Yikes! Has it really been 6 months??

Or, my explanation for doing what I swore I would never do!

Yes, I have been, um, not really lazy, exactly.  Maybe just occupied?  Maybe that's an excuse a reason for this horribly long time between blog posts?

You see, my life got really complicated and took a few unexpected twists and turns.  Life does that to you sometimes, usually when you're not expecting it.  Mine involved re-thinking my money earning needs/requests/desires to include a steady paycheck, not just a paycheck that appeared out of the blue sometimes.  And to do that, I had to go back to school.  Not school, school, like a second BA or an MA or some other form of learning that involves time and effort and $$.  No, more like learning a skill.  That is marketable.  To someone else in the workplace.  It was a tough decision and took my Libra brain several years to decide.

(Hint:  if you have friends born between late September to mid October, and I'm sure you do, ask them to make a decision.  Then pour yourself a cup of coffee.  Then start working on a long-neglected project.  By the time you've brewed your second pot of coffee and finished your project, your friend will have made a decision.)

So I made mine, and it involved night classes once a week, and maxing out our credit card, but as soon as I made the decision to enroll in these classes, the money was there, the time was there, and I began to relax a little bit.  Then I started my classes.

Then I began to learn stuff.  And the stuff started to stick.  And it began to make sense, and I remembered when I had used this stuff both as a business owner and on some temp assignments.  For example, when I went to trade shows, I'd ask myself questions like: "Should I buy this yarn for the shop?  What does it cost per skein?  Will my customer base buy it?  Do my competitors have it?" - these are examples of something called a SWOT Analysis!  Holy cow!  Who knew I was doing it right after all?!

And I learned that the people in my class were smart, had been in this industry for years, some had to re-certify themselves and others were certifying themselves for the first time.  Oh, yeah, and they knew everybody out there.  Which proved very helpful when I had to reach out and network for a job hunt.  I found that I was in a group, an industry, that fit with myself, and had Rolodexes that were almost as large as my old shop's mailing list.

But it also meant that for 12 weeks, my weekends and evenings were spent with books and highlighters and pens, or on-line, or reading and re-reading sections and reviewing notes.  I know just about every coffee shop within a 10 mile radius of my home.  And many of them are independent coffee shops and that made me very, very happy.

And I found a new job in my industry a couple of weeks ago.  Actually, a recruiter found it for me, as I stink at finding companies to work for and these recruiters are pros at it.  They have Rolodexes larger than my old shop's mailing list!  It's a good company with good folks, the work is steady and will continue to grow, and I'm enjoying what I do.

And my stitching world has continued to expand.  I finished a Percentage Sweater (thank you dear G!) using a cable pattern from Barbara Walker for the front and the arms, and that I finished by St. Patrick's Day, and that Webmaster Bill was able to wear throughout this cool spring:

Webmaster Bill, striking a Captain Morgan pose

I also got involved with the Atlanta Knitting Guild's Halo's of Hope project in tandem with Stitches South.  I used some kids' hats patterns in the blues and greens that fit with an Under the Sea theme and that also had a wavy brim to look like waves:

Green hat, wave-y brim

 

Kitties helping with blue hat.  Kitten is Peppercorn, regal cat is Penelope Lane, 

called "Penny" for short.  Both are rescues. 

 

A little hat made of fun blue yarn

And there was The Mountain, with its several projects.  I did bring a sock, but it involved some thinking while I transitioned into the weekend that is The Mountain:

Knitting this sock, entitled "Mizar," reinforces why I like socks to be on the simple side:  the detail on the back of this sock (also on the front, all the way down to the toe) involves slipping very tiny stitches made with very tiny yarn in front of or in back of each other.  As with other cable patterns, once you know the pattern the project goes quicker (though is not as exciting because you've learned it), but you can relax.  A little.

