Pam and Kae are out in public again!

by on Nov 18, 2011 (Comments Off on Pam and Kae are out in public again!) Comments

It’s hard to believe but people keep asking us to appear in public for book signing events. So we’re loading up the minivan again and heading to the 18th annual Studio Tour in Murfreesboro, TN. The Studio Tour includes 6 studios/25 artists. Tour dates: November 18-20. We’ve been asked to sign books at Popcorn Studio. The address is 2031 Nelson Lane.  Click here for more information and a printable map. For more information, call 615-896-9167.

If getting an autographed copy of Cookies for Dinner isn’t enticing enough, Kae will bringing some of her homemade chocolate chip cookies. We’ll be handing them out while supplies last.

For you cat lovers, Pam will have a limited supply of copies of her latest book Think Like a Cat.

An autographed copy of Cookies for Dinner would make a great Christmas gift for the frazzled mom in your life! We hope to see you at the Studio Tour.

 

Sideswiped by a donkey

by on Nov 14, 2011 (Comments Off on Sideswiped by a donkey) Comments

When we arrived in Edfu our boat docked right at the intersection of two main roads in town.  David and I spent the evening on the upper deck, drinking Egyptian beer and watching the circus that is the traffic pattern in Egypt.  We watched as motorcycles with three or more riders ran down the road in the wrong direction.  Buses, huge deliver trucks and small cars shared the narrow strip of asphalt with donkey carts and horse drawn carriages.  As in Cairo, the pedestrians basically meandered in and out of traffic at will.  At one point, we saw a group of men pull a table and chairs out into what would be considered the right hand lane of traffic if the Egyptians believed in the “lane” system of driving.  There they sat, smoking their shisha (hookah) pipes and playing games.

The next morning we were taken by horse drawn carriage to the Temple of Horus.  The entrance is flanked by two huge granite depictions of the god Horus as a falcon.   The 100-foot carvings depict the pharaoh in battle as a show of strength to the people.  The main theme of this temple is the triumph of good god Horus over the evil god Set.  Since I never played games like dragons and dungeons where there were multiple layers of players good and evil, I felt extremely ill-equipped to keep up with the players in the ancient Egyptian struggles of good versus evil.  Although this was not our first temple or our first set of hieroglyphs, I was completely mesmerized by the beauty of it.

Dave sat up front with the driver of our carriage on the way back.  Mom and Dad sat in the seat and I got to try and fit my rump on the small seat usually reserved for people’s feet.  It was a close fit but once settled in, we all felt secure.  David actually drove our cart for several blocks until he saw that there was a truck coming straight at us.  He quickly gave the reins back to the carriage driver who nonchalantly moved us over an inch or two to allow the truck to pass.

We clopped down the main street engulfed in the myriad of sounds that had become natural to our ears; horns honking, car engines revving, horses clomping, motorcycles whining, donkeys braying, all punctuated five times a day by the loud speakers at the mosques calling the faithful to prayer.   Suddenly our carriage lurched sharply to the right.  The sound of our driver’s angry voice yelling in what sounded like not so nice Arabic phrases at a fellow Edfuian joined the fray.  It took me a couple seconds to realize what was going on.  We had been sideswiped by a donkey cart!  Dave had watched the whole donkey on horse incident from his seat next to the driver of our carriage.  The donkey made a blind left-hand turn across, what in the US would be considered two lanes of traffic.  This resulted in a donkey on horse collision shoving both parties into one of Edfu’s side streets.  Luckily no one in our carriage was injured, our horse was fine and by the fact that the donkey cart continued down the street without breaking gait, we assumed all was well with the donkey as well.

At this point I assumed our carriage driver would just continue down the side street, go around the block and drop us off at our dock.  Instead the driver backed the horse carriage out into the oncoming traffic in the busy street.  This time, I got the bird’s eye view.  Car, bikes and motorcycles swerved around us as our driver slowly backed up into the congested main road.  I have to admit that I got more than just a little bit panicked at the site of a giant tour bus with its enormous front windshield bearing down us.  We had been in the Egypt for a little over a week and had marveled at how the drivers, pedestrians and livestock seemed to share the narrow strips of asphalt without witnessing a single accident.  I was afraid our luck had run out and our second accident of the day would be tour bus on horse.  I was pretty sure we would not fare as well the second time around.  To my utter amazement the barreling tour bus came to a stop just inches short of our carriage  Just when I thought that our ride back to the boat couldn’t get any more exciting, we looked over and saw a farmer chasing a water buffalo down the main road while busses, cars and motorcycles swarmed around them.  For us the ride back from the temple was something akin to Toad’s Wild Ride but to the Egyptian people, it was just another day in the neighborhood.

