How Do People In Your Life Express Themselves?

I’m reading a nonfiction book called Homer’s Odyssey. It’s about a woman named Gwen Cooper who adopted an eyeless stray cat nobody else wanted. It’s a beautiful love story.

When Cooper adopted Homer, she was single, living with a friend, working at a nonprofit, never had more than fifty dollars in the bank at the end of the month – and she had two other cats. She had a lot of perfectly good reasons to pass on Homer. And she almost did. Before meeting him for the first time, she makes this observation:

“I should note that, prior to this, I had never taken an I’ll meet him and we’ll see attitude when it came to pet adoption. It never occurred to me to meet the pet in question first, to see if he was ‘special’ or whether there was some sort of unique bond between us. My philosophy when it came to pets was much like that of having children: You got what you got, and you loved them unconditionally regardless of whatever their personalities or flaws turned out to be.”

As a result, she says she felt dishonest driving to the vet’s office that day. But she couldn’t help but wonder how a cat without any eyes could convey expression. Homer answered that question for her.

As she interacted with him, he responded to her voice and cuddled against her shoulder. Then she realized something. “It isn’t the eyes that tell you how someone is feeling or what they’re thinking. It’s the muscles around the eyes, which pull the corners up or push them down, crinkle them at the edges to convey amusement or narrow them into slits indicating anger ... And I could tell, from the shape the muscles were taking, that if he’d had eyelids they would have been half closed in an expression ... of utter contentment.”

Homer found a home that day.

A few years ago, I adopted a cat named Latte. She can be wild as all get out sometimes and I wondered early on if I made a mistake in choosing her. Reading between the lines, the woman at the shelter told me Latte had already been returned once and I got the feeling that she was close to becoming unadoptable, which meant certain death. Maybe that’s what made her so adoptable in my eyes. Well, that, and the snow job she put on the day we met. She was the picture of tranquility.

I only learned about her wild side after we got home. But she has a loving side as well. Right away, she developed a habit of curling up in my lap while I’m watching TV at night. She rubs her head against my cheek as we drift off to sleep. She begs for attention whenever I get home. And she loves to be around people so much that she prefers not to eat unless someone is in the room with her. That means her food and water bowls are next to my recliner in the living room.

Cooper’s philosophy about pets, and children, rings true to me. You got what you got, and you love them unconditionally.

In fact, I think her philosophy applies to all personal relationships.

No doubt, that’s easier said than done. But maybe our relationships would be a little stronger if we took the time to find each other’s way of expressing ourselves and then met each other there. Some speak with their eyes (or eye muscles). Some speak through their passion for music, art or literature. And others speak by the choices they make.

How do people in your life express themselves?

Falling Short

There is no shame in falling short – at least I don’t feel any.

I set a goal in early August to walk 100 miles by December 31. As of this moment, I’ve walked 74.58 miles. But I figure that is 74.58 miles farther than I would have walked without a goal. And I had a lot of fun along the way.

Several people with dogs stopped and chatted with me over the past few months.

One woman had a dog that just wouldn’t leave me alone as we met lap after lap (she was walking clockwise around the track, while I was walking counterclockwise).

“I’m a cat person,” I said. “She probably smells my cat.”

She nodded, but apologized anyway.

An elderly man who was out walking his dog on the trail one day tipped his cap at me as we passed. Not enough people tip their cap anymore. I felt like I was in Mayberry, and I mean that in the best way possible.

Every time I walk, I see something new.

One day I marveled over the energy that kids had as the ran from one end of the field to another, playing soccer. Another day I watched a similarly dressed, similarly talented couple play tennis. I also saw a teenage girl with the arm of Derek Jeter throw out an adult man at first base from the shortstop position. As fall set in, I marveled as the leaves changes colors. And I worshipped as I walked on numerous occasions.

More than once, somebody significantly older passed me on the track. I don’t feel any shame over that either. We’re all walking for different reasons. I’m not in a race with anybody. I’m simply out to improve my health and breathe a little fresh air.

So, in 2013 I’ll set a new goal – maybe 200 miles. We’ll see. But I’m also hoping to interact with more people. And if I do, you’ll probably hear about it.

