Writing

Last night I woke up sometime very early in the morning to the sounds of something scrabbling around in the master bathroom.  I didn’t know what it was, but I was sleepy and in no mood to get out of bed to investigate, so I dismissed it as “one of the cats playing”, and fell back asleep.

This morning, we couldn’t find Percival.  He shows up sometime during the morning shower-coffee-computer routine for a little bit of petting and playing, so it was unusual for him to be AWOL.  Then I remembered the scrabbling sounds that woke me up the night before, and went to check the bathroom window.  The screen was loose and pushed out a little bit.

When we open the windows to let in the breeze, we open them at the top, and only open them a couple of inches at the bottom.  This is because Percival likes to reach up to the windowsill, hook his paws in the opening, and haul himself up to look out.  Sometimes he will try to squeeze his head into the opening.  So, we try to keep the bottom of the windows open only a few inches, so he can’t get out.

The window in the master bathroom is kind of small, and about 4.5 feet off the floor, so we weren’t as worried about it.  How could Percival get all of the way up to it?

Well, he did somehow.

And the garage roof runs under the master bathroom window.  The scrabbling that woke me up must have been him trying to get back inside after he squeezed out and the loose screen closed behind him.

Long story short, and happy ending.

John found him again pretty easily.  He had gotten down off of the garage roof somehow and was huddled up under a piece of plywood next to the shed.

The window in the master bathroom is now open only about a half-inch on the bottom.

Percival tried to follow me out onto the back deck this afternoon, so it seems that he has already forgotten how freaked-out he was by the wet, pre-dawn, outdoors this morning.

Does the Nexus One have a nice camera?  Yes, it does.  My current mobile (Pantech Duo) has a shitty camera.  Even the cheap clamshell phone that I had prior to this one took better pictures.

As one does when one (or at least me) has a new camera to play with I ran around taking a lot of photos.  The plants, the house, the cats… lots of photos of the cats.  Mostly because they can’t really complain about the paparazzi treatment, all they can do is ignore me or walk away.

Merlin sitting on my desk chair

Dogwood blossoms

Lilac

Merlin at the window

They aren’t great photos, but they are fun photos.

There are more at my flickr site.

Don’t think, however, that if I got a Nexus One that I would abandon the DSLR.  Because I wouldn’t.  But I probably would start to take and post more photos on a daily basis because the Nexus One makes it so easy and quick to do so.

Percival with Jellybeans and Great-Grandma's Candy Dish

For Christmas this past year, my Grandma gave me one of her antique glass pieces.  This piece, in fact.  A yellow, covered candy dish that her mother (my great-grandmother) had owned and that my Grandma could remember being used around the house when she grew up.

I like antique glassware, and I like antique glassware that has a family story attached to it even more.

The dish is on display on my coffee table (the cats are very good about leaving it alone) and is usually filled with pistachio nuts.

When my folks visited last weekend, they brought John and I an Easter basket with Paska, Kolache, sausage, red horseradish, some chocolate, and a bag of pink and yellow and cream colored Jelly Belly jelly beans.

I decided that I wanted to be festive and put the jelly beans in the candy dish.  Then I decided that I liked the way that the late-afternoon light looked coming through the living room windows and shining on the glass, and decided to get out my camera.  Then Percival came by to see what was going on.

Too cute.

Here is one of the dish sans kitty.

Candy dish and jelly beans