Your mommy does what?

by on Nov 10, 2011 (Comments Off on Your mommy does what?) Comments

When your day job is related to the veterinary field, but isn’t as clear-cut as being a veterinarian, people get very creative with your job description. For those of you who don’t know, I am a certified cat behavior consultant. I work on a veterinarian-referral basis and am in contact with veterinarians on a daily basis. Being the mother of young children, the description of my profession has morphed into various other careers based on how my children explain what I do and how their audience interprets it. When my oldest child was in preschool, my career was described as bug doctor – but only for the pretty bugs like butterflies. Worms, spiders, wasps and ants had to fend for themselves.

When my son Jack became somewhat aware of the fact that mommy had a rather unusual job, he started asking me if I could tell what his stuffed animals were thinking or if I did house calls to giraffes or elephants. According to Jack, that would be “way cooler” than working with cats.

Over the years I have had the parents of my children’s classmates call me just to find out what the heck it is I do for living since the various descriptions offered from their children seemed highly unlikely. At one point or another, various rumors had gone around school that I could fly with the animals, talk to them and even wrestle with them. I have been asked on a number of occasions to come over to remove raccoons from attics (did someone actually think I was a raccoon wrangler??), find lost gerbils, teach a ferret how to accept being dressed in doll clothes and mediate cat-custody battles between divorcing couples. And just for the record, I did none of the above with the exception of helping a few couples find a peaceful solution to their cat-custody issues before they went to court.

With my children now at the mature ages of 9 and 7, they are very clear about the fact that mommy counsels owners regarding behavior issues in their cats. Which brings me to the topic of their latest misunderstanding: Veteran’s Day.

Gracie: “Mommy, how come we honor Veterinarian’s Day but we don’t honor Cat Behaviorist’s Day?”

Jack: “Gracie, we celebrate Veterinarian’s Day because they fought for our country’s animals.”

Me: (unable to stop laughing long enough to answer yet)

Gracie: “Well, I think we should have Cat Behaviorist’s Day!”

Me: “Hmm, not a bad idea.”

That evening we sat down and I helped my children learn about Veteran’s Day. Apologies to all the veterinarians out there.

Nightmare on Main Street

by on Nov 06, 2011 (Comments Off on Nightmare on Main Street) Comments

It starts with the creaking of the attic door.  Slowly the occupants of our attic make their way into the upstairs guest room.  Behind the closed door I begin to hear the clinking of metal on metal and dull muffled thumps of unknown things dropped on the floor.   Soon the subtle hiss of air travelling through a plastic tube followed by the rat-a-tat-tat of a small air compressor begin to dominate the sounds of the house each evening.  Mr. Homeless Clown takes to sitting in my living room on my antique sofa while Mrs. Witch gently tinkles the ivory keys on my antique, quite out of tune, piano.  Little zombie babies begin hanging out in my living room window.  People on the sidewalk start to feel as if they are being watched as the devil on the roof keeps tabs on their passing. 

Finally, it is time!  Tombstones pop up around a giant yawning tree.  The mourning lady takes her post in the graveyard.  The zombie lays down next to the sidewalk ready to reach out and grab at anyone who passes by.  Bats assemble themselves in the tree over the sidewalk and a huge spider fills his reservoir so that he will be ready to spray those that dare walk too close by.  Ghostly fingers of fog creep across the ground and wisp up into the air.  The stillness of the night is broken by flashes of lightning, crashes of thunder, munching of monsters, screaming of children, laughing of adults, whoops of surprise and yes, sometimes the crying of scared little children.

A talking skeleton sitting in his rocking chair and welcomes you to the sidewalk of horror.  You must run the gauntlet past a coffin, its lid banging up and down as someone or something inside tries to escape.  Past a pit of vipers that hiss and snip at your ankles as you make your way in the dark.  Past the chanting witches gathered around their caldron while the man they have captured struggles to jump out of their pot.  Past the ever watchful Chucky that has somehow acquired a submachine gun for this year’s festivities.

