Yesterday, while on a search for a type of safe litter THAT SOPHIE WILL USE (turns out, after buying 30lbs—the only size they had—of a recommended brand, she still won't use it), I bought her a little toy...essentially a puffy ball on a spring attached to a base. Sorta like this, but purple with a pink fuzzy on top. Because Sophie's a girl, and she likes pink and purple better. She told me in no uncertain terms.

Anyway, to get her interest in it, Nick suggested I spray the ball with this bottle of catnip spray. I had gotten the spray shortly after we adopted her, and keep it hidden so that she won't become a junkie in her time alone during the days. I doused the pink puff and put the spray back in its hiding place.

Later that Night, Sophie walked up to the spring, sniffing the ball, and batted it a couple of times with her paw, eventually knocking it over. Looking covertly to either side, she nestled down on the floor next to the fallen contraction and inched closer to the pink puff. Next time I looked, she was bathing it with her tongue, sucking with eyes at half mast...almost like it was coffee-squared.

King Midas had nothing on this.

Birds chirping, dew drops glistening, and dust motes fluttering, I feel as though I am in a sacred place. I keep quiet and watch as the awe takes hold, and I feel her caress my face with her gentle mothers' hands and hold me close. She used to call me every morning while I lived in North Carolina and say, "The weather is clear here, is it there?" And if I'd reply that it was, she would volley happily, "Then we are looking at the same sun today." And so we are today too, with the warmth and sparkle of our blessings.

After a week of rain, we have a sunny stretch before us. This morning's newscasters were so excited, and Jeff reminded, "You know what they say about April Showers!" Then, continuing on, "But do you know what May Flowers bring?" At the silence, he cheered, "PILGRIMS!"

The theory of Limbo is about to be abolished by the Roman Catholic Church. It gives me absurd happiness to think that the people have a better understanding of God's grace today than they did in the stricter religious structures of 800 ago.

I was confirmed in a very strict synod of my Lutheran faith...the Lutherans strayed from the Catholic Church, of course, but our basis in faith is the one and the same. I was taught Original Sin, and the cleansing of Baptism...but I always felt this immense sorrow for the infants with non-religious parents who make the choice not to wash away that sin. It's hard, religion today. We live in a society that feeds on proof, not simple belief. I know I've mentioned it many times now, but I almost attended Seminary, wanting to become a Pastor in my faith. I've always been philosophical more on the theological side, and know that when I can't reason out an answer, my higher power will. I know few my age who know this so wholly. I am lucky.

Limbo was defined centuries past as a place between Heaven and Hell where the good but unbaptized go in their afterlife. It isn't a terrible place, but it certainly isn't Heaven, we're taught. But it always bothered me...the thought that our loving, gracious Lord wouldn't welcome a baby who died before being baptized into his home and into his protecting arms. Instead of Original Sin, I always chose to believe in my own theory: Original Forgiveness.

I am excited about this eradication of a scare tactic faith. I remember often the words of one my Pastors over the years: "Jesus didn't scare the Hell out of people. He warmed the Heaven in." This is a very good thing.

Well, it's saturated in incandescent lighting and I really need to get that zoom flash attachment for my camera, but you can sort of see the "work I had done" in the following picture. I plopped myself down in Jean's chair and I prefaced the whole affair with a somewhat-warning, "I trust you." I told her I wanted some sort of red in my hair, but I didn't want to be taken for Ronald McDonald's cousin...or that weird art student who always reads magazines upside down and swallows skittles whole with a swig of orange juice.



I took Sophie to the kitty doctor this afternoon. Nick came home in the middle of the day to help me catch her, and then us girls were off! I had collected some of her stool this morning when cleaning out her litter box, and placed it in a snack Zip-Loc bag at the end of the counter. Nick came down from his shower crooning, "Aww, you set out my lunch!"

I was done with work at noon, and headed to De Forest to get my car washed, because I like the car wash at the BP gas station in De Forest better than I like the car wash at the BP where I live now, in Waunakee. It's the dryer, totally the dryer. In De Forest, it's perfectly permissible to sit in your car like a schmuck while the dryer does all the work. In Waunakee, you're supposed to drive your car out of the wash garage slowly so that the dryer located above the exit can whisk the wet away. I'm sorry, but that's just wrong in my book. If you're going to go through a car wash in the first place, instead of the soapy driveway puddles I remember as a kid, I think it's only fair that you get to be a schmuck from start to finish. If I'm paying for a wash and dry, I want the dry done for me!

