feeder. I put a trail of peanuts hoping one would be smart enough to follow it. Once one did find the feeder, he or she emptied it almost instantly.

In the last week, I have gone through two and a half bags of peanuts and a half a bag of pecans in the shell. If this squirrel is burying the peanuts, there must be quite a large mound around here somewhere, but I haven’t seen it.

While this was going on, my wife heard from her sister that birds love their bird bath, so she ordered one for our house.

So far, we have been entertained by the squirrel and pleased by the return of the cardinals, as well as a few other birds that I have not yet identified. As far as the bird bath, let’s just say we have a bunch of dirty birds living near us.

Arrowhead


My wife’s sister, Felice, sent her a photo of a stray cat they have been taking care of. She is a female they have been calling Koki. Felice didn’t notice the arrow on her head until after she took the photo.

The original photo was a bit blurry, so I asked AI to clean it up a little.

What do you think of Miss Arrowhead Koki?

You Dirty Rat!


Several days ago, my wife said she saw something in our bird feeder that she thought might be a rat, but she wasn’t sure. Yesterday she saw it again and called me over to look at it. it was definitely a rat enjoying our bird food. I didn’t have my phone, so I didn’t get a photo of it at the time.

It ran away and returned sometime later. This time our neighbor’s cat Frankie saw it and forced it off the feeder and into the bush below. We cheered Frankie on, but rather than go after it, she just stood there waiting for it to come out.

The rat is hidden in the plant.

After a minute or two I decided to go out and try to scare the rat into the waiting jaws of Frankie. Instead, I scared Frankie in one direction and the rat in the other.

Needless to say, Rose was not happy about the situation. She wanted me to get rid of the bird feeder. I understood. I didn’t want to encourage rats to come to our house, but I do feel bad that the cats will no longer enjoy seeing the birds and squirrels. In addition, Rose and I will miss seeing the family of cardinals that came by several times a day. Now I have to figure out what to do with the big bag of bird seed I just bought.