 Past the snarling zombie dog that lunges out from his makeshift house.  Past a large box of explosives that blasts air against your legs as you pass and up the stairs to the porch where the ghost of the house floats gracefully in the foyer.  Past the table of horrors where someone thought they could preserve their beauty by putting their face in formaldehyde, where fish was served some untold number of years ago for dinner, flies and mice taking up refuge in its carcass while their cousin the Rat munches on some unidentified part of something that has also become unidentifiable.  Finally, sitting on the porch swing you’ll find a cute little old lady wearing a witch’s hat with flame orange hair gracing her shoulders and a cute little old man with blue curly hair wearing a baseball cap giving out candy from a black witch’s caldron.

Oh, the sweet sights and sounds of Halloween at the Allen’s house.

 

Come meet the Two Loons

by on Nov 03, 2011 (Comments Off on Come meet the Two Loons) Comments

Hey Loon Watchers, we’re going to be signing copies of Cookies for Dinner at Barnes & Noble in Murfreesboro, TN this Saturday, November 5th. We’ll be there at 2pm so if you’re in the area, please come by and say hello. If you’ve read our book and are wondering whether we’re really that strange, come on out and see for yourself.

If you live in our town and you didn’t attend our big book launch party then we’ll be expecting you to show up at this event… or else! Bring the kids, bring the in-laws, bring the great aunt you really don’t like and we’ll keep her busy while you shop.

They don’t let us out in public too often so this is your big chance!

Barnes & Noble is located in The Avenue in Murfreesboro at 2615 Medical Center Parkway. For more information call (615) 895-8580.

Bewitched

by on Oct 29, 2011 (Comments Off on Bewitched) Comments

Every Halloween is a great fun for the kids as they pick out and create their latest and greatest costumes. At some point in the last few years though we have apparently started a tradition where the kids pick out our customs. This was not an adequately thought-out plan on our part. When it comes to mommy and daddy, the kids have definite ideas and methodically start planning it months in advance.

My poor husband never knows from year to year what publicly humiliating costume the kids will pick for him. The worst year (so far) was when the kids turned him into an overly-made-up lady. I realized, as I looked at the finished product, that should my husband decide to change gender, there would have to be much plastic surgery in his future. He was very entertaining though as we watched his balloon boobs roll around under his dress and eventually wind up as love handles.

My costume from year to year never changes and must be the way my children get back at me for making them do homework, wash all their body parts, eat their vegetables and go to bed on time. Every year I am a witch. Not your pretty, sexy witch, no that would never satisfy my kids… their interpretation of a witch must have a hefty dose of ugly in it.

This year my children have decided that my husband will be an 80’s rock star. Considering my kids aren’t old enough to know what an 80’s rock star is, I’m assuming they were attracted to the package because of the wildly spiky hair, spandex pants and zebra-striped t-shirt. Regardless of their reason, I’ll be curious to see if my husband even knows how to put on a pair of spandex pants.

As for me, I’ll be dragging the old witch costume out of the closet once again. At least Scott gets to be Bon Jovi. I have to be Margaret Hamilton.

Where is OSHA?

by on Oct 25, 2011 (Comments Off on Where is OSHA?) Comments

On day three of our Lake Nasser cruise, we stepped off our riverboat onto a small motor boat that took us to shore.   One of the crew of this little boat jumped onto shore and held the boat steady with a rope tied to the bow.   Two other men grabbed up a 2-foot wide plank that was lying in the center of the little boat.  The plank was then balanced on the bobbing bow of the boat while the other end was dropped onto the sandy beach.  It was time to disembark.  Small flutters of panic tickled my stomach.  Surely someone was going to see my two elderly in-laws and come to the realization that a handrail would be a good idea.  As I waited my turn it became apparent that no handrail was going to be forthcoming.  I watched as people from our boat stepped up onto the bench seat and then stepped up onto the bow of the boat.  They made their way down the plank and stepped onto the sand.  Looking at the other small boat from our tour group I saw that they had a handrail.  Okay, so what if the handrail consisted of two little guys standing in the water up to their thighs holding a pole above their heads, at least it was something to hold onto.  First Mom and Dad get the welcome fruit basket in our swanky hotel in Cairo, and then the other passengers on our cruise get the dingy with the handrail.    I was starting to get a complex. 

