Tag Archives: blogging

Dammit–

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Jack gets in over the wire again in time – –

The latest member of the household is beginning to make a nuisance of himself. When ‘Wee Dammit’ first arrived, he lived in our guest room before getting a full medical examination to be sure he was safe around other cats. When he got the all-clear, we left the door open, but he was very reluctant to come down to join us. After all, we had kidnapped him from his happy street life….

That has all changed now. We can’t get him to leave us alone. Which is funny, because at first, he only would interact with us when we were lying flat, in bed. That’s how he learned to get along with Wendy the first week he was in the house; she slept upstairs to socialize him, and he grew accustomed to playing with her feet. When she stood up, he would dive for the nearest dark corner.

So when he first came down, he just slunk around, staying away from all of us and hiding in corners.

Then he discovered Bruce!

With two female cats in the house what’s a guy going to do? He wants to play with the other guy, but the other guy is a dog and is BIG. So wee Dammit runs around the house now trying to play tag with Bruce! He runs back and forward, tapping Bruce’s tail and paws, but Bruce is the most laid back dog on the planet and can’t be bothered. He’s very patient and gives Dammit a weary look now and again—just before Dammit bops him on the nose.

So now Dammit finds Wendy’s balls of yarn and carries them all around the house as though they were captured mice. Eventually I find them, soggy with saliva (we hope), and return them to their original place.

But I can hear you asking – why is he called Dammit? A few months ago Wendy was heading to the store and saw a small kitten wandering around an intersection. She happened to have a cat carrier in the car (well, of course) but couldn’t get it in. She came home and got a can of cat food. While he was eating she snatched him up and said, “Dammit, get in the car.”

We had agreed to not have any more cats for a while, so when she brought in another one I said, “DAMMIT.”

And she said, “I totally agree.”

When I took him to the animal clinic to get checked over they asked what his name was – – –

Come back next Wednesday for more from Jack

A Little Ditty…about Jack and Wendy

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Writer Wendy’s weekly blog

My husband doesn’t like my gingerbread house. I’m not sure why.


He got really nervous a couple of years ago, too, when I wrote a novel about a couple that ran a bookstore, and the husband died. Of natural causes, I hasten to add.

Bad Boy in the Bookstore had a plot based on real life. Jack did federal prison visits for decades, and one of the guys was an absolute charmer of a sociopath, in for murder committed during an armed robbery.

Over the months he and Jack bonded, and the guy was a tunnel master who had escaped at least three times from federal hospitality—to the point that he was taken out to classes on training officers in escape prevention.

So when Jack was trying to put a staircase into a coal chute to give us internal access to a newly-discovered basement, he started talking to the guy about it. And came home with a napkin scribbled over with diagrams and angles and a list of supplies.

I was livid. There just weren’t that many bookstores in private houses within visiting distance of the federal penitentiary. The next time this guy escaped, why wouldn’t he come straight toward us?

Jack laughed. The guy usually headed for Mexico or Alaska, where his charm would get him taken up with the wealthy set. One of his arrests was on a yacht raided because the party got too raucous.

Well, the plot about wrote itself, how this charming gentleman shows up after the male half of the bookstore owning couple dies (OF NATURAL CAUSES, so calm down, Jack!)….

It was a fun book to write, but it was, in fact, fiction. But ever since I came home with this gingerbread house, Jack keeps looking at me funny. Sorta like the time we got trapped by storms, coming back from Dublin, Ireland for Christmas. We spent two days in Chicago, and one of the films Jack watched during that time was The Shining.

If you know your horror films, you know this was about a Jack and a Wendy trapped by a snowstorm. I went for a swim while Jack watched it, but when I got back he just kept staring at me. Staring, and smiling…..

If the gingerbread house starts to show signs of possession—the heads on the little gingerbread guys start spinning, say, or we find one of the cats suffocated by gumdrops—we will take appropriate action and dissolve the house in milk.

Until then, calm down, Jack. And here, have this gumdrop…or some Wendy-made Christmas tea…