And a cardigan that I've always envisioned for an office setting.  If you work in the South, you know that offices are very many degrees cooler than is comfortable for a normal human being.  Perfect inside temperature for a suit coat; an arm covering of some sort is needed for the rest of us.  This cardigan is also a Percentage Sweater cardigan (fortunately, The Sweater Workshop has instructions on cardigans, too) and is going to have a single button at the top as its button.  Which I bought this spring at Stitches South and it is going to be stunning.  No picture of the button yet, but here's the sweater nearing completion (and a good thing too - I bought the yarn in 2010!)

I figure the ongoing knitting projects will end in a month or so, as summer has taken a while to get here and there are a couple of stitching projects I want to pick up.  One is a needlepoint of some irises that I just need to finish the top of:

 

Currently, this entire piece is stitched and only the top remains to finish.  Yippee!

and one is a Hardanger piece on which a pretty ring box sits.  I haven't done Hardanger in a while, so it will involve reviewing past notes and reading the directions carefully!  Pics when available.

Have a great summer, everyone, and more blogging more regularly!

My Fairy Will be Getting Her Wings

. . . just not this year.

You see, when I picked up this blog posting idea to keep everyone up to date on the beauty of my Mirabilia fairy's wings, I thought this would be the perfect time to finish her.  While stitching with metallic thread is the bane of any stitcher's life, once I got the hang of stitching the outlines from dark to light, then mindlessly stitching the inside with white and metallic, why not set this as a goal for the year?  Why not end the year with a completed large piece of cross stitch?

Ah, the joy of finally having her finished and stitched, every single little stitch.  Every one.  I have weekends more or less free, and I have a magnifier I use when I stitch her with my contacts in.  Why not decide that now, finally, I can finish her and not hoard her as only a stitcher can?

Well, the answer is somewhat simple.  First there was the section of wing where I had to thread the needle 2-3 times each row.  Seriously.  And it was not the metallic that was giving the trouble - it was the white cotton thread.  Which is understandable if you think about how white is bleached and then bleached some more, it is perhaps a little less durable and a bit more persnickety.

So that's one excuse.  That was along about September, when these pictures were taken:

These are the outlines of the wings taken around the 4th of July.

This is the part that requires counting and caffeine; the filling-in part, 

not so much.

 

This is that same section filled in right after Labor Day weekend.  

I also extended the LH section up a little bit.

This wing is coming along nicely.

So yes, given all this progress from July to September, the future looked promising.  The fairly looked like she would become complete in a few months of dedicated work, Christmas knitting notwithstanding.

Then I took our lovely new cat, Penelope Lane to the vet for her annual shots.  A bit delayed, I admit, but underemployment will wreck havoc on one's income.  Here she is looking all regal and beautiful:

Penelope Lane surveys her kingdom

Wouldn't you know . . . I happened to mention to our vet as I had to a small circle of friends that we were ready to think about getting a kitten, one to replace our old cat, Cerridwen.  She had passed in July, and I'm very grateful we had another cat to help make our home not quite so empty of cat-ness.

And what did our very kind vet do when I mentioned this new openness in our hearts?

Why, she happened to mention a tiny kitten that they were fostering there, that's what she did! 

And she went even further by bringing said tiny, little, all-black kitten into the examining room and laying him in my hand.  Yes, he was that small.  He was found wandering along a busy street and some kind soul stopped his car (it was a guy), noticed that his leg seemed to be broken, and brought him into our vet because he worked in the area.  This tiny little kitten still had these great big stitches in his teeny tiny leg from the leg pin surgery.

He was so tiny!!!  And he just looked about him like he wasn't sure what the world was all about, and could someone help him, please??

I didn't adopt him there on the spot.  I did turn into a pile of mush there in front of the vet and her technician, and I asked if our names could be added to the list.  Our timing was such that our names were at the top.

So Webmaster Bill and I talked some more, talked to a few trusted friends, thought about some kittens who were comfortably ensconced in a barn and in no danger of busy streets, saw a couple more foster kittens, and then decided that this little stray black kitten was the one for us. 

