Maggie Pill Mysteries

If you read this blog regularly, you might remember I was worried about our vacation and how Old Cat would react to living in a travel trailer for a few weeks. She's 21, though she wears her age very well, and she hadn't been on many car trips in her lifetime. Because she's so old, we weighed the possibilities carefully. Leave her home with a drop-in sitter? She'd be alone most of the time. Take her to relatives? She'd be just as upset in a strange place as she'd be in a camper. Boarding has never been something she enjoys. In the end we decided she'd come along. If it was traumatic, at least she'd be with Mom and Dad. There's no telling what she thought, of course, but Old Cat did okay. The going-down-the-road part wasn't her favorite, but she accepted it if she could crawl into the pillowcase on the camper bed and stay there until the movement stopped. Since she sleeps all day anyway, that worked well. Once we were set up, she did exactly w...

Earlier this year, we became the proud owners of a new camper. The plan is to do some traveling in the months to come, but we struggled with the problem of what to do with Old Cat. As our only remaining pet, she's become a bit of an obsession with us, and we both act completely silly as we try to do whatever she wants us to do, even though she's quite senile and doesn't know herself what she wants. In the past we've tried boarding, which she hated, but at least she had Alice, her companion cat, then and they could reassure each other. We also tried taking them to relatives' homes, which worked pretty well. Right now, however, all the relatives who would take her have their own pets, and at her advanced age (she's 21) she doesn't adjust well to strangers. We've also left her in the house alone, having a relative stop in every day and check on her. (She seldom saw the cat and judged she was okay solely by the fact that the litter box needed attention.) ...

First of all, let me admit that certain people of my acquaintance are beyond animal lovers. They're more like animal enablers. Not me, of course. My cat does NOT rule my life, and I NEVER talk to her. Honest.       Anyway, one member of our family tames whatever comes into the yard, and since they live in a city, that's mostly squirrels. If you sit on their porch, the squirrels will come up and glare at you, because you're supposed to know they get a peanut if they do that. They've been known to come inside if the sliding door happens to be open a tiny bit, and the male in the household tends to leave it that way. I mean, we wouldn't want the squirrels to starve because they can't get in to get a peanut.       What's odd is that their cat, who's as big as a lynx and quite the hunter when allowed outside, tolerates the squirrels and vice versa. The other day, I'm told, a squirrel came up for its peanut, and the cat pounced on it, h...

Those of you who keep track of me might recall that about a month ago, my cat decided she needed to sleep on the computer desk, between me and the screen. It made her happy, but me not so much,  since she'd playfully reach down every once in a while and swipe a claw at my swift-moving fingers.  Someone suggested I bring a second chair to the computer desk and make it hers. At first she wasn't sure (note the look on her face). You want me this far away? Really? Okay, I guess this is good It took a procession of pillows and blankets before I found one that suited her, and I had to block the chair so it doesn't swivel and make her feel insecure. Now she spends most of the day there, even if I get up to do something else. Of course, there's a caveat. I have to lift her onto the chair. If I'm not around, she gets up there just fine, but if I'm working, I have to listen to her cry until I stop typing and settle her in. So toda...

They've started again with the cruel season. They put toys all over the house and then freak out when I play with them. There's a tree full of shinies and danglies in the corner of the living room, but "NO! Don't touch!" happens when I get anywhere near it. I managed to get in a few minutes of exercise with several of the things they hung on it while everyone was somewhere else. First I had to un-stick the nice things from the tree, which was hard. Then I had fun chasing them around on the floor--at least until Dad came in and bellowed like an angry bull, "Mary! Come see what your cat did!" They put pretty things on end tables and shelves too, but again, I'm just supposed to look at them. A grouping of half a dozen figurines in a little wooden shed sits on the coffee table. I knocked them onto the floor to see if they'd roll nicely on the carpet. Only one of them did, but that one was fun to bat around until it went under the piano...

If you know the Sleuth Sisters, you've met Buddy, Faye's mongrel, and Styx, Retta's Newfoundland. You know Barb has formed a tenuous relationship with a stray cat. Book #2 had some horses join the family, and Book #3 took us to the family farm, where there are reindeer and peafowl. In the 4th Sleuth Sisters book, chickens are an inciting factor--Bet you never heard that in a mystery before! All this brought to mind a question for today's post: If money, space, and other possible drawbacks were somehow taken care of, what animal would you choose to get for a Christmas gift? (to add to the ones you already share space with, of course)

Boonies, boondocks, down in the boondocks. Who'd have guessed the term has nothing to do with docks? It comes from the Philippines' Tagalog language: bundok , meaning mountain. It was picked up by U.S. military folk and apparently became associated with "way out there where the guerrillas are." When I titled Book #3 MURDER IN THE BOONIES, someone asked if most of America would known the term boonies . I think they do, because of Billy Joe Royal's song, "Down in the Boondocks,"  and an assortment of Vietnam-era movies. In Michigan we use it a lot. Someone lives "way out in the boonies" or we get "lost in the boonies" when our GPS goes crazy. Not sure if/how it's used in other places. (Chime in here!) In Book #3 we learn that Barb, Faye, and Retta were raised in the boonies, ten miles from town. Typically, when they were kids Barb never thought much about where they lived, Faye loved everything about the farm, and Retta felt...

Not a real cat. Anyone with cats knows they wouldn't hold still for this! I've read books where the cat is the sleuth. I've read books where the cat is the narrator. I've read books where the cat is the sidekick. How about a book where the cat is the murderer? My old cat has taken to sleeping on the stairway. When it's dark or when I'm carrying an armload of sheets or whatever, it's easy to miss her presence, and several times in the last few months I've almost gone tush over teakettle down the stairs.   Now she's old. It might soothe her dementia-fogged mind to sleep on the stairs, halfway up so she can see what's happening on the main floor and still run for cover if the evil Vacuum Monster comes out of its lair or--worse yet--if STRANGERS invade her home. But she could be plotting my death. I mean, who'd suspect her? NOTE: I'm giving away books all week on the www.pegherring website. Stop over and make a comment to get ...

One of us spends a lot of time looking out the windows at the snow. One of us wanders through the house, clearly wishing she could walk somewhere more interesting. One of us complains a lot about it in a loud voice. One of us naps, not from exhaustion, but from boredom. Okay, maybe both of us do those things. Like the cat, I long to go outside without getting my feet cold/wet/muddy. I want to see living things like wildflowers, trees with leaves, and the shoots of daffodil, crocus, and hyacinth that grow around my house when spring arrives. And I might have mentioned from time to time lately that I'm really tired of winter. While I'm like the cat in a lot of ways, I don't look forward to eating the chipmunks that have begun to appear in the side yard. We suffer from the same malaise, but we differ on that one little point.

Last week I wrote about dogs and their understanding of words. My cat was not amused, so here's the low-down on cats, in her own words. "Of course we understand every word you speak, but you are silly and inconsequential, so we do not deign to respond. If we wanted to go somewhere in the car, we'd drive ourselves. In fact, we do, at night, when you're asleep. I've been to Detroit twice and Chicago once in the last year. Less is more to a cat. A tiny bump with my head means more than all the gyrating those dumb dogs do to get your attention, so be grateful. Oh, and one more thing: When I play, even if I look silly or accidentally fall off the couch in the process, I expect you to keep quiet about it. Is nothing sacred?"