Miz Shoes is sorry to report that last night’s date with the couch, the martinis and the Bitches and Hos was pre-empted by an altercation in the front yard involving the Noble Dog Nails, JoJo of Very Little Brain, a feral black momma cat and her kittens. Before you perish from the thought, no kittens were harmed in this tale.

There is a wonderful expanse of ferns in the southeast corner of my yard. Giant ferns with tunnels and caves of green. A perfect hiding place for fairies, I think, and so I encouraged the ferns to grow around a tree, over a giant slab of coral rock and the mounds of sand and rock that were the result of quarrying my koi pond. It is a perfect hiding place, as proved by the feral (and here’s an interesting thing: nobody at the emergency room understood the word “feral” even though they were possessed of advanced degrees. At least one would like to believe that nurses have advanced degrees.) cat who had her litter in those very nice green caves.

Another reason to believe that this is a most excellent hiding place is the fact that Nails and JoJo hadn’t found the kittens until last night. It was dusk, and the RLA was taking the recyclables out. The dogs went out with him. And then, the noise! The howls! The hisses! I leapt up and ran out of the house to the front yard where Nails and a black cat were going at it (excuse me) tooth and nail. And JoJo was diving into the ferns. And the RLA was yelling at them all to break it up. We got JoJo out of the way, the black cat beat a hasty retreat over the fence, and I pried a small Jellical kitten off of Nails’ face. I couldn’t quite tell if it was clinging to Nails or Nails had hold of it, but I dropped the little thing over the fence and we all adjourned to the kitchen to assay the damages. JoJo was fine. Nails had a lot of blood on his face and a pair of fang holes in his ear. We washed him off and I couldn’t find the source of the blood (could have been his nose) so I went back out to check for damaged kittens.

I found the nest under the coral rock, and heard rustling in the ferns. So someone was still there and doing fine. The kitteh I’d dropped over the fence was now back inside and trying to get to her nest. She was terrified, tiny and adorable. Well, I’m the cat whisperer, so I figured I’d calm her down and check if that clumpy wet spot on her side was dog spit or worse. I had a towel and some kitty kibbles and I was able to touch her little head, ever so gently, so I reached in for the grab.

She appeared to be fine and unharmed, because she immediately sunk her tiny, needle-sharp milk teeth into my thumb, all the way to the bone. When a tiny kitteh is attached like that, you want to not shake it off, because chunks of thumb flesh will go with it. You sort of have to let it unlatch on its own time schedule. Which I did, and then hightailed it back to the kitchen to scrub out the wound, and, this being the 21st century, Google “feral cat bite”. I there discovered what I already knew, but did not want to consider or admit: cats, especially feral cats, have the dirtiest mouths in the animal kingdom, second pretty much only to alligators. Swell.

I also remembered the story of an ex-friend of mine who had been bitten by her own, indoor cat. She’s a nurse, mind you, and she washed her thumb well and went to bed. She woke up the next morning with a thumb the size of a tennis ball, red streaks running up her arm and a fever. She spent the next three days hooked up to an IV of antibiotics in the hospital. So.

I went to the ER, where, when anyone hears the two words cat and bite in the same sentence, they start to shake their head and tell you that infection is inevitable. And bad. And that probably rabies shots are in order. And possibly tetanus. And I sat and sat and sat and sat. I made the security guard change the channel on the waiting room tv. He had to poll the entire room. One old gomer wanted CNN, but after I explained what I wanted to watch (young girls who want to be models) he started chanting “Mo-dels! Mo-dels!” and so I got to see (but not hear) part of ANTM, and then I got called away to fill out paper work, and missed most of the show.

Now I have four tiny little puncture wounds on my right thumb, a scrip for serious antibiotics and another for the certain side effect yeast infection, and a decision to make about calling animal control to remove the cat and her babies. My tetanus shot was up to date… thanks to Frankenpinkie two years ago, and it turns out rabies is only likely if bitten by a possum, a raccoon or a bat(!).

And that is the story of why Miz Shoes can’t tell you anything more about ANTM than the girl from Ocala (Seminole for pissant town on the edge of the swamp) got sent home for being neither pretty nor good teevee.

