Lily: In Memoriam: October, 2009-January, 2026

["Let Inga Tell You,"  La Jolla Light, published February 2, 2026] 2026

Despite months of heroic effort, our beloved 16-year-old bichon poodle mix, Lily, has had to leave us. Both Olof and I are inconsolable. It feels like the air has been sucked out of our house.

Lily came to us as an "emergency foster"  in July of 2016, several months after our adored English bulldog Winston died of a heart attack in our living room. We were still bereft, not looking to be dog owners again. "One week max,"  the rescue agency promised me.

Those rescue people saw us for the mushballs that we were. Three days in, we were totally in love with Lily.

We think Lily might have been a breeder since she hadn't been spayed at almost eight. The first thing we noticed, besides her terrible teeth, was that she had no idea what dog toys were. How to play fetch. How to play tug. In fact, how to play anything.

We'd throw a small ball for her and she'd merely look at us like, "Am I supposed to be doing something with that? If so, I'm not interested."

Finally, I found her some small round rubber squeaky balls that did pique her interest but not as toys. She would gather them up protectively in a group close to her chest, her paws around them, and lick them affectionately as if they were her pups.

From time-to-time visitors to the house, not realizing that these squeaky balls were offspring and not play things, would pick one up and throw it for her. Lily would be enraged, chasing after it but immediately returning it to the rest of her litter and glowering at the guest.

"You just threw her child," we'd explain to them. "She's very sensitive about it." They were always hugely apologetic.

Lily was my little shadow, following me around the house, always waiting eagerly by the front door when I came home. Unlike my kids, she was always so deliriously happy to see me. When I did my yoga exercises on the floor, she created a new pose, Cat and Cow Over Dog. She slept snuggled up between Olof and me at night, and napped with me every afternoon. There wasn't a household chore that either Olof or I did that she didn't cheerfully oversee.

If the bathroom door were not closed tightly, Lily would nose it open and join the often-startled occupant. For her, bathroom activities were very much a communal activity. In fact, she was fairly annoyed if you excluded her and would park herself just outside the door where you could easily trip over her and do a face plant into the armoire which would serve you right for being so anti-social.

If the bathroom occupant were Olof, she would join him at the commode, assessing the proceedings with the laser focus of an Olympic Figure Skating judge. Artistic presentation? Meh. But given the added difficulty elements inherent in Olof s age, she was more than willing to bump up the score for technical merit.

While Lily became fast friends with our pool guy, she regarded our lawn maintenance man as her mortal enemy. The second he showed up on Wednesdays, 17 pounds of furious white fluff was hurling itself at our French doors. "He's stealing our grass! Again! And you let him!" She was eager to sink her three remaining teeth into the side of his mower.

As Lily got older, her need for sudden trips outside in the middle of the night became more frequent, a concept her aging owners could identify with. Lily would suddenly leap off the bed and run for the front door. I wouldn't even have time to step into slip-on shoes, as I raced to the door behind her, hoping to get it open before there was a "clean up on aisle five." It used to be that I'd stand on the front porch and keep an eye on her while she performed, but with the increasing preponderance of coyotes in our neighborhood, I'd grab the flashlight by the front door and rush out after her.

Our newspaper guy generally delivers our newspaper between three and four a.m. On multiple occasions, he would pull up to see me running around my front yard in my nightgown and bare feet waving a flashlight in my hand. I'm not sure he ever realized there was a dog involved. Fortunately, I tip well at Christmas.

In the time we had her, we funded multiple dental procedures, two new knees, and thousands of dollars worth of digestive diagnostics, meds, and special diets. The pet insurance companies we looked into wouldn't pay for most of this, especially the new knees. We called her our 401-Canine. She was worth every penny.

By the time she passed away, Lily was on her 15^th life. Really. Her initial brushes with death occurred in late 2022 when she suddenly and explicably stopped eating and had difficulty walking. We amassed a two-inch thick file of evaluations. Just when we truly thought it was the end, we were referred to a retired integrative veterinarian (as in practicing both eastern and western approaches), who, in the first two minutes of examining her, announced, "Well, the first thing I'm noticing is that her jaw is dislocated. No wonder she's not eating."  Feeling down her spine, he noted that her sacroiliac joint was out of place too. He adjusted both, did some acupuncture, and thirty minutes later when I brought her home, Lily scampered up the front steps and wolfed down three plates of food.

Had she fallen off our bed? Been dropped at the groomer? We'll never know. But she was cured. Even if a western-trained vet had diagnosed these issues, they wouldn't have been able to treat them. Having three more years with Lily was a gift beyond measure. And we gained a profound new respect for the power of alternate approaches to veterinary care.

