Tag Archives: Florida

What to Do About Chris

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Our stuff finally arrived from the moving company after they held it hostage for 38 days. Rose called them every other day for the last two weeks and got one promise after another. She was convinced we would never see our stuff, and that was a big stress factor for her. For me, there was only one thing on the truck that I would grieve over losing: Chris’s ashes.

His remains are here on my desk now.

My original plan was to spread his ashes in the backyard near the catio here. A place he enjoyed hanging out. Now, I feel I should bring him back to Florida and spread his ashes outside the catio there. Rose thinks that is a bad idea because he has never lived there. My concern is we may not own this house for very much longer and I prefer Chris to be near us.

I know it is not really Chris. I don’t really think his spirit hangs out where his ashes are. It is just symbolic. It would be nice to look out and know Chris is out there, or at least part of him.

There are two reasons why I don’t think we will own this house for a long time. First, we had discussed selling it at some point and using the proceeds to buyto pay down our Florida mortgage.

The second reason is more complicated. We have been working nonstop on this house since we arrived. It’s like a money pit, but it has been rented for over three years, so that’s part of it. We don’t expect it to be as much work next year, but it is an old house.

There was also the stress of our stuff in limbo and then there was the “incident.” A little over two weeks ago on a Saturday, Rose was outside with me helping to do yard work. Foolishly, she was wearing shorts and flipflops like she was in Florida.

Afterward, she noticed two bite marks on her foot, like she was bitten by a snake. Later, there were what appeared to be numerous minor marks on her body, resembling insect bites. She was convinced our house had fleas, but I was not affected, and neither were our cats. She had terrible itching for over a week and a half. During that time, she went to the doctor three times while her symptoms continued to worsen. It was determined she was probably bitten by a brown recluse spider, and her itching caused a bacterial infection to spread. Only during the last couple of days have the symptoms started to diminish.

I know this is a very wordy explanation, but the point is that during those dark days, she kept saying she hated it here and wanted to return to Florida. Now that she is getting better, she is more receptive to staying here, but I still feel that we are far more likely to grow old in Florida, so I think I would like Chris to be there too.

Photo Friday: Classic Tigger and Alex

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These photos were taken almost sixteen years ago on May 10, 2009. If my new timeline is correct, Chris was a small kitten 500 miles away at the time.

We had a condo on the Gulf in Dunedin, Florida. Some units faced the Gulf but ours faced a canal. On this day, I sat on the deck with Tigger and Alex.

Until I saw this photo this morning, I never remembered that I put a harness of Alex. Perhaps he was a runner like Frankie. I don’t know.

Surveying the Damage

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As most of know, we evacuated before Hurricane Milton to a hotel thirty miles north. The cats were not happy about it but they also accepted it quite well. Frankie had a nice window to look out of before and after the storm.

He even watched some television.

There wasn’t much to do so I decided to start writing my next book in the Last Healer Mysteries series.

I just finished my latest novella called “Saving Apollo,” which is about a genetically engineered dog who can understand plain English. He escapes and befriends a 12-year-old boy. It is my first family friendly story. I received the art from the artist but I haven’t been able to work on it yet

I was watching our house using my Blink cameras but they were offline when I checked around 5:30 Wednesday afternoon. Our power at the hotel went out just after 8 p.m. and the hurricane made landfall around Sarasota at 8:30.

Rose was watching the track closely. It started out hitting exactly where we live. It then slowly shifted south and then north and then south again.

Sarasota is less than 40 miles south of our house but that 40 miles makes a world of difference in a hurricane. We were happy to see that but, of course, we were sad for the people in its direct path.

The next morning the border to Pinellas county was closed so we had to wait for them to open the roads before we left. If we didn’t have cats to worry about we would have left and waited at the border. We didn’t have to wait too long before it was okay to leave.

When we got home we were stopped by a fallen tree that was behind our next door neighbor’s house.

The tree barely nicked the corner of the house behind our neighbor. Talk about luck.

Our home was undamaged except a downspout broke off and a window in the cats’ room blew out but it was undamaged and I put it back in the door.

I took Frankie for a walk because he was eager to get outside.

There was plenty for Frankie to investigate. Our back yard was filled with branches.

