…went out to get stuff for Grandma Van’s Cake, and of all things forgot the milk! I can used dried milk.
It was a zoo out there, people wandering around with a glazed look, frantically snatching the last strange stuffed animal or game, and me, I’m off in the baking aisle trying to find Baking soda. [Which usually gets used up in our marine tank.] But I found pecans. Not easy in the Northern States. Had to go for whole halves, as opposed to chopped, which is spendier. I found brown and powdered sugar. And Jane, bent on her own Christmas notions, exited with a can of popcorn.
We got our banana cream pie…we have our champagne. We got oil to refill the lamps—
Efanor loves to prowl the coffee table. He’s usually careful. Last night he got his tail tip in the oil lamp flame. Twice. There was a slight singed smell, but he wasn’t burned, and we don’t think he noticed.
We have one cat who loves to set himself alight—and one who believes that all Christmas bows are cat toys, but defective ones that cannot be used creatively after you have pulled them off their packages. She also loves to munch organza ribbon. A see-through ribbon will bring her across a room to attack it.
What else makes a good cat toy? Mr. Cat will cheerfully bat around the four pin > RJ 11 telephone adapter but ignores Any Toy Intended For Cats. He also likes the little covers you have to pull off the inkjet cartridge and my shoes.
We will not have a tree or tinsel or bows here, so maybe we’re missing out on something. Maybe next year we will pilot the BOW concept.
The tough, thick plastic hangers stores use to hang belts (with the size and price tag) apparently make great cat toys. One of my cats stole one before it got into the garbage / recycling can. It reappeared the other day in a bid for me to play with him, which of course I did.
Today, I went out to do the one and only day of local looking for Christmas shopping. Had some success, but after about an hour and a half, I reached my saturation level. I did find a few things. But I kept thinking, “no, not that,” or “too pricey,” and so on, and realized that between that and fighting the crowds, I just wasn’t in the spirit. I had already done some online shopping, so things are not too bad. My gift list was way down anyway. But I’ve already told some friends that I was behind and that I may do after-Christmas shopping…or it may wait till another holiday.
Mostly, I’m satisfied, but I would’ve liked to have gotten it all done.
Still, maybe I needed to take it easy. I’d promised myself not to push and stress myself out too much. I’ve been more fatigued and stressed and colds / other sinus-related stuff far more often this year than many years now. This is the first year since sometime in high school or college I’ve had that much sinus / colds / allergy / whatsits crud. — Hoping for a better year next year.
When I got back from shopping today…I’ve been playing hookie, reading Netwalkers: Groundties.
Tomorrow, I wrap remaining presents and prep my laptop to take with me over the weekend, on the off chance I can’t sleep or have unexpected time to myself. Foreigner 1 will go with me for the same reason, along with a notebook to write in and a sketchbook to (duh) sketch in. ๐
I’m very glad I don’t have a cat disaster story to share. My two will stay home (with lots of food and water) over the weekend, starting Friday night, and I’ll be right back Monday morning. I may be able to get a friend to give me a ride to check on them over the weekend, though. ๐
Tomorrow evening, I’ll be fixing wassail, from an old bank recipe dating to at least the 60’s or 50’s, a favorite of ours.
OOOOHHH WASSAIL! ๐ Would you be willing to share your recipe? I lost mine in my misspent youth.
Happy Christmas to you and yours!
I was out earlier, one of the tired looking people eying books, CDs, chocolate bars and other bits and pieces of present collections and came home planning to eat and then work/relax on the socks and scarf I am knitting as presents for Saturday giving. But instead, I realized I had a Thank You blog in my head for my colleagues at work, who over the past week and a bit have bought six cows’ worth of crafts the Samburu of northern Kenya made for KARE (an org I help out with) and I to sell to restock their decimated cattle herds. Knitting will get done, one way or another (I’m famous in my family for IOUs). It seemed more appropriate to think and write about how people one side of the country or world can care about others they have never met in person, only heard about their lives. From the frazzledness of shopping this evening after work, I am much happier now having reflected on the niceness of my fellow humans. That’s one of the things I regularly reflect on as I read this blog too. So, Merry Christmas, all!
Once long, long ago, I had a long haired cat who did a fabulous job of torching his tail. He also decided to wander over the coffee table and twitched his tail thru a candle and phuFT! a big flash of blue flame, I yelp and try to grab him which didn’t work well. But the time I chased him down, he was fine, no skin hurt, but half the tail had been flambed and looked really strange for a couple of months.
Currently since we’re home for the holidays, we have lots of lights all over outside, a lovely faux tree with oodles of lights inside and not a single ornament to be found. Having Marley — seen in the new picture — now 9 months and a complete teenager made me go hmmmm. The girls are older and rather blazee about the whole thing. Marley, however is inventive. Since husband hauled the little beast out of the middle of the tree this morning where he was lying down [Bob said all he saw was Marley’s tail and when he got close, yep he was actually lying sprawled across several branches] to get a better view out the front window [and ignoring the nice padded window seat 5 feet away with the same view], NOT putting anything bright, shiny, dangly and fragile on the tree was probably a good thing.
I learned long, long ago to never ever put bows, ribbons or other embellishments on presents because my animals tend to fall in the it-must-be-good-to-eat, not the it-must-be-good-to-kill category. But relatives just don’t get it. Usually it’s not too much of a problem, but last night I heard this sprong — and turned to see Marley with part of those stretchy gold rope thingies you just slip around package corners in his month pulling as far as he could before letting go.