Last August, however, Lily suddenly stopped eating again. Definitely not her jaw this time. We ran up yet another $3,600 in vet bills in three weeks but no source of this malady could be determined by tests. Once again, it looked like the end. One vet wanted us to have her admitted to a veterinary hospital for four days of feeding with a nasogastric tube. We could not do this to a 16-year-old dog who would be incredibly traumatized. I cried buckets. I think what finally helped was Lily looking at me one day and saying, "OK, I'll eat if you'll just stop crying."   As mysteriously she had stopped eating, she started eating again.

Well, mostly. Unfortunately, she wasn't eating enough most days to sustain her weight, and certainly not to regain the weight she'd lost. While she seemed like her same happy Lily self, we watched her weight slide from her normal 17.5 pounds down to 12 in January despite every digestive medication and prescription diet imaginable. She looked thin and frail. While labs in September hadn't shown anything definitive, now her labs were showing significant kidney disease and high levels of phosphorus. If we were to have any hope of prolonging her life - no guarantees - we were advised that we needed to have her admitted to a veterinary hospital for several days of IV fluids under sedation.

Like the nasogastric tube, we couldn't bear to do that to this poor little dog. But we were able to arrange outpatient subcutaneous fluids and administered phosphate binders to reduce her phosphorus levels.

Sadly, it wasn't enough. For the last five months, my happiness level could be quantified on how much my dog ate that day. I just wanted her not to die at Christmas, and she obligingly didn't. Her labs continued to deteriorate. And ultimately we had to make the heartbreaking decision to put her down.

Millions of people go through this profound level of grief every year. Our beloved animals count on us to take care of them when it's time. I get it, but I still feel like my heart has been ripped out of my body. Making the euthanasia appointment was the worst call of my life.

Lily's passing has just flattened us. She was just so much of a part of our minute-by-minute retiree lives and we can t help but be reminded of her dozens of times a day. For two people who never went looking for a dog, that sneaky little girl totally took us hostage. The profound ache we feel just won't go away nor, maybe, should it completely. Any creature - human or animal - who makes such an in-road into one's heart deserves a place there forever.

Let me say that there is nothing better when you're having a bad day than a small dog snuggled up in your lap. It also works when you're having a good day. The unconditional love of an animal has to be one of the most powerfully positive emotions ever. Which makes the loss of it so devastating.

On her last day, I sat outside in the sun with Lily wrapped in her blanket. We listened to the birds and I rubbed her soft wooly head. I thanked her over and over for all the love she had brought not only to us, but to our friends and the rest of the family as well. She licked my hand. The next morning, she took her final breaths in Olof's arms.

Rest in peace, Lily. You were pure joy. I know you are in a better place. We most definitely are not.

 

 

I Can't Believe My Eyes

["Let Inga Tell You,"  La Jolla Light, published January 26, 2026] 2026

I can't believe my eyes. No, I really can t. My ears either. Or frankly any of my senses. And this absolutely terrifies me.

Seriously, the number of scams that come my way on a daily basis make me want to cancel internet and phone service, and keep my money in cash in a safety deposit box at my local bank. I agree it would be a tad isolating but far less anxiety-provoking.

My sell-by date has definitely expired. I'm terrified of waking up one morning and finding that every dime of our retirement funds is now in Nigeria.

Daily, I receive multiple notifications, some of which look fairly authentic, that my Amazon Prime Membership has expired. That my Spectrum account has been flagged. That there is a fraud alert on our USAA account. That a critical bill was not paid and our health insurance has been cancelled. That we need to verify account information. That my email account has been suspended.

"Amazon"  calls and wants me to verify that I made a certain purchase. Text messages regularly inform me that Fed Ex is unable to deliver my package and to please click here to update delivery instructions. The alleged-IRS claimed that my end of the year statement was ready which was puzzling since it was still November. Or that I failed to pay for road tolls. Of course, one time we did forget to pay toll fees on a rental car in the Bay area and the penalties were staggering.

It goes on and on. They all want me to click on this link to resolve it. (I know better than to click on those links.) Sometimes they demand I change my password. Of course, sites like the Franchise Tax Board do make you change your password every 90 days or your account locks.

But here s the thing: recently Spectrum actually did update ancient accounts such as ours that actually did require new passwords. But I also got numerous emails from allegedly-Spectrum on the same subject that were scams. I finally called Spectrum and read them each of the emails and asked, did you send me this? Two were real, the rest weren't. But they all sounded legitimate.

