Patience in Fishing

Hello to my favorite audience in the whole world.

“But we’re your only audience! You have to say that!”

Yes, that  is true. But since that’s true, doesn’t that make it more wonderful to hear? Certainly better than ‘hello to my least favorite audience...’

With the formalities out of the way, tonight’s post and picture is one that I took a few years ago, from the stern of our big red Old Town canoe, at a popular fishing lake near my home.



It seems that in my middle (ish) age, I have taken quite a shine to fishing. In particular, I enjoy cat fishing. (No, not the type of catfishing that involves scamming innocent people of their money; though doing that type of catfishing would be easier than actually doing the real life catfishing to which I am referring )

Catfishing; again the real thing is being blogged about here; is more about patience and understanding of how catfish live than it is about the actual act of catching one of those pesky creatures.

I do have pictures of me catching them; in fact quite a few exsist. And I am positive you will come across one or two of them in my posts to come. But catfish are exceptional at avoiding all types of bait I  have placed on my (CatDaddy) rod and reel and line. When I first got into it, I started small. I would fish at small lakes full of bullhead catfish. Now I fish for bigger and bigger catfish. I dream of huge flatheads (which my husband has caught) nowadays.
The most important lesson that I have learned in my catfish hobby though is patience. I have come away from a fishing trip more than sad that I had gotten “skunked” on more occasions than I like to admit.
That’s why they call it fishing, not catching- or so my handsome husband has said to me on multiple outings.

The picture posted here is a bed (what I call weeds, but what some fish call home sweet home) full of magic fish. I see them swim in there, but then they disappear once I start snapping pictures or trying to fish for them. I casted near there many times, but have yet to hook one near these weeds. Hasn’t stopped me from trying and trying though. And inside those tries, loads was learned when it comes to life lessons (and learned in fishing too of course)

Many bullhead catfish live in the lake where this photo was taken... and I have caught and released probably dozens of them from this tiny little lake. But it wasn’t without trying to learn all about how catfish live and hunt for their own meals. That takes much YouTube-ing and Googling (both are verbs likely to hit Webster Dictionaries any day now).
And I must say that John and I have gotten to know one another on an entirely new and fun level since we have started fishing together.
Many deep conversations have been had with my main man both inside a boat and on the banks of any waterway whilst waiting for our reels to bend in half-waiting for the elusive catfish to strike. Bullhead catfish are smaller, but not any easier to catch, but I have had such fun learning how to wait for them to strike than any other hobby I have enjoyed.

So while enjoying the evident beauty in my posted picture, remember to practice breathing while waiting for your next strike; whatever it is you’re fishing for in this life.

Homeless (at Homewood Suites)

Hello again, my precious and small audience.
Thanks for reading my lowly blog.
Today’s post and picture is one that my daughter took of us.

It was a “Olivia, wanna take a quick selfie of each other?” sort of photo.

Cue the 15/16 year old teenage typical sigh.

“Fine. But only one Mom....”

“Ok! Great! Now, let me take off my glasses so they don’t reflect and show your arms or anything....”

And then came another sigh as if waiting for me to remove the object that allows me to see her lovely beauty takes a whole lot of her precious time away...

hmmmm....
maybe someday a teen will come along that isn’t filled with (what seems like obligatory) attitude...

Anyway, this picture was taken out in the patio of a hotel suite we were residing in during the ‘rebuilding’ phase of our post-fire life.
(Fire and story to come a little later in my posts)

I remember looking at this picture after Olivia had taken it and thought how beautiful my daughter is...
I mean, she goes through these phases of wanting to dye her hair crazy colors and at times she taps into her inner goth and likes to wear ‘all black, all the time’. But, she is just so pretty.
And quite simply, I am so proud.

My daughter is an amazingly sweet young lady. Even as I think of her now, at 17, she still possesses an endearing naivety that most teens no longer come equipped with - thanks to the all knowing smartphone age we all live in ...

When this picture was taken, the weather was still so bitter and cold. And we may have been bitter and cold too in our hearts had we not been waiting on a brand new home to live in whilst residing in (probably) the fanciest hotel we’re ever going to be guests at...

Look at all my prepositions at the ends of all those sentences!! I know better, I really do.

Sorry about all of those...

Anyway, the picture posted here is worthy of remembering to learn to smile through the gloomiest of times.
You see, when this picture was taken, we were homeless after a totally destructive house fire had stripped us of most of our worldly possessions in October of 2016.

Sure, we were homeless when this picture was taken.

But we were not doing homeless outside in the cold and nasty weather under a bridge or inside a box. We were doing homeless in a two bedroom suite next to a steakhouse and adjacent to a really nice shopping center. And during our amazing stay at this hotel, we - as a family of just 3 and a cat - we learned just who we were and what we could handle - if we just learned to keep smiling despite the gloomy times...

