Pre Advent, Black Friday

The keeper and her friend have a ritual on the Friday after Thanksgiving where they visit the Episcopal Bookstore and then head downtown and join the strange throngs pushing through the streets and escalators.  The sign carriers above would have been proud of them.  They don't buy much, but they do eat, and marvel at the variety of humanity which all gathers together--Goth and Jesus Saves sign carriers, street folk and ladies who lunch, steel bands and a capella Gospel singers, babies in strollers and dogs in front packs, trinket sellers and mimes, street Santas and cops, all thrown together in a pulsing parade of God's creation. The piroushkys at the market were worth waiting for today.

Giving Thanks for Many Blessings

 The snow melted and we were able to go outside and check out the yard again.

 We watched the keeper cover the big bird with paprika and herbs and put it in the oven.  And the smells were incredible. 

A few guests couldn't come. But there was a lot of food.  And we were very entertaining. Cecil made his debut. They all thought he was charming. And at the end of it all, we got to eat turkey, and because it was organic,

we ate a lot.  We all slept well, lulled to sleep by the whirr of the dishwasher.

Home Again

The snow does keep us all at home. We like it.  The keeper is getting a little restless, even though she worked at her computer most of the day.  But it is beautiful outside.  The ice was melting on the street, but will probably freeze again tonight. Tomorrow she wants to drive downtown to the Cathedral, but we are urging her to be cautious. We want her to be home to cook that big bird in the frig.

Thanksgiving Eve

Alice:  Cecil, what are you doing out there?

Cecil:  What does it look like?

Alice:  Ick! Snow is polluted!  You have no idea where it has been.

Cecil:  A little snow won't hurt us.  It's refreshing.  We have 9 lives.

Alice:  Whatever.  It's cold. My sinuses hurt. Maybe the keeper could

make me snow tea with a dried catnip leaves.

Cecil:  I think tomorrow we get to eat that big bird in the refrigerator.

Alice:  I have been sniffing it every day.  It's organic you know.

Cecil:  Whatever. As long as we get some.

Farewell, Dear Marilyn

We also received some sad news this morning.  MFC, a friend of the keeper's, died yesterday in her home.  She was a brilliant poet, deeply religious, whose endurance and stamina carried her through many hard years and painful realities.  She was a fighter, a force, a woman of word and symbol.  May she dance now with her ancestors and so many of her loved ones who went ahead of her.  She gave this earth all she had.

Snow Day!

 We all got to stay home today. The keeper was supposed to be at a rehearsal at the Cathedral

for Nuestra Virgen de Guadalupe tonight, but wisely, they cancelled it early today.  She spent part of the day calling everyone without internet to tell them.  We ventured out several times, but that snow was painful to the paw. 

 The trees were beautiful and the woodsmoke coming from chimneys made it seem like we were up in the mountains.  But after watching tonight's news, it was clear we were still in Seattle because the only action reported on was the Arctic Blast. We did feel sorry for all of those people in cars who had to go to work today and prayed that they might get home before midnight in one piece.

Moon Again

We watch your ascent and wonder.

Surprise Harvest

The tomatillos finally started to grow--just in time for the freeze!  Of course we had to bring them in, even though they are small.  But it's a small victory for the keeper. And tomatillo sauce is good with chicken and with salmon.  We can say this because we have had samples.

Playing Inside

A day to chase our mice and birds inside (not that we ever really chase anything outside).

Feast of Christ the King

We woke up this morning and saw a layer of white on the deck.  It melted fast. More snow fell later, but it was gone by the time we were able to go out, but it was too cold to play outside.  So we stayed in and played. The keeper was at the Cathedral and another church most of the day.

Luna--Full and Chill

It hasn't snowed yet, but the wind was a biter and the leaves chased after us. We didn't really want to spend much time outside today. A man came to work in the yard and clean our gutters and he was so cold that he worked much faster than usual. But we hope you all caught a view of the moon tonight. Of course we remember Stassi with every full moon, and how he loved to go out and play in its light.

 

At SU

The keeper left us for some meetings at SU.  The wall of the chapel was lovely.

The meetings were lovely too.

It Might Snow!

Alice:  Cecil, why do you keep looking out the window?

Cecil: Don't you listen to the news?  It's in the paper too. S-N-O-W!

Alice: No way!  It was really warm the other day.  It's too early.

Cecil:  Way! I smelled it outside.  I used to live in Colorado. 

You can smell it. It smells like diesel and with hint of pencil lead. 

Alice:  Oh.  Does the keeper know?  She doesn't like snow.

Cecil:  She pretends it's not going to happen. When it snows

do we run out of food?