Back in 2015, we checked into a hotel on Christmas Eve, after which I turned off my phone. The next morning, there were multiple missed calls from USAA. I called back the number and learned that within 30 minutes of our checking in, $3,000 worth of X-boxes had been purchased in two different Walmarts in Pennsylvania. Not being able to reach me, they had just cut off the card. Now, of course, I'd call the USAA fraud line, not the call back number they left, even though in that case, it was an actual call from USAA.

I'm too old for this. And way too techno-challenged to figure out what s real and what isn't.

Speaking of old, I got a great column out of being called by a would-be Grandma scammer some years ago who was purporting to be my grandson who'd been in an accident in Mexico and who needed money wired to him for his hospital bill. This one was easy: my oldest grandson at the time was seven. I strung the kid along for a half hour pretending to be too much of an idiot to understand the instructions for wiring him the money.

Eerily AI (more on that anon) can duplicate your voice, and with some data easily mined from the internet, make you actually believe the Grandma scam.

Now, of course, if I thought there was the slightest chance it really was one of my grandsons, I'd ask questions that only he would know the answer to. But more likely, just hang up. Note to grandsons: if you are in an accident in Tijuana, do not call here.

What I was most curious about with the grandma scam was: how did he target me? Has someone hacked the AARP mailing list? Or do they just call randomly until they get someone who sounds old. (I do not sound old, you little creep!)

A close friend almost went for a scam from Wells Fargo telling her that her account had been compromised and she needed to temporarily transfer $40,000 from her account to keep it safe from the scammers. She nearly went for it. These people are getting wilier and wilier.

Even sending someone a check has been fraught with peril as scammers fish checks out of post office boxes, wash the checks, and write in new numbers. I try to make most payments on my bank s website but if I do need to send a check, I use the hopefully-not-washable new ink pens and mail it from a box inside the post office. It's a total pain.

Apparently another scam has a caller asking "Can you hear me?"  and if you answer "yes", it can then capture your voice saying yes to commit all kinds of other fraud on your accounts. Or is this story itself even a scam?

It probably doesn't help that I write under a porn star name. Those guys in Riga just won't let up.

The AI stuff can look terrifying real. Should I believe my own senses? At first I was stunned that celebrities like Tom Hanks and Oprah were hawking such sketchy products until I realized they weren't. But anyone's likeness can be duplicated by AI and you can be made to be doing pretty much anything. AI can create a video of you with only a photo of your face.

Discerning actual news videos from AI-generated ones are only determined by the fact that if the AI version had really happened, it would have made the actual evening news.

Then there's the physical crime: the scourge known as porch pirates. The perfect crime. Doesn't seem to matter if your face or even the license plate of your car is captured on a Ring camera. No one ever seems to be prosecuted.

How do you even fight back on all this?

Should you unsubscribe to phishing emails? Or have you just confirmed your address?

Of course, some of these scams are easy to spot. When Amazon calls me to inquire if I made what they think is a suspicious purchase, it's easy enough to just go on my account and see if any such purchase was actually made. (It never has been.) It's also suspicious if the callback number is 619.

I don t even dare click on cute animal videos that friends send me, or even digital greeting cards. I don t want to click on anything.

For the first time, I didn't even dare order checks from my own bank's website (which sends you to a different site). There were too many new options, including suggesting a $42 shipping fee to make sure those checks actually got to you. (I went into the bank personally, another total pain.)

Do I get more than most people because I'm old? Probably. We boomers come from a more trusting era. 

But here's something AI needs to come up with: a clairvoyance feature. A digital "spidey sense."   That's one option I d click on.

 

The More Things Change

["Let Inga Tell You,"  La Jolla Light, published January 18, 2026] 2026

 Now that the holiday season is over, I am going to address a topic that will be familiar to many women: the fact that 95% of holiday planning, cooking, newspaper cancelling, hotel and airline reservation making, airport transit, pet sitting, gift buying, gift wrapping, gift returning, house preparing, guest bed making, post-guest laundry, Christmas card sending, and most especially contingency making is done by women.

And of course, your response is, "well, duh."

Yup, we re the ones who write the holiday letter, address the cards, stand in long post office lines, iron table cloths, create tablescapes, borrow chairs and china (and return it all again), query the daughters-in-laws as to what the grandkids might want this year, buy the tree, decorate the tree (except for the lights; even I have limits), undecorate the tree and put all those ornaments away, all the while creating massive food shopping and to-do lists.

