Well, Merry Christmas to you too!

Hello everyone, this is Simon.  It is Christmas Eve here at Casa de Tribe Atherton, and once again, my moms couldn't wait 12 more hours to open their presents out from under Great Grandma Atherton's Christmas Cactus.  They's like children, really.

This year my moms got each other these little walkie talkie things that goes on the sides of their motorcycle helmets.  I asked where mine was and they was all, Simon, you don't ride a motorcycle, blah blah blah.  Well, I'll show them!  I DO ride motorcycles, and I HAVE used them walkie talkies!  In fact, I even have a picture of me on my last road trip with some friends of mine, here's us chattin away right here!

I forget what we was talkin about here, but clearly I just told my friend Angela one of my hilarious jokes, cause she's smilin all big.  

So there!  Take that, Mom and Mama Rainy!  Now, where's my walkie talkie helmet???

Love and Merry Christmas

Simon

Anger Management

Our Very Own YouTube Channel!!!!

Big Screen Debut

Rainy and I recently made a trip to Chicago to watch the historic All Blacks v. Eagles International Rugby exhibition match.  Much fun was had, as was a little frostbite.  Brr!!!!

But the most EXCITING part of our trip (says me!) was when we got to play extras in our friends Alana's and Michael's Cat Catastrophe video!  Rainy has already had a clapping part on the tv show Nashville, so she tried to play it off as just another day at the office, but I was giddy with excitement!  Here's our big debut below, complete with SPEAKING PARTS!  :D  

http://youtu.be/Lhc5eE9X-ak


 Make sure when you watch the video, you click a big thumbs up for Alana's and Michael's work so they get lots of credit from their sponsors.

It's a great day!

Julie

For The Guy Who Loves Everything

Hi Everyone!

This is Griffin.  I have a real, real good life because I have moms who love me and brothers who love me, and I have puppies and a yard to play in and good food to eat, and fresh water and clean litters and a big bed with my own pillow, and I have soft blankie on the back of the couch to take naps on.  And now my friend Alana has made a picture of me, and I really love that too.  My mom sent her my baby picture, because the first time she saw it, before she even met me! she fell in love with me.  I was trying to be real cute in that picture, and it worked!  My friend Alana drew the prettiest picture of my mom's favorite photo, and she and I could just cry because it's so pretty!

See how nice it is?  She colored my eyes just right and my mom says I'm cute as a button, just like when I was a baby.  She is going to buy a real nice frame to put it in when Alana sends it to us, and we're all going to look at it all the time and thank our lucky stars for our good friend who can do anything and has a big heart.  When I get to meet her, I'm going to give her a big hug and probably even a kissy.

Love,

Griffin

Brothers

Hello everybody!  Simon here.  I am sorry I have not written in quite some time, but I have been very busy runnin things around here.  My moms is fixin up our house so's we can move into our other house and sell this one and then we's gonna move AGAIN, but this time will be to Florida, where I will get to have my awesome alligator gang, so I'm looking forward to that.  Anyways, I also got in some sorta scuffle and had to get stitches, which is NOT awesome, but I'm all better now and writin to you folks.

I been thinking, what should I write about?  Ain't nothin real fun goin on around here lately.  I ain't had no big trips or nothin.  My mom has been givin me this new fish oil on my food on account my friend Crepes also gets it, and so props to Crepes's mom Alana for suggestin it.  I love it!  I hope my coat gets super silky, although I always look awesome.

Anyway, I noticed the internet is all abuzz about Yadier Molina, and on account he's my favorite baseball player, I read the story.  Apparently, he left some peanut butter crackers on home plate for his brother Jose, who is also a catcher, but he plays for a different team, the Tampa Bay Rays.  I thought to myself, well ain't that nice of him!  But then the people were readin all kinds of things into why he did that, and they went on and on like a buncha chickens.  All I can think is that people got too much time if they's just going to sit around and talk about why a guy would give his brother crackers!

Yum!

Yadier and his brother, Jose, my heroes!

Me and my brother, Griffin

My brother Griffin always shares his crackers with me, and so really, we's a lot like the Molina brothers.  I'm real happy I get to have my brother.  We don't play baseball but we love to spend most of our time together, and if we had to play on different baseball teams, I would totally appreciate if he left me some crackers on home plate.  I would still catch better and kick his team's ass, but I would be lovin me some crackers, and then we'd go to the local waterin hole after the game and talk about how awesome I played baseball and how he wasn't so bad himself, too bad he got on a crappy team!  Hahahaha.  I crack myself up.

