Today has been a sad day for Mom. This morning, we left her friends in Curlew and drove twisty, bumpy backroads. From the main road, she turned onto a smaller road. She got excited about that one. She announced that she knew where she was. I had hoped that she knew that before we started! In no time, the pavement turned to gravel. I wanted to know if she had jumped back to Alaska. She said she only had a couple more turns to take us to the old cabin.

When the road turned to two hard to see tracks through flowers, but passed a mass of old junked cars, I thought she had lost her mind! A few minutes later, she pulled to the side and stopped. She got a bag from a box under the bunk. She and Missy walked down a hill to an outcrop of rocks. I wanted to go too, because I knew this was something important, but knew I was too short to walk that far. She turned in a circle before she opened the bag and poured out what I later learned were Dad’s ashes. This was a place they both loved. It is a beautiful spot. Dad would have been pleased.

Mom has said she is sorry that she had not had time to help me make my posts. Once we got home, she was busy unpacking the van, and rearranging things. She needed to remove her things and some furniture from the guest room so her new housemate could move in. That did force her to empty drawers of things she no longer needed (yard sale!) Then she had to pull drawers out of Dad’s big mechanics tool chest to move it out of the carport storage room. The housemate makes dog treats, and needed space for that. Add in the rain for the 1st 1/2 of the month and heat dome for the 2nd 1/2, and the whole month of July is gone in a flash. Now the housemate is getting settled, and Mom has more time for me. I helped by getting her up before 5 AM this morning by snuggling very tightly. She muttered something about me having a hot body. I just thought it would be a nice time for both of us.

When Dad passed at the end of December, Mom decided not to post an obituary in the local paper. Most of his friends and family are in Washington state and wouldn’t see the newspaper or website here. She did assemble a nice sideshow of pictures for the Celebration of Life gathering we hosted for his birthday that she shared with granddaughters. She has decided to let me write my version of his obituary for my next post. Stay tuned for that on Sunday.

I have not yet written Dad’s obituary. I’m as bad as Mom, because I’m still collecting information about his life. I promise that I will complete that soon.

One of the reasons that Miko and I love going with Mom on her travel adventures is that we get to play outside of the van on our leads. We get time to explore, to smell new things, and sometimes even have posts or trees where we can sharpen our claws. Miko loves it when there is dirt for her to roll in. The very best part is that we don’t need to share that time or space with other cats.

At home, Mom often lets us go out on long leads attached to the clothes line. Again we get to explore and smell our own yard. We have not gotten to do that for the past three weeks. Looking out the window, we can see the skinny stray cat that has decided to live under our back deck, and hang out on the patio under the chairs. I told Mom that I would be happy to chase that stray out of our yard, but she said “NO!” It turns out that the stray is a momma to three little kittens. She doesn’t let Mom get close without a lot of hissing, but she seems to like having a food bowl filled each morning and evening. Mom says it is hard work for the momma to feed and tend to the three littles. That may be why my mother allowed me to be taken and then dumped here before I was ready to leave her. I am thankful that Mom wants to help this stray. Mom also says her plan is to trap the momma as soon as the littles no longer need her. The momma will be taken to the vet to be fixed, and the littles already have a new home lined up.

Mom wanted to share some pictures of the littles. They are kind of cute, but I was cuter at that age.