Grand Gestures

Clanc-meister turns six today

My mom’s cat, Clanci (whom I affectionately call Clanc-meister), turns six today. I plan to make a big deal out of it, complete with a little cake and a birthday card.

Why do I even know when Clanci’s birthday is and why go to so much trouble for an animal that won’t have a clue why we are singing “Happy Birthday”?

Because making a grand gesture toward Clanci – the cat who keeps my mom company during her routines – will make Mom smile, and laugh.

She will say we are both nuts, and that Clanci is spoiled. And I’ll agree. We’ll enjoy some cake, take a few photos, talk about our favorite Clanci moments and cement another shared memory.

We’ve gone through this routine in the past, but I never really saw it as a grand gesture until I watched the movie Due Date (see the previous post). Peter, who wasn’t all that fond of Ethan early in the storyline, convinces Ethan to toss his father’s ashes into the Grand Canyon by saying, “He deserves a grand gesture.”

Peter didn’t mean Ethan’s father had done anything special to merit a grand gesture, even though he probably had. Instead, he was saying Ethan’s father deserved a grand gesture simply because he was Ethan’s father.

Grand gestures are rooted in love, in the verb sense of the word. It is easy to use the word “love” as a noun – a strong emotional feeling toward someone or something. But using the word as a verb is much more powerful because it shows us what that strong emotional feeling looks like.

Romans 12:10 is a great example.The writer says, “Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.” In context, the writer is referring to fellow believers in Rome, but the principle still applies – one way of loving one another with brotherly affection is to outdo one another in showing honor.

We can honor one another in hundred different ways – birthday celebrations, anniversary celebrations, cards and letters, a phone call on the anniversary of the death of a loved one, flowers, gifts, plaques, certificates, toasts, an invitation to meet for coffee to celebrate an accomplishment and yes, sometimes even buying someone’s cat a birthday cake.

Most grand gestures are simple to pull off. Sometimes though, I get so caught up in my own life that I forget to do the little thing for someone else. Maybe you do too. But God’s mercies are new every morning.

5 Movies with Jennifer Aniston

It’s been a while since I’ve written a post for the Name 5 series. If you are new to the blog, I got the idea from the board game called Name 5. The premise is pretty simple – players advance on a by naming 5 items on a list from a card they draw. In this particular case, one of the cards says, “5 Movies with Jennifer Aniston.”

In my opinion, Aniston has been in a couple of great movies as well as a number of duds. Now that I look of my list of her five best movies, I would only watch two of them over and over – the first two I’ve listed below.

1. Marley & Me. By far my favorite Aniston movie. Loved her role as Jennifer Grogan. I particularly loved the scene where she thumbs through her husband’s (John) former columns near the end of the movie and suggests he put them in book. She reminisces about the role Marley played in their lives and you can feel the passage of time as she flips through the columns John wrote about the bad and funny deeds the dog committed over the years.
2. Management. I wrote quite a bit about this movie last July. Aniston plays a woman named Sue, a traveling art saleswoman who is trying to cut ties with a motel manager named Mike. Sue is aloof, unsure of what she wants, and going through the motions in life. She needs Mike, but she just doesn’t know it. Mike is immature, unsettled, and a bit of a wreck. But he’s in love with Sue and it makes him want to be a better man. What’s not to love about that?
3. Bounty Hunter. This is more of a comedy than anything, which is fine, but usually not my thing. Aniston plays a reporter named Nicole. I thought the chemistry between Nicole and her ex-husband Milo (played by Gerard Butler) was believable. I saw this one twice at the movie theater, but I doubt if I’ll watch it again.
4. Rock Star. The music reminded me of the 80s – when my hair was long and my socks were too. Aniston plays the girlfriend of a guy, Chris, who gets a shot to sing for his favorite band. They get caught up in a crazy lifestyle and it takes a toll on their relationship. You really feel for Aniston’s character, Emily, as their relationship dies.
5. The Good Girl. Aniston plays a store clerk named Justine in a small Texas town and she feels stuck. I’m a total sucker for a story like this one. But this one never quite did it for me.

Walking Toward Hope

Photo: barto

The first time I took to the walking trail at Churchich Park many months ago, I sensed all of us were walking or running from something.

