Are My Psycho Kitties From Another Planet? by Joan Donaldson-Yarmey

https://www.bookswelove.com/shop/p/the-criminal-streak

https://www.bookswelove.com/shop/p/betrayed

On the evening of June 24^th, 2025, I arrived home in Edmonton, Alberta, from a dragon boat festival in Vancouver, B.C, just in time to celebrate my husband’s and my anniversary on August 25^th. I found a message from my son about two ten-year-old cats whose owner had died unexpectedly. No one in the family wanted them and they were going to be euthanized if no one else took them. My husband and I had put our eighteen-year-old cat to sleep a month before and had decided we wouldn’t be getting any more pets because it is so hard to say goodbye to them. However, it didn’t seem right that these sisters should die through no fault of their own. So hubby and I decided our anniversary gift would be to adopt them and I called the number. It was arranged that we would pick them up on August 26^th.

For our anniversary we decided to go out for dinner but he had to go help our daughter and didn’t make it back in time so we went to pick up KFC. While we waited for our order I tried to fill up our drinks but the Pepsi syrup ran out and I only got carbonated water. I waited while the tanks were changed. Carbonated water came out for the first bit and I kept dumping it out while waiting for the syrup. Then the power went out. Luckily, we did get our chicken order but our drinks were kind of anaemic.

When we got home, we found our power was out also, so we had a romantic meal by twilight. The power came on about an hour later and we had to reset our clocks. My husband couldn’t get the one on our gas stove to work and somehow he locked the oven door while trying.

We picked up our cats on the 26th. One, renamed Lovey, snooped around and settled in. The other, renamed Trixie, went and hid under the bed. Over the next few weeks, Lovely adopted me and Trixie adopted hubby. After spending their lives in an apartment, it took them a while to venture out into our back yard. But once they were comfortable, they wanted to go out every morning and we had to leave the door open all day so they could come and go as they pleased. They weren't impressed when the cold and snow came.

Lovely likes to sit with me on my chair and she purrs loudly and sleeps soundly. She follows me around the house and waits at the top of the stairs when I go down to the basement. Sometimes she goes down with me. At night she sleeps against my legs or face to face and she licks my arms and purrs. Trixie likes to purr on hubby's lap in the evening and rubs his face with hers. She goes out to the garage with him and sleeps on the chair. At night she sleeps with her head against his.

We naturally thought, that being sisters, they would get along. But no. They growl and hiss at each other when they walk by, they swipe at each other if one gets too close, they tease by blocking the door so the other one can’t leave or come back in the house. They hiss at each other from across the room.

And we are not safe. As I said, Lovely likes to sit on my knee when I am in my chair. However, if I want to move her so I can stand up, she hisses and growls at me then walks across the living room hissing and growling at anything she sees. Trixie will let hubby pet her for a while and then swats his hand or claws him when she has had enough. If we walk too fast past them, they growl, grab at our legs, and even chase us while yowling.

So, the questions are: have they been taken over by aliens from another planet? has some evil entity taken possession of them? or are they just psycho? After all, we only have the word of a person we met for half an hour, while picking them up, that their owner had died, that they were ten-year-old sisters, and that they'd lived in an apartment all their lives. We really know nothing about their previous life. And they aren't telling us anything. Lol 

Magical Lights by Eileen O'Finlan

 

                          

                                               Click here for purchase information

Have you ever felt as though you had just walked into the pages of a fantasy or science fiction book? I had that sensation recently. I'm a member of the New England Botanic Garden at Tower Hill in the nearby town of Boylston, Massachusetts. Every year starting around Thanksgiving and ending on last day of December they have an amazing light display called Night Lights throughout the grounds. This year was the first time I've had an opportunity to see it. It was more than worth the price of admission.

After leaving the ticket center, visitors are greeted with this:

How could you not feel like you had just stepped into a magical realm?

As visitors progress along the pathways, the sights become even more spectacular and the feeling that you are no longer in your own world increases. Perhaps you've entered a fairy land? Narnia? Hogwarts? Or, maybe you've left the planet completely:

Taking your eyes off the lights long enough to look at other visitors, you can see your own expression reflected in theirs - eyes wide in wonder, mouth smiling or agape when the next tableau takes your breath away.

A stunning experience, it must be especially transportive to those of a creative nature. Fantasy and science fiction authors could surely find unending inspiration here. 

HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO ALL!

National Parks and Reserves of Canada by Joan Donaldson-Yarmey

https://books2read.com/u/mKJxdd

 

 https://books2read.com/u/mYgK6x

 

National Parks and Reserves of Canada

I am a Canadian writer and all my mystery, historical, romance, and young adult novels are set in Canada. Canada is the second largest country in the world and has forty national parks and ten national park reserves covering an area of approximately 342,000 sq km (132,000 sq mi). This is about 3.2% of Canada’s total land area.

Canada’s first national park, Banff National Park (formerly the Rocky Mountain Park), was created in the province of Alberta in 1885 to protect the land around the Cave and Basin Hot Springs from being developed. Two more parks were created in 1886: Yoho National Park and Glacier National Park, both in the Rocky Mountains in the province of British Columbia. The land for the Waterton National Park, in southern Alberta, was set aside in 1895.

After Waterton it was nine more years before another park was created. The Thousand Islands National Park, which encompasses the one thousand islands of the Islands Parkway on the St. Lawrence River, was established in 1904. These islands are the remnants of former ancient mountains. Then, from 1907, when Jasper National Park was formed, to 2015 when Qausuittug National Park was established on Bathurst Island in Nunavut, forty-four more parks and reserves were created in the ten provinces and three territories. Each park or reserved was formed to protect the habitat of some animal or plant, or for its scenic magnificence. An example is Qautuittug which is the habitat of the endangered Peary Caribou.

One of the features of the parks are red Adirondack chairs. The placing of the red chairs began in Gros Morne National Park in Newfoundland/Labrador in 2011. The members of the park staff positioned eighteen sets of chairs throughout the park and held a contest to see who could find all eighteen sets. The winner won a pair of red chairs. Since then the other parks have followed suit and now there are over two hundred across Canada, all made from 100% recycled plastic.

Some are easily found while others require a bit of a hike. When you find them, sit and enjoy the beautiful view, whether it is overlooking a lake, taking in mountain scenery, enjoying a prairie vista, or listening to a flowing river. The parks offer much to see.

Banff is the most popular park in the country with over four million visitors each year. Tuktut Nogait, in the Northwest Territories, has the least amount of visitors with less than five. A combined total of over fifteen million people view the beautiful scenery of all the parks every year.