Love Simon

The King Is Dead

Yesterday, Rainy and I took Paco to the vet and had him euthanized.  He went very fast and we took him home and buried him next to his sister.  Looking through pictures later, we realized he's been gone for months already.  Our sweet, shy black cat has been pacing with fixed pupils since at least around the time Isabel died, no longer able to jump up on the table and steal our food with one extended claw or go outside to play with his brothers.  Once again, I am grateful that I had the ability to give him some peace and let his soul loose from his broken mind and body.  But I'm done.  I can't do this again, not for a long time. Everyone else has to at least make it to Florida and some years past that.  In the last 3 years, I have buried my father, the kittens I loved for 16 years, and the boxer who stole my heart.  Enough.  Enough already.

My sweet Paco, enjoying a concrete back scratch in the sun, 2004

Reading the mail

Snuggling with Mama Rainy

The best thing I ever did for Paco was give him his Mama Rainy

Bruce was Paco's favorite dog

These 2 yahoos, stealing my food

Paco "working" in his office that he shared with his Mama Rainy

This was taken right after Rainy and I moved in together.  Paco loved his final home.

Paco, I hope your soul has woken up in The Meadow this morning and that you are with your papa and your grandpa and you are happy and warm and young again.  You took a piece of my heart with you, take good care of it for me.
Love, your grateful mom

Life Keeps Playing

My buddy Alana just reminded me that I haven't done a blog post in a long time.  I know, I know.  But Casa de Tribe Atherton has taken some hits, and when I did have time to write, I just didn't have the heart.  Isabel died.  Her brother Paco's health has been declining rapidly.  And then our beloved Max died.  Our big, goofy, happy boxer boy left us, just like that.  The vet said he had ruptured tumors on his spleen, tumors that our mobile vet couldn't even feel a couple months earlier.  We barely even had time to give him medication to make his transition easier before he died.  It was terrible and we miss our boy so much that this is all I'm going to say about it.

We love you, sweet boy.

Since that terrible day, we've watched Paco decline more and more--first the vet said he was blind, then the eye vet said his problems were cognitive, not visual.  The only way to know if he has a brain tumor, which is the most likely diagnosis at this point, is to do an MRI, and then what?  We put our 16 year old cat on chemo/radiation?  No thanks.  So we call Paco "Tiburon" now (spanish for shark) while he paces endlessly around the house, and we give him hugs and kisses, and we wonder if we'll know definitively when the right time is to help him die, or if he'll leave on his own.  

This is life with multiple elderly pets.  I saw it coming when Isabel's tumors showed up, that we could lose 3 of our family members in the span of a few months.  But Jesus, none of us is guaranteed any time on this earth, and I wouldn't give one second back of life with my loved ones to avoid the pain of losing them.  I mean that.  It's the price to pay for joy, the losing of it.  And some time goes by, and the wounds heal a little, and life keeps playing its song, and we keep dancing to its beat.

More joyful posts to follow.

Love,

Julie

Isabel's Journey

This is a story about a wonderful girl.

Once upon a time, someone I worked with found a basket of kittens in a park in Daly City, California, where she liked to walk her dog.  She brought pictures of the kittens to work, and I went to go say hi.  I had one cat at the time, and I thought Eddie would like to have a buddy to hang out with while I was at work.  I thought before going over that I would take the little boy from the pictures, and I would name him Paco, because I loved that name.  When I arrived at my co-worker's home, I was immediately taken in by the energy of one of Paco's sisters.  There was just something about her--she was so alive and spunky and totally herself, and I fell in love with her.  I ended up taking both her and Paco home.  One of the women I worked with at the hospital was one of the sweetest, kindest people I had ever met at that point in my life, and her name was Isabel.  I decided to name my new little girl after her.  When I told my dad what I had named the kittens, he laughed because he said it sounded like Taco Bell.  From the very beginning, Paco and Isabel brought joy to my life and the lives of those around them.  Eddie loved them and cared for them as if they were his own babies.  Isabel especially, loved to snuggle with her papa.