Molson

Hello fellow readers and writers alike.
One of my three brothers said to me recently that I need to start posting my blogs again.
I told him that my blogs lately have been more like a diary and I haven’t been sharing my posts with the World Wide Web.
Many reasons for that, but I cannot see harm into starting a new blog and sincerely trying to post on a daily basis. The theme I chose for this new blog series are about pictures.

Mostly pictures and photos that I have taken and either stored away on my phone - almost to the point of extinction- because let’s face it- no matter how many apps are out there saying that “you can use this app to create hard copies of all your precious memories and moments, and you pay is shipping...” - the majority of us still have thousands of moments and memories that actually get printed out.

But, Sylvia.... I do! I always create something magical with my hard copies of pictures! You should see all the coffee mugs I have given away!

Yes.
Yes.
I know.

But for the other 98% of us, we have managed to squirrel away thousands of images on our various devices...
I am going to try and pick one or two for each post I write.

Perhaps the memory will be a happy one; perhaps it will be a sad one. Or maybe even ones that make no sense to anybody but little ‘ol me...

On that note...

Today’s picture is one my husband John had taken.
We were inside of our veterinarian’s office with our sickly feeling American Bulldog, Molson. We had had him since Olivia was three. But when this picture was taken, a short 10 years have gone by and our MolMol was sick and had been for a few days.

You see, he wasn’t so sick at the beginning. We had just started to noticed that he wasn’t eating as often as he used to. He would still eat. Just for not as long and he certainly wasn’t finishing up his bowl of dog chow. He even stopped begging for pizza crusts.
When he stopped begging, we knew we had to take him in to the doctors to see what was up...

Turns out, we should have taken him as soon as he started to eat less. But I gotta be honest with you. He was still wagging his tail, he was still running and playing. He was still smiling at us. (Yes, our dog was special. He could smile)
However, we were wrong in waiting. Because by the time we had taken him in, his body was in too bad of shape to continue. I won’t go into all details, but it was more humane that day to “put him to sleep” than to “allow him to stay awake.”

None of us had thought that when we helped him into the car that morning that he wouldn’t be returning in that car.

Molson was going to pass on that day.
Yeah right.
Pass on?
Pass on? To where exactly?
That magical farm where all animals go when they just “go to sleep”? Where they can chase cats and rabbits all day long, frolic in tall grasses and eat steak till they burst? Or maybe that place where our other loved ones are.... where they are going to happily help usher your beloved pet through the pearly gates, even though when they died, our Molson didn’t even exist yet.

All of these questions plagued me that day.
Guilt.
Extreme sadness.
Tears the size of oceans falling down our cheeks.
Especially our Olivia. She had just celebrated a birthday a week before this picture was taken. She had even tried sharing her last piece of birthday cake with Molson.
He hadn’t wanted it.
I wonder if any of us had known what was going to be taking place in the near future, would we have insisted he eat that cake?

Watching Molson go that day physically hurt. Physically, I felt his passing. (There’s that word again. Passing)
It was like Molson and Olivia grew up together. They certainly got into trouble together. The sort of trouble a girl and her beloved dog gets into.
I can vividly remember one Christmas season, we had hid all her gifts and all of Molson’s gifts in the same spot of the house. When John and I weren’t paying attention, the two of them each had one of their gifts in their possession. Molson proudly wagged his tail as he munched down on an elephant legged size dog bone. And Olivia was happily - and not even the slightest bit scared of being in trouble for snooping- playing with a doll...

Those two were always in cahoots...

John? He took Molson’s death extremely hard. Perhaps harder than Olivia and myself...
He cried so hard afterwards, that driving the car had to wait till some of the sobbing had ceased...

We had so many memories with Molson. And when I had asked John to quickly snap that picture of me and him together, it was a request made out of sheer panic.
Did I have enough photos of us together? This is the last time that it can be done! He had to hurry up and take one last picture of me and him together before the vet came back in!
Back in.
To assist Molson into “passing away”...

Damn it!
I promise that my next post will be a happier picture...

Anyway, I really wanna tell you that our MolMol will never truly be gone. A few nights after his “passing”, I heard the sound of his long nails on the kitchen floor. Truly, I did. And I even know he came back to bed with us at one time. I felt him jump up into the bed... well, more like the foot of the bed. When I lifted my head to sleepily and groggily say, “Molson, you know you can’t be up here.”, he had jumped down.

So no matter where his spirit ended up; I know he is probably thinking of us, as we are of him. Probably thinking that we gave him the most fun moments of his too short life...

This picture is worthy of a life. A life in which another beautiful creature was loved and cared for in a variety of unique and wonderful and amazing ways. There will never be another MolMol...