I swear I was thinking Bob Marley [which does mirror his temprament] when we named him, not Marley the dog ๐
My wife and daughter brought our cats a toy helicopter for Christmas. It has them fascinated, really brings on the hunting instinct.
The dogs? They duck.
Wayne
Happy holidays!
I miss holidays, but Russ is still working on the East Coast and can’t make it home for the 4th year in a row. Sigh. I even miss crazed shopping crowds. LOL. That’s kind of pathetic.
I will bring out a few toys I’ve squirreled away for the cats, though. That should be fun!
zette
lol, I have to laugh, my furrybrat is at this moment snuggled up to the space heater. He has a not-so-secret romance going, I think. As soon as I walk through the door, he’s pestering me to turn it on. I refuse to leave it on when I’m not sitting here to watch because I’m afraid he’ll stick his tail in it or something, so he is constantly under foot if I’m out of the room long enough for it to cool down. When he has to resort to alternatives, its a sunny windowsill or the seedling heating mat I stuck up on the fish tank just for him.
The grumpy old fart Mitwit (short for Mittens the nitwit) isn’t overly fond of things that don’t produce heat, but another cat I had used to love the plastic rings that lock milk jug lids on, hair scrunchies, wire-ties and fir-tree cones. She was a bit scrambled before she adopted my dog, and I was only allowed to hang out because I had the opposable thumb for opening food. Toys were whatever didn’t move fast enough, and her absolute favorite was the black lab.
Emily & Katie have asked me (at oh-dark-thirty, as cats are wont to do) to advise Efanor to be more careful!
Our cats got a toy Helicopter for Christmas, and have been honing their hunting skills trying to knock it out of the sky. They’ve gotten so aggressive that Sammy, our Beagle, has lost the end of his tail, Mittens chewed it off! Luckily Sammy is a placid dog. He didn’t mind.
๐
Efanor, I can report, didn’t set himself alight last night—perhaps the boy can be taught!
Ysabel’s favoritest thing to play with is the little sparkly puffballs they sell to be knitted onto sweaters or otherwise used as embellishment on clothing. We buy them by the packet. You get them at the hobby store near the knitting yarn and they come in seasonal colors. They’re small enough to be carried in the mouth, light enough to fling high and let them bounce (they will) and they seem to breed under the fridge.
Efanor’s favorite trick is anything that can be used to cover Ysabel’s water bowl…or dropped into it. We find any stray rubber band, fuzzball, or, when we are traveling, any item of clothing (yesterday’s t-shirt) or, if you are very unlucky, tomorrow’s underwear—will be in Ysabel’s water bowl. It does keep us neat when we’re traveling!
I realized last night that this is my first Christmas since 1970 without a pet. My boy Schmooze lost his battle with age last month. I decided to fill the space and it’s happening more quickly than I had imagined. I have two new pals coming via Meezer Express from Siamese rescue.
http://va.siameserescue.org/Imagegallery/va7445.jpg
http://va.siameserescue.org/Imagegallery/va7446.jpg
So sorry to hear about Schmooze, but I am sure that the new cats will appreciate your home.
Oh, sainteyebeat! I’m so, so sorry about your beloved Schmooze — but am so, so glad you not only have 2 new babies coming, they are rescue babies. They are beautiful babies too, with adorable faces! Much happiness to *all* of you, together!
What dolls! And what lucky kittys!
Orion and CJ, thanks. They are economic orphans. Their mom lost her home after she lost her job. Their world has been chaotic for a couple of months but they landed in a wonderful foster home in MD. Weather permitting, I will pick them up on Sunday.
What great kitties!
Let me share pictures of the two I hand raised, their mother having been picked up in a sweep for feral cats only a few hours after they were born:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/zettepics/sets/72157624051010032/
And this is Wind, stray I took in about 12 years ago. We just lost his sister a few weeks ago, alas:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/zettepics/4798046950/in/set-72157624840538415/
They’re all three good boys.
And they all three love that I have an electric blanket this year. It’s hard to get them up in the mornings.
It’s snowing here. I have to go shovel it. Ack.
Beautiful, Zette.
My electric blanket died. I was thinking today that I should get another one for the kitties.
What beautiful (and fortunate) kittehs.
I quit electric blankets when a past kitteh decided it was just yummy! Now I wake up in the morning with kittehs nested in down.
Kiki and Friendly are very good about sleeping under the tree and not attacking it. Not so with Aloysius who would like to climb it…so far chili peppers are doing the trick. No handblown and antique ornaments this year. Instead toys and origami and many chili pepper lights to make a festive tree. ๐
Beautiful cats. You can see my one puppy in my profile pic, the other one weighs close to 60 pounds, so I don’t try to pick him up. He used to babysit for our Siamese when she had kittens. Things get interesting around here, cats and dogs chasing each other…
It’s a good thing we have a King Sized bed, it’s normal for my wife and I to wake up with two dogs and four cats cuddled up with us.
Since we are sharing pet pictures, here’s one of Katie and the box. Video, actually,ย and it’s how she gets her breakfast, so I am not at my most glamorous. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Is-gx3b1GjY
And that’s filk.com playing…. I hadn’t realized that it would be picked up by the camera. It’s not a video camera, just a little old digital one that does 20 seconds of video at a time, so I always forget it picks up sound as well. That’s why the vid is a bit choppy, too. Had to keep hitting the button.
Hey smartcat and others, I had put a link to the wassail recipe at the tail of the “Grandma Van’s cake recipe” blog post comments.
Or go thataway and use the first (Bank’s) recipe.
http://www.shinyfiction.com/recipes/chapDrinks/Wassail.htm
Wassail!