We got a pretty good accumulation. We’ve been apartment bound since Friday afternoon. Diana must be restless…she is on my balcony making a snowman! Ski areas in the mid-Atlantic got at least 30″ which is about what we got here. Ski areas in Vermont like Killington and Mount Snow got nothing which doesn’t bode well for Sessions in the Snow in early March.
Category: Life in General
A Prayer for the New Year
Lord God, as I think about the year ahead I do have hope, but I admit I have some fears as well. I am carrying into the new year some problems from the past year. I also know that it is always possible that unexpected things might happen.
And so I throw myself on your mercy, dear God. In you I take refuge. I am glad that I can entrust the upcoming year to you, and to entrust my very self to you. Purify my heart, O Lord. Teach me your ways. Help me to make good, right, and healthy choices.
I also entrust my loved ones to you. I know how much they need your care. Please protect and guide them.
And, dear God, we pray for peace in our troubled world. We ask you to judge what is evil and to protect the innocent.
We take comfort in your words, “Behold, I am making all things new.” [Rev. 21:5]
Make my life new again.
Visit to National Harbor
Diana and I went to National Harbor a few weeks ago to see the tree lighting. I had never been down there before. It was nice but I wasn’t overly impressed. It is probably better in the summer. The Ferris wheel is definitely cool. I’ll have to go up in that some time. We checked out the sites and shops, picked up few things, had coffee, attended the tree lighting ceremony and had dinner at McCormick and Schmick’s. Here are a few pictures from the day.
Pictures of Lily
Here are a couple of pictures of Lily, the cat who I am “fostering to own.” I think the own part is happening, as much as one can “own” a cat. Lily is a rescue cat who is likely to have been abandoned before she had been spayed, got pregnant and was found by someone when she came around w/ her kittens. The kittens, when they were ready to be adopted, were snapped up immediately. Lily meanwhile was languishing in a room by herself, because she doesn’t like other cats, in a home of 30 some cats. Because of that and possibly abuse, she wasn’t showing well. After a year of that, the rescue agency was ready to put her on a cat farm.
I was willingl to take a chance on her and asked to meet her. I met her at the house of 30 cats which was a nice, big house but, despite probably lots of care and cleaning, still was obviously a cat house. It was a bit before Kristen could get Lily down from her perch but when she came down, I put my hand out to let her smell and rub her face on it if she wished and that’s what she did. We hung out in the room for about 20 minutes at which point I felt I was ready to bring her to my apartment for a test drive. We filled out some paperwork regarding the fostering, packed up a couple of Lily’s toys and, after considerable difficulty getting her in a cat carrier, I headed home w/ her.
Kristen and Pam, the owner of the pet rescue company, suggested I put Lily in a small room like the bathroom by herself for a few days to let her adapt. How that was supposed to help escaped me but they are the pros. NTL, I let her out of the carrier, set up the cat litter and food, and let her roam. As cats will do from my experience, she checked out almost every corner of my apartment, found the cat box and the food, and settled in. She was all over me looking for attention and within hours was up on the sofa with me and at night in the bed w/ me.
Memorial To My Cat Spooky, RIP 20151027
My girl Spooky passed away on October 27, 2015. She was only seven but had a serious heart condition, diagnosed just this past April. Her heart was surrounded by and her lungs were full of fluid. Her breathing capacity was seriously reduced and her heart very strained by the condition. I believe she passed reasonably comfortably of a heart attack. I found her dead on the floor of my apartment when I came home from work. She didn’t look terribly distressed. I am still sad.
She was a very cheerful, loving cat who I got in July of 2012 through a friend who works at a veterinarian hospital. Spooky, nee Pookie, had been in a house fire, dropped off at the hospital, and abandoned. Her ears and her paws were slightly burned in the fire. I think that the family lost their whole house and their dog on the fire. I guess I can understand, to a certain extent, abandoning the cat.
Pookie, who I had to rename Spooky, and I bonded immediately. I was told by the vets that she was seven years old and spayed. I came to realize that she had not been spayed because she was crazy in heat every four weeks. When I took her in for her year after checkup, another vet told me she definitely had not been spayed and, by the looks of her teeth, only four years old. I had her spayed and we moved on.
The things I will remember most of her are the way she behaved when she was in heat. Her bodily contortions were hilarious. Early on, she could jump higher than any cat I have known. I caught her on top of the bathroom door once. In general she loved to have her head and ears rubbed…the ears I think because of the burn scar tissue. Even up to the very end, she would meet me at the door when I came home, her tail upright and quivering in anticipation of that first caress. In her last few months, she would get right up on the bed when my alarm when off, lie down stretched out along my arm by my head and wait for me to scratch her head.
Spooky never wanted any special toys. She would play in a box and/or with any kind of string forever. The laser pointer was a special favorite. One thing I never understood and have had explained to me was how unstable she could be her hind legs. Just a light push on her hips or a sleep on my leg or the arm of the sofa and her back end would fall over. Yet she could still run and jump all over the place. I miss you Spooky. You’ll always be in my heart and in my prayers.
Got Gloves or Mittens?
I saw an advertisement for those packages that you rip open to expose the interior to air so it heats up to warm your hands or other body parts as desired. Really?
The FAQs say the innards are all natural and biodegradable. I don’t know about the packaging but I am going to say it probably isn’t readily biodegradable. Even if it is, what the hell ever happened to gloves and mittens?
A Day at Nationals Ball Park
Holiday in Switzerland
I am in Geneva, Switzerland, for the Christmas holiday visiting my brother and his family. My parents have flown down from Wales for the holiday also. My brother’s wife’s niece who attends college in Munich, Germany, is visiting too. As such, we have a full house but it is quite big enough for all of us to hang together and/or spread out as necessary. The location is out in the country on a road with three houses, a river in the back yard, and France on the other side.
We have been out and about to the city of Geneva, to the historic town of Gruyere for fondue, to Borc to tour the Cailler Chocolate factory, hit the farmers’ market in Vivonne-les-Bains, France, and walked the burg of Nyon on the shores of Lake Geneva. As it may sound, we have kept busy touring and also shopping for food for meals and presents for Christmas. I have taken a number of pictures that I am posting when I can. They can be seen by accessing the link on the right hand side of my home page under photography. I’ll add a couple here for convenience.
Birds On Bennett’s Creek
Now I’m a Farmer!
Kim asked me to pick the lettuce from the garden and wash it today. I promptly fired up a bone (figuratively), slapped “Now I’m a Farmer” from Odds and Sods by the Who on the ear buds, and went into harvest mode. I brought the lettuce in to wash it and figured I’d put it in the dishwasher on the delicate, cold cycle. The heads promptly lost the wilt to leave so I gathered the dogs and my cat around and said “Lettuce Pray.”