Photo Friday: The Christmas Outback

A couple weeks ago, I told you how hubby was so ticked off about our sudden rain. The main reason is this:

Isn't he cute? He decorated his car with garland, lights, and stockings. 

Hard to see the car since it's dark, but the lights can be set to "twinkle" or "steady". The battery packs are kept in the stockings.

Hubby, who usually winds up on my “naughty” list around this time of year for his very realistic portrayal of The Grinch, seems to have finally taken the end of that story to heart. So to speak. Where usually I have to beg, plead, cajole, nag and wind up having my lights put up a mere day or two before Christmas, this year, he got them the week after Thanksgiving week-end.

Unfortunately, the garland lights that the teen loved so much were too heavy for the hangars we had. They came down with the first big wind and just kept coming down. I’m going to ask hubby to put hooks into the concrete for next year; maybe that, with electrical ties, will keep the garland up. This year, I’ll tell the teen to decorate the hall outside his room with the lights or we can put them up in the front room (where there is no breeze and no rain).

Tonight, we finish decorating, except for the tree, which gets finished on Christmas Eve, per my family’s tradition, and one the teen loves—the 12 year-old would have it all decorated the day after Thanksgiving if given his head. I may be making popcorn, as that’s one of his favorite things to do is make a popcorn garland. Actually, he enjoys anything homemade or crafty. Don’t know where he got that gene.

I hope you all enjoy your last shopping week-end before Christmas and I’ll see you all Monday, when I’ll be chatting about Myrrh, the last gift of the Magi, fittingly, on Christmas Eve day.

Photo Friday: Success!

Only one photo today; well, six of a similar nature. 

Final word count at validation is 50,160. The story needs heavy editing, a middle, and an end. It'll likely wind up around 25-40K by the time I finish.

Devil or Angel?

So last August, my parents got a new kitten, after their old cat passed away a month or two before. We all thought it was a lovely idea. My mother, who has Alzheimer's and is a virtual shut in (not "virtual" as in she's on the computer all day, virtual as in, the only time she gets out of the house is when my dad makes her get out & go with him someplace), loved the new cat. Until she came to the (literally) painful conclusion that kittens are very different creatures from cats. 

The as-of-then-unnamed kitten would claw and scratch and bite her; the kitten was just being playful, but my mother, with her disease, was even more traumatized by the attacks than a healthy person would be. She wanted to keep the kitten, though, because sometimes, the kitten was such a doll. In fact, my son named her "Kisses" because she also has this habit of kissing the person whose arms she is in.

I just came back from a visit to my parents' house and the kitten has grown into a small cat. Now, she looks like this:

Sure, she still looks all sweet and innocent, but when she's closed in her room at night, she sleeps until around 3:00 a.m.--as in 0300, as in one hour after the bars close, two and a half hours before my usual rising time. When she wakes, she proceeds to yowl as though her little kitty heart were breaking. I was tempted to reach down her throat and remove it after day three, just to see if it was indeed broken. Tempted. She is still fine, PETA. She also claws, scratches, and pulls at the door to the bedroom, shaking the door on its frame and making a general racket. If you let her out at this point, she proceeds to run about the house, breaking things.

My parents are old. They have neither time nor patience for what is, in reality, a child who needs not only love, but discipline. They have all the love in the world to give, but Kisses is out of control and they do not have the skills at this point in their lives, especially with Mom's disease and me living 1200 miles away with my own growing family, to take proper care of her. 

My father now has an ad up at his job and he is hoping to find Kisses a new home before the end of the year. At that point, they might--stress the might--go to a shelter and rescue an older, more settled cat; one who can be the companion my mom is looking for, but not the Hellion that a young cat naturally is. As I was looking at the pictures of Kisses this morning, preparing to write this blog, a song by my mom's favorite singer kept running through my head. With that in mind, here's some of the lyrics, feel free to find it on YouTube or somewhere--Elvis Presley's "Devil in Disguise". It suits our little Kisses, that's certain.

"You look like an angel
Walk like an angel
Talk like an angel
But I got wise
You're the devil in disguise"

(And yes, I do know the title of the blog is the title of another song from that era by Bobby Vee. Pardon me while I pull up my support bra and put my teeth in.)