The night before we left for L.A. for Christmas with family last month, my husband Olof pulled out his suitcase, dropped some clean clothes (that I had washed earlier) into it, and plunked it by the front door in seven minutes. "Well,"  he announced, "that's done!"  and proceeded to go back to his computer where he had spent most of the holiday season when he wasn't watching sporting events.

While this is hardly a new event, I found myself feeling unduly surly. OK, downright hostile. Possibly the teeniest bit homicidal.

Now, I will confess that there are a lot of holiday chores that I listed above that I no longer have to do, partly because a daughter-in-law in L.A. hosts the Norman Rockwell Christmas at her home. Christmas Eve and Christmas Day have always been my two favorite days of the year and my daughter-in-law not only decorates her home like a shoot for Sunset Magazine but puts her incredible baking and cooking skills to work in creating two days of phenomenal meals. I feel so grateful that I just sit back and enjoy it although Olof and I do sign up for Christmas dinner cleanup.

Now, there are people who will query: Are women even asking husbands to help? In my daughter-in-law's case, she is clearly the mastermind of the whole operation but my son is definitely observed stoking the fireplace, tending bar, grilling all that meat for Christmas dinner, ordering gifts, and probably all manner of chores behind the scenes that I don't even see. Actually, it s fairly impressive.

My husband Olof, not so much. I honestly think it would be more work getting him to do any of this stuff than its worth. It's not that he can't follow directions - and he is a phenomenal dishwasher - but holiday planning is not his wheelhouse.

This past Christmas, it was the contingencies that broke me. Our beloved 16-year-old dog, Lily, has been dying in slow motion for months now. She is literally on her 25^th life. We can't even imagine life without her so obviously want to have her with us for as long as her quality of life is good. But since last summer, she will have episodes when she just completely stops eating, in spite of heroic veterinary intervention and every test and med you can imagine. Our pharmaceutical arsenal includes, antibiotics, appetite stimulants, anti-emetics, anti-nauseas, antacids, anti-diarrheals, and multiple pricy prescription diets. Just when we think it's the end, she rallies and starts eating again. Well, sort of. Unfortunately, not enough to sustain her weight or more importantly, to regain any of the weight she has lost. So she is thin. And frail.

The hotel we stay at in L.A. does not take pets. Particularly incontinent pets. Our son's house already has their two dogs plus other relatives'  visiting dogs. We could never leave her there. In the two weeks leading up to Christmas, Lily was in one of her major declines. What to do with her?

In a true Christmas miracle, one of the people who work at our veterinary office offered to take Lily to her home over Christmas. Would Lily be too sick to leave with the pet sitter? Die at the pet sitter's home? Contingencies needed to be made.

Meanwhile, the weather promised to be absolutely abysmal in L.A. for the three days we would be away, including and especially Christmas Eve morning. As much as eight inches of rain was forecast for L.A. with likely flooding and mudslides. There was no way I wanted to be on the road in Olof s (2004) BMW 325i which is approximately five inches off the ground. After we were hit by an impaired driver at 85 mph on New Years Eve in 2006, I don't even like to be on the freeway even in the sunniest of weather. So I booked a car service. An actual town car with a driver. Best money I ever spent.

Did my husband spend two nanoseconds worrying about any of this? When I wrung my hands about the weather forecast, he calmly (he is quintessentially calm) said the weather people always exaggerate. As for the dog, if it was her time, it was her time. I, meanwhile, was packing up Lily's bag with her multiple medications, assorted food selections, seat belt, bed, blanket, and the War and Peace of instructions, warnings, caveats, etc. (She is 90% deaf! You need to make eye contact to get her attention! She only has three teeth so make sure everything is in teeny weeny pieces! Her back legs are very weak so you need to lift her up on beds or sofas or she will fall on her back!)

Olof s point is that he doesn't have to worry about anything because I am such an accomplished worrier. How ever much he worried, he could never come up with a nano-fraction of possible catastrophes as me. So therefore, he doesn't.

The weather prediction meant that the neighbor who normally feeds our outdoor aviary birds when we are away needed special instructions on battening down their cover in anticipation of high winds that did indeed materialize.

I concluded that we needed to leave extra-early on Christmas Eve morning given how bad the forecast was, so I persuaded the pet sitter to come at dawn to collect Lily, and our driver to move up our leave time to 7 a.m. I packed a bag of snacks in case this turned into a six-hour trip. This early departure turned out to be a very wise plan as the roads were as harrowing as forecast both there and back. Sometimes those weather people are right on.