The vet and her technician agreed.

Of course they would!

And so in mid-October we brought home our new little Peppercorn.  We thought of several names, including Odysseus (husband of Penelope), Othello (too tragic), and Orpheus, the musician who descended into the underworld to retrieve his beloved (also tragic, and hard to say his name).

It's been a while since we've had a kitten.  A long while.  Which says something about our cat-owning tendencies and also about our age.  Playful photos are below:

Lots and lots of kitten energy.  Lots.  And he loves to lie in my lap and chase after bright shiny things. So can you imagine the havoc he would wreck on the bright shiny dangly threads that create a fairy's wings??  Sure, I knew you could.  And so, I'm sure, could the vet.

All this to say, like the popular Irish folk song "Why Paddy Won't be at Work Today (it's the one about the fellow who goes to the job site, loads up the bucket to bring himself to the top, then unloads the bucket and he goes plummeting to the ground; MythBusters did a segment on it years ago), the subtitle of this posting might just very well be:  "Why Fairy Won't get her Wings this Year."  The bell signalling her wings is most certainly waiting till next year, till kitty time becomes cat time and no little black kitten will be tempted to play with bright, shiny threads.

Except there is nothing like a teeny little kitten to provide endless hours of fun and amusement for all concerned, and I'm enjoying every moment I have with a teeny tiny little black kitten:

Goodbye, Sweet Little Black Cat

Yes, I'm afraid it's another one of those sad posts:  we lost our little black cat named Cerridwen earlier this month.  And because these posts are so hard to write, and because you had had to read about our earlier kitty death from December, I had a hard time expressing how to put this entry into words.

So I'll start with pictures.  Remember, Cerridwen was named after the Welsh Goddess of the Cauldron, Cerridwen, because she was black.  Completely, utterly, black.  Even to the tip of her little kitty nose.  And it can be difficult to take pictures of a black cat because, well, they're black.  Here are some pictures of her in her earlier, healthier days.

Cerridwen, seemingly disinterested

 

Fierce Kitty.  Truly.  Fierce.

And if you look very, very closely, you can see her little, tiny, black kitty nose.  I don't know what she was defending us from (or if she was just choosing to look a little bored with it all), but there must have been shmoos around.  Somewhere.  Or maybe the humans would bring out one of her favorite games, Feather.

 

And she loved to chase after bits of light.  Seriously.  When we opened the door in the morning to go to work, she would inevitably be in one chair, and the light would reflect from the panes of glass in the side door and go moving around the room as quickly as we moved the door.  She looooved this game.  She could never quite bite Light like she could Feather, but she was fascinated by how light moved.  I've never seen another cat who had this fascination.  We also hung one of those crystals in another room, to catch the wintertime sun, because it would rotate around and put colorful light bits in the living room.  And Cerridwen would run after these bits of light and was fascinated when they simply disappeared behind a couch or under a chair, only to emerge in another place soon.

 

She was a rescue.  Really, truly a rescue.  A construction boss-man brought a cardboard box full of 4 week (or so) old kittens and declared "Ah'm tahred of these heah kittens runnin' around under mah house.  If'n one of y'all don't take them home I'm a-dumpin' them in the river."  In the middle of a hot Georgia summer.  Fortunately, there was a kind-hearted worker who took the box and moved it around the site to the nearest patch of shade till the day's work was ended.

 

He took the box home to his girlfriend, they nursed the kittens for a week or so, and then I don't remember if we read about it in a weekly local newspaper or if some friends told us about it (I think it was the former), but we called them the week after another cat of ours had died (busy street) and we brought home Cerridwen and her "sister" Boudicca that same day.  Boudicca was several months old by this time, but Cerridwen was just a teeny tiny kitten who loved the kitten formula she had been fed on for a week.  Loved, loved, loved it.  She eventually weaned off of formula and then loved kitty kibbles.  Not canned food, not tuna fish, but boring old dry kitty kibbles.