Isabel and Paco, a couple of yay-hoos I adopted, ruling our house.  :)

Isabel, Paco, and Eddie.  My family.  :)

For a couple of years, we lived in San Francisco, in a little apartment past the Outer Mission where the cats could safely go outside and sun themselves by the jade bushes and watch raccoons walk along the fence tops.  Then I decided it was time to move, and we all piled into the car for a 2500 mile journey to Illinois, where I was born and had decided to begin again.  Poor Paco made the whole journey in the tiniest place he could fit, but Isabel busted through the safety gate I had rigged to keep the cats in the back and out of harm's way.  She demanded the front seat, and she got it!  My little girl was always adventurous.  We lived in Illinois for a time, then moved to Tennessee.  Everywhere we went, Isabel was my co-pilot.

My happy girl.  :)

One of Isabel's favorite things in life was laying under a flower bush with her belly up to the sun.  As she got older, she got quieter, especially after her Papa Eddie died, but there was always someone in the tribe that would go to her so that she was never alone. Her brother Griffin and sister Journey were among those, and from day one of his time with us until the last day of Isabel's life, Simon was Isabel's dinner companion. Paco was a constant irritation to Isabel when they were young, but over the years, she grew to enjoy knowing the guy she'd been stuck with since the womb was somewhere around her--but not too close!

Griffin and Isabel, takin a walk.  

Isabel and Simon, eating, eating, eating!

Late last year, I started to feel a tumor growing on Isabel's side.  The vet told us if we had it surgically removed, it would buy her some time, maybe a year.  I never entertained the idea of putting my 16 year old girl through chemotherapy or radiation--I can't imagine a crueler fate than being dragged to the vet twice a week for an indeterminate amount of time, poked with needles, then feel like crap, and all the while not know why.  I will never do that to my family. Isabel recovered well from her surgery and I thought that--as it had always been--my little trooper would show everyone how tough she really was.

My girl Isabel was tough.  She survived being dumped in a park, endless heckling by her brother, moving several times, living with all kinds of different cats and dogs and people, and a surgery that might have wiped anyone else out.  But the cancer that she had turned out to be pretty awful, and it came back with a vengeance way before any of us was ready to let go of this wonderful life force Isabel possessed.  At the beginning of March, we talked to the vet about options, and since surgery was clearly making the cancer angry instead of GONE, we gave her a steroid shot to help with any pain she might have and decided to just enjoy every day we could with her.  I was afraid that what would happen was the tumor would break through Isabel's skin and become an infected mess before she felt bad, and then I'd have to deal with the horrible choice of having her live with that misery or putting her to sleep before she was ready otherwise.  I prayed I wouldn't have to face that scenario.

Five days ago, Isabel started having a really hard time walking with her back legs.  Her color looked bad and she was hiding a lot.  The next day was worse, although she was still eating and drinking.  Then she could barely walk, and I decided that that was enough suffering for my girl.  Rainy spent the day with her while I had to work, and she walked with her outside in the sunshine and put her in her cabana in the sunny window and gave her lots of cookies.  I came home and rocked her in the recliner for awhile.  It is not lost on me at all that the beautiful spring day outside was the same as it was the day Eddie died and the same as the day my dad died.  It seems that, from time to time, that kind of day is like a bridge inviting wonderful souls to the other side.  Rainy and I took Isabel on one last car ride to the vet, and it became clear that she was not having fun anymore when she started panting in the waiting room.  Our wonderful Dr. Lewis helped us usher Isabel out of the world with drugs that took her pain away and stopped her spunky, spirited heart.  He reminded us that she had had a wonderful life and that it was a near miracle that she had gotten to spend 16 years with one family who loved her so much.  I still hold that I have been the lucky one to have gotten to spend 16 years of my life with her.

We buried Isabel in Jaycub's rose garden, on her favorite pillow with rose petals around her sweet face. Jaycub was Rainy's wonderful cat who died much too soon, and we thought it would be nice that he would not be in his garden alone.  I have been carrying Eddie's and Journey's ashes with me for years, but it seemed fitting that they should be with Isabel's body now too.  I laid lillies and sunflowers on my girl, and we closed her tomb.  I know her spirit is in The Meadow now, where all of the souls I love go, and where eventually I will join them.  It is that beautiful sunny Spring day always, and I can see her as she was in her youth, full of vitality, enjoying time under a flowering bush, belly up to the sun.

I love you, Isabel.  Thank you for spending your whole life with me.

