Quiet night

Last night was a really quiet evening around here. Dinah was apparently not feeling very well after the vet ordeal, and spent the entire evening curled up in my chair sleeping. Consequently, Pyewacket spent the evening asleep, too, curled up in my desk chair, lying partially on her back with one front paw flung over her face.

I didn't have the heart to dislodge either one of them, so I sat at the dining room table with my book propped up on a bookholder, reading and knitting until my arm started hurting, then I just read. I realized this morning that I didn't turn the television on once while Bob was gone. I watched two movies on DVD on the computer, I think, but the rest of the time I was either on the computer or reading, mostly reading.

I was working on a new bag last night; I finally finished the first one, sewing on the straps after they and the bag dried. I carried it out to my folks' today to show it off; it was just the right size to hold the yarn for the new bag. Before I left, I took it out and hung it on the tree to take a picture, the tree that also holds the new finch feeder and the new hummingbird feeder, and above the bag and to the right, a birdhouse that my dad helped me make when I was probably about eight or nine years old.

It used to be painted--turquoise, as I recall, but all the paint is gone now, and it's just bare wood. I don't think a bird has ever lived in it, and if one did, there isn't a way to get inside it to get an old nest out. But I love having it hanging in the tree as a memento of my childhood.

The tree is an ash that I dug up as a seedling (or my mother dug up, probably) from my parents' yard--it had come up as a sprout from the root of the tree in their front yard, the tree that was there throughout my childhood, the tree that I learned to climb--just the very lowest branch, though, of course. But I remember sitting up in that tree and feeling like I owned the world.

The one in my yard is almost as tall now as the one in their yard. The tree is kind of a pain--it produces these weird seed things that clog up the gutters in the spring--and the roots are close to the surface, so it creates a lot of tripping opportunities, but I love it. The leaves turn bright yellow in the fall.

It's been a pretty quiet night here tonight, too. Bob got home mid-afternoon, an hour or so before I did. We ordered pizza for dinner, he went to bed at about 8:00, and I think I'm going to follow him shortly.