 

And she loved to sing.  She didn't meow, she sang.  Up and down the hallway in the evenings, she would walk and sing.  I sometimes wondered if she was afraid, or missed her kitty mother, or just loved to sing.  

 

And she was an amazing cat.  She had a lung problem at about the age of two, but I refused to put a cat on Prednizone for the rest of her life, and the problem pretty much cleared up on its own.  There were a few years when times were tight and she didn't have her physical checkup, but she was fine.   In fact, she was so fine that the vet, at about the time these pictures were taken, suggested that maybe I should limit her food intake.  Like, she (the vet) was worried about kitty diabetes.  Having a couple of older animals by this point who needed daily meds, I took the vet's advice seriously.

 

She became the cat who slept at our feet every night, who stuck her head in my mouth when I yawned, who always loved to bat at the plastic container that held her food every morning.  She'd jump up onto her stool that led to the kitty feeding stand and politely wait for me to get my cup of coffee before I fed her and other cats in the morning.  Boudicca really never got along with her, but she loved Grendel and would play on the cat stand with him in the evenings:  Grendel on the bottom, Cerridwen perched on the top (where all the catnip was) and they would just bat at each other through the openings.  And she loved Dave the Dog and would lick his ears and rub under his belly.  He never quite knew what to do about it.

 

Dave had his very own bed right next to ours, and there were evenings when she would be lying there (and invisible to low light) and Dave would look at us to say "There's a cat on my bed!"  She just blinked and said, "So?"

 

When time came for me to take pictures on the floor of the living room (where the light is best) for Ravelry postings or for merchandise for my website, she joined right in.  Here are those pictures:

 

 

 These are some hand-painted wooden needle holders

that she found rolled along the wooden floor and

made a nice noise while doing so.

 

These are yarns and a partially-completed panel of an 

Orenburg (Russian) lace shawl that I am working on.

Perilous is the only word I can think of to accurately

describe my feelings when I took these pictures.

Perilous and comical.

 

As I said, taking pictures of black cats is not the easiest thing in the world.  And really, it is hard to see a kitty face until one is up close and personal.

So time progressed, Grendel died, Dave died, Boudicca died, and suddenly Cerridwen was all alone in the house.  She was the only animal for two humans, and the night that Boudicca died she sang a lament in the hallway for several minutes.  She couldn't understand why her "sister" was not hopping up to the pillow on my head as was her wont.  Cerridwen didn't seem to be lonely.  She didn't mope, she gave equal affection to Webmaster Bill and to me, and her eating habits didn't change.  We brought home our newest addition, Penelope Lane, in late January, thinking that some company would be good for her.  And that we should have another cat in the house to take some of the "only cat" burden off of Cerridwen.  She was only 10 pounds, after all.

Cerridwen was beginning to make the transition to having another cat in the house, was learning that humans were there in case there was stalking, that laps were still there, that there were now 2 litterboxes in the house, and then I think everything changed.  I think, I really think, that she missed her pack.  We found some health complications in mid-March thanks to an ultrasound, so I kept a close eye on her.  Fortunately for her situation, I have not really been working outside of the house since mid-April, so I've been able to keep an eye on her.

 

She turned 16 at the end of May, and I think that her longing for her pack of animals coincided with her body aging.  And she became very skinny very quickly, she began throwing up food and liquid, and finally she became so dehydrated that a blood sample was barely possible.  Her options became hospitalization, serious meds, or letting her go.  And she was so listless (and so lonely), that taking her to the vet's for that one final visit seemed like the most humane thing to do.  So we did.  And I had a good cry the next morning when her stool for her feeding stand was empty and there was no kitty to bat at her plastic food holder.

Grief is a healing process, and a long process, and not an easy process.  Sometimes I see her playing with her friends on the mythical "Rainbow Bridge" and I am overjoyed that she is so happy.  Sometimes I wonder if I had had a job whether we could have afforded hospital care and she'd still be happy and strong.  And sometimes I'm just glad that I knew such a sweet, funny, playful, intuitive cat, and I am grateful that we rescued her 16 summers ago and she had a good, long, fun life that, for us humans, ends all too soon.

