Trip to Palisades

We stayed in today. The keeper is really back to working away from home. The keeper took a trip down to Dash Point to the retreat house for a meeting. As she drove south, Mt. Rainier stood strong in a light curtain of mist. She ended up taking this photo from Federal Way. But she also told us how she saw the bishops of Region XII down there on retreat. They were not at her meeting, but shared the same lunch hour.

She wanted us to know about that she took the express lanes and as she was entering the southern lanes, three pieces of paper stapled together flew up alongside her car. She began to wonder what those pages represented. She had almost an hour to think about this. Had a bully thrown out someone's school essay? Was it a job evaluation that didn't go well? Was it a map to an important meeting? Was it a map to hidden treasure? Was it a medical report? Important documents? Evidence for a trial? a poem? an essay for publication? A "farewell, I can't love you anymore" letter? a suicide note? How did it land on the express lane? Had someone thrown it out intentionally? Did it fly out of a recycling truck, a moving truck? an accident scene? " We will never know," said the keeper, "but the wondering was quite delicious."

Epiphanies

Today is the traditional feast of Epiphany. Stars and gifts and Wise Ones seeking truth and God.

The keeper was off at work all day and we were inside amusing ourselves with our toys and mostly, sleeping and waiting for her to come home. She came home and couldn't stop talking about how much she loves leaving her office in the evening. (Well, duh, we hope so...she should be so excited to get home to us!) Tonight she said that the sky was painted in colors that grew more bright and rich with each passing minute till a final explosion of color at sunset. We do think that the photos are beautiful. She said that she couldn't drive and shoot photos simultaneously. We are grateful.

We got to go out, but it was cold. So we rushed back in to find her doing Jillian's killer routine in front of the tv. She is really into this. We are proud of her perseverance.

One sad note: we found out that the ferret we mentioned several posts ago, Starbright, didn't make it, and died on Sunday. We send our condolences to Starbright's family. It's hard to lose a pet who was such an important part of the family. Rest in heavenly peace, Starbright!

.

St. John Neumann Day

Greetings on the Feast of St. John Neumann. Now, you may know as much as the 2 of us know about this man. But this morning the keeper told us that he was an immigrant priest who was sent from Bohemia to Philadelphia. He became a friend to the many immigrant poor there, and died while delivering food to a poor family.

The keeper also told us this morning that if we were going to sit on her lap in the living room, we needed to reflect on today's Gospel from Mark about the feeding of the 5000 men....(note...men, imagine how many more people were there--women, children, pets!) So we sat and listened to her. You can tell she misses preaching sometimes. She said she had visited that purported place, and it was pretty deserted before all the tourists started coming. She wanted us observe how the disciples, who were weary of the crowd ( they thought they were going on a little break--ha!) wanted to send them away to buy food. Then Jesus told them to give them food. All the d's could imagine was that they would have to buy all these people bread. But J asks them to give what they had....She asked us to think about the difference between buying and giving. It is much easier for many to buy things for others...much more difficult to share from our very selves...a la mother pelican. Do we rush out to buy when we are really being asked to give? Now, we don't rush out to buy much since she won't let us drive or have money. However, we think the keeper could reflect on this question for awhile.

Alice went out and sat on the hot tub for a while and watched birds. She loves watching them, and can't figure out why she can't catch them. she doesn't realize that they are dive-bombing her on purpose to tease... Eventually, she quits making that low throaty bird chasing growl, and yawns and comes in.

We also hope that all of our friends, MK and Molly and Sheila and Pat and others had a great wild time watching The Bachelor last night. We didn't see it because we were busy reading about changing the keeper's metabolism so she could be svelte and full of energy. Today we started cleaning out things that slow the metabolism down---processed foods, fake sugar, plastics, etc...Big garbage day coming up!