Alice:  Oh no, she will walk to the store in the snow if we run out.

Cecil:  So what's not to like? She stays home, and

has the pleasure of spending time with us. She should be grateful!

A Day Which Ended Well

It was a stormy, rainy day.  The wind blew another blanket of leaves on the ground.  We watched from our window perches grateful that we were inside.  The keeper drove off into the rainy mess.  But by the time she came home this evening to feed us, the rain was gone and the setting sun winked at us.  The keeper ran off to a wonderful gathering at the Cathedral and then came home to play with us. 

A Day of Hard Work

It was a great day for us.  The keeper spent the whole day at home today! And it didn't rain. So we went out and worked.  The keeper worked too.  Now we spent most of the time marking our own territory and then snuck out to the neighbors' yards and did the same.  When we finished, we made sure that the keeper did a thorough job of raking up all the leaves---6 bagsful, moving the hoses back inside, winter proofing faucets, and all kinds of other things.  She was outside most of the day,  and we just kept encouraging her and pointing out other details that would keep her (and us) out longer.  We are going to bed early tonight though.  We are exhausted!

Autumn Saturday Coming Home

Retreat for 300!

The keeper left us pretty early this morning to help out at a retreat for 191 kids and their families.  It was a little crazy, but the kitchen team was fabulous, and the multiplication of the tamales, tostadas, fruit, and sandwiches was incredible.

Moveable Doors

The door that now blocks our tygers' eye view of the side yard



The door we used to spy on the side yard

So,  here's the story about OUR day.  It is true that the keeper trotted off to Bellevue to some meetings and work.  But before she left, our new friend Blake ,the carpenter, showed up.  We were locked into a room with everything we needed--food, litter toys, etc.  Little did we know that we would spend the day locked up like this while Blake worked on changing some of the doors.  The door that led outside from the mudroom is now the door that leads from the mudroom to the kitchen.  We loved that door because we could see everything going on outside in the small side yard. It had little windows. But now the old kitchen door leads outside and it is solid wood at the bottom.  Now we can't see what's going on in the side yard anymore.  Both of us howled about this, but she ignored us.  She told us that it is more secure this way.  And besides she had a window pane taken out of the new kitchen door so we have a cat door to the mud room.  She says it will help keep heat from escaping.  Rah Rah.  She never asks OUR opinions. Sigh.

At the Newcastle Golf Club

 The keeper and the Dean spent a pleasant afternoon at the NGC.  No, the golf clubs stayed in the garage.  But they enjoyed a lovely lunch with incredible views and great conversation.  She brought us home a piece of her Painted Hills hamburger.  It was the first hamburger she had eaten in years.  She liked it because it was from a local farm where they treat the cows well.

Golden

The day was beautiful.  We were locked inside.  The neighbor came to rake and we watched carefully. We played with our fake mice and pretended we were outside. There were trees that we won't get to see. Trees that glitter all gold and miraculous, trees which take the keeper's breath away every time she passes them. They line streets nearby and leave lovely gold litter. No, we will never get to see them. She says that it's all for our safety.  But we did hear on the grapevine that coyotes roam the street and the ravines.  So we play with fur toys and birds on strings. Sigh.

Digging in the Rain

The keeper was determined to plant all of the rest of the bulbs with the long strange names.  She finally donned a long raincoat, her boots, and grabbed her shovel.  Cecil and I came out for awhile, but it was wet.  We went back inside and watched her.  She was pretty muddy but happy at the end of it.  And we think this is the end of it. We think they are all buried now, put to sleep in the damp earth, covered with a blanket of leaves. Our only suggestion is that she should plant a few more in the KittyRood section of the yard, so Lord Downs and Prince Anastassi  have a little winter company. 

Monday at Costco

The keeper came home from Costco with gifts of good wine for the leaf fairies. But she also told us about the wild rainstorm she found when she came out.  It was just ending and when she looked up she saw a full rainbow that stretched between Edmonds and Mountlake Terrace and Shoreline and Lake Forest Park.  She tried to get others in the parking lot to stop and see it, and some did, but most wanted to rush to the warehouse or to their cars.  When she got home it wasn't raining at all.  Microclimates!

Monday at Home

We spent the day inside mostly.  The keeper had a day off and was being quite the little housewife. We have clean blankets and rugs and water bowls now.  While she went out to run errands the leaf fairies came back and swept up 6 more bag of leaves for her. They brought their dog who made faces at us through the door. Finally we got to go out late in the day, but the keeper had also nailed up the open board in the swinging gate so we can't sneak out to the neighbors. For some odd reason it seems to be getting darker earlier and we can't figure it out.  It seems like time went backward or something.  Maybe it's all in our furry little heads. We have a hard time reading clocks.

