Happy Flag Day

I made this bread at work this morning, in honor of Flag Day. This is something I've wanted to try since Sarah explained caning with fimo clay to me, quite a few years ago. Of course, since that is done with clay, you don't get the problem of rising. I staggered the star section, but because of the rise over the top of the pan, it's a little out of wack. Still, I think it looks pretty neat.

I made four loaves to sell in the store. The four loaves took me a half hour just to put into the pan, so I had to raise the price from $2.50 to $3.25. I wanted to make it $2.95, but I really didn't think that was enough. The coolness factor of the bread might get clipped by the price. I'll find out in the morning.

I'm not sure if people even know about Flag Day anymore. I'm curious as to how many people will look at the bread and wonder why the hell we have flag bread such a long time before 4th of July. I have trouble selling colored breads to our customers anyway, many of them probably think that it's weird and tastes different because of the dye (especially the Amish folks, this is definitely not a plain bread). But that won't stop me! I'll probably have better luck on July 3rd, which is a Saturday. If I can get people to buy bread with dyed hard-boiled eggs in it, I should be able to get them to buy this.

Extra special Flag Day wishes to my friend Jenny, but I'm not telling you why.

Lost in the Supermarket

When I got to work this morning, there was a cat underneath the store van. I walked a little closer to see it, and I realized that it was Byler #2, with whom I had been previously acquainted. Let me explain that.

Several years ago in December, I got to work one morning, and as was my habit, I went around the store and checked all the doors to make sure they were locked. I didn't turn on the lights in those areas, because there was usually enough light to walk to the door and check it. I was in the back room of the stove shop when I saw something move across the door leading into the bakery. It was a big something, not rodent sized, and it scared the heck out of me. Right near that door are stairs going down into the crawlspace, which is where the big something came from. I went to work and forgot about it.

A few days later, I was walking past the deli cooler, and I noticed the meat ends packages were open and bitten into (the deli throws the ends of the cold cuts into a package and sells them). I didn't know what to make of that, as I had forgotten about the big something I saw.

A couple days after that, I was checking the same door, and someone had left the light on near the stairs. When I turned from the door, there was a small gray cat standing there. When I turned, it bolted into the crawlspace. I ran over to see if i could catch it, but it was gone somewhere under the building. I now had the culprit for the missing meat ends. I could smell cat urine down there too. There was a lot of gravel down there, so she was probably using it as a giant litter box.

The next day I was out in the store (in the early am, so I was by myself), and I saw movement from the corner of my eye, and I quickly turned around and saw the cat again. Only this was a brown cat. So now there were TWO culprits eating the meat ends. When the managers came in, I told them that I saw two cats in the building. They explained to me that they had recently sealed up all the holes in the building, and the cats were probably two of the kittens that lived in the barn behind the store (it looks like a barn, but we use it as a warehouse). It was cold, and they had probably got into the store to keep warm, but now they were trapped. These were feral cats, so there wasn't any way of picking them up and taking them out.

We had two humane animal traps at home, because we had been doing cat rescue at the time. I asked the managers if it was okay if I set up the traps in the store to get them out, which was fine with them. It was very near Christmas, so I was going in around 9 pm at night. I set up a trap in the crawlspace, and two days later I caught one of them, and took her home to wait for her brother to be caught. I set up another trap in the deli, and I actually saw the cat in the trap eating the food, but he didn't trip it closed. I walked all the way around and snuck up on the cat, which amazingly didn't hear me. I smacked the top of the trap, thinking it would shut, but it just scared the hell out of the cat and he ran away. I didn't think I would be able to catch him with the trap after that, but by that time they were putting the meat ends and the bags of cat food away at night, so there was nothing else for them to eat. I caught the other one the next night in the crawlspace.

Now we had two feral cats in our craft room. We made an appointment for them to be spay/neutered at Delaware Humane Association, which does low cost spay neuter, as well as adoptions. We didn't name the cats, so we just called them Byler #1 and Byler #2. The store didn't pay for this, we did, but I didn't ask and I didn't expect them to pay either. We had been doing this for some time, so it seemed like the right thing to do in this case. Most of the people at work thought I was weird for doing this. Maybe not just for this, but oh well. :)

We had to keep them for a few days after the spay/neuter (they stayed right in the traps, thank you). After the few days, we brought both of them back to the store and set them free by the barn/warehouse. We had bought a 20 lb. bag of food and just dumped it behind the barn for them to eat. I did this regularly for awhile, but eventually I had to stop, as it was getting expensive. They lived for at least a year after they were born without being fed regularly, so I figured they could keep it going.

