Bright, bright, sunshiny Friday

It was two degrees, or so, overnight, and I didn't sleep well.

The cold hurts all my muscles and makes my bones groan.

I try not to go to work on Friday, and, year end close notwithstanding, I didn't go today.

First I went to the gym, and Kris marshaled me through her routine.

No doubt I'd been off for two weeks.

Then I went to the optometrist to pick up my new glasses.

That is the technician, making all right.

This is me, attempting my first selfie.

Good for all of you who get it done.

Far harder than it seems.

A deer foraging under the golf course trees. 

It was in a group of five or six, which probably is decent protection against a coyote attack. 

Lunch time. Home again, home again.

The wreath continues to look lovely.

Snow on pig. Snow on toad. Snow on lambie.

Snow on the bird feeder.

Snow on a full can of bird seeds. Sparrows are little piglets, too.

The pear tree has hundreds of buds set.

All is well with the world.

Just shoot me now

I once read a tidbit about President Obama, back when he was the Senator from Illinois, recounted by a page. The Senator was in a long, dry, boring committee session, and the page sat behind, equally as bored. The Senator wrote a note, folded it and passed it to the page, who unfolded it eagerly. Perhaps some information to find to add to the proceedings. A file to go for. Something. The paper read, “Just shoot me now.”

This morning my troublesome trustee loomed small in my doorway, to tell me again of her dissatisfaction. This rant began, “I’m tired of your snotty attitude toward me,” and thirteen years of perceived sins were fired at close range, few for the first time. There is no response to this, of course. I looked her steadily in the eye, and closed the door when she left.

Just shoot me now.

I’m in for three more years, two months and twenty eight days. Unless she decides not to run for another term in November. In that case, I’m still in for three more years, two months and twenty eight days, but without being lashed to the mast and verbally lacerated to the bone for several months of the year.

The really good news: we’re over winter’s hump, on the downhill slide to the end of March. I looked up the forecast and it’s beautiful:

Last Winters Snowfall
32.8

Biggest Winter Snowfall Ever!
117.9″ (2003-04)

Normal Snowfall
68.2″

This Winter (2016-2017)
75.2″ (+7.0″)

TEMPS THIS WINTER
OVERALL NEAR NORMAL

DECEMBER COLDER
JANUARY NORMAL
FEBRUARY NORMAL
MARCH WARMER

Moving on into spring, it will be warm, and sunshinny bright, then six or nine months light and bright. The  trustee’s dissatisfaction with the world will again be halved, and I will be down to two years and six months. And if she doesn’t run again? I won’t push my luck that far. My observation of the cycle of her personality is certainly not scientific. But thirteen years of it have taught me to keep my head below the bow from Christmas until April Fool’s Day.

Marking time

School recommences Wednesday.

We've watched a lot of movies.

Laura's explanation of sci-fi and horror movies finally sank in.

"They're not real, Gramma!"

Among others, I've now watched The Mummy and 2012.

Tonight we're queuing up Harvey and The African Queen. 

Laura spend a day shadowing at Elements Gallery, the porcelain studio in town.

She came home with a spoon rest and an invitation to come back.

I got the wonderful little man there. He's an egg separator.

We had egg separating issues when we baked cookies.

I once made 500 single bed quilt tops for my sister to quilt for shelters.

Emily moved out, and we made a sewing room

I asked Jan if she needed more tops.

Yes, she was down to the last three old tops to quilt.

I now have a layout artist, and a supervisor.

We've made quite a few. I'm not keeping track this time.

Laura irons them, too, which I am unable to do.

Jan used to iron them.

Win-win.

 And, I played cards with the Methodists today.

I keep my back to the refreshment table.

Those thumbprint cookies were really tempting, though.

And Wednesday I must get serious about closing 2016 and tidying up for the auditors. I did continue my unbroken streak of distributing W-2's and 1099's before the end of 2016.

That's thirteen years in a row.

Which means, three years and three months to go.

Decision made

Toby the cat was rescued from a parking lot in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. No one could locate him; he cried for a day and a night. Then a little girl played the kitty app on her phone, and he came running. No onlooker volunteered to take it, so Carol and I scrapped our plans for another day at the Three Rivers Art Festival, and concentrated on getting the scrappy kitten back to Ohio, where he devoured a bowl of water logged adult cat food, and became the topic of my first blog entry.

We found him on a Saturday, and at his trip to the vet on Monday he weighed in at a pound. The vet put him at four weeks, and pronounced him lucky to be alive. Lucky or not, he seemed reasonably content, and grew up to be a very long haired black and white, with a “Got Milk” mustache and very short legs. I told him his mama left him behind because his legs were so short.

There were two cats in the house, Purrl, the indoor/outdoor cat, and Ryon, a young rescue. Purrl, of course, had no use for either cat, but Ryon and Toby got along. Ryon fell into the habit of licking Toby’s ears. I never saw the favor returned.

Ryon and Toby

Toby did not know how lucky he was, until a January day some years ago that Ryon took an afternoon nap and did not wake up. There was no other cat to lick Toby’s ears. He took to licking the arm of any available person and rubbing his ears on the wet spot. Truly pathetic. I asked if his legs were too short to reach his ears (they really aren’t, in a stretch).

Ryon 

When we go to the vet, there often is a large crate with a few kittens. I think Dr. Mike helps the local Humane Society get them adopted. Laura always wants one, of course. As sweet as kittens are, I’m not tempted. Pets are a responsibility, and there now is that problem of longevity. Toby is under strict orders not to outlive me, but a kitten could be iffy.

Toby boarded down the road for the week we were in Wisconsin. Thinking of his great longing for an ear licker, I asked the technicians to introduce him to the common room of cat boarders as quickly as possible and let me know how Mr. Feral took to new cats.

Toby is a feral cat, and does not resemble any domesticated cats I’ve known. In the beginning, he was the kitten who had to make up to adult cats. Now he is the adult cat, set in his ways, though still wishing for an ear licker. To consider a kitten for him, I’d need to know he could be social.

Monday evening I peeked into the cat room. Cats everywhere, lolling about, snuggled up to other cats—cat stuff. And Toby, lying in his condo, door wide open, looking out. I asked the technician how his week had gone, if he’d made up with any other of the boarders.

They said his door was open, all day, every day, and he laid in the opening all week. The cats came up to investigate him, and he tolerated it without flinching. But, he never came out and said “Hi, my name is Toby. What’s yours? Do you do ears?”

So, he can stop playing pathetic cat with me, and realize his paws do reach his ears.

Toby

A week off, and back again

We arrived in Wisconsin a week too early for Christmas.

Laura helped at the kennel,

 made cookies,

and made supper every day.

This is Sawyer, one of Pat and Ann's dogs.

Sawyer is a dropout from cadaver school.

Too easily distracted. 

No cookie dough will fall, but that's not what he thinks.

Waiting for Santa.

Pat is Santa; Laura has another hat.

This is Seamus. He has old, old bones. He's about 12.

He and a sibling ran away from home. Pat returned them.

Seamus was back on the doorstep every time Pat returned him,

until the original human said, "Guess he's yours."

And another of the rescues. 

I've lost track of the number of dogs in the house all week.

When we left, there was one less bed to sleep on, every night.

Sigh. A dog's life.