Richard is just a big sissy cat.  The king of the jungle doesn't growl, he moos.  I should probably be happy that his growler still works.  After all, Richard is 50-60+ years old.  His growler is accessed by pulling a metal ring on his back just below his mane.  When you let go, he roars.  Or moos. 

What were toy makers thinking? Let's confuse the hell out of kids.  Lions go moo and cows go raaawwwrrr.   Yeah, that's a great zoology lesson. 

On a related note, Moxie puts Richard's size into perspective.  She's a 65 pound American Staffordshire Terrier, aka, the American Pit Bull Terrier. She looks like a Boston Terrier next to Richard. 

It's practically in the author handbook that if you're a writer and female, you're also a cat person.  Maybe even a crazy cat person.  I used to be a crazy cat lady, but once you reach a certain number of indoor cats, some or all of them will have pissing contests with each other in your house. 

And man, cat pee reeks.  Does it ever.

So, we're down to five cats in the Victorian house and that seems to be the right number for our square footage because the piss-offs have stopped.  Order has been restored and all the felines are happy again.  Because Lord help you if your cat isn't content.  It'll make your life a living hell. 

Pictured above are my two love birds, er, love cats, Zoe and Spencer.  Zoe came from the animal shelter and Spencer was born to a stray cat in my neighbor's yard.  They luv each other...can you tell?

Now, what would a cute cat story be without a Casa Sullivan oddity?  Check out the photo gallery below.  Before we acquired the Charles Wysocki painting of the orange and gray tabby sleeping together, none of our cats cuddled.  Once we hung it over our bed--BOOM!--we had 3 pairs of cuddling cats: Cosmo & Cleo, Zoe & Spencer, and Buddy & Ernie.  I had to stop buying cat art because it seemed like as soon as I bought a piece, a corresponding cat would show up wanting a home. 

This mystical happening inspired my short story, "Finding the Way Home," in my short story collection Fried Zombie Dee-light! Ghoulish, Ghostly Tales (available in eBook from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.com.)

Fix yourself a nice martini, kick back, and enjoy the story.  Or cuddle with your cats.  Or both.  And don't forget the olives.

[Bo the Destructor who has the stomach of a goat]

Our dog, Bo, has eaten half of a hot tub. 

A wooden hot tub.

Why he has not perforated his stomach yet I don't know.  It's an animal medical mystery.  Personally, I think he's a goat who was somehow born looking like a dog.  We don't really know what Bo's parents were.  He wandered into our yard the day before Thanksgiving two years ago, thin, dirty, and no collar.  The vet said he was a six month puppy but that was before Bo ate our hot tub. 

He's also eaten our wood privacy fence. 

And there's no way to stop him from eating these things short of locking him in a cage 24/7.  Which would be a pretty cruel thing to do.  Sure, we'd be guaranteed that he wouldn't die from eating weird sh*t, but he'd also be stuck in a cage all the time and that's no way for a dog to live so we're just taking our chances

Check out the photos below where Bo has completely demolished an entire side of the huge hot tub.  All that's left are a couple of gnawed-on boards.  The rest got eaten. 

We find all sorts of weird crap in Bo's crap. Like fabric (he eats furniture and stuffed animals), plastic (ditto), metal (ditto again), and unidentified objects that I really don't care to examine too closely.

The weird thing of it is, he's perfectly healthy.  No constipation, no perforation, no vomiting or pooping blood.  Lots of energy.
Sees the vet regularly and is always given a clean bill of health.

I'm tellin' you, he's a goat in dog's clothing. 

[These don't look like chickens to me]


My mom decided to get some chickens this year.  She lives in a small town in Florida where people can have farm animals.  She used to have geese, but a fox or coyote climbed through the fence and killed them all one by one.  Before the geese became fox food, anytime I'd visit, my big party trick would be to pick up a goose and carry it around.  I mean, the family would line up at the goose pen as if this were a Roman gladiator sport or a monster truck rally. 

I'm kidding about the monster truck rally. 

Now just to give you some perspective, my parents raised these geese from little goslings and saw them EVERY SINGLE DAY to feed and water them.  But they were afraid of their own geese.  Crazy, I know.  My dad made these special goose tools out of PVC pipe that looked like the letter T so that he or my mom could enter the goose pen and keep the geese at bay.  Because geese are just so vicious, right?  Uh huh.

But here's the thing.  I'm not afraid of geese.  Not in the least.
I go to the local parks and HAND FEED the wild geese.

So the family's lined up at the fence to watch: my parents, my sister, my nieces, my brother and sister-in-law, my nephews.

My mom: I can't believe Susan is going to do this.
My dad: a grown goose can break a man's leg.
My sister: I've gotta see this.
My oldest nephew who was about eight the last time: Can I go in there with Aunt Susan?
Everyone but me: NO!

I just shake my head.

"Look, y'all", I say. "I know where their heads are."  Meaning the geese.  

I enter the pen and the three large geese, and by large, the tops of their heads come up to my shoulders, immediately run away from me.  Oh, yeah, these geese are SO scary.  Yeah, I'm just quaking in my boots.  Not.

