Tag: Memories

The Uninvited Visitor

On By DGThomaIn Animal Stories, Family, Writing1 Comment

This past weekend, my granddaughter moved into her first apartment. She graduated from high school in May and will be attending college in the fall. Her granddad and I drove 10 hours to deliver furniture and household items to furnish her new apartment. It was a wonderful opportunity to spend time together and to be a part of setting up her new life.
We cleaned, bought, organized and decorated. The weekend was full of “remember when” and lots of laughter.
After several hugs and goodbyes,  we headed home and my daughter and granddaughter went to move one final small load before calling it a day. As they returned to the apartment with their arms loaded, they struggled to unlock the door without dropping everything. As the door swung open a blur of color flew past their feet into the apartment.


This little guy ran in and plopped down in the middle of the floor. Thank goodness I was
well down the road before I saw this picture! He is so very cute! As my husband put it, “he really knows how to work a room!” My granddaughter isn’t allowed pets, so my daughter quickly scooped up the uninvited guest and hurried him to her car.
I should take a minute to explain that my daughter currently resides with four cats. They are all rescues or strays that have found their way into her home. As soon as she walked into her home, her husband started shaking his head. She assured him it was only temporary and that she was taking the cat to the vet to be checked for a chip. She took the picture above to put on a found cat flyer.
The cat had no chip of course and the complex said the previous owners didn’t have a cat. The kitten has been at my daughter’s house two days while they look for his people….. to no avail. Now I’m thinking this is a pretty smart little guy. In a multi building complex with hundreds of tenants, he manages to walk into the apartment that is inhabited by cat people. Sort of like, of all the gin joints in the world…. Well you get the picture.
My daughter says her husband was a “Goner” when she walked through the door. The cat is at the vet being checked and treated. A flyer never went up, as the vet said he was probably a stray and had not been cared for very well. A name debate is under way, but for now we’ll just say Ollie has a new home with lots of cat toys, lots of square feet to roam, plenty of sunshine and four siblings, two girls and two boys. We think he is the tie breaker male.

Stepping into the Past

On By DGThomaIn WritingLeave a comment
Photo courtesy of Barclay Gibson Photography
Photo courtesy of Barclay Gibson Photography

When I was a child, my mother would pick us up from school every Thursday and we would drive into Wichita Falls, TX to pick up my father’s paycheck.  There were five of us children, four of us lined up across the backseat while my oldest sister got to ride in the front.  Back then, we weren’t aware that seat belts would save our lives and probably save my mother’s sanity.

Occasionally, my mother would surprise us and pull into the Gibson’s Discount Center parking lot in downtown Wichita Falls.  What a treat it was to walk the aisles and discover what wonderful new things had found their way to the shelves since we last visited.  We never made many purchases, but the pure enjoyment of just wandering the aisles was more than enough entertainment.

Finding the Gibson’s Discount Center in Weatherford last weekend awakened the excitement of a childhood adventure.  As I opened the door to Gibson’s in Weatherford, Texas I was instantly eager to explore.  Although the Gibson’s in Weatherford is affiliated with Ace and not quite the same concept as the Gibson’s from my childhood, I still felt a delicious sense of adventure wandering up and down the aisles.  I love the old metal nail bins where you buy one nail or one hundred and you pay by the pound instead of per each.  Even though I didn’t need any nails, I was really tempted to pick some up.  I know that you can find most anything on the internet and I often do my shopping online, but I hope we never completely lose the brick and mortar locations.  It’s a wonderful sense of joy to pick up merchandise and actually hold it in your hands before purchase.

The things I actually purchased, (some tea and an elephant figurine) weren’t particularly unique or rare.  What I really walked away with was a welcome remembrance of a childhood adventure.  The purchases were simply a thank you to the store owners for keeping the store open and allowing me 45 minutes of pleasure, walking the aisles.