As it turned out, Lily made it through Christmas, although she never ate, and emitted excremental effluvia all over the pet sitter's house. Even under the best of care, she finds a change of environment really stressful.

We had a wonderful time, as always, at our son s house which as usual was full of a congenial group of people, grandkids, gifts, and the usual amazing food.

And my husband Olof remarked afterwards, See? I told you it would all work out.

 

 

 

It's A Hoot

["Let Inga Tell You," La Jolla Light, published January 5, 2026] 2026

In the decades that we've lived here, we've watched various fauna populations come and go, especially birds.

We've always encouraged avian populations with feeders for hummingbirds and song birds outside our windows. We even have a small outdoor aviary that previously housed the cockatiels that our older son bred for many years. He ultimately married and moved to Santa Cruz leaving us a cage full of cockatiels that can and do live twenty-five years. As we've often counseled young parents: never let your kids get a pet with a life expectancy greater than yours.

These days the aviary houses parakeets that are mostly rejects from friends whose kids got bored with them. We've somewhat evolved into an avian social service agency.

For years we had an active bluejay population, the result of the five pounds of peanuts in the shell (believe me, it's a LOT of peanuts) we hid around our front yard as a party game for our younger son Henry's fourth birthday. The kids got bored with it in nanoseconds but word got out in the bluejay community that a peanut paradise had sprung up in our yard, and to Come On Over! The bluejays used to eat out of our hands as we breakfasted at our patio table. (In addition to peanuts, they were also partial to Thomas's English muffins and Entenmann's donuts, definitely mutations in their evolutionary diet.)

Sadly, the bluejays have been gone for years, now replaced with crows. Lots and lots of crows. I've written about crows before and do have a genuine admiration for their language abilities, use of tools, and problem-solving skills. I wish, however, we could be hearing a lot less of that language and that they weren't eating the far smaller population of song birds who bravely attempt to partake of our feeders without becoming a meal themselves.

But the other bird population that really seems to have flourished in recent years, at least in my neighborhood, is Great Horned Owls. I really don t remember hearing them all that often in past decades but now am hearing their distinctive sound almost every night, often communicating with each other across nearby trees.

We hear the owls even with all our doors and windows closed. That's largely because our house was built by the lowest bidder after the war and for the most part, still has most of its original 1947 single-pane windows. Almost all of our neighbors have remodeled over the years and gone to double-pane which screens out a lot of noise. A year ago, we had to break one of our windows to free a bird trapped in one our double-hung windows (which by the way, still work well after 77 years!) Our handyman took a piece of glass to get it replaced and came back to report that our windows aren't even single pane. They're semi-single pane? Point-five pane? Cheap glass available post-war? He reported that the Home Depot guy hadn't seen glass this thin in decades.

I'd gotten quite used to hearing owls at night and was able to determine which of the large trees near and on our property were their preferred habitats. So I was heartbroken when a beautiful star pine down the street housing a multitude of owls was cut down to make way for a pool. I wanted to throw myself in front of the chain saw. 

Even that was a deja vu to the late 1990s when my husband Olof and I were volunteers on the baby song bird team for Project Wildlife. In the spring, tree trimmers would inadvertently cut down branches with nests full of baby birds which would overpower the resources available and be farmed out to people like us who fed them a special formula (which, ironically, included cat food) every thirty minutes from dawn to dusk until they were old enough to be released. I even took a cage of baby birds to work each day, prevailing upon co-workers to feed them if I had to attend a meeting. Alas, someone complained to HR (my boss?) and my career as a song bird savior was over.

Recently I ran into my neighbor, Sally, who asked if I were hearing a lot of owls. So I'm not imagining that there seem to be a lot more owls out there now. We began to chat about why that may be.

Now, one obvious reason that they re hanging around my house is one of owls preferred food groups is rodents. I've written about rodents on a number of occasions and my on-going efforts to discourage their presence on my property which is the ultimate rodential Shangri-la. We have an orange tree that produces 1,000 oranges twice a year. Tons of foliage. A wood pile! Ivy! Bird feeders! Does it get better than this?

Is my prolific rodent population contributing to these birds presence? Am I singlehandedly responsible for the increase in owlage?

Now, any creature that eats rats is a friend of mine. I realize that rats are just trying to make a living like the rest of us. I just wish they'd made that living somewhere else.

In order to discourage the biggest draw - the oranges - to our rodent population, our wonderful handyman, Oren, denudes the tree of oranges we don t need twice a year and dispenses them like a Pied Piper of Citrus to friends and his other clients. It's a win-win for everybody.