Rest well and play with your friends, sweet cat.  I hope to see you again someday.

 

 

Much has Happened Since Last We Met

That sounds so very Victorian, doesn't it? I just finished typing up some passages from Hard Times by Charles Dickens and Nightingales by Gillian Gill (the latter a biography of the Nightingale family and how it all led to Florence Nightingale's extraordinary life) and these Victorian thoughts just tickle their way into my creative writing day today.

Obviously, I wrote my last entry over the Thanksgiving weekend, a weekend I spent enjoying my last few weeks with my large, round, grey cat. I had received word in mid-November that her enlarged heart had now morphed into heart failure proper (cardio myopathy), and all of the months of medicating her with Plavix (yes, you read that right), Atenatol (to slow down her rapidly beating heart) and Methemazol (to control her hyperthyroidism) were going to come to an end. And she was an incredibly good patient - she did not try to claw your pill-holding hand out of her mouth, she just did everything she could to walk away from whatever you had popped into her mouth as quickly as she could, and there were times when I found little bits of pill in different places in the house. I was relieved that, if she had to become so ill, it was during a time when I had the monetary funds to buy all this medication for her (Plavix!! Jeez!). Strangely enough, I felt myself hearken back to my Quaker college days and "bear witness" to the uses of modern medications for one's feline off-spring. The last time I went to the pharmacist, there was a woman buying meds for her dog, so I didn't feel so out of place.

Still, that's a lot of stress for a cat and her owner to go through with all those meds and schedules. While I had had a year to prepare myself that animal companions don't live as long as we do (it was in early December last year when I noticed that her heart was beating like a rapid snare drum; she was lying on my pillow with her heart close to my ear), I still broke down in two vets' offices while I dealt with the inevitability that her long life was coming to an end.

There are pictures of her on this blog, but I'll add some just so you can see them now rather than having to scroll around:

Curled up on her favorite crinkly toy. She never went for it as

a play toy thing, but she loooved to sleep on it.

Then there is the earlier post where I showed her lounging on the grass on a warm February day:

Yep, in ATL it's really warm enough, even in February,
to spend some late afternoon time sunning oneself

And fortunately, the weather over Thanksgiving was warm, too, relatively speaking. So we were able to trundle along outside to soak up some rays. I experienced a sort of peace during that weekend - there was the loneliness of being by myself partnered with the joy of buying food that I would cook only for myself (such as Rock Cornish Game Hen). There was the quiet solitude of spending most days listening to a book on tape (on this weekend, the above-mentioned Hard Times with an extraordinary narrator) and doing my Christmas knitting partnered with some time on Thanksgiving evening with my eldest niece and our next-door neighbors, sitting and talking. And there was the otherwise-cold bed with one cat against my belly and the other against my back, doing everything they could to help keep me (and themselves) warm.

So while Webmaster Bill went up to see a large houseful of relatives of 3 consecutive generations, I knitted children's sweaters and a scarf and more sweaters. Guess who wanted her picture taken while I was at it??

Big kitty who has gotten considerably
smaller with heart and kidney problems

She's at peace, now, on the other side of the Rainbow Bridge, that wonderful place where we get to meet all of our dear, departed furry and fuzzy and feathered friends that have joined their lives with ours. Rest well, dear kitty, and someday you will sleep on my head again.

And of course, there was the afore-mentioned Christmas knitting - a great nephew in CA, a great niece in IL, and a kitty hat for friends whose tree-topper is Yoda. How could I not spend an evening knitting up this fantastic Yoda hat to be kitty sized (and it almost was!):

After its 3rd time through the washing machine,
it finally felted to the size
of a small head (not shown here!)

The cool thing was that once you make and decrease the ears, they stick out the side, and while it's drying you can make them kind of curve to resemble Yoda's ears themselves. Trying the hat on the cat was great fun, and made possible by the use of an abundance of kitty treats.