The trail is flat and meanders around life on the softball field, tennis courts and playground. The trail’s flatness is less intimidating for the broken. Anybody who can walk can navigate her curves. 

A short, elderly woman wearing a purple jogging suit slumbered toward me one day, her hand grasping her Chihuahua’s leash as he pulled her along. Her eyes met mine, which is walking trail code for “Please acknowledge me.”

I took a chance and stopped. 

“His feeties are covered in mud – looks he’s having the time of his life,” I said, pointing at her dog. He looked up at me with his head tilted as if to, “What’s the problem?”

The woman smiled.

“I think you’re right,” she said. “The dirtier he is, the happier he is.”

We both knew the exchange was about more than her dog. I suspected she was lonely, so she fled her home for the walking trail. I could be wrong of course, but I doubt it. I trust the code.

During another walk at the park a guy dribbled a soccer ball past me multiple times. He stayed off the walking trail, dribbling the ball in the grass next to the trail – probably partially as a courtesy and partially because soccer fields aren’t made of cement. Apparently, he was trying to get in, or stay in soccer playing shape. I got the feeling he was running from stagnancy – not wanting to give up on a dream.

Since I started walking on this particular trail I’ve seen fathers and sons playing catch, fathers pitching to their kids, middle-aged men playing tennis, families navigating the playground, young men playing basketball with no thought of waking up with sore knees or stiff backs, twenty-somethings playing softball and 40-somethings attempting to play softball.

It’s a beautiful mixture of life.

I took to the walking trail a couple of years ago because I have type 2 diabetes and one of my A1C tests didn’t delight my doctor.

“You need to get more active,” he told me. “Even if it is just walking.”

So I hit the trail, putting one foot in front of the other, knowing that all of us at the park are either walking or running from something.

Filling in the Gaps

Do you see an abandoned shoe in this photo or do you see
a woman running barefoot in the sand with her boyfriend?
(Photo: Ol.v!er)

I have a romanticized view of the world, which, for a Calvinist, I admit is a bit of a paradox. One of my sisters reminded me of this after she read the Katherine’s Baseball post here a couple of days ago.

When I first saw the baseball lying where flowers would normally go next to a headstone, my mind raced to fill in the gaps in Katherine’s life. Surely she must have been a baseball fan – so much so that eleven years after her death, a loved one left a baseball on her headstone on Memorial Day weekend.

My sister’s take was a little different.

“Ok well the first thought I had was that maybe a dog just happened to drop the ball there?” she said. “It looks pretty beat up! But, your version of the story is much better!”

Liberty Creek Merlot

Latte continues to change poses with the bottles of
wine I photograph, as if she were a kitty supermodel

I gave Liberty Creek merlot a shot recently. I’m learning I can drink merlot from almost any vineyard. Liberty Creek was no exception.

I tasted more cherry in this particular wine than in other merlots I’ve tried. Since I love cherry, this made for a tasty bottle of wine. It is smooth, not overpowering and it is easy to drink. For $6.98, that’s hard to beat.

The only real complaint I have is – and this really isn’t a complaint as much as it is an observation – the bottle is larger than most other bottles of wine and it went bad before I could finish it over the course of three nights. I’m not advocating a smaller bottle though.

Having someone to share it with would nice. Or maybe I just need to research ways to keep wine fresh for longer periods of time.

I’m headed to St. Louis this morning to visit family. If I can get out of here early enough, I’m going to stop at a winery called Stone Hill that isn’t far from where my sister lives and see if I can find a new wine to try. I also finally found a bottle of Liberty Creek sweet red wine that I’ll write about soon.

Double Dog Dare Sweet Red Wine

In what has become a ritual whenever I photograph a
bottle of wine, Latte insists on being in the picture, no
matter how tired she is – probably even more so in this
case since the wine is called Double Dog Dare instead
of Double Cat Dare. She just wanted equal time.

How could a $2.99 bottle of wine taste good? I had my doubts. But I loved the name – Double Dog Dare – and the fact that it was sweet red wine, so I gave it a shot.

