I know I know.

Its been a while, again. I have no excuse for my intermittent behavior. None. I will say that I have such lofty aspirations and have been thinking of writing... so if it is the thought that counts than I guess I have been quite prolific. Not buying it?? I guess it only works with gifts? Ok then I will just write for my own amusement as I am sure that I have whittled the readers down to basically family members with my lack of entries.
I was reminiscing the other day, buy myself you see, whilst busily cleaning or crafting or taking care of kids or running around putting out proverbial fires, or whatever the day might have entailed, and I came upon an idea about writing about my memories from childhood. It may be the worst idea I have ever had or it just might turn out to be the most therapeutic endeavor I have ever undertaken. I have not ever really been allowed, by myself or my mother, to feel that any kind of therapy or counseling is valid or warranted, so I am supposing that I will find little relief but a good deal of amusing fodder for the fuel of my creative fire.
I imagine that the earliest memories we can conjure up in our minds are almost always not memories in the true sense of the word but, rather stories that we have heard retold again and again until their image is cemented into our brains forcing us to relive something that our brains were clearly trying to block out. The reason for said blockage may not be something vile or distasteful but could just be the fruits of something that we were to busy growing to file away. Mine is definitely some conglomeration of the two.
I was just a wee little lass. Long and springy piggy tails sprouting from my small but imaginative and curious head. The family cat had only very recently given birth to a litter of kittens. I loved kittens. So cute and playful. Being that the mother cat was an "outside kitty" the kittens were unceremoniously thriving outside under the deck of our house. I have no other memories of the house accept that the kitchen was directly behind the glass sliding door that connected our second story deck to the house. It was here on a chilly morning that I found myself outside playing with my older brother. He, by the way, was always my hero. It seemed to me that there was nothing that he could not do. Finding the little kittens, so cute and helpless, we began loving them. Picking them up and playing with each one. Their little cries egging us on to play with them more. It is my understanding, that at some point in this serene and surreal environment that things took a turn for the worse. Behind a shed that housed our lawn mower and other garden utensils, there was a bag of lye. Or a box of lye. Or a bucket of lye. I am never quite sure how it was packaged. Apparently it seemed hilarious to very small children that kitties should be covered in the stuff and that if you threw them into it just hard enough they made a perfect little cloud of dust and then ran off. I guess at some point I tried to save the little kitties from being treated so discourteously. I slung one of the little guys into the crook of my arm whilst holding another about the neck with my hands. Strangely the sounds of their gentle mewing had stopped and I interpreted them as being asleep. When my mother came out and saw the happenings of the yard she gasped and demanded to know what we were doing. From all accounts, not wanting to be chastised for playing with the kittens we "spiked" them yet again and tried to understand what we had done.
Now I have a few questions about this memory, if you could really call it that. One, why did we have a parcel of lye in our back yard that was accessible to children? And two, where was the mother cat during all of this genocide? And three, well thirdly, where were my other siblings?
All but one of the kittens were, sadly, asphyxiated. The last one had to be rescued by my mother who sat up countless nights with the little thing feeding it goat's milk with a dropper. It was never a normal cat and surly held out some contempt for us.
I have always hated this story and only relate it now as it is so late and my defenses are down. I do, however, think it is the earliest memory that I have and I do remember the kitchen where the little kitten was brought back from the depths of despair. I have always wondered why this story was always related during an attempt to make people laugh as it is a bit horrifying. But here I am doing the same thing. So enjoy, if you can, at the expense of my poor kitties and their untimely doom. I know the family will hear the story again whether they like it or not.





due to my lame computer I am unable to post a suitable graphic for this post. sorry.