boolie

That’s Not the Way We Left the Tree, Em

There’s a reason I don’t put the ornaments on the tree right away.

I thought with another year of wisdom and experience the cats might be kinder to the tree. But yesterday we got home from work to find this carnage in the living room.

The investigation initially focused on two prime suspects, juvenile offenders with a past history of tree climbing, but the discovery of a clump of soft, black fur in the treetop has narrowed the focus. The accused did herself no favors when, as I righted the tree, she climbed back into it before I even had it upright again.

In her defense, the tree stand isn’t the best. It certainly wasn’t designed with the idea of a ten pound ornament hanging from the top.

📷: Canon 7D | Canon 24-105 L
🗓️: December 17, 2009

Prodigy

We have all heard of child prodigies, young masters of piano, flute, or violin. Our five-year old prodigy is master of baby hedgehog, able to squeak out pieces of surprising length and complexity. In this case, with Christmas approaching, Ellie squeaks out a fine rendition of Joy to the World.

Unlike many five-year olds, however, ours doesn’t need any encouragement to practice. Several times this week when I’ve gotten home from work I’ve been pelted with baby hedgehog before I can even take off my coat.

An Ancient Riddle

With black-and-white the colors fall, with little orange the cold winds call, with black the white will cover all.

The Running Dog

While we’re on the subject of pathetic poses, this pose that I’ve dubbed The Running Dog is another Ellie favorite. I had been playing with the cats on the cat tree and she just wanted to be nearby, so she plopped down on the floor and waited quietly until we were finished. She’s sleeping beside me in the same pose at this very moment. Sam is curled up in my lap, Scout is beside us in a warm bed, and although I can’t see her, I’d bet my life that Emma is asleep under the Christmas tree.

No Go Ahead, Play with Scout, I Don’t Mind

“I’ll just lay over here quietly until you finish. Take your time. I’m not bored at all. No please, don’t worry about me, I’m fine. Play with Scout, she deserves your time too.”

(LOUD SIGH)

“It’s a good thing baby hedgehog loves me …”

You might have noticed that this pose is an Ellie specialty. She carries the little hedgehogs all over the house to make sure she doesn’t miss a moment’s opportunity for hedgehoggery.

The Modern Dog

I don’t mind that Ellie keeps reserves in her bladder so that on our walks in the neighborhood she can leave little cryptic messages to the dogs that follow her. I don’t.

But does she have to call it tweeting?

Unboxing Day

Many parts of the former British Empire celebrate Boxing Day after Christmas, a day originally set aside to give gifts to the less wealthy parts of society. While we don’t celebrate Boxing Day here in the States, we do celebrate Unboxing Day in our home, a day set aside to unbox our artificial Christmas tree. This day will always be a day of joy and sadness for me, as it was not only one of Templeton’s favorite days of the year, it was also the day he died in 2007.

But it is also a day of joy, as the cats all love it, Emma especially. I brought the box down early this year but didn’t get the tree out for another week, and every day when I came home from work Emma would be sleeping beside the box. I’m not sure if the smell brought back pleasant memories or if she was trying to guilt me into putting the tree up.

I finally put it up last night, and before I even had the top assembled Emma was sleeping under the bottom branches. Sam was climbing in it before I had the branches spread out, and today it showed clear signs of cats tunneling upwards through the branches. We’ve had this tree throughout our married life but I don’t how much more of this kind of love it can take. Scout used to love to climb in it when she was younger, but being the resident genius she at least figured out how to climb up without leaving an evidence trail behind her.

Last night all three cats were under the tree, and I hoped to get some pictures but Emma woke up and came out to greet me so I didn’t have much time. Snuggle buddies Sam and Scout stayed put so I had a little more chance with them.

56,307

With NaNoWriMo 2009 wrapping up, I’m going to call it a night. My final tally is 56,307 words, just barely eclipsing my total of four years ago.

In your face, 2005!

I hadn’t planned on writing that much after crossing the 50,000 threshold two days ago, and only a modest effort yesterday, but I had a lot of seat time on the MAX today and Ellie wasn’t hedgehogging me too much tonight, so that left more time for writing than usual. And then I thought it would be nice to get at least 55,000 words, and by then I was within shouting distance of my previous total, so …

I’ve got a backlog building of pictures to edit, as well as edited pictures to put online, so stay tuned. In addition to the recent pictures of Scout, there are pictures coming of Sam, Emma, and Ellie as I’ve tried to get at least one decent picture of the pets with the new camera.

There are also wildlife pictures to come, as I went to Ridgefield 3 out of the 4 days of the Thanksgiving break, and remembered to bring a battery for the new camera 2 out of 3 times! Did I see bald eagles? Great blue herons? Great white sharks?

You’ll have to tune in to find out!

50,000

I’m two for two.

After reaching the 50,000 word goal for National Novel Writing Month in 2005, I did it again this year, hitting 50,737 words according to the NaNoWriMo validator.

And with two days left to spare!

Not quite the tour de force of 2005, where I crossed the 50,000 word mark a week early and ended up with 56,251 words by the end of the month.

The “novel”, such as it is, was a lot of fun to write but is still a complete mess. Sometimes a character will morph into another mid-chapter when I realize it’s really better suited for a different part of the book. There are huge gaps in the timeline, missing sections of the story, and all of that, so after the end of the month I’ll need to fire up my outliner and start making some structure out of the madness.

Not a bad show, though, especially given that I got behind in the early going until I mounted a steady comeback that took me over the top.

Three cheers for Boolie! Hip hip hooray! Hip hip hooray! Hip hip … shhhhh, quiet now, let’s keep it down. Sammy’s sleeping on my lap and Ellie is snoring behind me.

Spyhopping

After testing out the flash I wanted a picture of Scout looking down from the window seat similar to scrunchy Sammy but she wouldn’t cooperate. As both the oldest of the pets and the one who has been with us the longest, she’s the most inured to my hijinks. I was laying on the hardwood looking up, that’s the ceiling to the right, the molding right above her, and the picture window to the left.

While I was at first disappointed I couldn’t get the picture I wanted, I was delighted when she tilted her head just so and I was able to slide a few inches and position her like an orca spyhopping above the waterline, a cat’s ear in place of an orca’s head. So what started in disappointment ended with one of my favorite pictures of Scout.

No flash for this picture, there wasn’t anything to bounce it off of anyway.