Love,

Your Grateful Mom

My very favorite picture of Isabel.  She was goofy and wonderful.  :)

A Plea From Isabel, IT Cat Extraordinaire

Good morning, Citizens.  This is Isabel, and as usual, I am freezing to death.  Okay, maybe that's strong, since I'm inside my house.  But just looking out the window makes me cold, and my brothers keep running in and out the cat door and the wind is also making me cold.  I'm sick of it!!!!!  I saw on the Internet where Colonel Meow got all his vet bills paid for through this website Go Fund Me, and I thought it couldn't hurt for me to try to get money too.  Mama Rainy's spreadsheets all say we can't move to Tampa until 2 years of saving, and I am looking at the scar on my side where they took my tumor out and thinking, I don't have that long!!!  My brother Paco just started taking his thyroid medicine, but hopefully he doesn't even have as long to live as me!  And our dogs look old too.  This is not good, people.  We have to move to Florida before I get glaucoma or more cancer, so I can enjoy laying by the pool in the warm sunshine.  Please help me!!!!! Here's my donation site:  http://www.gofundme.com/6u3neg   I can't believe I'm doing this, but if you give me $50, you can rub my belly, and if you give me $100, I'll snuggle with you.  OMG, what have I become????

Love, Isabel

My Gator Gang

Listen y'all.  This is Simon and I'm hear to tell y'all about my gator gang.  When I move to Florida, I'm gonna have me an intense buncha fellas with me that ain't gonna take no crap from nobody!  That way Mama Rainy can't make me do nothin I don't want to do and also if anyone tries to harass my family, I'll just sic my gators on 'em!

We's gonna be FEROCIOUS!!!

Watch out Mister!

Gators ain't all teeth and craziness though.  Sometimes they like to just take a walk or go fishin with me!  I can't wait until we's all livin in the same spot so we can hang out all the time and not just on my vacations.

My buddy Herbie, just takin a stroll

Me, Ralph and Peanut fishin my last vacation...

Divin with Peanut...

I can't wait to get to Florida!  I'm tired of this snow crap and cold weather.  How's a fella sposed to live like this!!!  I'm gonna call up my buddies and ride them all the way to Tampa, dang it!

Love Simon

Simon's Weather Report, February 1, 2014

Hey y'all!!!

This is Simon, your very awesome meteorologist at Casa de Tribe Atherton.  I am writin to tell y'all that it is a wonderful day here in Nashville!  It is already 54 degrees outside, and my moms is sayin they're gonna take the puppies to the park.  My puppies really like the park, where they get to commune with the other puppies and run around and try again to take a drink from the scary, noisy water fountain when they's thirsty. Good for them, I say!!

As for me, I'm goin to tell you somethin really wonderful.  People, it is only 58 more days til the openin day of BASEBALL!!!!!!  I am so excited...

Simon Atherton, reportin from Wrigley Field, the greatest place on earth!!!!

My grandpa Jim--that's my mom's dad--was a HUGE baseball fan!  He could tell you statistics about players faster than my Mama Rainy could calculate them from folks in the WAY back time!

Because of my Grandpa Jim, who we all love and miss very much, we is all diehard Chicago Cubs fans, even though they got that ding dang billy goat curse and will likely never ever win a pennant again.

Dang goat.  :(

It don't matter if the Cubs can't win, 'cause it's a whole lotta fun to run around and exclaim that this is the year the Cubs is gonna win--it makes everyone laugh heartily and we all have a good time.  And really, y'all, baseball isn't even about the winnin so much as it's about the shit talkin.  You just ask my Mama Rainy--my mom took her to her first baseball games last year and she said my Mama Rainy was a born heckler!  I'm very proud of my Mama Rainy--I think we's a lot alike.




As you can see, I'm representin for my homeboy Yadier Molina.  He is my very favorite player, and we share Hispanic descent.  I wonder if my Grandpa Sanchez is in HIS family line??  I should ask Cousin Juan Mario next time I see him...

Anyways, today it's gonna be a real nice day in Nashville!  63 degrees for the high and real sunny.  Enjoy the puppy park and wherever else y'all might be headed.  This is Simon, signin out!

Simon's Weather Report

Hey y'all!

I was readin all my fan posts on Facebook this mornin, and somebody mentioned that you could now get one a them apps called Weather Whiskers where you get a picture of a cat in clothes reportin the weather. But you can't put yourself in the meteorologist role, it's one a them preprogrammed cats, and all it does is look cute.  What a bunch of crap!  I am not about to stand by and let some fake preprogrammed cat take all the glory, even though meteorologists is useless to do anything but stand there and look pretty and say a bunch of crap that may or may not come true.  (I'm sorry Grandpa Jim, but you know it's true! I love you and I miss you.  Love Simon.)

