Christmas Cat

Bob asked me the other day if I'd decorated my office for Christmas, and I said I had, but just a little bit. He asked me to take pictures; he said he always likes to see what I've done. This is the Christmas tree on my desk:

It has battery-operated lights, but they don't work very well. I think they overheat and go off after about two hours. Then, once they cool off, they come on again. Maybe it's just a very slow blinking system . . .

This is the wreath on my door, a small one, kind of different. A little asymmetrical; it has pinecones and juniper berries.

And then, at home--this is Dinah contemplating the tree, trying to decide whether to jump into it or not. She hasn't, yet, or at least not that we can tell.

Pye enjoying the new throw that a friend sent:

Posing on the coffee table ("The stockings were hung by the chimney with care . . ."):

And standing still long enough to be decorated:

Christmas cat!

Barb came over tonight and we exchanged Christmas gifts, then went and met another friend for dinner, someone that, until last year, we hadn't seen (or, at least, I hadn't seen for at least ten years, and probably twenty. It's nice to have friends that you can see only once a decade or so, and still just pick up where you left off.

I came home after dinner, finished laundry, and have been making Chex Mix to take to work tomorrow. I was just finishing up in the kitchen, and Bob was gathering up trash to take out to the curb. He went out to the garage, and then I heard him saying, "Pyewacket? Kitty? Where are you?"

I thought she had gotten out into the garage again, and I got up to go see what was going on. When I got there, he was standing in the garage trying to pick out the knot in a big trash bag, saying, "Hold on, just hang on, I'll get you!" I said, "What are you doing? Where's Pyewacket?" and he said, "I think she's in the trash bag." He went on picking at the knot, and I told him to just rip it open, and use another bag, for Heaven's sake!

So he ripped a hole in it, and reached in and came out holding Pyewacket by the scruff of her neck. He said, "I thought that bag felt awfully heavy!"

Apparently he'd laid the bag down for a moment while he was emptying the wastebaskets, and she'd crawled in on top of a pile of newspapers, only making herself known by crying when he set the bag down in the garage. I'm just glad he didn't get them all the way out to the street. If she'd kept her mouth shut, we never would have found her. Just one more thing to worry about . . .