Apparently, the wine is so low budget that Double Dog Dare doesn’t even have a website (that I can find). I did find several comments about Double Dog Dare Merlot on a website and they all agreed with the conclusion I came to about the sweet red blend – it is better than most $6-$10 bottle of wines.

Imagine letting your kids make a batch of cherry Kool-Aid and when you weren’t looking they added one more scoop of sugar than you told them to. That’s how Double Dog Dare Sweet Red wine tastes and I say that in the most favorable way possible, which means this wine has slipped past Sutter Home Sweet Red wine at the top of my list of favorite red wines.

I’d still really like to try Liberty Creek Sweet Red wine, as one of you suggested, but I can’t find it here locally. I did find a store that carries Liberty Creek Merlot and I’ll write about that next week after I’ve tried it. As always, wine suggestions are always appreciated in the comment section.

Black Swan Merlot, South Eastern Australia (2007)

I wrote a post last month singing the praises of Red Guitar Wine (2006), Old Vine Rosé and it is still my favorite wine, but I just learned that rosé wine isn’t red wine. Rosé is its own class of wine – somewhere between red and white, but closer to white, which means the tannin level is lower. Tannin increases good cholesterol and helps to fight against heart disease. Tannin is highest in red wine – that’s why I’m after a good red wine. I need it to be as sweet as possible.

I found one in Sutter Home SWEET RED wine (2008) and I wrote about that here. I’ve been adding other suggestions to my list as you offer them. I tried Black Swan Merlot, South Eastern Australia (2007) over the weekend and, while it was a bit stronger than I prefer, I liked the mixed berry and mellow cherry flavor. The Black Swan website says this is a medium-bodied wine – which would have been nice for them to include on the back of the bottle because I’ve already determined that full-bodied and medium-bodied wines are stronger than I prefer.

My cat Latte, posing with a bottle of Black Swan Merlot

Back in October, I tried Turning Leaf Merlot (2007), but I wanted to see if all Merlot is created equal. I couldn’t tell a huge difference between Turning Leaf and Black Swan. If you forced me to, I might invent something and say Black Swan had a touch of cherry in it and since I like cherry I prefer it to Turning Leaf, but please don’t give me a taste test. I would fail.

Next on my list is Liberty Creek Sweet Red, which was suggested by one of you. Anything else I should add to my list?

Removing Captcha

Photo: Dominic Sayers

Captcha (the technology that uses squiggly words for security reasons on various websites) helps to keep comment spammers – people who are paid by companies to post spam in the comment section of blogs with links back to their products – at bay.

I’ve used the feature here at Little Nuances for a long time and rarely does a comment spammer sneak a comment through it. But like any other security feature, it also makes it more difficult for everyone else. I received an e-mail a while back from a radio broadcaster who wanted to comment on a post but couldn’t get past the captcha. And I’ve received several e-mails since then saying the same thing.

So, yesterday I removed the captcha feature from the comments section of Little Nuances and within five minutes someone left comment spam. Within the hour someone else left more spam. By the end of the night, more than a dozen spam comments had been left and I finally had enough, so I re-enabled the captcha feature.

As I was thinking about this though, it made me wonder if I have inadvertently enabled captcha in other areas of my life. I’m introverted and shy so I don’t show my emotions externally in groups of people. That causes some to wonder if I ever get mad. It probably also causes them to wonder if I am ever happy. Of course, I experience both emotions and I exhibit both.

I’ve been going through a difficult situation recently and when I couldn’t get answers from somebody who has the answers, but just didn’t care enough to give them to me, I got angry. And happiness for me comes from the small pleasures of life – talking to family members, reading a good book while my cat is curled up on my lap, enjoying coffee with friends; they all make me smile.

But in group settings my calm demeanor sometimes comes across as being unfriendly, or worse, standoffish. It’s captcha in real life. I don’t mean for that to be the case. My demeanor is a product of being introverted, shy and not wanting to be noticed. When you are shy, and overweight, all you really want to do is to blend in – to be normal, to be accepted as part of the masses.

The thing I think I’ve often missed though is that being part of the masses means interacting with the masses. It means engaging in small talk. It means smiling at strangers. It means searching for common ground. I’m better at searching for common ground than I am at initiating contact. I’m at work in progress when it comes to that. But we're all in a work in progress in some way or another.