Simon Atherton, reportin for duty!

Hello, TV weather watchers!  This is Simon with your forecast.  It is freakin COLD!!!!!!  It is so cold that I had to put on my warmest sweater and take one a my rabbit pelts I was gonna sell and make a hat out of it, all just to tell y'all how freakin cold it is, and I'm INSIDE!!!!!  It is true that my moms is tryin to save money on electricity, but I ain't never been so cold, not even in the summer when my mom gets one a them pre-hot flashes and goes nuts with the thermostat!  Behind me you will notice all the stats.  But statistics can't tell you that it's gonna feel like you never ever want to get out from under your covers, no matter how much my Mama Rainy dolls it up with her sassy programmin!  You look out the window and see it's nice and sunny, and then you go out the door and get blasted with some crazy frozen tundra arctic nonsense that ain't got no place below the Mason-Dixon line!!!  I am so sick of winter that I just want to puke!  I need warmth!  I can't live like this!!!!  

Well, y'all, I ain't got much more to tell ya.  It's freakin cold and I wish I was in Florida.  I'm goin back under my covers now, WITH my sweater and my rabbit skin hat.  And maybe I ain't got the personality of Lisa Patton or Davis Nolan or all them fancy people over at Channel 2, but it don't take no genius to get up in front of a blue screen and tell y'all it's cold.  I'm just sayin.

Love Simon

A Sad Day

We just got word that Colonel Meow has died.  For those of you who don't know about him, he has been an Internet sensation for quite some time and even holds the Guiness World Record for longest cat hair (9"!!) The only details I know are that he's recently been in the hospital and that he died last night.  His family is obviously distraught and grieving, but I'm sure Anne Marie will let everyone know what happened once she is able to function again.  Here at the Casa, all our hearts go out to her and the rest of the Colonel's family. Rest in peace Colonel Meow.  We loved having you in our lives while you were here.

The Colonel in all his glory:

Here's his collection of videos.  It's not everyone who gets to leave such a cool, fun legacy. http://www.youtube.com/user/ColonelMeow/videos

Love, Julie and the rest of Tribe Atherton

Help Crepes!

Hey y'all!

This is Simon, and I'm here with my "associate" Paulie.

We are writin to you today to tell y'all about Catdance and a very special entry in the film festival called The Inheritance.  My friend Crepes and her folks has made a very wonderful movie about a guy who tricks...  Well, I don't want to give away the plot or punchline or whatever.

What you NEED to do is get on over to https://www.freshstep.com/promotions/catdance-festival-2014/play/the-inheritance/  and watch Crepes in action!  And then most importantly, go VOTE for Crepes's movie!!!  And I mean VOTE!  Make up some email addresses and vote for them!  Do it every day!!! Heck, if you get lucky you might just win you a Catdance tshirt.  My friend Alana calls this "Chicago style votin," and that is no lie!  Everyone knows that my great granddad (that's my mom's grandpa) used to run liquor for Al Capone durin Prohibition, and he had dinner with Al AND the governor AT THE GOVERNOR'S MANSION this one time!  That makes me 1/4 gangster, so I know all about it!  And that's what I'm talkin about--you need to vote with that level of corruption!!!  Vote for Crepes like she's gonna solve all your problems AND be the next American Idol!

And if you try to tell me that ain't right, let me tell you somethin!  Gettin a prize just because you's popular is a CRIME!  Takin a handheld camera and holdin it up to a cat for 4 minutes while he gets his belly scratched and does no actin whatsoever is NOT a reason to get an Oscar!  I am so mad about last year's film festival! Maybe cause I just found out about it last week, but STILL!!!  That shit ain't right!

But Crepes IS right, and talented as all get out, and so is her mom and dad, Alana and Michael.  They worked real, real hard on their movie, and it just ain't right if some other asshole wins.  I'm real passionate about this, sorry bout the cussin.  Anyway, please go vote for Crepes--like A LOT A LOT--and maybe win you a free tshirt.  Oh, and don't bother tryin to get a DVD rental with your Paw Points, cause they's all out of them.  Dang it.