Luckily we made it off the boat with nary a wet sock between us.  We were visiting the Temple of Amanda.  David and Mom walked on ahead while Paul and I took up the rear.  I was just enjoying holding Dad’s hand and taking in the scenery.  At one point I looked over my shoulder, relieved that another person from our group was walking as slowly as we were.  To my surprise there was a young Nubian man in what looked like white pajamas sauntering along casually swinging a rifle.  No offense to the little guy but he didn’t inspire me with confidence.  For the remainder of our trip, David and I would see very young men treating firearms with a casualness that was unnerving.  At one roadside checkpoint, we saw a young man actually using his AK47 to hold up his head.  The scary part wasn’t that he was resting at his post; it was that he was resting his head on the muzzle of the gun!

 This was our first temple and we were awestruck at its stone carvings.  The Temple of Amanda is a Nubian temple in the honor of the gods Ra and Amun.  I honestly didn’t hear much that our tour guide had to say about this temple because I was simply dumbfounded by the fact that I was looking at something that had been created by man’s hands thousands of years ago.  Walking toward the front entrance of the temple we ran into one of the local men.  I gasped as I saw that this man had a 3” sand colored scorpion on his shirt.  My eyes flew to the man’s face where I saw with amazement that he had one of the creatures resting firmly on his forehead!  For a small tip, you too could hold one of these stinging, poisonous creatures.  Dave gave him a tip to take his picture.  Waiting for Dave I noticed that that this man had a whole herd of scorpions sitting on the wall behind him.  I did the only brave thing; I cut a trail for the door dragging poor Dad as fast as his 80 year old legs would carry him.

Leaving the Temple of Amanda we had to make quite a long trek down a dirt path to the Temple of Derr.  As usual, we were the stragglers of the group.  Luckily right in front of us was a donkey cart that, for a small tip, you could ride to the next temple.  David and I put Mom and Dad on the donkey cart and sent them on their way.  We walked hand in hand behind basking in the joy of being in such an amazing place together.

 When we left the last temple we were greeted by some of the crew from our boat with cold hibiscus juice drinks and cold towels to refresh us.  This was very welcome since it was over 100 degrees that day.  Our riverboat was sitting a few yards away tucked up to the shore.  Once again, a small gangway was how we were supposed to get back on the boat.  It seems sad but I was thrilled to see a droopy piece of rope acting as a handrail.  It was slowly become very apparent—Egypt does not have OSHA.

Bye Bye Barbie

by on Oct 20, 2011 (2) Comments

If you’ve followed my blog posts you’re probably well aware of Griffin, our dog, and his obsession with my daughter’s Barbie dolls. Well, we thought we had the situation under control and Gracie was being more careful about keeping her assortment of Barbies safety stashed out of the dog’s reach. Well, apparently that’s not the case because last night I was informed by my distraught daughter that Pet Groomer Barbie (how appropriate!) has gone missing.

Last known photo of Pet Groomer Barbie

 

We have searched under beds, under furniture, in closets, in the backyard, behind cabinets and anywhere else a thin plastic doll could be wedged. After Gracie went to sleep I combed the house again in search of any pieces of hands, feet, shoes or hair samples that would provide a clue as to Pet Groomer Barbie’s whereabouts.

Griffin has out-done himself this time when it comes to hiding the remains of his latest treasure. I did notice him hanging out in the corner of the backyard where we have seen mole tunnels. Perhaps Griffin and the mole have worked out a deal for getting rid of the evidence. Either way, it looks as though Barbie’s Pet Grooming salon will be closed indefinitely.

Where’s your momma?

by on Oct 17, 2011 (5) Comments

Egyptian culture is very different from US culture in so many ways but none more obvious than how they treat their children.  On our way over from the US to Jordan there was a woman traveling with a two-year-old and a little tiny baby no more than 3 or 4 months old.  The two-year-old was none too happy about the plane flight and he made his unhappiness known to all in the cabin.  Strangely, none of the middle-eastern people seemed to be upset by the child’s cries.  In the US, the poor woman would be the recipient of stares, clucks and sometimes open glares of contempt that her child dare violate the airspace with its cries of unhappiness.  Not these travelers.  They did all the requisite things to calm the child, but at no point did they look the least bit distressed.  At one point the male flight attendant went over and took the child from his mother.  He spent some time holding the child, swaying back and forth cooing soothingly to the toddler.  In the Cairo airport, young children were seen running around the terminal completely unattended.  Riding through the cities and the countryside, you could see young children wandering around the busy streets seemingly by themselves.

