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Two Goats and a Donkey!

Monday, October 5, 2026

Happy Monday, Y'all! It's October 5, 2026, and the Spooky Season is upon us! You probably took note of the 31 Day of Halloween entries I have already done. I went ahead and put all 31 days of them on the blog rather than go through each day and upload, when I may forget or get distracted or something come up and it not happen. This way, they are there for you to enjoy, or not, as you see fit! And I decided this year to do the regular blog entries separately, so you may see a few more blog entries, but you'll have all 31 Halloween entries!

So, last month, September 23, was Steve's and my 20th Anniversary! I never thought we'd make it that long, but here we are! Unfortunately, his dad ended up passing away that day as well. It was expected, but that doesn't make it any easier than it was. Ian and I went to the funeral, and my gosh, there were a lot of people there! Over 400 showed up, greater than the population of the town where he lives! It was a sad day, but joyous as well in knowing that his dad has gone Home.

So it's been a hard couple of weeks, and of course Ian and I haven't seen much of Steve, but he did come down normally this past weekend. Of course, I had to work, so I didn't get to see much of him, but I'll be off next Saturday and we can certainly spend more time together. We still did quite a bit!

During this time, several things transpired. Thursday, Sept. 24, Ian and I heard a kitten screaming outside, and when we investigated, we found a kitten up in my car motor. At first, it was feral and aggressive, hissing at me and trying to claw me. Finally, it calmed down, trusted me, and allowed me to get it out. I had wanted to keep it, but both Cooper and Ian were against it. I named it Geordi, in honor of Lavar Burton's character on Star Trek: Next Generation, and because I thought it was a boy. I didn't actually investigate the parts that would make it a boy or girl, I just decided in my head it was. We tried getting it to a shelter, but none of the shelters in my area would take it, saying they are too full. Not quite sure what the point of having a shelter is if they can't take in animals that are in need. And I also wonder what happens to all the animals people find, can't keep, and can't get a shelter to take. Something needs to change there. So, anyway, I went to work, and Ian kept the kitten the rest of the day. When I got home, he turned responsibility of it over to me. When I went to bed that night, instead of sleeping on the sofa with Cooper like I've been doing, I put Cooper in his crate and retired to my bed with the kitten. I didn't get a shit-ton of sleep that night, because I kept waking up to check on Geordi and to make sure I hadn't rolled over on top of him, but all in all, he did great sleeping in the bed with me! I fed him that morning, and then Ian's cousin, who was taking the kitten (he'd found a home for Geordi while I was at work), told us to meet her husband at his work that morning, so we did. That's when we found out that Geordi is actually a girl! She's also been renamed to Artemis, the Greek goddess of the hunt, Apollo's twin sister.

Then after sitting back home with Cooper for a bit, we got ready and headed up to spend a few hours with Steve. We met him in Magee, and then we cried with him for a few minutes. After we got the tears out, we just spent a few hours together shopping, and then went to have dinner at Jose's Mexican in Magee. Then he went north, we went south, and all got some sleep. Saturday morning, I took Ian to the Toy Show in Hattiesburg before we went north again for the funeral.

A week went by, and then Steve was down again this weekend. I met him and Ian Friday night after work at Dairy Queen, then Saturday morning we had a very expensive, but wonderful, breakfast at Loblolly Bakery. Then we went shopping for a bit before they dropped me off at work for the day. Afterwards, we went to dinner at a local Chinese buffet, where I almost tore into this very inconsiderate man sitting behind us playing a video on his phone at full blast and not giving a damn about anyone else around him. We ended up moving to another table because Steve and Ian were both afraid I would actually start something with him. Afterwards, we then went over to the USM (University of Southern Mississippi) campus to walk around and let our food digest. I'm not quite sure what happened, but I was unable to sleep Saturday night. I lay there for a while with Cooper, who was also restless and was partially responsible for my lack of sleep - not entirely, though, because even had he been peaceful and restive, I was having my own trouble sleeping - so I got up and worked on the short stories I've been doing for the blog until about 3:00am or 3:30am. I went back to bed, and finally fell asleep, but it was fitful, and not restive.

Sunday morning came, and I got up about 7am and felt very hungover and tired. The morning was rather a blue with McDonald's for breakfast, a trip to Lowe's, then a trip to Ollie's, then Home Goods for Steve and myself while Ian went to Target. After that, lunch at Arby's, and then Steve was on his way home. After he left, I worked on the stories for a bit, then decided I had to take a nap. And thank goodness I did, because I definitely felt much better afterwards.

So I mentioned working on some short stories. Before working on the 31 Days of Halloween, I wrote a short story, called The Seduction of Bryce Eagerton, which concerns a young gay man in New Orleans being singled out, kidnapped, and eventually seduced by a sexy vampire named Jacob. After that, I got my creative juices flowing and decided to write a series of short stories based loosely on the song "Son of Jolene", which of course is a "sequel" to Dolly's very famous "Jolene". I named the guy "Joe Liene" as a play on words, and also because I didn't want him to actually be the literal son of Jolene. The stories are told through the experiences of Geoff, who comes to love Joe Liene. Can Geoff change Joe Liene's philandering ways with men? Only time will tell! You can catch the stories (I've written 2 of them now) at Joe Liene's page.

So, on the the images! There are pics of Cooper, of Steve, Ian, and myself, pics of the lake at the Convention Center (where the Toy Show was held), anniversary pics (the flowers Steve sent me, AI pics of all of us, etc), pics of my yard flowers, the walk around USM, etc. Enjoy!

Ok folks, that's it for today, October 5, 2026! Be sure to check out the new stuff on the blog, including the 31 Days of Halloween and the stories! Keep coming back, I'm going to do my best to maintain more regularity with the blog, even if it might mostly only be the short stories! Have a great day!