Dec 15th, 2009
by Mary P Jones.
Image by: catdancing on Flickr Licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0 After really struggling last week between my need to sleep and my desire not to sleep, I decided that this week on my day of spirituality I would spend one day throwing out my to do list and letting go of all the things I [...]
Jul 1st, 2009
by Mary P Jones.
Image credit: Photo by nosha on Flickr Licensed under Creative Commons I don't remember how it was I first noticed the little bird huddled at the edge of the sidewalk. Did I hear it cheep or see a faint movement? But there it was: a little chick that had fallen out of a nest somewhere. [...]
Jun 2nd, 2009
by Mary P Jones.
Image credit: Photo by two stout monks on Flickr Licensed under Creative Commons My daughter, Janie, found the body. Our pet* had been missing for a while, so at first she shouted to me excitedly. She found him! But when I ran to her, it was clear that he was already gone. She looked from [...]
May 25th, 2009
by Mary P Jones.
Image credit: Detail of a photo by Carla216 on Flickr Licensed under Creative Commons This week, when our family pet went missing and later turned up dead, I did an obsessive imitation of some of my favorite literary detectives; like Sherlock Holmes, I tried to piece together the smallest clues and like Hercule Poirot, I [...]
Apr 25th, 2009
by Mary P Jones.
Image credit: Photo by mirsasha on Flickr Licensed under Creative Commons When I was a child, I had the best cat ever. No animal past or present could compare. It wasn't that he had a sweet disposition. He was almost universally mean, awful and belligerent. When almost any creature approached him, he'd snarl, hiss, scratch, [...]
Apr 21st, 2009
by Mary P Jones.
Image credit: Photo by Djuliet on Flickr Licensed under Creative Commons Many years ago, before we had children, my husband bought me a small fish tank for my birthday. At the time, I wanted a car. I didn't really think he could buy a car, but I was relying on a very iffy public transit [...]
Aug 13th, 2008
by Mary P Jones.
Recently I asked you all to ask me questions -- and here's the second installment of answers. (The first was answering marta and Shawn's questions about John Edwards.) Cat asked: "If you could have named yourself any name - when you were younger (first name) what would it have been?" I actually would have named [...]
Feb 18th, 2008
by Mary P Jones.
Well, dumping a bottle of Elmer's glue into a fish tank isn't an experiment I would have tried myself, but I did learn a few things from having the kids do it: Elmer's glue really is non-toxic. Goldfish can swim through gummy water for several days and survive. It's really hard to entirely empty a [...]
Nov 6th, 2007
by Mary P Jones.
Oh, I know, everyone thinks their pets think they are people. "Oh, look at Rover, he thinks he's a person! Oh, look at Fluffy, she thinks she's part of the family!" But I really do think wonder about my cat. He doesn't drink water from a bowl with his tongue, like a normal cat. If [...]