the busy heart

Before A year or so ago, I found this baby lamp at the thrift store. I think I paid a couple bucks for it, thinking I'd revamp it at some point since I wasn't crazy about the yellow gingham. A few weeks ago I thought I'd tackle the project, and found this stretchy turquoise lace fabric in my stash. I used modge podge and some hot glue to cover it (which was ... maybe not the best method, but it got the job done), and here's the after. After And because he hopped up right as I was taking pictures and looked so picturesque, here's Meatsock with the Moon. Cat + Moon

Merry Christmas!  This is the first time we've ever decorated our house for Christmas.  Sam's mom sent us ornaments that Sam's received every year since he was a baby, and it was cool to see him remember them and be excited.  I don't think of him as the type to get terribly excited about things like Christmas, but, well, he was terribly excited. So were the kitties.  As soon as we set up the Chirstmas tree, they assumed positions beneath it, which is precisely where kitties belong.  When I was a wee lass, we had a kitty named Smokey who was always beneath the tree at Chirstmas time, swatting at bird ornaments.  (If you look closely in the top picture, you can see little Sprout to the right of Meatsock under the tree.) And here she is up close.  And the tree in its glory. And my favorite ornament. Sam's mother also sent us a gorgeous nativity that Sam's great grandmother made.  It's so beautiful, so so beautiful, and...

I've been playing with my editing software.  I'm certain I'm an amateur, but I'm having a lovely time.  So is T.  Can't you tell?

We caught the kitties existing harmoniously on our bed. This was before we moved. Now they can all find separate corners, and they certainly take advantage of the space.                                                                    [tadzio the great.]                                                                    ...

Due to moving, health trouble, and a picky computer, it's been over a month since I posted.  Which is a real shame since I have a lot to say, and a lot of pictures. I finally figured out how to get those pictures onto a computer that doesn't take an hour to upload, so I'm going to try to post some of them.  (Incidentally, how do you folks handle your pictures?  How do you organize them; what program do you use to edit and keep them, etc?  Do tell.  I'm sooo annoyed with Picasa and with everything else I've been trying.) I might as well begin with the most recent pictures, which I took last night.  Here's Sam reading a book to Ms. Sprouty the Cat.  She had come up for her nightly snuggle, and seemed to be quite interested in his book, so he pulled her up close and read her Coetzee in his best reading voice.  His reading voice is pretty good.  Is it weird that it made me look forward to him reading to our someday-children?

This pictures seems to capture so many things that are lovely to me. (Did I post it already?) Open windows. A sunny day. Green green leaves. Gauzy pretty curtains. Framed postcards from Europe trip. Decorative object from Portabello Road. Handsome, contemplative, tail-less kitty. Our first apartment in Boston.

I went to Dollar Tree the other day for frames. Dollar store frames are my favorite. I put several of our Europe trip postcards in them. I also couldn't help picking up a cat toy for a buck. I got a little fake bird--styrofoam covered with feathers--thinking it might remind them of days at my parents' house when they were allowed outside. They'd catch big dirty birds, murder them, then drag them into the living room to show my parents. Much to my parents' delight, I can assure you. Apparently vacuuming up feathers is annoying. Who knew? Now, from the way they sit in open windows, noses pressed longingly to the screens, I think they miss those days. So I bought the bird. Meatsock immediately commenced murdering it. Until it is, after a day, as you see it here. Poor thing. Here is Kitty, giving Bird a big friendly kiss. And here he is again, just after he'd knocked it to the ground and gnawed its styrofoam jugular a little more. They're the best of fr...

A cat in Monterosso, the town in Cinque Terre where we stayed. He was sitting patiently on the windowsill of a fancy seafood restaurant. On the counters just below him were mounds of prawns and squid and eel and floppy fish. He didn't seem to want to get in, just sniff deeply, remember such a world exists. Who can blame him? Can you see the man in the window? We thought he looked like an aging Popeye.

I have so many pictures to post, I don't even know where to start. We're home from New York. It was a lovely trip (you'll see the pics), but we're so glad to be back with our kitties for a few days. We don't like driving that far, we've decided. And we like these cats. Several times a day we lament leaving them for a month while we're in Europe. If we could take them and not make them miserable, we would. (Gratuitous picture of the kitties. The one on the right is the baby, left is the mama. He is enormous.) (And one of Sam's kitty, Tadzio, T-Todd, etc. He's gorgeous, no? He's like a male cat model.) Anyway, before I plaster pictures, here are a few random bits of information: *The day before we left, my car stopped working. Wouldn't start. Apparently I have bought the precise make and year of a Toyota with a defective computer. All of the computers on this particular car go out sooner or later. There isn't a recall on the part. My warr...