Love Simon

...oh yeah, and Paulie.
(dude, you really should quit smokin!  just sayin...)

https://www.freshstep.com/promotions/catdance-festival-2014/play/the-inheritance/

Dinner with Cousin Juan Mario

As I told you before, I had dinner at Aunt Maria's last night, and it was delicious!  I also got to hang out with my cousin Juan Mario Sanchez, who is my papi's older brother's son, and he knows all the scoop about my Grandpa Sanchez.  Last night he told me about how vital Grandpa Sanchez was to the freein of Mexico, because he was General Zapata's right hand man.  General Zapata trusted my grandpa more than any of his other people, mostly because my grandpa did his drinkin on his own time and didn't show up drunk in battle.  My grandpa was a fierce warrior back in his day, and he almost single handedly took down General Diaz, who was a total motherfucker.  My grandpa was a hero and I am very proud of him and also, I am a lot like him in many awesome ways.  Here is a picture of me and Juan Mario last night before we got too full or too drunk, and also some pictures of my Grandpa Sanchez, who was awesome!

This is my Aunt Maria.  I took this picture right before I went home.  She was real tired from all the cookin she's been doin.

Juan Mario is my very favorite cousin!

This right here is the only picture of my Grandpa Sanchez in battle--he is goin right to the heart of the war, about to pull General Diaz right out of his dang saddle!

        

This is Grandpa Sanchez standin at the right hand of General Zapata.  Note how everyone else is all drunk and carryin on, while my grandpa retains his military bearin!

This is a very rare paintin of my Grandpa Sanchez and General Zapata, back when they was boys together.  Wow!

My grandpa was a true hero, and I am very proud of him.  I told my cousin Juan Mario that I was goin to take the portrait of him and General Zapata and hang it on my wall.  As soon as Mama Rainy comes home, I'm goin to make her and my mom get me a thumb tack.  I can't wait to tell them all about my people.  I tried to tell Mama Rainy a few weeks ago about all the people I met at the reunion, but she said I was totally full of shit and there was no one named Juan Mario except what I made up in my head.  I'll show her!!!  She cannot deny the proof!  Also, she wants me to get her coffee when I go on my Costa Rica adventure, so this is not the time to be all hateful and a nay sayer about my stories.  She burned her last bridge when she yelled at Grandma Christine last time--I told her there was no such thing as enough Costa Rica coffee but I guess she was havin that time of month or whatever ladies call it.  I DOUBT Grandma Christine's going to be bringin her any more coffee presents!

Love Simon

A Word From Our Sponsor???

Hey y'all!  This is Simon, and I want to tell y'all about somethin wonderful!  Last night I went to my Aunt Maria's house for supper and she had this stuff called El Pato jalapeno salsa.  It comes in a tiny little can and I wondered why in the world she would be foolin with somethin so tiny when she regularly cooks for 10 or more people.  Turns out, it's one a them appetizers!  You just unscrew the can and dip your chip right in it! I will say this, you're gonna want to keep a big ol glass of water nearby because it is HOT!  But it is worth it, and before you know it, you'll be too full to eat more than 3 of Aunt Maria's tacos because you spent too much time at the El Pato can.

Me and my very own can of El Pato!

I asked Aunt Maria if I could take home my very own can of El Pato so my moms could buy it for me, and turns out, my mom already KNEW about El Pato!  She and my Uncle Adam used to eat it all the time back when they was bachelors in San Francisco.  She said that's how she cut her spicy tooth.  My mom said if you can eat El Pato, you can eat almost anything hot, except maybe Costa Rican jalapenos,'cause they are so hot you'll be burnin for the rest of the day and night!  Wow.  Now I think I need to have an adventure in Costa Rica.  Stay tuned!

Love Simon

Dreams

Oh, hi Everyone!

This is Griffin.  Ever since my moms went to Florida 2 winters ago, they have been sick of winter.  They have been talking and talking about moving to Florida ever since, except when they talked about moving to Seattle, but either way we are going to move closer to lots of water and fish and the world's biggest litter box.  I can't wait to see that!  My moms are real anxious too, but we have to wait a little while so we can find our perfect place and everything.  Until then, we're all huddled together dreaming about being warm and sunny.  I wanted to tell you guys all about our Florida dream before I go to sleep tonight and then I'll be sure to dream that I'm at the world's biggest litter box catching lots of fish and I'll be pretty happy about that!

My sister Isabel went with Mom and Mama Rainy on one of their trips, and she got to walk around in the world's biggest litter box!  She said it was pretty but birds swooped at her head and the sand was hard to walk in.  She said she'd go back when we had a house and a covered pool she could lounge by. 

