Saturday, December 11, 2010

laughter pushes me forward...

One of the things I'm obsessed about this week is the 'talking kitty' on YouTube. What, you thought I was gonna say the flash-mob singing the 'hallelujah' chorus at the mall? Naw, nothing that highbrow. In fact, Sylvester has quite the potty-mouth.

My Lenny talks as much. You'll be walking down the hall, and he'll be strolling the other way, and I'll say in passing "Hey dude what's up?" and will always get a response. His chirps are the last things I hear at night and the sounds that wake me up in the morning. Blather, blather, blather. I love it.

You'd think he was Siamese other than a black kitty. He and Sylvester look a lot alike down to the white patches on their tummy. Separated at birth. You can tell Sylvester is sweet by his body language and the way he's kneading his paws while he looks at his person. But the plots have him 'with attitude' and I have gotten in the habit of 'talking' like him sometimes when Excy asks me some question, which he finds funny.

"Nooooooooo.........." "Stoooppppppppp thatttttt..." Never fails to make Excy laugh. Which is always a goal. Being a ham, and making him laugh during the day, is just something I've always done, and one of the reasons I think he was attracted to me in the first place. Who doesn't like to be around someone who makes them smile? He once told me I was a combination of Lucille Ball and Myrna Loy (my favorite actress, I will post on her some time). Excellent combination.

We have a Christmas tree in the LR! We usually wait until the 16th but his kids are arriving next Friday for an early visit and I want everything to be ready by then. The branches haven't dropped down enough to decorate yet. It's Excy's job to string the lights - he does it in such a way they appear to twinkle as you walk around it. My job is all the rest of the decorating. I relish taking my ornaments out and fussing with the tree, a holiday movie in the background. It takes me a long time to get it the way I want it and I usually have to make adjustments later. The ornament collection stalled last year. With all his medical drama, I didn't get to shop sales after the holiday and pick up any fabulous ornaments at a bargain. But this year, I couldn't resist buying a raccoon and a Santa ornament. I decided I'd start buying Parker, the grand-princess, an ornament a year based on the interests in her life, so that when she is on her own she'll have a good start on her tree. And she was fascinated with our raccoons this summer when they visited, so I bought her one, too. And a container to put her ornaments in, that I need to decorate this week. I'm making her a stocking that should be ready by her BD in June. I figure it'll be good timing because she will be 3 next Christmas and beginning to 'clue' in to stuff like that, though she'll still be young...

Mom and dad have stopped putting up a tree. It's gotten to be a bit much. They only like live trees, as do we, but dad doesn't want the hassle, and they won't let anyone put it up for them. They are decorating their ficus with white lights and buying a half-dozen poinsettias as they did last year. I hope they will let me go through their ornaments some day. I'd like the ones I remember from childhood, and I am crazy for vintage. (Being an antique myself).

One of the time-consuming things I do on our tree is wrap a 'red berry' glass ball at the end of the branches, which saves special ornaments from slipping off, and making the branch look 'finished.' When the tree's done and the decorations are finished I'll take some pictures. Our holly bushes are popping with berries, luckily, so I will take branches from them for the table for Excy's surprise party the 22nd. I'm going to try to make the last horrid Christmas a distant memory.
Excy's remote-control helicopter came today for his BD. (He never reads this blog). It looks like a lot of fun.

9 comments:

Doris Sturm said...

Sounds like you're going to have a cozy Christmas. I think a lot of people are really particular about "their" Christmas trees... I used to buy one or two ornaments after Christmas, but as of late, have taken to crocheting my own. I still have some shiny balls and icicles to imply winter and frost (since we don't get snow here) but for the most part, it's a fun and home made low-key Christmas tree. I remember when I was a kid growing up in Germany, my dad would fell the tree during the day on the 24th of December and in the afternoon, him and I would decorate it. There were always edibles for hanging on the tree: fondant rings, tinfoil wrapped chocolates in the shapes of small pine cones and Santa Claus, liquor filled schnapps bottles and of course, my favorite, marzipan strawberries wrapped in clear cellophane ...I still love that stuff. I don't put edibles up any more, not even popcorn or cranberry garland because I'm bug paranoid - but it wasn't one of our traditions anyway, so I don't miss it.

Merry Christmas and lots of health to you and your husband!

Doris Sturm said...

correction: liquor filled chocolate bottles...(tiny ones!)

Arkansas Patti said...

Sounds like you are ready. Hope you have a wonderful time.
My cat won't allow a tree. The only good thing about that is my house doesn't get those after holiday blaas.
Love your talking cat. Mine is silent till you touch him, then he chirps. You touch him twenty times a minute, he chirps 20 times.

marciamayo said...

I still miss my cat.

"Alone again.... naturally!" said...

Our cat talks to us too. It's the "hello" meow as she passes by or the meow, where is my dinner because you know they surely have an eternal clock built in and god forbid if you are even a few minutes late! Love her to bits!

I wish we were allowed real tree's here, living (under duress) in a condo can be a challenge sometimes. I like your idea of putting the little glass ornaments at the end of the branches, you must have alot of those for ALL the branches! My idea is to use green floral wire on the ornaments and then wrapping them onto the branches so they won't come off. After having had 3 household cats, you learn! I also collect old vintage ornaments and have a few that were my parents, which I treasure.
Have a wonderful time decorating (and rearranging, lol, I do that too).

e said...

I wish you both the best Christmas and a healthy New Year!

Mrs. Tuna said...

Christmas, my all time favorite time of year, hooray for me!

ReformingGeek said...

Oooh. Sounds fun. I'm looking forward to the photos! I'd love to see what the red berry at the end of the branch looks like!

Stephanie Faris said...

We did a live tree once when I was a kid...pine needles EVERYWHERE...and it started dying about three days before Christmas so part of it was brown. I just do an artificial tree with pine candles...seems to be about the same.