Dad: Use the T pole, Susan.
Me: I don't need that, Dad.

I single out a goose, follow it around the pen, keeping it ahead of me, then pick my moment to scoop it up with its wings folded so that it can't flap.  I hold it under my left arm like a giant football and grasp its neck with my free hand.  The goose eyes me mildly alarmed.  Did you know that geese have beautiful blue eyes like Siamese cats?

From the peanut gallery, I hear comments like:
It's going to bite you!
I can't believe she did that?
And the kicker: How did you do that? 
What? Were you watching with your eyes closed?  Maybe they were.  After all, they were sure I was going to get a broken leg for my troubles.

Now that I've been holding the goose for a little bit, and let me tell you, geese are heavy and have sharp claws on their duck-like feet, the goose relaxes.  It does try to peck me a few times, testing the boundaries, you know, but I have a firm grasp on its neck and I never take my eyes off its head.  That's the key: knowing where that goose head is at all times.

The other two geese are making a racket.  I've got their comrade.  In their minds, I'm going to eat their buddy.  Not a chance.  I love these geese.  So now I have to glance away from my goose pal to check where the other geese are.  One has snuck up behind me for a stealth peck.  I sidestep him or her and say, "I'm picking you up next."  The goose goes away.  Geese are smart that way.  Actually, geese are just smart.

The goose I'm holding has really relaxed now and I'm able to stroke it's neck.  The down is so soft.  But it's getting heavy, so I carefully set it down.  The other geese are like yay! No one's getting eaten today.  By the way, if you ever want to hire me to do this at your party, I also pick up turkeys, too.

So back to the Secret Chickens. 

My mom got the chickens after the geese were gone.  She's had them since last spring, but I've yet to receive a single picture of them.  I told my sister: Does she really have any chickens?  My sister said, "Maybe they're SECRET chickens."

SECRET chickens.  Sounds like the name of a rock band.  Or maybe my next novel.  Ha!

So I email my mom: Send some pix of the chickens. 

Have I gotten any pictures of chickens, secret or otherwise?

Nooooo.  Not even a picture of some Tyson chicken or chicken McNuggets.  And my sister forgot to make any pictures when she visited.  And she's got the smartphone! Which makes me wonder if these secret chickens even exist. 

Nope, the only picture I've gotten is one of puppies and that was from my sister via my mom. 

Puppies are not chickens.  Not even close.

So where are the secret chickens, eh????  It's a puzzler.

[The dogs sniffing Richard's rear as if he were a living lion]


When I say my life is a zoo, I really mean it. Literally.

First there are all the pets.  Running through their names is like a Walton Family roll call. We're currently down to two dogs, six cats, two snakes, and one exotic.  Yes, I said down to.  We had two more cats, but after months, and even years, of these two cats pissing all over my historic Victorian home and getting tested for illness and coming up with nada, and trying behavioral techniques, the veterinarian and I agreed that Mr. and Miss Peebody had to live outside.  And as outdoor cats are free to do, they've decided to take up with someone else.  Which brings our total cat count down from eight to six.

So back to the zoo metaphor...

My life often feels LIKE a zoo, you know frenzied and varied and sometimes full of sh*t and often stinky, but many times beautiful and amazing. 

And then there is the STEIFF zoo.  It all started when I discovered a vintage Steiff poodle (a large 17" one made of mohair) at the local thrift store for a buck.  This was back in February.  Of this year.  I suffer from OCD and Anxiety Disorder, and am probably Bi-polar with some mild Asperger's thrown in, so you might (or might not) understand how this one seemingly simple event would wind up triggering a massive obsession that has culminated with the arrival of a life-sized Steiff Studio Lion from the 1950s/60s to my home.

My husband has known it was coming--it only took four months and three weeks for "Richard the Lion Hearted" (that's my name for him--the lion, not the hubs) to arrive.  I, of course, had to document the occasion with pix and called to joyfully let my hubs know about Richard's arrival last night.  His response to my email containing Richard's pix: "Oh great heavenly days."

Because you see, the hubs has already had to endure the arrival of a life-sized Steiff baby giraffe, tortoise, tiger cub, German shepherd, and the smaller, yet still rather large kangaroo family, elephants, llamas, and really, I should stop now because it's just too embarrassing to list them all. 

When I told my physician about the goings on concerning my Steiff zoo at Casa Sullivan, she said, "I think we need to change the dosage on your meds." 

And it's helping.  The crazy is a bit more controllable. 

Now, let's take a moment to review my stand on mental disorders.  If you can't have a sense of humor about your problems, you're doomed.  This is not to downplay the seriousness of mental illness, but to actually bring attention to it in a way so that people who don't have it might empathize.  This is why I refer to my medication as crazy meds and call my behavior crazy.  Because it is and besides, laughter is supposed to be the best medicine.

So, my life is a zoo in every sense of the word, but there are much worse things my life could be.  And who knows, I may be able to turn this whole silly chapter into a book at some point. 

Besides, every house should have a giant antique lion in the living room, don't you think?