Garden of Thought

I recently realized from the way my cat responds that while her name is Pi, she believes her name is Beautiful Kitty.  It has made me suddenly self-aware of how often I greet her as "Hello, beautiful" and "Come up here, beautiful kitty!"  Now that would be a nice sort of nickname to acquire, no wonder she has such confidence in our servitude to her.

Made coffee this morning and our sick kitty came waltzing into the kitchen, drank a little water and ate about six bites of food. First time in a week and a half! My son was running up and down the hall rousing the family to come and see, Pi is eating! We were all gathered around, trying to not disturb her groove, twittering quietly like fans of a famous artist watching them paint.

The cat ate! Let the parade commence!

Now we just hope she does it again - back to Cat Watch.

What is it about the scent of a cat coming in out of the cool rain - I just want to pick her up and snuffle my nose down into her fur, she smells of pine needles and fresh air and small green leafy things nodding under silver drops.

My daughter agreed that it was irresistible, even if (like her) she is actually allergic to the cat and suffers for her giving way to the beauty of Damp Kittyness.

So, over at Death by Aspirin there's been a small challenge to 'time-ify' our cats.

Pi loves being a Time Cat.  She is very patient about how long it takes me to sometimes open the TARDIS door for her, in spite of the pompous reputation. 

So, what do you do when a cat keeps coming around and YOWLing under your windows every night, trying to come in the cat flap and act like it lives in your house.... in spite of being chased off, shot with a nerf gun, made the target of hurled pine-cones and squirted with a hose? Ya THINK it would get the hint. We've had to conclude it is retarded. >_< Our own (fixed, mellow) kitty is annoyed. It's well fed so it isn't a stray - but it's been doing this off and on for a *year* now and we're seriously thinking of getting a humane trap. Feline village idiot.

On the good side, I found some funky wavy forks on Etsy that a crafty person made into wall hooks and they're just perfect for holding up the little window scarf in my dining room! Yay! I love Etsy.
( Love the 'do, Mr. Fork )

As I came home I noticed Pi pouncing underneath the maples - sure enough, as I parked and got out, she was trotting along with a very fat mole in her mouth. I've been having a lot of mole-hills, especially in annoying places like centered in the lawn, or right under the new plantings so I admit I was pleased at this particular catch. Unfortunately, she brought it near me and dropped it, watching it move so she could play with it. The poor little critter was waving its pink paws and squeaking and...and... aigh! "Just KILL it, will you?" I hollered at her. She looked at me, unperturbed and batted it around. I couldn't watch any more - I went in the house and tried not to think of how much it looked like a big version of our adorable hamster. *sigh* cats...

I hate nature sometimes. At least it disappeared after that, rather than showing up in...er... parts.

After an entire week offline I can't tell you how wonderful it is to be able to rejoin the virtual world again - "how pathetic", some might think, but truly I missed all of you, being able to read what what going on in your lives, to share a smile or a concern. I now type to you from my new house at long last! - nothing left in the old one but lots of rabid dust bunnies and garage-and-shed junk, though I'm keeping the suet filled for the LBJs (little brown jobbies) that fill the bushes there, and putting up fresh corncobs for the squirrels still.

This house has squirrels galore, but as we also inherited a loving huntress kitty with it, I don't think I'll be putting up a feeder. It would feel like setting a trap for the little critters... Trying to get used to waking up in a new place - would help if the bathroom sinks were working and other little foibles that we're still toiling away at - but it's a good thing overall. The house is full of boxes, scattered with chaos and still somehow very peaceful.

We did manage to get our mutant two-headed tree along the way, put up a couple strings of lights and will somehow pull off a good Christmas. The kids were astonished when I pulled out sacks of presents, bought ahead and wrapped long ago. They were so sure that with all the moving, there wouldn't be any presents (poor things!) - I can't even remember what's in most of them, so it should be a good surprise for me as well as them that morning.

Also, a huge thank you to those of you who sent me Christmas cards! I have them hung all along the stairs, and they were our only Christmas decorations for a time. I can't tell you how much they meant to me...consider yourselves hugged!

I don't know if I'll manage to post many replies, but I'm off to delve into what all of you have been up to for the past week. Have a lovely holiday!

I do hope the kitties of Lyria and others who have elderly pets may go as peacefully as my little Peaches went this afternoon. I'd been checking on her almost hourly as she was fading away, and had given her a little water and a thorough petting earlier on, but when I went out to the garage where her little heated kitty-pad was that she liked to sleep on she was gone... The good thing is it looks like she simply went to sleep and faded away. The kids all said their goodbyes to her poor little remains after I smoothed her out with her brush and made her look as nice as reasonably possible. It was a mixed bag - the oldest had already come to peace with it knowing she was ailing, the middle one is sobbing in his room and the youngest was fascinated with the way a deceased cat feels if you pet it. Sigh...

Considering we are also still househunting, it is a bit of a relief for I feared she wouldn't survive the stress of a relocation. On that front, we looked at another house that was on nice property, but it was at the very top of our price range already and turned out it would need an addition to work... no money being "left over" for such an addition without going much further into debt than we are willing to take on, we had to regretfully let it go.

Seasons come, seasons go...