But in spite of that, the local rodents still like to hang out at our place.

So no wonder we're hearing owls. That's probably what all that hooting is about. "Hey guys, there's this woodsy house that is a veritable Xanadu of well-fed rats. It's like fishing in a barrel!"

Lying in bed at night listening to the owls hooting back and forth, I can only wonder what they're saying. Are they inviting other horned owls over for a beer? Maybe a mating call of the "wanna see my etchings?"  type?

Apparently each type of hoot - its pitch, rhythm, number of notes - is often unique to a particular species, allowing owls to identify and communicate with members of their own kind. The ones who live near me seem to have plenty to say to each other and I really enjoy listening in. I just wish I could speak owl well enough to let them know that the area behind the woodpile has particularly good pickings of the rodential persuasion.

 

 

 

 

Definitely In The Wrong Profession

["Let Inga Tell You,"  La Jolla Light, published January 1, 2026] 2026

OK, I know it's not nice to make fun of other people's occupations, but I really have trouble with animal psychics. Part of that trouble is my regret that I never entered this lucrative field myself especially in a place where there is both lots of money and lots of pets.

Some years ago, I had an acquaintance who shall remain nameless who told me that her dog kept getting out of the yard while she was at work. Now, it seemed obvious to me that the poor animal was lonely and didn't like being left alone all day. To entertain itself (and hopefully seek some companionship), it spent its time digging a hole under her fence to escape.

Finally, the acquaintance engaged the services of a pet psychic to meet with the dog and see what its issues might be. She first met with the psychic, explained the problem and then had the canine clairvoyant meet privately with the pup.

My acquaintance couldn't sing the praises more highly of the psychic afterwards.

"It was amazing!" she effused. "She said that Bowser was feeling sad while I was at work and felt incredibly stressed and was just trying to come and find me."

"Um,"  I said. "But isn't that kind of what you told her? (I didn't add: "and freaking obvious?")

"But not exactly like that!"  insisted my acquaintance. "I couldn't believe the details Bowser told her! I never would have guessed!"

Personally, it seemed that the money spent on the pooch portender might have been better spent on enrolling it in doggie daycare. But that's just me.

During this conversation, I kept having a deja  vu to a long-ago psychology class about a therapeutic style called "emphathic paraphrasing."   This involves restating, using different words, someone's thoughts and feelings in a way that demonstrates understanding and compassion. It makes the client feel heard and is a genuinely powerful therapeutic tool.

So are pet psychics simply experts at empathic paraphrasing with maybe a side of fabrication?

In fact, this reminded me of another situation that I wrote about a long time ago when a neighbor's cat, known as Butterscotch, was left behind when they moved. Tracked down, they said they thought someone else might also be feeding him so they d felt OK departing without him. (Gah!)

Butterscotch showed up like clockwork at our doorstep every night meowing piteously until I came out to the front porch with a can of people tuna. Meanwhile I posted his photo on "Do you know me?"  fliers around the neighborhood. We couldn't keep Butterscotch ourselves as my younger son was anaphylatically-allergic to cats.

A day or so later, two women called. "Yes, that s our cat Tiger,"  they said. "He adopted us a few months ago but disappears for days at a time. We've spent $600 on his vet bills."

When Tiger/Butterscotch showed up at my doorstep that night doing his starving homeless cat act, I stared him down and said, "I'm on to you, you kitty con artist. Just how many homes do you have???"

Several, as it turned out. Once the tuna train ended at my house, he began frequenting the master bedroom of another neighbor, Jeff, whose French doors were often open. Jeff had no interest in a cat but Tiger/Butterscotch was not to be dissuaded.

I connected Jeff up with the two ladies on the next street. As often as Jeff returned the marmalade manipulator to their house, Tiger would be back to Jeff s an hour later. The two women were distraught at Tiger s rejection (especially after their financial investment in the furry felon's medical care) and finally concluded there was only one thing to be done.

They called in the cat whisperer. 

The kitty psychic ($150 hour) closeted herself with her feline client for a private consultation. Tiger, the cat shrink reported when she emerged, was distraught that there was now another male cat on the women's block who was more dominant than he. His male ego bruised, he had sought refuge at Jeff's where there was less competition, not to mention gratuitous male bonding. (The cat whisperer didn't specifically mention it, but I'm sure Tiger told her that he, like Jeff, was a rabid Yankees fan.) While Tiger didn't want to appear ungrateful for the ladies many kindnesses, at this stage in his life, he needed a more guy-centric environment.

