14 posts tagged “cats”

Who do you tell your secrets to?

Or, if we're feeling grammatically correct, to whom do I tell my secrets? As much as I love you, dear Internet, not to you. But hey, I don't paint secrets on billboards (which are not nearly so easily searchable as content on the World Wide Web), either.

Luckily, there are lots of things I am happy to share, things that aren't quite secrets, but you still probably didn't know before. For example, last night I dreamed that someone was splashing though a pond turning neon tetras into turtles with a sort of magic crayon. This was after I dreamed that one of my cousins was acting as kind of a seeing eye person and helping a blind girl to ski, but although it was winter at the top of the slope, by the bottom it had become summer in all its muggy, mosquito-ridden glory. Would you believe that waking up puzzled is not entirely unusual for me?

I'm going to blame this set of crazy dreams on the action-packed couple of days M and I have had this week, owing to a visit from our twin nine-year-old nieces. Their Summer Vacation Ultra-Energy coupled with bonus Giggle Factor is as fun as it is exhausting. I'm still trying to process all our adventures: braving the chilly beach, amassing prize tickets at the arcade, playing a lot of Wii, marveling at butterflies at the botanical garden, paper footballing at various and sundry meals, chasing the cats around trying to put paper hats on their heads, chasing M around trying to put a paper hat on his head, peering into a battleship's nooks and crannies, running amok at a science museum...

I'm flat worn out! Somebody asked me at the CAP meeting last night if I was feeling all right (a question which always makes me wonder how much of a mess I look), but he understood immediately upon hearing that we'd just had a whirlwind visit from a set of nine-year-old girls.

It was a blast, though, and I can't wait to see 'em again.

This is what a snow day looks like in a part of the state that doesn't get a whole lot of wintry precipitation.

This is one of those perfect moments: I am sitting in the sunroom with my husband on a Thursday afternoon. The startlingly bright January sunlight is filtering in through the shades, and the giant bush outside two of the windows is casting leafy shadows. We saw a chickadee in its branches not half an hour ago; our cats were equally interested in the little bird, but for much more sinister reasons. M is absorbed in a book devoted to his favorite car, and I'm whiling away my time on the Internet. All is peaceful.

Well, at least until Vera and Val decide it's time to tear around the house like demons again. Maybe another chickadee will come by and distract them for just a while longer.

Looking back on 2008, what were the highlights of your year?

Here we are, starting the fifth day of 2009, and I'm still "looking back on 2008." I guess there hasn't been much of import to report so far this year, which is just fine with me because last year at this time we were running around like headless chickens trying to get ready for a buddy's wedding and prepare for the move from South Texas Town #1 to South Texas Town #2 at the same time. That was not one of the year's highlights, by the way. These were:

M's winging: The culmination of flight school and my husband's designation as a Naval Aviator was a time of joy, giddiness, and relief. Getting to celebrate with M's folks as their son's hard work and accomplishment were recognized was absolutely wonderful.

Buying our first house: The move after the winging was a pretty stressful one due to our months of transience in the process, but it was worth it when we finally signed the forests' worth of paperwork, picked up the keys, and walked into our very own home for the first time.

Adopting our two cats: Sure, there's been some property destruction, an emergency trip to the animal hospital, and some distinctly unpleasant messes to clean up, but we can't imagine life without Vera and Valentine. They provide such affection, entertainment, and liveliness to our household. And hey, if we manage not to screw up our feline charges, maybe we won't do too badly with kids someday.

Honeymooning in the Bahamas: Nearly two years after we signed the ketubah and agreed to embark on this crazy marriage venture together, we finally squeezed a solid week of leave out of the Navy for a honeymoon. We met some interesting people (including a tiny, foul-mouthed pistol of an activities coordinator and a sketchy, overgrown frat boy in his forties who tried to "adopt" a set of sisters in their twenties). We had some amazing experiences (the dolphin encounter, walking through the mangroves to Gold Rock Beach) and some experiences I don't care to repeat (the bonfire, the semi-submersible), but the best part of the whole trip was simply having a week for just us, no other obligations or worries that the squadron was going to call to tell M to come in on a day off. I hope we can manage more such getaways in the future.

Getting involved with CAP: In 2008, I went from having maybe heard of this Civil Air Patrol thing once or twice (but not having a clue what it was all about) to being an active volunteer with my local squadron. Through CAP, I not only went up in a small airplane for the first time, but I got qualified as an aircrew member who can assist on search and rescue operations. I'm excited about what 2009 holds with regard to my CAP "career." In the early months, my squadron is going to continue to focus on getting people trained for various emergency services qualifications. I'm going to be working on becoming a Mission Observer (right-seater in the airplane), so I'm hoping to go flying again within the next couple of months. We should also be working on getting everyone qualified to be on a ground team, too, so we have multiple valuable assets to offer in an emergency. I'm glad to be a part of it, and I'm glad that 2008 brought me the opportunity.