Later, Rose and I drove around the neighborhood. Many people suffered bad damage. Much more than the last hurricane. Here are just a few examples.

I’m writing this from the airport. We are flying to Boston and will travel up the coast to Maine for our 25th anniversary. Our power is still out but the cats will be okay. Our neighbor will take care of them.

Fleeing Hurricane Milton

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I was on the beaches for my job yesterday and even though I knew the beaches were devastated from just getting hit by a glancing blow from Helene., it was still a shock to look down every street and see piles and piles of debris.

We maintain aquariums for two restaurants on the beach. This is one of them.

They were cleaning up from the storm surge entering their building. The other restaurant was also flooded. I felt bad for them knowing the next storm could potentially be twice as bad.

My wife managed to get us a room at the Hampton Inn in New Port Richey, almost 30 miles to the north of us.

The trip up here was not good for Frankie. The cats were stuck in their carriers for the long trip up here and then for an additional 20 to 30 minutes while we waited for our room to be ready. When we finally let them out we found that Frankie pooped in his carrier.

Since then they have settled in nicely.

Now we just pray that we will have a home to go back to.

Preparing for Hurricane Helene

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I managed to get home from work just before it started raining this afternoon. We are getting rain from the outer edge of Hurricane Helene. It will continue to move north, closer to us, throughout tonight and tomorrow. We should feel the strongest impact sometime tomorrow afternoon.

We are in a mandatory evacuation zone, which doesn’t amount to much because I know of nobody who is leaving, including us. Where would we go? All the hotels are booked, and many shelters don’t take pets. I’m sure bringing our pets to a pet-friendly shelter would be a nightmare. We probably wouldn’t be able to let them out of their carriers except for potty breaks.

The last time I checked, the storm would pass to the west of us as a category four hurricane. We live between Clearwater and St. Petersburg. The graphic I saw showed our area at the edge of hurricane-force winds. I assume that means we will feel category one force winds, which are 74-95 MPH. I don’t think our kitties will enjoy that too much. The storm might turn east, which would be bad for us, but it could also turn west, which would be a big help.

Of course, Frankie bugged the heck out of me to take him out for a walk. I picked him up and opened the door so he could see the rain. I thought that would be the end of it, but he kept bugging me, so I got his harness and took him outside.

Once outside, he stayed under the carport, where it was dry. I tied up our outdoor furniture, which Frankie found quite interesting.

Hopefully, we won’t lose power or a roof or anything like that. Wish us luck.

Forgotten Video

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I get notifications from Google and Microsoft highlighting photos from this day. Today I saw this one that I didn’t remember from 2015.

I then noticed a video from the same time. I checked YouTube to see if I had posted it there. I did.

I also noticed another video from earlier that month that was still marked as a draft. It was a video of Frankie’s first time on a leash and harness. I don’t know why that video was older than the one above. Perhaps I had too much trouble with that harness so I decided to continue to let Frankie out without a leash. I did put it on upside down that time and didn’t notice until we were outside.

After these videos, Frankie proved too much of a wild spirit and would take off far beyond the backyard. Because we lived close to a main road, I had to start using a harness every time he went outside.

Photo Friday: Outside at Last

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Our cats are mostly inside only cats but I try to take out Chris and Frankie at least once a week. This usually happens on the weekend because I am too busy with work during the week. By then they are more than ready to get outside. Floki does not go out because I would never get a harness on him and he would probably freak out once outside.

Usually, I put a harness on Frankie and bring him for a walk first. Chris doesn’t need a harness because he is happy to hang around the house, eat grass, and then lie in the sunbeam, or in this case, a partial sunbeam.

This Shelter Cat is a Player

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I took a couple of videos while I was at the shelter last and forgot about them until yesterday when I copied them from my phone to my computer.

There were a couple of friendly black cats at the shelter that day and this one wanted to play with a cat hanging out in a tunnel but the cat just wasn’t in the mood or he was a bit too nervous to come out with me in the room. If I remember right, that cat wasn’t exactly afraid of me but he was a little leary of me.

The black cat was pretty funny and he worked on getting the cat out of the tunnel for quite a while before I thought to start recording.