Then there were the sweaters for little ones. I'm beginning to "get" the fun of knitting kids' sweaters - they're quick, they can be really cute, and as long as you get the gauge to almost size, it doesn't matter if they're a little too big - the child will grow into them!

Bright colors for this little girl, who
has become infatuated with "bunnies"

There is a sweater that I can't upload here, as the recipient has not received it yet due to too busy schedules during the Christmas season. All I can say is . . . the buttons really set it off!

Little blue sweater for a little boy,
complete with teddy bear

And then, of course, there was Christmas, then all the many days off in between (fortunately I'm working for a company that recognizes the wisdom of closing the office when most everyone is going to be on vacation, anyway), including finally reading The Millenium Trilogy by Stieg Larrsson (yes, it really is that good) and watching a ton of movies.

For all of you who know me, I mean, really, really know me, I will confess here: I bought a ticket to the 3-D showing of Tin-Tin. Why? Well, for the same reason that I saw 13 Days in the movie theaters a decade ago: it's the movie where they show the preview of The Hobbit. All I can say about the preview is WOW. I can't wait. I thought that the love and excitement had cooled off into a warm, nice glow, but no, not really. PJ and his group are going to do things with this interpretation of a mythical masterpiece the likes of which the world has never seen. I am so very, very glad that I live in a time where these masterpieces can come to life on a big screen. Really I am.

By the way - Tin Tin is a really good movie. There were moments when I even forgot that I was watching an animated, motion-capture film. Definitely a boy's adventure: pirates, adventures, and intrigue.

Now that all the Christmas knitting has ended and before I spend time at The Mountain, the time has come to put down the knitting and pick up . . . the needlepoint! Yes, I went rooting around in a closet, wondering what was in these packagesssss, and I found some of my mother's needlepoint. She had started one piece (but just barely), and there was no yarn to go with it so I went with my best guess on it.

I'll take an aside here: if you do any sort of knitting, needlework, paper crafting, etc., please, please put all of your materials together, or at least put a list with your package of materials, colors, etc., or even just show your nearest and dearest what you are working on and what your intentions are for it.

So anyway, on the one I've matched the yarns as near as possible, and with the recent supply problems with Persian yarn, I'm finished on it until I can find just one (or maybe two) more skeins of the background color. I've started a second, also one Mom bought at my shop, also Irises (she always waxed on about pansies, but seemed to have an affinity for irises in her NP) for which I will need a frame (of course, I have several, but it will involve going to get them and I'm a little lazy today), and the final . . . ah, now that is a story!

Several years back, maybe as many as 7, Mom received a gift of needlepoint from her sister-in-law, complete with sufficient thread to finish the design. The canvas was 18 count (18 sts to the inch, for all you knitters out there - canvas comes at 10 sts/in, 12/13/and 14 sts, and 18 sts to the inch, not to mention 40 sts to the inch - this latter is stitched on silk gauze and is very fine, very beautiful, and I'm not going to do it in this lifetime. Think dollhouse rug.) and Mom couldn't see it. Family dynamics being what they are/were, she asked me to do it for her. And asked, and argued, and demanded . . . and still it sat there, because, well, I had a shop to run and models to stitch and had no time for personal stitching anyway. When I began poking through the above-mentioned bag, I decided that it was time to begin stitching it (after I had finished the more traditional needlepoints) and to do so would require just the right kind of thread. And like many projects I'm looking forward to, I like to savor it. Contemplate it, think about it, work on an appetizer for a bit . . . until I can't stand the antici---pation any longer, and just pick it up and work on it feverishly with its beautiful colors. The hummingbirds are going to be silk, the leaves in combinations of cotton and wool, and the remaining background wool. It will be a delight.

