Parting Shots

Tomorrow Ray and I are off to Hawaii to visit my mom and decide where we want to get married next year. I'm very excited, although it's 8:45 PM and I still haven't really started packing. I figure I'll stay up late tonight to get my body used to the 6 hour time difference between here and Hawaii. Oy.

I'll most likely not have any or very limited internet access while I'm away, and although I'll take lots of pictures and have plenty to say when I get back, I thought I'd leave you all out there with some pictures of stuff right here in NJ.

First, Ray and I went to a diner the other night, and the placemats were covered with ads, as is the norm for many fine dining establishments such as this. While we were waiting for our greasy waiter to serve us, I amused myself by laughing at all the ads. This one in particular had me chuckling.

In case the photo is too blurry, the ad says "Specailizing in Honda's and Acura's for over 25 years." I'll be over here, grinning and watching you all cringe at the spelling and grammatical errors. I have already cringed, so now I can enjoy you doing the same.

In other news, I have more cute pictures of my cats. Well, okay, this time I got a picture Scratchy, who likes to hide under his chair (you saw his feet earlier). Whenever I try to get him to go outside and play, he rolls around and shows me how cute he is. He likes to convince me that if he's this cute right now, he'll be cute all the time, and therefore I should just keep him indoors all day long.

I'm not sure why, but he also looks like he's glaring at me, as if to say, "Don't take pictures of me unless you've talked to my agent!"

Stoned Cats

Not much to report these days. The lazy, hazy days of summer are upon us, and Itchy has taken to lying in and around the catnip every day. Whenever he comes in for dinner, he acts very out of character and starts rolling all over the ground and trying to eat our feet. I told him he has a problem, and his response was, "Meow," which I interpret to mean, "Hey man, I can stop any time I want!"

In the meantime, Scratchy is in search of the best shady spot in the garden. Sometimes it's under the shed, sometimes it's by the pond. But when he's inside, he likes to go under the chairs that have skirts to hide from the sun (and his annoying brother).

I took this picture of Scratchy the other day...I think I thought at the time that one leg was a hind leg, and the other is a front leg, so you can only imagine what position I thought he had contorted himself into. But now that I'm looking more closely, it just looks like those are two front legs. Well, you get the idea, anyway.

Cats and Kindness

And now, to update you all on the past 8 months of my life.

Since I last wrote about the cats, Mama Cat ran away, hopefully to find a new home. She probably got tired of Tybalt & Scherzo (AKA "Itchy & Scratchy," thanks to Ray) bothering her and figured it was time to move on. Luckily, I had her spayed and the kittens neutered, so there was no chance that anyone was going to get anyone else in trouble in my neighborhood, if you know what I mean.

I tried in vain to get takers for the kittens, and so they have been staying with us. They're only allowed in the sunroom, so they're mostly outdoor cats, but they're getting more and more tame. Who am I kidding? Itchy, the more talkative and friendly lets us pick him up and has even resorted to doing tricks in order to get us to open the door for him (don't ask). Scratchy seems to have a multiple personality: Scratchy #1 will hide under the chair and run away whenever he thinks you're going to touch him, but Scratchy #2 is all purrs and love and will let us pick him up. He seems to alternate between personalities at the drop of a hat, or maybe depending on the weather, or if Mercury is in retrograde...I'm not sure. Sometimes he's Scratchy #1.5; that's when he wants to be petted but can't bring himself to actually relax while he's being petted. It's quite amusing.

November and December didn't bring as many caroling gigs as I would have liked. I think I'm really starting to see the underbelly of the bad economy. And to top it all off, I quit my job with those crazy lawyers in the middle of February. Mind you, I meant to quit by the end of January (it was my New Year's Resolution), but that's a whole different adventure. And I promise I will give you a link to the story as soon as I've written it. It just won't be right now.

March and April were good months for my singing career, what with Easter and all (thank God - pun absolutely intended - for those church-going Christians! If it weren't for those gigs, I'd literally be starving right now). And I seem to have broken in to the choral gig circuit - I'm afraid I have to say that it is probably due to the fact that during a gig I mentioned off-hand that I was once in the San Francisco Girls' Chorus. My contractor is a big fan (not that I knew that at the time). Since then, I'm sure it has been my talent (and perfect pitch) that has kept me in the loop, but I must give credit where credit is due. Thanks, SFGC.

Unfortunately, May was the beginning of my financial slump, which I have a feeling shall take a nose-dive as soon as I'm done with my current project, singing Mahler's Symphony No. 2 with the New York Philharmonic. Summer is a bad time for us singers. I'm trying to figure out new ways of making money, since not only is the entertainment industry suffering in this economy, but the temp industry is also hating life. Nobody wants to hire, especially people like me who want really flexible hours and have enough experience and know-how to deserve a higher salary. Argh.