There has been a flurry of e-mail the past couple of weeks as a certain “this is not a fake, click on this button and donate to charity” chain letter makes the rounds. The thing is, it isn’t fake, and even though I think I’ll remember to click and donate dog food to shelters, I don’t remember. So.

Over there on the right, in the endless blog roll, just above the Daily Puppy (aww) and the Daily Kitten (double aww) I have added, for your and my convenience, a Daily Click. Click and choose which or all of the charities on that page you wish to support. There’s animals, children, breast cancer, literacy. You name it, there’s a tab for it. And there is shopping for charity, about which one can feel so morally smug.

It’s a win-win all the way around.

Downloaded MAGIC this morning, and haven’t made it all the way through the first full listen, but I can say this: when Bruce sings “It’s a long walk home”, he is not talking about from his ex-girlfriend’s place to his. Unless, you know, his ex-girlfriend is Lady Liberty and his apartment is a metaphor for American civil liberties. Another cut that is not about cars and girls is “Last to Die” and unless you were sleeping through all the attempts to dishonor John Kerry during the last presidential campaign, you’ll recognize the line “last to die for a mistake”, as the pull quote from his appearance before congress as a Viet Nam vet against the war. As much as this has been promoted as a back-to-roots rock and roll cd, this is a very political cd. Not that there is anything wrong with that. And it is a very danceable, hummable cd.

There are echoes of sounds from the San Francisco Summer of Love, and from late-period Beatles, and even a track where you can actually appreciate that after 30 years and endless stages, Bruce has learned to sing. That may be the result of touring with the angel-voiced Nils Lofgren, too. I’m leaning towards loving this album. The first dozen times I heard the pre-release cut “Radio Nowhere” I wasn’t sure, to tell you the truth. I thought the production was a little dodgy. I thought it was a little, uh, light weight. Then I watched the video, and the penny dropped for me.

It’s only rock and roll, but I love it.

I went to visit my mother yesterday. She’d fallen on Friday, reaching out for something that wasn’t there, that only she could see. Face plant by an 89 year old lady onto a tile floor does not a pretty picture make. Mummy’s got two shiners, and the whole side of her face is black and blue, and yet, there is only the smallest skin tear on her forehead.

The last three weeks, she’s not opened her eyes when I visit. She’ll hold my hand, or maybe, more accurately, let me hold hers. Yesterday I took her a Starbuck’s Caramel Frappuccino, which she seemed to enjoy.

I called my GirlCousin to tell her about Mummy’s fall, and she told me that my nephew had been spotted at the Gator game over the weekend. Nephew lives in North Carolina, so coming down to Gainesville for a game is a bit of a trek. Still, being only 6 hours from his Grandma, one could hope that he’d call to see how she’s doing. But he’s his father’s child as I am mine, and so he did not. In fact, in the two-going-on-three years (a full three in December) that my mother has been here in this Alzheimer’s home, neither my brother nor my nephew has come to see her once. Nor has either of them called me to ask about her. They don’t send her flowers for her birthday or Mother’s day. They act as though she is already dead.

But she isn’t. Somewhere inside that fragile little eggshell is a wisp of the soul that used to be my mother. It’s hard to see. It’s even harder to look for. I’ve often said that my art education can be summed up in one phrase: I was taught the difference between looking and seeing. I guess that applies to my mother, too. I still see her, but it requires a good deal of looking to do so.

I wish I knew where she is inside her head. I like to believe she’s somewhere where she is happy. The other old ladies, they cry out “Help me, momma” or they sit in their chairs and cry and can’t tell you why they are crying. Some of them squirm and twist in their chairs, or suck on their blankets. Not my mother. She doesn’t cry. Sometimes, even, she’ll laugh or smile.

I ask her if she’s seen my father, or her father. I tell her gossip. I pretend that I believe she can hear me and understand me. I hold her hand. I kiss her forehead. I tell her I’ll be back next Sunday. I bring her presents, which I also unwrap for her, and put them in her hands. And then, I go outside, and I smoke a cigarette before I even get in my car. Then I go home and have a drink. Today, though, it’s Monday morning, and it would be wrong to pound down a shot of whiskey before I get to work. By tonight, I will have gotten myself together, and I won’t go home and drink. I’ll go home and cook dinner. Laugh a little with the