For right now, then, I please myself with a really cool deep-purples-and-blues irises in a kind of 2-D design (pictures coming soon!) using traditional wools. After all, I helped Mom pull these yarns, listened to her agree and argue, and if I liked those wools all those years ago, what's not to like now? The fancy stuff will take care of itself - this wintertime is all about quiet contemplation, enjoyment, carefully finishing what had been unfinished.

Till next time, have a marvelous new year, and hug the ones you love. Include yourself in the hug!

Oh, such cute kitties

It seems in Blogosphere we all share pictures of our feline and canine friends, and these were just too cute to keep on my loyal iMac. I took these pictures the other day during a sunny day this winter (it's been raining - note that I'm not complaining about the rain!) and I had a box of baby booties and baby bibs &c. that I wanted to add to my website. The cats just had to come out and enjoy the sunlight and most of you have heard me talk about them so I decided to take these great pictures of them and post them here. The feline kids of Webmaster Bill and me:

This is our foundling kitty, Cerridwen. Those of you who know and share my interest in Celtic mythology will know that Cerridwen (many spellings, some with extra "y's" in them due to her Welsh origins) was a keeper of her Cauldron that could bring the dead back to life. So we helped a rescued little black cat find a good and loving home, and what else would be a logical name for her, I ask you?? Yes, she was about 3-4 weeks old when the construction boss brought her in a box with her siblings to a work site in the hot May sunshine and said (put your best redneck accent on here): "I got me a box of kittens, and if any of you [folks] want 'em, you kin take 'em home at the end of the day. They done been underfoot and I need to git rid of 'em." So the kind-hearted English construction worker moved the box out of the direct sunlight all day and took the box home where he and his girlfriend nursed the kittens for a week or so. She was more or less weaned when I called the girlfriend and we decided that ours would be a great home for her, but she drank Similac for a few weeks afterwards, "just in case." She's a sweet little girl who loves to make a warm spot on the bed and will meow at me in case I wake up in the middle of the night and need to pet a cat to go back to sleep. She also sings in the hallway when she is looking for us - we call her "The Singing Kitty" and meow back at her. Somehow that reassures her that we're right there (even though she can smell us 2 rooms away) and she comes trotting right over to be petted.

This is the other cat, that our friend Sue-who-knows-everybody told us about that same week we were adopting Cerridwen, and she is now our large round grey cat:

What can I say? She's large, she's round, and she's grey. She's also taken to crossing her white feet, one on top of the other, just because she can and because she's a cat. She is also the one who sleeps under the blanket on our bed during the day, and often on my head on cold (Atlanta) winter nights while she purrs me to sleep. Granted, she takes up half the pillow, but she rests her chin on whatever portion of my face she can find and purrs me and herself to sleep. One night my ear was against her body and I could hear her heart beating after she stopped purring - it was very special. We named her "Boudicca" (also many different Welsh spellings) who was a Welsh queen who was the only commander in Britannia able to win some battles with the Roman invaders/conquerors/troops. She really did - she united many of the famous Celtic fighters in the western part of the island (modern-day Wales and western England) and beat the Romans. Until the final battle when she was captured and killed. This kitty's mother was named Athena, so I figured this was a good and strong name for our large cat. I think she's not as large as she used to be, though watching her run (proceed at a fast trot, really) is rather amusing as her gait more resembles a waddle than a run. But she has a good, strong, steady walk and I can always tell when she enters a room where I am. She also sits politely below my chair and waits to be encouraged to jump onto my lap where she just stares at me until she falls asleep. She does have one discouraging habit of biting my eyelids (dangerous) or the tip of my nose (ouch!) while she's falling asleep. She doesn't realize how sharp her teeth are, and after 12 years of discouraging this habit she's more or less figured it out. She was about 12 weeks or so when we adopted her, and her human mother said that after I came out to the house to meet the feline family, mother Athena began nursing her again, so it may be a vestige of that nursing behavior.

So those are our kitties - both 12, both furry, both purr, both eat the same food, and while they don't always get along, they are wonderful warm feline friends, for as long as we have them.