"Well," said Jeff, who didn't want to admit just how attached he and his girlfriend were to the cat at this point, "if it s really what Tiger wants..."

Easter Sunday was to be the official changeover day. Jeff's girlfriend made a nice brunch and the two tearful ladies showed up, Tiger in tow, for the official handover of distemper shot records. They surveyed Tiger s new home, and approved. Food was served. But when it came time for the relinquishment to become final, the ladies had a sudden change of heart. What if the Feline Freud had misunderstood the tabby terror's wishes?

Tiger was put on the phone during an emergency call to the cat psychic whose skills fortunately included aural communication over optical fiber. The ladies were assured that Tiger had re-asserted his wishes to live with Jeff.

And that was that. Jeff was now the proud owner of a kitty bigamist.

Personally, I was always suspicious about the story of Tiger being threatened by other male cats on the block but who was going to dispute it? Definitely not Tiger who lived a long and happy life at Jeff s.

But I do feel that maybe I'm in the wrong occupation. And by the way, I'd be willing to do it for $125, treats included.

 

 

The Hazards Of Hostessing

["Let Inga Tell You,"  La Jolla Light, published December 25, 2025] 2025

I love to collect stories from friends who host large groups during the holidays and have to deal with picky eaters.

Seriously, these women qualify for sainthood. Unless it's a genuine allergy situation (verified by a note from the guest's doctor), I tend to go with my mother's philosophy which was the same both for entertaining and weeknight family meals: dinner is served!

Since there appears to be a new health fad just about weekly, trying to accommodate what guests are or more to the point, are not eating is pretty much doomed to failure. But this does not keep my heroic friends from trying.

A good friend of mine recounted how she was planning a Christmas day dinner for 11 (her table can only accommodate ten but she decided she could squish two people together at the end of the table) which would include three young grandchildren plus some family friends.

One of the guests was her husband s ex-wife with whom both she and her husband have maintained an enviably cordial relationship. The ex-wife called and mentioned that she had a new boyfriend and wondered if he might be able to attend as well? My friend, ever accommodating, decided she could probably squish two people together at BOTH ends of the table, and said yes.

Ex-wife calls back the next day. Boyfriend wants to know if he can bring his teenage daughter since it will be a custody day. My friend starts to panic. But the grandkids are tiny, she can maybe double them up, so she says yes.

That afternoon, another call. The teenage daughter would really like to bring her boyfriend who is in a horrible family situation and will not otherwise have any celebration at all. It would be a great kindness to include him, and of course, would be in the spirit of the holiday. My friend says yes, realizing that she will probably be eating by herself in the kitchen. Or maybe she can rent some folding chairs to put around the table instead of using the comfy chairs that go with her dining room set.

She then learns that all four of these guests are vegetarians.

She decides to make this meal really simple: pasta with a choice of a red marinara sauce with meat or a green pesto sauce. Very Christmas-y. There will be a big salad, and some fabulous bread. Voila!

But then she hears from her daughter-in-law. DIL has decided that the grandtots, who have been eating bread and pasta for their entire little lives, including the day before, are gluten-sensitive and will henceforth be eating only gluten-free pasta and gluten-free bread. DIL notes that that would include any croutons in the salad.

My friend decides, OK, so she'll serve two types of pasta, one gluten and one gluten-free, with the two sauces, along with both gluten-y and gluten-free bread. Croutons will be eliminated from the salad. Or she could make some using the gluten-free bread? Nope, that might push her into the zone of hostility.

There went the pies she was planning to serve for dessert too. Can't serve a dessert (gluten in crusts) that the grandkids can t eat. Relationship with the daughter-in-law could not be saved.

One of the other guests then reminds my friend that in her dietary regimen (no allergies, has something to do with blood type?), she does not consume fungi (that would be mushrooms), root vegetables (including onions), or meat. Dang! That red sauce was going to have all three of those ingredients. And the now-crouton-free salad was going to have mushrooms too. Okay, so my friend makes a note to remember to put the mushrooms on the side and let people add them to their salad if they want. But eliminating onions, mushrooms and meat from her treasured family red sauce was going to be problematical at best. She realizes that there are just going to have to be two red sauces, the traditional one that she usually makes, and one that will pretty much be...tomatoes.

But now the problem is how to serve all these dishes since her sideboard really doesn't have enough room for so many options. It will also be critical to make sure that everything is scrupulously labeled so that nobody eats gluten-y bread and mushroom-tainted marinara sauce by mistake.