Mastering our Metabolisms

" It's a real Seattle January," said the keeper as we looked out the window and longed for June. The school buses rolled by in yellow blurs, the fog wrapped the tallest of the trees in the woods, and we could hear the steady splash on the road. " So much better than last year with all that snow," said the keeper. We looked a her a bit disgustedly. She is always thinking of herself. She forgets that last year when we had so much snow, we were free to run outside and leap in it and play till our paws couldn't take any more. Sigh. So, we are relegated to chasing those rabbit fur mice around the floor inside.

But, because it's the beginning of January, we know to expect a new project from the keeper. We have been waiting to find out... in the past it's been a dissertation, a class, house fixing, the gym in the garage....it's always something. OK, we found out about it today. It seems she has been concerned about old age and weight gain. So...we now have a new friend around the house-Jillian--some tv coach, and so the keeper is teaching us all about how to get our metabolism racing. We watched her try to do it tonight with the new video. We tried to do it with her, but she didn't appreciate that. She couldn't finish it all, but Jillian promises great things o those who persevere. And we know that the keeper is a persevering person. So, rock hard abs...here we come. It also means we will be cleaning out our cupboards of toxic " metabolism-slowing" foods and substances. Hopefully she will leave our Greenie treats.

Second Day of MMX

The keeper wasn't going to do any more blogging tonight because again, she is sick of her computer. It dropped a whole data base of info. We are sure that the fact she was talking on the phone and trying to finish up the project was not a factor???!!!! But I have talked her into it by sitting on the computer and telling her that I will help.

A quiet day, she worked, we slept and begged for treats. But we heard about a friend's ferret, Starbright, who isn't doing well. She is an older ferret--4 years old. But when her keepers came back from Orlando, they found her weak and sick. They are nursing her back to health. We think she just missed them all. I know what happened to my brother Lord Downs when the keeper was gone once. He missed her so much that he died. I also think he had a heart attack.

But our love goes out to little Starbright! We hope you rally and get better soon! We are not sure we would like to meet a ferret, but Starbright sounds nice.

The keeper went out late afternoon to delier a symphony ticket to her friend K on QA Hill.

It was beautiful out and it is starting to stay a little lighter later. It was 5 and still not dark!

She also stopped at Trader Joes on QA and it looked like locusts had run through it--care shelves, scattered produce---the delivery truck had been delayed for a day or two. she said she felt she was visiting a second world country. But they still had a lot of Christmas chocolate treats. She didn't buy any. We understand we will be starting a fitness regime very soon. Sigh--wheat grass in our food. Whee! Agh! Hairball time!

Happy MMX!

Happy New Year to one and all! Today the keeper almost slept through the alarm but we made sure that she got out of bed and sure enough, she slipped into the front row as the entrance procession approached the sanctuary! She said she ran into all kinds of dear friends, some of whom even read our blog! Hi there!!!!

The best thing that happened in this new day of new year was that the keeper came home and spent the whole rest of the day and evening with us! She read most of the magazines she has been stacking in the den. We all sat in the living room, sipping coffee ( not us). We helped her stay still by sitting on her lap. She built us a fire, and we listened to beautiful Christmas music. Yes, that's right. It's still Christmas time!

Alice received an email birthday greeting from Dr. Smalley and Northgate Vets. She is 6 now. We got to eat out of our new bowls. Alice had some salmon for her treat tonight. So did I, but don't tell her.

Last Post of 2009

Hi Everyone! The keeper didn't quite get back to our blog yesterday. She refused to do it. She was mad at our computer. We watched her race to finish the newsletter before the New Year. She had worked for the past few days on it. It was 6 pages. But when she went to recheck it to send, two pages had disappeared into ? She never found them. So, at 4 PM last night she reconstructed two pages and finally sent them all out before she got ready to go out for New Year's Eve. But she slammed her computer shut and wouldn't send out our post. And our posting was all about how hard she was working on the newsletter. so there.

She did go out and had a great time at the Cathedral--drinks, dinner, an incredible Handel concert with angels appearing after midnight, and champagne and the dessert with the musicians. A fine night. She seemed to forget about the newsletter troubles. She was much nicer when she got home, and she gave us treats. Of course, it was a new year. MMX.