I get to see these beautiful fields everyday, twice a day, on my way to and from work.

Fields of Canola

I love living in the country.  I grew up living on a (small) mountain/hilltop with no neighbors, so to speak.  My aunt and uncle and cousins shared the little mountain top with us, but they weren’t next door neighbors, just in sight neighbors.  I had never lived in a neighborhood until I bought a house at the age of 33.

I quickly discovered that “city living” wasn’t for me.  And I didn’t even really live in a city, just in a town, but I lived on a street, with sidewalks and houses right next door to me.  I felt hemmed in and confined and like too many people were minding my business.

Not long after moving into my house, I adopted two kittens.  They were from the same litter and came with the same case of ringworm.  I took them to the vet and we first tried to cure them via pills.  No such luck.  They still had spotty patches of hair.  I had an appointment to take them back to the vet when I came home one evening from work and found a note in my mailbox.  An anonymous note saying something to the effect that “I know what you are doing to your kittens.  You are abusing them.  Please treat them nice.”

I guess their case of ringworm and loss of hair on their tails gave someone the impression in my (friendly) neighborhood that, for sport, I liked to take my kittens by the tail and swing them around in the air.

Later, as they were older, I found one of my cats one sunny Saturday on my back deck with a big scratch on his neck.  ”Uh oh, Simba, looks like you’ve been cat fighting.”  About an hour later, one of my (friendly) neighbors came by to tell me that they had seen Pooh (the neighbors had their own names for my cats) and it looked like he had been shot!  Please, please, please take him to the vet.  ”Which one of my cats,” I asked, “do you call Pooh?”

Trying to be a good neighbor, I rushed Simba/Pooh to the vet and $200 later found out he had been in a cat fight.  Surprise.

Almost six months later, I came home early from work and was unloading some potting soil and such from my car when a trio of my (friendly) neighbors came over to tell me that the night before, Tigger (whom I called Sarabi) ran out in front of a car and was hit.  That morning, while I was at work, they found him under my back deck and retrieved his body and buried him and had a little funeral for him.  They just wanted to let me know.

“You buried my cat today while I was at work?”

“Yes.  It was no problem.  And by the way, my daughter is so upset about Tigger (Sarabi) dying, that I’ve brought Pooh into the house to keep her company.”

I never saw Pooh, I mean Simba, again except for one time when he climbed up on the outside ledge of my kitchen window and I saw that he had a new collar and tag that read “Pooh” with my neighbor’s address and phone number.  I thought about leaving a note in their mailbox that said “I know what you are doing.  You are stealing people’s cats.  Stop it.”

That’s one big reason why I love living in the country.  No neighbors.

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On another note, this is the conversation that I had with my insurance agent today:

me:  Tell me about life insurance.  I need to think about it while I’m still fairly young.

Agent:  I recommend term.

me:  What is term?

Agent:  It’s good for a set period of time, like ten or twenty or thirty years.  Then it expires.  It’s the cheapest.  Really, why are you interested in life insurance?

me:  To make sure that if something happens to me in the next 10 to 20 years, Matt can pay off the house so that the slut he marries next doesn’t have to work.

Agent:  You’re a hell of a wife.

me:  You’re right.