Of course, it would be so easy to get all those labels confused! Imagine the horror to find that the gluten-free preferers (not actually allergic) had accidentally eaten the gluten stuff by mistake, or that the onion lady had ingested not only fungi but cow!

Personally, I would feel really really bad if that happened. For about five minutes. And then I would sit down with my glass of chardonnay looking at the twinkly lights on my tree, chuckling maniacally, and basking in the spirit of the holiday season.

 

Getting A Christmas Tree Hasn’t Always Gone Smoothly

[“Let Inga Tell You,” La Jolla Light, published December 8, 2025] ©2025

A few days ago I went to buy my Christmas tree and couldn’t help but reflect on the ghosts of Christmas trees past.

My first husband always insisted we get a small live tree which we would then plant in the yard in what he considered a charming post-Christmas tradition. Folks: do NOT try this at home!  Little did we realize how much those suckers would grow - one to 40 feet! By the time my husband and I divorced ten years (and Christmas trees) later, anyone driving by would think our place was a tree farm with a driveway.  Meanwhile, the interior of the house descended into a cave-esque gloom since the tree tops had created a rain forest canopy effect. The tree roots made for constant plumbing problems and grass wouldn’t grow under pine needles. Ultimately, it cost me $4,000 to have ten originally-$20 trees removed from the property.  (I knew I should have had a Christmas tree removal reimbursement clause in the divorce decree!)

Post-divorce and single with two little kids, I went for the six-foot Douglas fir simply because they were the cheapest. I’d be on my stomach trying to screw the trunk into the stand while six-year-old Rory was holding up the tree. Three-year-old Henry was supposed to tell me when it was straight.  I crawled out from under the tree to discover that it was listing 45 degrees. Irrefutably demonstrating the principle of gravitational vector forces, it promptly fell over.

It was several more years until we had a Christmas tree that wasn’t leaning precariously. In a brilliant Single Mom Home Repair School move, I tied a rope midway up the trunk and tethered the other end to a ceiling plant hook.  Miraculously (since I guarantee that butterfly bolts are not rated for Christmas tree stabilization), it stayed vertical.

Some years later, Henry, who was about 11 at the time, and I brought home a bargain supermarket tree. Our tree, alas, had lots of branches right at the base of the trunk which we were attempting to amputate with a rusty jigsaw (left over from Pinewood Derby days) - in the dark in the front yard via flashlight - so that we could get the trunk into the stand.  What’s amazing is that we didn’t sever any digits in the process. I finally ended up calling a neighbor who came over with the appropriate tools and did the job for us. Decision for next year: better saw, or a tree from a Christmas tree lot.

Since I wasn’t all that interested in replicating the experience even with good tools, the next year I did indeed go to a tree lot and got full-service branch trimming. The tree lot guys mentioned that they could probably get the tree on top of my little Toyota if I wanted to save the delivery fee. (I think they sensed a cheap tipper.)  I was dubious but they did indeed get the tree tied securely on top of the car by having me open the two front windows and running the rope through the car and around the tree, knotting it on top.

IQ test: What’s wrong with this picture?

Off I went in the early evening darkness driving as slowly as possible through back streets.  I was terrified that a sudden stop would put this tree on the hood of my car, or worse, through the windshield of the car behind me. With enormous relief, I pulled up in front of my darkened house. It was the kids’ night at their dad’s, and my second husband, Olof, and I were not yet married.  My plan was to untie the tree, drag it onto the front porch and have the kids help me set it up the following night.

Obviously over-focused on saving the delivery fee and failing to engage even a single synapse, I had not stopped to realize that with the rope threaded through the car windows, the doors couldn’t open. I was trapped in my car. It was well before cell phones. I sat in my car thinking, “Geesh, Inga, it’s amazing you’re allowed to leave the house without a conservator.”  (And also: Would it have killed those tree guys to ask if there would be anybody at home???)

I sat there shivering in my open-windowed car and pondering my options. I didn’t really want to have to go all the way back to the tree lot. But it would probably take all evening to cut through the rope with my car keys. (Note to self: Keep 9-inch Bowie knife in glove compartment!)

As luck would have it, a neighbor arrived home from work shortly after, and, graciously avoiding voicing what must surely have been his assessment of the situation, extricated me from the car. Why all of my neighbors were not hiding from me after the first year I was single is still a mystery.

But ultimately, I married Olof and we could afford to have not only the Noble fir I had always coveted but have the nice Christmas tree lot people deliver it and set it up to my satisfaction. Personally, I think I’ve earned it.