Mom and Mama Rainy found all kinds of places where they could go walking around, but this one said you couldn't bring pets.  They wondered why the park people were so mean...

...but then they found this sign!!  If Mama Rainy and I see any alligators, this is where you'll find us!







Mostly, my mom and Mama Rainy said it would be really neat to live around things like this:

Birds walking through the front yard...

Birds looking at the water...

And CATS!  Big cats!  Right there in our back yard almost!

I can't wait to move to Florida.  I can't wait until I'm in the sunshine all the time and maybe I can even hear my big cat cousins calling out and maybe I'll call them back.  Mostly, I just love my moms and my brothers and sister and I want us all to be together and happy.  But I sure would like to check out that big litter box, too.

Gnight everyone.

Love,

Griffin

Mi Reunión Familiar

Hey Everyone!  I know it's been quite some time since I told you a story, and this one is AWESOME!  It turns out I'm part MEXICAN!!!  I never woulda guessed it, but my long lost cousin Juan Mario Sanchez contacted me one day and invited me to a family reunion of the Sanchez clan, of which I am a MEMBER!!!!!

Me at Cedars of Lebanon, waitin for the festivities to begin...

I know it seems a little strange that I would be any percentage of Mexican, and I was a little shocked at the news myself, but it turns out that Grandpa Sanchez used to run with General Zapata durin the Mexican Revolution--he was a real Zapatista!!!--and after all that mess was over he decided to come here and settle down with my Grandma O'Hara, who was his true love that he met after crossing over into the United States.  They were truly in love and they had lots of babies, and after a long time, my dad papi was born and then he found my mom (and several other ladies, apparently) and then I was born and made my way over the Mississippi River, etc etc.  And now I am here and tellin you all about all my adventures!  

Grandpa Sanchez and General Zapata--WOW!!

Grandpa Sanchez right before he died of old age several years ago.

Cousin Juan Mario, tellin stories to all us cats...

I had a great time hangin out with all my cousins.  We had lots of food and drinks of course, and let me tell you, Taco Bell ain't got nothin on my Aunt Maria!  She can cook!  

 Aunt Maria went to a lot of trouble to make tacos for all the cousins, and as you can see, she did a wonderful job with the place settins--they even had little sombreros on the plates!  For dessert, we had her special Ole cookies, and they were real, real yummy.

Cousin Juan Mario is the guy with all our family history, so that's why we had the reunion in Lebanon, but my other cousins come from all over the place!  Cousin Jimmy is from California--he's a mechanic and he came out in his low rider car.  Unfortunately, it was no match for a country road, so he broke his axle.  Here I am, repairin it...

I worked for 2 hours on that thing!

For my trouble, Jimmy gave me this awesome sticker!

 This is my cousin Ignacio, and he's from Arizona.  It's a good thing he came to this reunion, because he's gettin pretty old and might not be able to make such a long journey again.  Juan Mario said that before Grandpa Sanchez and Grandma O'Hara met crossin the Rio Grande, Grandpa Sanchez had his needs met somewhere else and Ignacio is that woman's son.  So that makes Ignacio pretty dang old.  I'm glad I got to meet him, he was a nice ol guy.

 This is Stinky.  He brought a dang two legged to the reunion with him, on account he's too young to drive.  I think he said he was from Delaware or some such thing, and he's actually one of the cousins' grandkids or somethin.  He mostly played with the other grandkids while us grown ups talked about our history and drank tequila and ate Aunt Maria's wonderful tacos.

My cousin Pedro is a mess.  He was in Vietnam a long time ago and has a bunch of family over there.  The dang government made him come back to Texas in '75 after the fall of Saigon and so now he just drinks a lot to forget about all of it. I don't even know why he came out to see us, because all he did was drink and pass out.  I guess it was the free tequila that drew him here.


It was a wonderful reunion, all in all.  I hope I get to see Juan Mario a lot, since he lives right here!  And you can bet I'll be visitin Aunt Maria's kitchen from here on out.  I love my moms, but they and Taco Bell are in the same second place spot as far as cookin and Aunt Maria are concerned.  I can't wait to hear more stories about Grandpa Sanchez--Cousin Juan Mario actually met him a few times and said I'm a lot like him. I guess that makes me a real Zapatista!

That's all for now.

Love Simon