We keep Christmas all the way through Christmastide until Epiphany around here. I suspect I’ll post our menu for Twelfth Night (January 5th) and I will be very sad when our tree comes down on the 7th.

In the meantime, we’re still enjoying the Season – warm fires and our grandmother’s teeny-tiny, brass candlesticks (filled with red candles, rather than my customary blue or white) on the mantle. I like the mood of this picture, but it kind of cracks me up, too – maybe it’s the little Korean horse’s snout on the bottom right – or maybe it’s the fact that Spectre’s stocking is bigger than anyone else’s.

But look at this little one, here:

How can you not love that face?

All I know is, we do.

Why, in your heated bed bought for you by your adoring mistress, that’s where.

“… walks besides you on crisp autumn days when frost is on the fields and winter’s drawing near. His head is within [your] hand in his old way.”

~ Mary Carolyn Davies

Blue eyes just seem to be a thing around here, lately.

and…

before you ask…

I’m making chili to enter it in the SOCCENT Wives’ Chili Cookoff tomorrow at the unit.)

So, anyhow…if Dosie wants to eat her supper with her paw, who am I to say anything?

I’m not sure. For me, it was a gentle pull about two months after Deadeye died…and one day, a constant nagging to check out our Tampa Bay Shelter site.

So one day, I did.

There was a small, 3 and 1/2 month old Lilac Lynx Point Siamese named “Suki” in the slammer, there.  I was drawn to her picture.

Mom and I went to see her on a Saturday.

By Sunday, and a second visit to ensure she had, indeed, picked me, she had a new home…

…and a new name!

Her name is Quatre, which, for those of you who do not speak French, is the French word for “Four” – and since she is my fourth cat (Dosie, our other cat, was Number “Two” – hence “Dos” – the Spanish word for Two…and by the way, “Tres-ie” was killed in an unfortunate circumstance in Korea…) Anyway, it seemed appropriate.

And, for those of you who do speak French, you know that there is sort of a double entendre at work – because, you see - Quatre is pronounced “Cat”.

I love it.

So She is Here.

It’s so funny, though. I haven’t had a kitten in 15 years. She’s active, and lithe, and very curious. I’ve had to buy toys and suppress laughter when she climbs the curtains and gets into the sink.

She’s cuddly, and lovely, and beautiful and very welcome.

But there is still the Queen Bee: my 15-year-old Grande Dame, Miss Dosie.

She reigns.

I called the Extension Service, and they told me I’d be surprised how well these owls do in the suburban landscape. As long as I have a birdfeeder (where rodents feed under cover of night…Yick) and some “rough areas” in my lawn – i.e. bushes and heavy growth, my tiny tree-dweller will have plenty to eat.

He’s another reason to keep my bird bath clean, too.

I love having a little raptor in our treasured old tree! I consider him good luck while my John has to be gone.

He laid claim to a piece of my heart, and it will always be his.

Deadeye
30 April 1992 – 3 May 2010

* French Proverb.  And so true.  This is my favorite picture of us together – taken by John just before John and I were married  – a very happy memory.