In the Waiting is the Hope

 This morning our keeper told us that she was heading off to Seattle U to meet the leaders of the Hispanic Young Adults for a retreat they were having all over campus with Fr. F.  She said she was very excited to introduce them to the campus.  They spent the day on a quiet prayer pilgrimage through different parts of the campus, and she said the ones which seemed to draw the most inspiration out of people were the reservation chapel in the St. Ignatius and the Shrine to the Salvadoran martyrs. 

Meanwhile we stayed at home hoping for her return.  While we waited for her, our wonderful neighbors moved out to the street all the sacks of leaves which they had raked earlier in the week.
We knew she would be pleased to see that.  We were hoping she would be even more pleased to see us waiting so faithfully for her. 

The Pearl of Great Price

After her morning meetings, the keeper was determined to go back to the field and find the Blackberry Pearl, especially after she talked to T Mobile about new plans!  She donned her rubber boots, took a rake and some gardening gloves this time. She looked like one of Wendell Berry's wild farmer women, raking the grass on the road side of the fence.  She raked up all kinds of interesting artifacts, but as she was coming to the end of her search she spied a red metallic lump, and there was the pearl, in a ditch, a little damp, but still working, waiting to be found.  Oh, there was rejoicing and cheering! And I think we get to have a little halibut tonight. She did not sell everything and buy the field though. She is back in her right mind.  Or perhaps she found it again in the ditch.  It started raining right after she found it. 

Wild Animals Outside

The keeper drowned her phone loss sorrows in ice cream.  And Cecil and I did everything we could to get her to let us out.  No luck. Wild animals visited us last night.  They dragged our pillows around the side yard.  We wanted to catch them.  Cecil told me he saw them early this morning and meowed and meowed, but neither the keeper nor I woke up.  She tells us she appreciates our desires to protect the hearth, but she would rather protect us first. Sigh.

A Day Which Started Well

We tried to go out this morning, but the keeper had to go out to her office and there she stayed all day.  She told us she would come home early and let us out.  And here is the story she told us:
She let her office early enough so we could all be out but on the way home saw the Olympics in the slowly sinking day and had to stop.  She not only stopped but jumped out of her car into a grassy area bordering a fence.  Here are a couple of the pictures she caught from the side of the fence.  She was so enraptured with the sky and the mountains and the view that she jumped back and forth over the ditch.  We were all set to go out and play when she got home, but she started looking for her Blackberry.  She couldn't find it anywhere--the car, the pockets, the brief case, the purse, the computer bag...NO WHERE. So she dumped everything and drove back to the field to look for the phone before it  got too dark.  All she found were condom wrappers and beer cans.  ( It's by the high school.) She rechecked her office, and came home empty handed and out of her mind.  She lost her brain she said.  Well, it's all suspended for now.  She may go back tomorrow and look. But most likely she will bring home a new phone.  We haven't seen her this wild.  Perhaps we do not understand this panic. Does she act like this when we run away? 

Record Breaker Day

The last time the temperature rose this high on this day was 1949.  We suppose it was a wonderful day outside, but we wouldn't know since the keeper left this morning and we were stuck inside watching all the other cats visit our yard.  We hoped she would return home early, but no, she came home after it was dark.  She did bring home a photo she shot from her car while slowed down by the Roanoake exit. She told us  how beautiful the sunset was and how the Cascades  glittered in the sun.   Maybe we can go out tomorrow. Sigh.

Night of All Souls

Tonight was an at home night.  We listened to Mozart's Requiem, lit candles at our altar for the deceased friends and saints, and had a meditative quiet time.  Much better than listening to the election returns.

The Window of Memory

We are teaching Cecil our family customs.  Every November the keeper places photos of her family and beloved parishioners who have died in the pockets in her curtain.  She figures she has helped bury hundreds of people and has run out of room for every one's photo.  But we spend the month with these friends who have gone ahead.  Cecil thought it was a little odd.  Clearly he wasn't raised in a Catholic  home.  But I did get to include Stassi and Downs this year in the line up.

Late Bloomers

 The nasturtiums are finally blooming.  Hopefully the frost won't get to them for awhile.

Burying the Bulbs on Day of the Dead

Today is the Feast of All Souls, Day of the Dead, Dia de los Muertos, and  the sun came out and we got to go outside!  The keeper was determined to bury the new bulbs she had received in the mail.  Big parrot tulips and peony tulips and anemones.  So she got out the boots again.  We were impressed, but did not offer to help.  It seemed like a great celebration of death and resurrection  for her