The brown kitty was Byler #1. I saw him only once after he was neutered. He was not happy to see me. The gray kitty, Byler #2, was possibly the cutest kitty Sarah and I had ever seen (I think we took pictures of them in the traps, but I cannot find them). I saw her many times after she was spayed. Most times were when I surprised her in the dumpster. I would have to throw something out when the store was not yet open, so I would open the back door and lob the item into the dumpster. Every once in awhile a frightened kitty would jump out and run back to the barn.

I saw her less and less as the years passed, I think now I maybe see her once a year. It has been said that spay/neuter lengthens a cat's life, so maybe that's why I'm still seeing her from time to time. She's still as cute as ever!

Jr. Bunk

Jr. Bunk is currently the second in command in our house. He was the first cat we found after we moved to DE. We were at a junk shop in south DE and we saw him when we were leaving. We thought he looked a lot like Bruiser, but he was in a lot worse shape. He had obviously been fighting, I suppose to get whatever food he could (there were quite a few other stray cats lurking around), and he had a flea problem. We left the junk shop and didn't discuss him for a few days, but both of us were thinking about him. I had named him in my head. We called Bruiser Bruiser Bunk sometimes, which was based on a character from Homicide: Life On The Street. So it seemed fitting that he be called Jr. Bunk (the actual character's name) on a few levels. We decided to go and get him.

We went back to the junk shop and asked the man if we could have one of the cats, and he said we could take all of them if we wanted. But we just took Bunky. I don't remember him giving us any trouble when we put him in the carrier, but he may have. We made a vet appointment for him that day, because we didn't want to bring him into the house with all those fleas. We had to kill some time, so we went to eat lunch at Burger King, and Bunk was kicking up a fuss in the back seat. We took him to the vet, and he had shots and tests and a flea bath. We took him home to our apartment, and put him in the half bath in our bedroom, again so he wouldn't mix with the other two cats until we heard from the vet.

This is when we learned about FIV, which is called feline AIDS. Neither of us had ever heard about it, and apparently it was pretty new to the vets as well, because his doctor told us that he would be dead within a year. That was 11 years ago. (My tired joke for this is that we should have gotten it in writing.) He could NOT be let out with the other cats, because he would make them sick and they would all soon be dead. We now know that this isn't the case, that some cats are immune and cats who have it can live full, healthy lives. But back then it scared us to death. We decided that we would leave him in our bedroom once he got healthier.

That also was a trial. The bathroom floor was thick with dead fleas and ticks, and he had horrfic smelling diarrhea for a week. But he did get better, so we let him into the bedroom, where he became a feline nightmare. He would attack our toes in the night, and he would jump up on the bed with a crazed look in his eyes. Eventually, Sarah couldn't take anymore and started sleeping in the extra bedroom. I stuck it out for a bit longer, but I had to join her. The worst part of this setup was: we were only planning on being in the apartment for a year or less, until we found a house. So we only unpacked what we needed and used the extra bedroom as a storage facility. So we had to make room on the floor for our mattress, and we slept like that for almost an entire year. I was counting down the days until Bunk's demise so we could have our bedroom back.

We moved into our house, and Bunky took up residence in the master bedroom (again), only this time he shared it with all of the unpacked boxes! Hah! We had a hard time keeping him in there, which was exacerbated by the fact that we would let him out periodically and keep an eye on him; if he got too close to the other cats, we put him back. It was in this era, one night at 2 am on our way to bed, that we opened the bedroom door, and there was Bunky just sitting on the floor, meowing at us. He was not trying to get out, so we suspected something was wrong. We tried to pick him up and he let out a screech, so we had to take him to the vet. At 3 in the morning on a Sunday. That was a bit pricey. It turned out that he had crystals in his bladder, which was blocking his urethra. This was caused by stress, which of course was caused by keeping him locked up.

So we let him out. Sunny either got FIV from him then, or he already had it from the brief forays that Bunk made into the house (sorry Sunny). Bruiser was sick in other ways and he never got FIV. Bunky immediately made up for being locked up for 4 years by walking everywhere that I walked, especially on the stairs, which I almost fell down twice because of that. He has calmed down a lot with that, but he still needs to be wherever we are. If we call any of the cats or the dog, Bunk will come running first. He likes to cuddle, which is fine, except he never learned to cuddle without his claws, which really hurt. And you can't really pick him up comfortably; he is extremely taut and only goes one way. If you pick him up the wrong way you get a chest full of claws. The vet actually called him a "bowling ball with fur."

Bunk is still plugging away, he's right here next to me on the floor. When we watch TV he will be on the couch, and he is so stealthy sometime that I won't realize that he is on my lap. And he has a weird sensitivity to sounds, he could be bored to tears during a thunderstorm, but a sharp intake of breath makes him jump and shred my skin. But he's a good dude.