Early on in our trip, it became apparent that Egyptian mothers have a whole different take on child safety than we do. Taking a Felucca ride on the Nile River in Aswan we saw a little boy about six years old sitting in the water on what could have been part of a foam pool raft.  At first I thought that maybe he was playing on the shore with his parents and siblings and somehow had drifted away from them.  Then he looked up and spied our boat.  He pulled out two little cardboard pieces and started paddling toward our boat.  David and I watched, fascinated, as the little boy paddled up alongside our boat and grabbed the railing right by where I was sitting.  My first instinct was to grab the little tyke out of the water, wrap him in a towel and explain to him how dangerous it was to go floating down the Nile without his Momma.   He grabbed the side of our boat hitching a ride like it was the most normal thing in the world.   As he floated along with us, he looked up at me and asked, “English?”  When I responded yes, he broke into a shouting rendition of “Row, row, row your boat.”  After he had gone through several songs in different languages, we tipped him 5 pounds and he let go of the boat and paddled off toward the next felucca filled with tourists.  Mustafa, our guide, explained that young Nubian boys worked on the river.  They all learned a song from various countries.  When they approached a boat of tourists, they ascertained where they were from and then serenaded them in hopes of getting a small tip.  These little boys sang to earn a few pounds a day to help support their family.

During our cruise to Luxor our boat was accosted by boys in motor boats.  They basically ran their boat into the side of the cruise ship, flung a rope up and over the rail, caught the loose end and surfed alongside.  They brought out blankets, scarves, table clothes and shirts.  The stood on the top of their moving boats screaming, “hello” to get the attention of anyone on board the ship so that they could sell their wares.  If you wanted to purchase something, they put it in a plastic bag and heaved it to you.  If you decided to keep it, they sent you something else that you would put your money in and threw it back down to them.  If the item missed the target, over the side the youngest boys would go to retrieve the package and swim back to the nearest boat.  When we entered the locks just before Luxor, little boys no more than 8 years old entertained the tourists on board by diving into the water in front of the boat.  

Every stop we made, we were engaged by little boys anywhere from 6 to 10 years old selling their wares.  At the Valley of the Kings, we were approached by our first young girl.  She was probably 10 years old and her name was Zena.  We bought one of the cloth camels she was selling.  She let me take my picture with her.  We saw her several more times during our visit.  At the end, everyone was using the washroom and she shyly walked up to me and handed me a little cloth doll.  She said, “You are nice, pretty lady.  No money, this is gift for you.”  With that she gave me a shy smile and walked away.

In the US, we barely expect our children to clean up their own rooms much less go out into the deep waters of the Nile to get tips to help support us.  Clearly there are no child protective services in Egypt.  Throughout our trip we were met by small children selling bracelets, necklaces and other wares.  Every time I saw one of these babies out on the streets all by themselves, talking to strangers, my first thought was “Where’s your Momma?!”

Kids, cats and confusion

by on Oct 13, 2011 (Comments Off on Kids, cats and confusion) Comments

For the last 25 years I’ve had a successful career in the field of cat behavior consulting. I am very fortunate, after all these years, to be considered a well-respected expert. I’ve worked hard in this profession and am very well-known in the field. So it’s very common for someone to come up to me while I’m doing my weekly grocery shopping or picking my kids up at school, in order to ask my advice about their misbehaving cats.

When Kae and I decided to write Cookies for Dinner  I knew it would present a very different image of me but I didn’t fully think it through in terms of how strange it would feel to be viewed by some as an accomplished leader in my field and then viewed by others as a worrying, germophobe whose mothering skills sometime resemble I Love Lucy. You see, Kae and I didn’t just write touching stories about motherhood – no, not us – we wrote about our most embarrassing moments. For my part, I confessed that I have OCD and what it’s like adopting children while going through menopause (hot flashes and all).

So now when I get stopped in public I never know whether I’m going to be questioned about why cats pee outside of the litter box or what it was like for a middle-age, out-of-shape woman to be locked out of the house in my swimsuit. It used to be that people would come up to thank me for my wisdom on animal behavior but now people come up to thank for making them feel better about their own parenting skills now that they’ve read about mine.

It will probably take a little while for me to adjust to this dual identity. For right now though, when I see people coming toward me, if they have a frown they’re probably upset about a cat problem; if they have a huge smile then it’s because they’re excited about meeting the woman who makes them look like Mother of the Year.