Goodbye Spooky

I've given up hope that Spooky is coming back. He wasn't my cat. He was a wild cat that we fed for about a year. Last winter we even trapped him with a have-a-heart trap lent by the wonderful Metrowest Humane Society and had him checked, fixed, and updated with all his shots. They paid for it with through their TNR program. But he just wasn't friendly enough for them to find him a home.

So he came back with us, and we released him into the woods behind our house where he always vanished. I couldn't keep a feral in a home with young children, so I had to let him go. But he came back every evening for his supper, even when I was away in Australia (my husband fed him). Then 10 days ago he just stopped. We've looked everywhere. He's never missed more than a day, even in winter with snow on the ground. My two indoor/outdoor cats have also looked for him. But he's gone. What could have happened? We have fisher cats, and coyotes, and fast cars. He did have a clipped ear, so Animal Control should know he's in a feral feeding program ... . It could have been anything. According to the vet that examined him he was just 18 months old. My cats are both over 10 years old, and healthy. It is tragic that he was so young. It's a cruel world.

What breaks my heart? He couldn't meow. I don't know what was wrong with his vocal chords. The vet said they may have been damaged with a upper-respiratory infection. Even when he was starving he would make a meowing motion but there was no sound. When we kept him in the downstairs bathroom for 4 days after we trapped him--no meow. So he could have been stuck somewhere and no one would have known.

He only showed up once a day, but I always knew he was out there somewhere. The backyard feels awful empty without him. At least he wasn't hungry for a year of his short life.

Goodbye Spooky. We loved you.

Kids room makeover II

... and this is why the subtle sparkles were not going to be enough! I had just painted my son's room and the white on blue (his old room color) had turned out quite nicely. Notice the Dragonology and Egyptology posters I painted for him? That is the cartouche of "Ravi" and his name in runes on the posters. We had fun doing those. Now of course they've been demoted to the back of the room so the Red Sox can take center stage!

Kids room makeover

Her room was pink before I started. All I wanted to do was add sparkles to the pink. Easier said than done! We tried the Benjamin Moore Sparkle effect glaze. I could hardly see it. Then we tried to stick silver glitter to the wet paint. That looked like dirt. Then we tried to spray paint it with silver glitter from the craft store. That looked like dirt too. So in desperation I ragged it with some left over blue paint, threw on the BM glitter effect and kind of went crazy with stencils and pink paint. What do you think? I think it turned out OK for a dog loving almost nine year old (or so she says). If you squint you can see a bit of the glitter in the last picture, (this is why we had to do more stuff) but it does look pretty in a subtle way.

South Asia in children's literature

Here's a really comprehensive list of children's books with South-Asian characters, settings or themes. It was compiled by Pooja Makhijani, author of Mama's saris. Enjoy!

south asia & children's literature