Fairbanks California Port Wine

I have a bookshelf in my living room that is six feet high. The top of it is perfect for taking photos of items to place on eBay because it’s easy to keep the camera level with the items. Lately I’ve been using the top of the bookshelf to also take pictures of the bottles of wine I’ve been trying and writing about here. My cat, Latte, likes this spot as well. Several times a day, she hops up there to stretch out.

The two worlds collided the other night when I tried to photograph a bottle of Fairbanks California Port wine for this post. Here is the result:

Pretty cute, huh?

Wish I could say the bottle of wine was as much fun.

I read somewhere that port wine is sweet, and as I’ve mentioned in other posts about the various red wines I’ve been trying, sweet is what I’m after. Fairbanks California Port doesn’t have any fancy marketing blurbs on the back of the bottle about how it’ll enhance your meal or outing or life. That might have been my first clue that this was a “real” wine, but I didn’t catch that until I tried a glass of it.

The label says it is superbly rich and full-bodied. I now know that those adjectives describe a taste that is much too strong for my palate. My first taste made me flinch. After the overpowering “full-bodied” taste overwhelmed me, I tasted the sweetness, but it was too late by then. And, if it is possible, it was too sweet.

Two ways of describing the taste came to mind and they both fall short, but I’ll give them to you anyway. For the initial full-bodied shock factor, think about how the first sip of black Starbucks coffee tastes (yuck! pass the cream and pink stuff please), followed quickly by the taste of Kool-Aid with twice as much sugar as any human has ever consumed in one glass. Combined, the two tastes are enough to rattle your eyeballs.

At least I learned something. When I went to the store on Sunday afternoon to pick up a few groceries I notice a few bottles of wine that said they are medium-bodied. So, that must mean light-bodied wines exist, although I didn’t see any. I did find a website that talks about the three types and it compares full-bodied wine to cream, medium-bodied wine to regular milk (I’m not sure what that is), and light-bodied wine to 1% or 2% milk. At the very least, I learned not to get full-bodied or medium-bodied wine.

How about you? Have you been experimenting with different types of wine? Or do you have a favorite you’d like to tell me about? So far, I’ve jotted down the following suggestions from the comments section: Liberty Creek Sweet Red, Kenwood Pinoir Noir and Benzinger Pinoir Noir.

Red Guitar Wine (2006), Old Vine Rosé

On Sunday one of my pastors told us it was a good thing to be snowed in every once in a while. Snow was already falling and we had the promise of quite a bit more. I totally understood what he meant.

After church, I stopped at the grocery store. As I finished up my shopping, I meandered through the wine section looking for something new to try. I found a wine called Red Guitar – Old Vine Rosé from 2006. I’ve been wanting to try a red table wine for a while, and I liked the name because I used to play guitar and music has always meant something to me, so it seemed like a perfect fit.

I flipped the bottle over and read this:

Centuries ago, the Spanish added a sixth string to a little recognized instrument, bringing to life what we now know as the guitar. For countless generations since, music, food and wine have been the fabric of the Spaniard’s joyful and vivacious existence. Put simply, la buena vida (the good life).

Our prized Garnacha vines grow deep in the gravel soils of Navarra. Rosé is a classic wine from this ancient kingdom and our lively version is a fresh mouthful of raspberries with a crisp refreshing finish.

Red Guitar Rosé; a refreshing celebration of the Spanish lifestyle.

As the snow continued to accumulate on Monday evening, I popped in my Holiday Fire DVD, poured a glass of Red Guitar and plopped down in my recliner to read The Safe Haven by Nicholas Sparks. Latte, my cat, made the scene complete by curling up in my lap where I rubbed her belly, causing her to purr.

The fire crackled and I’m pretty sure I felt it warming my feet. The wine went down easily. No bitter aftertaste and it wasn’t overbearingly sweet. Maybe that’s how raspberries taste? I have no idea because I’ve never tried one. But this wine quickly became my new favorite.

Ironically, the novel I was reading while enjoying my Red Guitar contained a scene in which two friends shared a bottle of wine, making the evening even better. Like one my pastors said, it is a good thing to be snowed inside every once in a while. But the scene ended when my roommate walked in the front door.