But hey, I'm creative. I've started to clean out my garage in hopes of finding something to sell on E-Bay. I did find a few things, but nothing that will pay the bills...nevertheless, my garage is getting clean, and that's something to celebrate. My garden is doing very well, and it's so much easier to stretch a dollar when you don't have to spend a dime on food. More on my cooking and gardening later. I have lots of musings about that, but at this point, I'm just trying to catch you up so you don't get too confused when I start waxing poetic about baking bread.

The end of May was full of drama and emotions for me. My great-uncle, Anthony Montalbano (my paternal grandfather's brother), passed away from cancer. It was blessedly quick, so he didn't have to suffer too long. My two aunts from Spain, my father, and my cousin Roger (both from CA), travelled to Long Island (where his family lives), so we had a little family reunion of sorts. It's too bad it was for such a sad occasion. The thing that we noticed was that there weren't very many of us Montalbanos left...the majority of the funeral party was from Lena's family (his widow). Another one of my projects is to set up a forum for the Montalbanos to share memories, etc. I purchased the domain www.montalbano.org - not that there's anything up there right now - but perhaps in my free time (argh) I can gather pictures up and put them on the website. Any objections, oh Great Montalbanos?

And that is what has been happening with me. Of course, it's been much more than that, but I'm hoping that this blogging thing will get me writing again. Sorry for the long wait.

Episode XXV: Smelly Cat

Hello, all you wild and zany friends of mine!

Happy Halloween (or to some, Blessed Samhuin)! I have just spent the last six hours in trembling anticipation for hordes of gaily-dressed children to come a-knocking at my door. I have dressed up in my best witch outfit (not difficult for me), loaded up the candy bowl, and lit lovely little tea lights up the walkway to our house. I even carved a pumpkin!

Well, the first kids showed up around 6:30 (I had been expecting them around dusk (5-ish), and the last kids rang the doorbell about fifteen minutes ago, at 9:00. That’s kind of late for trick-or-treaters, don’t you think? And my doorbell has only rung a total of 5 times today, not counting the plumber this morning. What a disappointment! I guess I don’t live in a neighborhood that has lots of kids. I think it might be more retired people. (Side note: wouldn’t it be cool if the older people dressed up in costumes and went trick-or-treating? Maybe I should suggest it next year)

My adventures, I fear, have gotten fairly domestic. They are no less adventurous, but don’t involve travelling all over the country in a bus or losing all my money or anything like that. No, I’ve had to deal with mundane issues like the shower falling out of the wall or what to do with those stray cats I mentioned.

The first problem was easily fixed with a call to the plumber; the second problem...well, that’s a little more complicated.


As I mentioned before, Mama Cat came around to our house and adopted us sometime this summer. She then introduced us to her two kittens (originally there were three, but one of them disappeared). We didn’t really take the time right at the beginning to play with the kittens, and thus missed the crucial window of imprinting, so now the kittens are pretty wild. One of them will let me pet him, and the other one (although he’s a Mama’s boy and follows her everywhere) won’t let me come within two feet of him.


The “twins,” as I like to call them, since they look so alike, are now at the age where they should be wandering off on their own. But they’ve got a steady food supply here, so they’re not really going anywhere. In the meantime, I named them according to their personalities. Tybalt is the one who will let me pet him (named for Mercutio’s line, “More than prince of cats, I can tell you...”)...he’s fairly noble, as per his namesake. And Scherzo got his name when I saw him jump from flagstone to flagstone one day for no particular reason. I was going to name him “Scaredy the Cat,” since he keeps running the other way whenever I show up. but Scherzo adds a whole new dimension to it.

I am still hoping to give them away, possibly to a family, but barring that, to a shelter. So I made plans to take them to the vet and get their shots, etc. to make them more desirable as pets.

Well, Tybalt is a lot smarter than Scherzo. I think he knew what I was doing when I brought out the food bowl. Tybalt made for the bushes, and Scherzo trustingly walked into my sunroom for his food. I then put out the cat carrier, and Scherzo, ever the curious kitten, walked right into it. I said, “Oh, this is too easy,” and shut the door behind him. I couldn’t catch Tybalt, so I bundled Mama up in her carrier and took the yowling duo to the vet.

Once at the vet, Scherzo was impossible to examine. He was running around the office and clawing at anything and everything. Finally, we let Mama out for her examination, and found out that Mama got knocked up again. I guess that’s what happens to the girls who stay out late at night...anyway, the vet suggested that we get her spayed right away, kitten fetuses (feti?) and all. I swallowed my mother-goddess instincts and agreed, knowing that Mama was like the worst kind of welfare mother: she would just take advantage of me and my food, water, & shelter as she raised more and more deadbeats.

(Well, I wouldn’t call Tybalt and Scherzo deadbeats, exactly, but I am a little bitter that they don’t like me very much.)

At the end of Mama’s examination, the vet tried again with Scherzo, with no luck. She suggested I bring him in for a surgery appointment, so they can sedate him, give him his shots and snip him all at the same time. Apparently he’s old enough, and I don’t want either of the kittens to contribute to the deadbeat cat population, after all...

Anyway, that’s what has happened with me so far. I hope you are well, and I hope to hear from you soon (or possibly see you at my party on November 16).