Tonight I made tasty white bean basil/thyme hummus, which is in the bowl there. Only, my thyme migrated to the back of the fridge and got frozen, as you see there. My time got frozen, I thought while squeezing a lemon. Frozen in thyme. And suddenly I was at the prom. Is that not the theme for 97,000 proms a year? In other news, while eating said hummus, which was not as good as the last time I made it, which makes it a bummer I doubled it, this is what the cat did. He was, himself, frozen like that for most of the meal. (Yes, my kitchen rug is yucky. Fire me please. Please, fire me.) He did that right up until he decided to do this. I would give my left arm to know what happens in that little guy's brain.

This morning at five a.m., the kitties did their usual routine: chasing and running and jumping and playing on and around our sleeping bodies. Oh how I hate that particular routine. It's like they have little cat alarm clocks. Playtime, it rings. So I got up, coaxed them into the kitchen by shaking their food box, fed them a little, then snuck back in and closed the door. And Sam said, "I was just dreaming that Meatsock [the kitty] had a science test. A biology test, in one of those big auditoriums that hold hundreds of people. And you were really worried he wouldn't do well. And I was trying to tell you he'd do just fine." "Was he a human form of Meatsock?" I asked. "No, definitely a cat. No opposable thumbs or anything." Then I remembered/realized what I'd been dreaming. I confess, I record a few episodes of America's Next Top Model a week on DVR, and I watched two last night while I graded midterms. And you know what I was...

Pardon me for being a doting cat-mom, but is this not the cutest Meatsock you've ever seen in a dryer? No idea how he managed to hop up there. But oh he charms me. (Sorry for the sideways view. I'm too lazy to fix it in picasa. And I kinda like it that way.) Also, Sam and I watched Arachnophobia for the first time last night. Why do people make movies like that? Movies that make me screech when my sweater, sock, or hair touch me? Movies that cause me to stand up on my couch, screaming and stamping my feet? And that was just me. Even Sam, who watches horror movies for FUN, was freaking out. We had to watch stupid TV just to get over it.

I opened up a few cans of garbanzo beans to make a salad, and my cats came dashing into the kitchen as if I were opening kitty chow. No, they were more enthusiastic than that. It was like their long lost brothers were trapped in those cans, and I had finally agreed to release them. I thought they'd be deterred when I set a few on the tile, that they'd see they were boring old beans. But they were even more excited. MeowmeowMEOW they said. Sam's cat, on the other hand, was not as thrilled with his bean. He gave us the look that he gives us when he sits patiently by the table and we finally offer him a bit of soy-meat. It's this look that so clearly says, "Humans, that's not food. I'll be fine, really. I'm just worried for you two. You're eating dirt." Which seems a normal reaction for a cat. Clearly, my cats are hippies. They cry for spinach, for brown rice, for SEAWEED. And now, garbanzos.

I got word this morning that my essay on my polygamist ancestors got accepted for the CEA conference in Baltimore. So we'll head down there beginning of March. Any thoughts on Baltimore? More beautifully, Sam and I bought tickets for Europe. We got a deal. And in the end, throwing around dates, we decided if we're gonna go, we ought to just stay and stay. So we'll be gone for almost the entire month of June. Sweet bliss. We fly in and out of Paris, but we're planning on bopping around all over the country. Any suggestions? We're planning on some time in Paris, a few days in London, a week or so in Norway. And we're thinking one other place. Any thoughts, Folks? Also, if you've had lovely experiences in any of the places I mentioned, tell me everything, please. Only downside: leaving our kitties. Cue another picture of Meatsock, as a babe.

This is the second Sunday in a row that church has been cancelled. That's right, cancelled. It has DUMPED snow the last two weekends, and it's just too risky for the whole ward to try and get there. You think this might be kind of cool: a bishop-sanctioned day off. But really I just go sort of loopy. Today I stayed in bed until two, napping and reading and petting my cats. Then I got really really depressed. Which is what usually happens when I stay in bed until two. So, I offer three things of interest: 1. Sam and I were convinced we had bedbugs last night. Utterly convinced. Our bed and mattress are brand new from Ikea, but still. We were so itchy that neither of us could sleep. After blissfully considering flaying myself, I decided we should change the sheets (which we had just changed the night before). Sam lifted up the mattress pad to discover a frightening collection of small black things. They were about twice the size of poppyseeds, looking like eggs or dead bugs or so...