"Want a glass of wine?" I asked.

"No. I'm not highfalutin like you, with the fake fireplace and $7.50 bottle of wine," he joked.

"What are you trying to say?"

"It speaks for itself."

He’s probably right.

10 Top Favorite Posts of 2010

It's the time of year for lists. Here's another one for you – my favorite posts in reverse from 2010. Vote for your favorite post in the sidebar on the right.

10. Chasing Moe
9. The Soundtrack of Life
8. Joannie Rochette's Magical Performance
7. The Tender Bar
6. Teachers Who Inspire Us
5. The New Era Jotter from Ireland
4. Remember Shmoo?
3. Meeting Rebecca St. James
2. God in a Nursing Home
1. Goodbye, My Friend

The Robin's Nest

Photo: Evelyn Wackett

Yesterday, I was honored to be the first man to do a "Let's Chat Friday" with Robin Prater on her blog, Robin's Nest. We discussed "aha" moments in my life, struggles I've faced, the best advice I ever received, the legacy I hope to leave behind and more. Thanks for the invite Robin. I enjoyed the chat.

Part of the Family

I read these verses in 2 Samuel 12:1-3 yesterday:

And the LORD sent Nathan to David. He came to him and said to him, "There were two men in a certain city, the one rich and the other poor. The rich man had very many flocks and herds, but the poor man had nothing but one little ewe lamb, which he had bought. And he brought it up, and it grew up with him and with his children. It used to eat of his morsel and drink from his cup and lie in his arms, and it was like a daughter to him.

Of course, Nathan was setting David up. He wanted him to become incensed after learning that a rich man killed a poor man's pet lamb because once David grasped the enormity of the rich man's injustice toward the poor man he would be overwhelmed by his own sin of taking another man's wife.

A couple of things struck me about these verses that I have never seen before.

First, they seem to confirm how important a pet can be to people in need. In this case, it was a poor man who couldn't afford even one more animal.

That caused me to think about modern day examples of people in need, like a widow who decides to get a cat to fill the silence and stillness in her home, a man who retires and buys a dog to establish a new routine and residents of a nursing facility who aren't visited by anybody, but find comfort in the resident pet.

Second, this passage seems to confirm that a pet really can be "like a daughter" to people in need. I wonder how people who make fun of pet owners who say their animal is part of the family would respond to these verses?

As many of you know, I lost my beloved cat, Midnight, earlier this year. She was 20 years old, so I knew the end had to be near, but that didn't make losing her any easier. I struggled to put my pain into words. All I could say was, she was all I had.

After two weeks of a cat-less home, I couldn't take it anymore. I got a new cat and named her Latte. She was wild and I knew we were both in for a period of adjustment, but even in the first couple of days, something magical happened.

Latte climbed into the same kitchen windowsill Midnight used to sleep in and plopped down on the same towel I'd placed there for Midnight to sleep on. It still had Midnight's fur on it, but Latte didn't seem to be phased in the least. And then she found the place on the living room carpet Midnight used to sleep on, and like the windowsill, it was still covered with Midnight's fur. Latte plopped down on Midnight's fur as if to say, "If she meant something to you, she means something to me."

Midnight enjoying the windowsill in 2004

Latte enjoying the same windowsill, and towel, in 2010

Those two moments brought healing.

Not only did I not replace Midnight, because you can never replace pets who are part of the family, but I found a new pet who accepted Midnight's place in my life while also slipping into her own place in the family.

Latte 1, Christmas Tree 0

I don't know what this thing is, but put it up again. This is fun!

#85 Windows

Continuing with the 100 life-enriching little nuances series …

Max waits patiently for Latte to notice him

The window in my home office feels like my own TV channel. I sip my coffee in the mornings, trying to wake up enough to start my work day and I check out what's playing on my channel.

Fall is playing this morning.

The first thing I see is a rogue branch from the hedge bush in my front yard that blocks too much of my view. It sticks up defiantly knowing I don't have a saw or hedge clippers to keep it from doing so. But one of these days …

A squirrel sits in the barren tree in my front yard and munches on something. He appears to be a rebel squirrel. Somehow he's figured out a way to flip his tail all the way up his back to make it look like he has a Mohawk. I envision other squirrels walking on the other side of the street to avoid him. I pick up my camcorder and shoot a video of Mohawk squirrel. Who would believe me otherwise?

