Toys and Toes

There was no sewing yesterday, nor much of anything else. It was a day to get my monthly pedicure, but even more importantly, I was on the hunt for a particular cat toy.

When Maggie came home from the shelter, she came with a little bag of goodies. Among them were some kitty treats that neither Maggie nor Smitty liked. Also, a little yellow "sparkle ball" (Mike's name for it). Maggie absolutely loves it. It's light weight and skids around on the wood floors like nobody's business. Also, the little sparkle fluff makes it large enough that it doesn't get lost under doors and refrigerators.

Given Maggie's rough start in life, we like to think it's the only belonging she had in the world, which makes it all the more important to her.

Well, anyone who has a cat knows that their toys get lost. I imagine there's a place in another dimension filled with errant socks and cat toys. So Mike and I have been on the hunt for more sparkle balls. Yes, yes, yes. Anything for our cats. We've looked online and we visited Petco the other day. We didn't find any sparkle balls, but we did spend a small fortune on other kinds of cat toys. Those were fine with Maggie and Smitty, but they just weren't the same as the sparkle ball. It's still Maggie's preferred toy.

Last Saturday I called the shelter where she came from to ask if they had more. Could I buy them? Make a large donation? Could they at least tell me where they got them? I left a message with a volunteer who, interestingly, is someone with whom I used to share office space. Here's the story.

We had a suite of three offices. She had one of them, and I had another. (My friend Sue had the third.) She and I did not get along. She drove me crazy telling me to smile or looking at the expression on my face and asking me what was wrong. Constantly. Until I had murder on my mind. And we had words about this more than once...not the murder, but about her annoying habit of asking me annoying questions about the effing expression on my face. Anyway...when I went to pick-up Maggie, who do you suppose answered the door? (Cue Final Jeopardy music while you think about your answer.) Yes, Dipsy Doodle herself! (Names have been changed to protect the guilty.) I recognized her, but couldn't place her until she said her name. "Oh! Dipsy Doodle!" says I...all cheery, as if I'm meeting an old friend. And then immediately in my head: "OMG...it's Dipsy Doodle! WTF?" You need to understand that seeing her at a shelter was completely out of context since we were both therapists in our former lives.

Fast forward to Saturday's phone call and message...no one called me back. I blame Dipsy Doodle for this, of course. I have an idea she filed my message in the circular file. In any case, I called again yesterday only to be told that most of their toys were donated, and so they didn't know where they came from. Also, they didn't have any more sparkle balls, but they suggested I check Petsmart. And that was a good idea because there happened to be a Petsmart on the way to my pedicure.

And that was a long story to say SUCCESS! Yahoo! It's always nice to be nice to little kitties who had a rough start in life. It made all of us feel good all over. 

And--bonus--they were on sale...only $3.99 for four sparkle balls. By my calculations that makes these little balls cost approximately $1 each (I'm very good at math), which is a rip-off in any language. But I'm not complaining...anything for our little kitty girl.

So that was a long blog post just to tell you I really don't have anything to tell you. This will be my last post until we get on the road. The next two days are going to be busy packing and getting ready to be gone for a while. Big Bertha goes in for her spa treatment this morning, and I'm on my way to the grocery store.

I'm planning to blog along the way, but the frequency of my posts always depends on internet and cell service. I can use my cell phone as an internet hotspot, but I need to have cell service to do that. Oftentimes when we're in a national park, there is neither wi-fi nor cell service, and so I'll just blog updates when I can. Our first stop is Borrego Springs, and it's three days to get there from here. Of course, I'll be on the hunt for quilt shops along the way as well. Now that I'm collecting regional prints, it's become even more urgent that we stop at every quilt shop we see. Of course, the Resident Engineer turned Resident Driver understands that it's in his best interest to agree with me on that point.