I've had this raging cold for several weeks now, and my mom suggested, as a joke, that I might be allergic to cats. We have three, you know. So I asked Sam, "What would you do if it turned out I was allergic to kitties?" The man said, "We'd just take out a personal ad: 'Well-behaved Mormon Female to good home. Friendly disposition. Toilet trained. Likes pillows and cupcakes.'" He likes the cats. Anyway, no more school. Big sigh. We're under the Tucson sun, visiting Sam's family. Went shopping with his mama, had a fancy dinner with the whole crew. The first grandbaby is about to make its debut in the world. Any hour now. We watched Emily's belly at dinner, saw the little feet kick it out. Back in Boston it's 16 degrees. My school campus is closed because of the millions of feet of snow on the ground. And we are here in shirtsleeves. The sky is very big.

Right now I'm sitting cross-legged on my bed, and the cat named Meatsock has all four paws balanced on my knee like a mountain goat. Good kitty. It doesn't matter really, but this has been a rude week. I got a cold AGAIN, which doubles the fun of any given venture. I tried to have an event at school, and the dude that was presenting was forty-five minutes late, then the sound wouldn't work, then most of the students left, then I realized I forgot to arrange to PAY the man, and someone in charge of me clucked their tongue at my incompetence. That evening, I was supposed to go to this Relief Society Wreath Making activity because I was sort of in charge, and I went and sang in the program, and when everyone else wept a little at the moving Christmas music, I sobbed. I couldn't stop crying. I snuck out before the wreath making or the real socializing. At this rate, I'm going to have so many friends. I also listened to a book on CD about budgeting (Dave Ramsey) wh...

Today was a milestone in our household, at least kitty-wise. We fed them. They did this: This may not seem shocking. They're just eating next to one another. But the proximity is key. For reference, the kitty on the left is my cat, Meatsock. The one on the right is Sam's, Tadzio. They're tough, territorial fellows. Or at least they'd like everyone to think that. They're actually desperately affectionate saps. I mean that in a good way. Do they hate each other? Yes, yes they do. Since Meaty arrived, they pretty much haven't been able to coexist in the same room without a festival of hissing, a flurry of paw swipes. But slowly, in the last week or so, they've been cozying up to one another, relatively speaking. I caught them napping on the same bed a few nights ago. Not snuggling, mind you. But on the same bed. Shocking behavior. And then. This moment! The one you see here! Eating! Right next to each other! Granted, they were starving. They'd been a...

Here's Sam and yours truly in front of the Bunker Hill Monument. Here are pretty trees above a cemetery in the North End. And here is Tadzio, Sam's kitty. He did not like the new young kitties showing up. He could tell as SOON as they walked through the door, and he started up the hiss-fest. But, actually, now, he's pretty chill. Meatsock hisses and hisses him, and he just waits for him to shut up so he can get by and get the cat food. Also, and here's the real bonus: he likes me more now. I must be the least of all the recently-added evils, but suddenly he lets me pet him and he'll sit on the bed when I'm in it and just generally doesn't give me evil eyes like he's always done. This is a miracle. These are my kitties. They did not like the airport. Meatsock peed on himself, which made the ride home in the car REALLY fragrant and fun. And he pretty much cried from the time my parents left the house until Sam got done scrubbing him down with a hot and s...

My parents are currently in New York at JFK airport. They've been there for six hours, and counting. Worse still, they have my cats. Because we wanted Sam's kitty to have a chance to stake out his territory before my cats arrived, Sprouty and Meatsock stayed with my parents. They're happy there, showered with attention: my dad lets them attack his feet while he reads, my mom feeds them seaweed (which they LOVE, oddly enough), and they get to play in the backyard and catch birds. (Then they bring the birds inside to show my parents, and get even MORE attention.) So the plan was for my parents to come out and visit and deliver the creatures. This morning they flew from Salt Lake to New York fine, but the flight they were booked on from there to here was cancelled. They were standby for a 7pm flight, but that didn't work out. So they are stuck there until 10:30. My parents are frazzled and bored enough. Imagine my cats. They're stuck in these little bags; they haven...