So, 2008 was quite a year. I've got high hopes for 2009.

Our Thanksgiving break involved--just as we had hoped--time with family and friends, some fun outings, and lots of good food. Oh, the food. The deliciousness of the food on all days cannot be overemphasized: beef soup with my folks on Wednesday, an epic feast at my grandparents' on Thursday, hoarded leftovers on Friday, mouthwatering brisket with M's family on Saturday, and brunch with some dear friends at one of our favorite Northern Virginia restaurants on Sunday. I think we'd better eat salad between now and when we head back up for winter leave.

When we weren't taking to heart the imperative to eat, drink, and be merry, we found time to get out for a few fun events. We met my sister-in-law, her husband, and his unspeakably adorable (and horrifyingly energetic) daughters at the National Zoo, where we oohed and ahhed over various critters. M and I had to leave before they stopped at the Great Ape House, though, so we apparently missed a compelling and educational display of primate table manners. (Go ahead, ask our nieces what the orangutans did at the monkey house. I dare you.) Our other adventure was less furry. The Grandsons were playing at Wolf Trap, just a month shy of two years after they played at our wedding. Getting to dance (though our dancing had more enthusiasm than skill to recommend it) was a great "almost-versary" celebration.

My neighbor, who very sweetly looked after our cats while we were away, just came by to drop off the key. It turns out that Miss Vera and Miss Val had an entertaining weekend, too. My neighbor walked in the door one afternoon and found toilet paper draped allllll through the living room. Nothing's ever as fun as something you aren't supposed to do, right?

Now it's December, and that's blowing my mind a little bit. I'm going to blink and it will be time to bust out the sweet potato latkes. How could anyone help but love a holiday where where you're supposed to eat fried food?

After yesterday's adventure with bad weather, flight delays, and spending eight hours in an exceedingly ugly and ill-equipped concourse at Miami International Airport, M and I are back from our week's vacation/honeymoon in the Bahamas. We had a great time on the island (fear not, a post with more details is in the offing as soon as I get my pictures organized), but it is wonderful to be back home to our kitties and our Internet access and our own bed and gorgeous autumn weather.

Now, off to make a grocery list and drag ourselves to the commissary so we can do important things like, y'know, eat. I'm itching to do some real cooking after my vacation-enforced break. As an added bonus, it is now close enough to Halloween that the purchase of all that temptingly fun-sized candy is now totally justified. Gotta get ready for those trick-or-treaters, and I care so much about their hopes for a delicious Halloween haul that I am willing to personally submit myself to candy quality control before we hand out the goods. It's for the children.

Mother Nature has decided to do my Halloween decorating for me in the form of a spectacularly large spider right outside my front window.

What book are you reading right now?

I almost always have more than one going at once. The one I'm attempting to savor slowly because I've waited so long for it to come out is The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman. The one I'm "snacking" on for pure fluffy nostalgia is The Cat Who Played Post Office by Lilian Jackson Braun; ditto for Walter Farley's The Black Stallion. The one I've just read, but am going back through more slowly is Jewish Meditation by Aryeh Kaplan. The one I'm studying for CAP is Aerospace: The Journey of Flight, 2nd Edition, edited by Jeff Montgomery. Finally, I am reading an unpublished manuscript and enjoying the heck out of it.

Show us your favorite way to stay warm.

Scoop up one of these:

You can take either the one in the convenient carrying case or the one that is already unpacked. Apply to lap. Stroke firmly but gently to activate the purring warmth feature. Very economical--runs on tap water and improbably-named varieties of canned cat food ("Sea Captain's Catch?"  Seriously?).

What is your favorite thing to do on a rainy day?

This QotD sounds familiar. My answer hasn't changed much in the past two years, although the aforementioned fiancé is now my husband, and he'll now drink teas other than peppermint. Spiced chai, no milk, and lots of honey is a favorite of his, but I take it sans honey because I'm strange and don't much care for sweet tea in hot or iced form. I'll also add that having a purring kitty on one's lap is another fine addition to rainy day activities.

We had some pretty serious afternoon downpours both yesterday afternoon and the day before. Lucky for us that they each occurred after we had returned home from Rosh Hashanah services for the day, but we did miss out on Tashlikh. Who needs to travel to a body of water when the road is looking distinctly river-like right outside your door? M and I might still go do our own version out at the duck feeding area near the botanical garden. I wonder what might be the implications of ducks and geese gobbling up the breadcrumb "sins" we cast into the water. Pretty wacky stuff, ritual, but Homo religioso (as we are somewhat whimsically denoted by those scholars that view spiritual tendencies as neurobiological imperatives, evolved as surely as the ability to distinguish color or develop language) seems to thrive upon it.