Across the street, a neighbor's tree is full of vibrant, red leaves – none of which have fallen to a nearly perfectly manicured lawn. Even though the lawn is well kept, the grass is green on one side of the lawn and mostly brown on the other side. It's a losing battle, but someone has to fight it.

The people in the house next to it have given up the fight. I feel their pain. Leaves are piled high and more continue to float downward.

I'm keeping an eye out for a cat I have named Max. He hasn't made an appearance yet this morning. He's a neighborhood cat who visits my cat, Latte, once in a while. He's into her. He'll lay underneath the window she is sleeping by, hoping she'll notice him. I'm okay if she flirts with him a little, but he looks sort of wild, so I always make an appearance just so he knows to mind his Ps and Qs.

I'm fully awake now. Time to get to work. But I think I'll leave my window television on. I like the background noise.

Making the Case for Cats

I’m not anti-dog, but I’m pro-cat. Found these two contrasting videos on YouTube over the weekend that further solidifies my positions:

The Little Things

The funeral home my family uses sent me a "funeral planning survey" this week. It asks some good questions, such as: How much might you expect to pay for a funeral? Do you maintain up-to-date biographical information and accurate family records to assist you or a loved one with funeral preplanning? Have you ever heard of prepaid funeral plans?

Of course, their main goal is to get you to respond in the affirmative to the question: Would you like FREE information about funeral planning and the types of services which are available? Notice the passive voice there? They don't say, "the types of services which we offer," instead they say, "which are available."

But this isn't a grammar lesson. Instead, this post is about question number 6: In the event of your death, who would be responsible for making arrangements? Responders have two options. They can either check the "spouse" box or the "children" box. There is no option for "other" with a blank line to explain. Just the assumption that everybody is either married and/or has children.

As a single person, this doesn't offend me. No offense was intended. I just notice it, along with the other subtle reminders I see – the large package of skinless chicken breasts on sale at the grocery store I pass up, the older couple who walked hand-in-hand in front of me the other day, friends' relationship flag on Facebook flipping from single to relationship.

I don't own any of these subtleties and they do not own me. They just are. But, to say they don't exist wouldn't be honest. I notice them. I also notice the subtle ways people I know show they care.

Latte reads her card

In the same batch of mail in which I received the funeral planning survey, my cat received a card from a friend and his wife. Actually, it was from their cat. The card shows a cat peering into a toilet bowl, saying, "This is great! I just have to press the handle and the punch bowl refills!"

So, why in the world would anybody go to the trouble of spending three dollars on a card, plus postage, for somebody else's cat? The answer is pretty simply, really.

This couple knows I lost a cat five months ago. I had her for 20 years, and, as I said in this post, she was all I had. They also know I have a new cat, who is quite the rounder by the way, and that by doing something for her, they were doing something for me.

The little things in life – the subtle reminders of what we don't have, the cards that remind us of what we do have, the unspoken and the spoken words, the remembered and unremembered birthdays – they all add up.

One Latte to go, please

At the risk of making it seem like I’m turning this into a cat blog (don’t worry, I’m not), I adopted a new little buddy yesterday from the Humane Society – a 9-month-old stray who couldn’t be more lovable and she’s already making herself at home.

I named her Latte because her coloring looks a lot like the Skinny Vanilla Lattes I enjoy most weekends and because she’s so sweet. But, as you can see here, we might need to talk about her positioning while we’re watching TV together:

She beat me to my work desk this morning, fluttered across the keyboard, jumped in my chair, meowed for affection, and I knew I better figure out something quick if I planned to get any work done.

She has this thing for windows and I have a couple in my home office. So, I grabbed her kitty bed and stuck it on my desk near one of the windows. It was an instant hit with her.

Now, she sleeps right next to me while I work, only coming up for attention every 30 or 40 minutes. Then, it’s right back to the bed on my desk.

I still have a lot more to learn about her and she has a lot to learn about me, so let the adventures being.