And, then, I came home to Sophie...and to this:



So anyway, I patted the potting soil back coaxingly, willing them not to die, before carrying them to safety, atop the china cabinet that I don't think she's figured out how to scale yet. I cleaned up the dirt from the carpet and threw out the wilted flowers Nick had given me weeks ago. I picked up a bouquet of vibrant blossoms from Pick 'N Save in De Forest, which I prefer to Piggly Wiggly in Waunakee because the parking lot wasn't designed by a moron or with a bumper car course in mind. Clearly, I'm living in the wrong village, but what can you do?



I scurried around in a stooped subservient way, picking up all of the plant guts that littered the kitchen floor, wondering how those plants survived all those months with just Nick and I in residence. Those stupid plants, falling off their stands and pulling off their leaves like that...naughty! It couldn't be our Sophie, our dear, sweet, gentle kitten who is afraid of her own reflection in the floor-length bedroom mirror. I straightened, the blood spazing all gung ho around my head, and the door opened from the garage: Nick was home.



Perhaps I should explain the title better. See, Nick and I attended rival high schools. Myself, the prestigious and altogether better De Forest, and he in the neighboring and altogether lesser Waunakee. Nonetheless, his brothers have both lived in De Forest, and Nick found a nice, wholesome De Forest girl to date and call "Dear". So, guess they know all about that car wash and the Pick 'N Save parking lot, huh? Plus, that's where Jean, the person I'd take with me if I were stranded on a desert island and could only take one person with me (AKA: my hairstylist) works.



So once Nick is home, we tromp upstairs, to the room we know Sophie is hiding in, and close the door. I crawled beneath the computer desk and talk to her. We do the slow-blink exchange and I let her smell my hand. With another flutter of her eyelashes (and she has such pretty eyelashes!) I pet her soft head and tell her that we're going on a fun trip to the vet today! She looks bored, and like she thinks I'm lovable (but very stupid). I am actually able to reach behind the desk and untangle her from the mess of cables to lift her to my chest. She is warm and very fuzzy, very small, and Nick helps me get her into her carrier. "The next right after Piggly Wiggly [with the stupid parking lot], right?" I confirm my directions to the vet in Waunakee. He nods and me and Soph head out.

After a very long and very expensive "Wellness Check", I left with all kinds of medication: apparently our kitty has a yeast infection in both ears. So now the poor animal has to be captured twice a day for ear drops and a pill. This cat is going to LOVE me! She was a good girl though, scared to pieces if her quaking was any indication, and curled trustingly into me when it became too much.



So we came home, and that's why I am posting all of the flower pictures now. Because, who knows how long she'll leave them be. But, hey! Nothin' wrong with a girl who likes flowers!

I crawled beneath the computer desk after arriving home from work. I heard her bell scurrying up the stairs as soon as I opened the door from the clank of the closing garage. She was nestled in a network of dead cables, and I lie with my head mere inches from hers. I told her all about my day and asked her about hers.

I reach out to touch her silk strewn head and she hisses. I pull back my hand before touching. "Sophie?" I ask softly, resuming the conversational cadence of our earlier exercise. Sophie isn't much on meowing, and the only sound we've heard her make is the occasional hiss when she feels intimidated and afraid. I tell her that I love her and that she's safe. I inch my hand closer so she can know my scent, and slowly...

...slowly, slowly...

...my fingertips whispered against her downy fur. I kept them there, waiting to see how she would react. She locked her gaze to mine and then, almost imperceptibly, her eyes fluttered closed in a sort of nod of approval. I massaged the crown of her head and moved to tickle-scratch behind her ears, and she rolled to her back in obvious bliss, wanting more.

I accommodated, gladly.

And then the sweetest, most lovely sound sailed upon the air: she purred. The first purr. And it lasted a good ten minutes before she became a cat again and told me to beat it because she needed her "me time" again. It's so wonderful having her here!

"I was in the lounge reading during my lunch break...and suddenly couldn't remember if it was Thursday or Friday," I admit, twirling a telling strand of ash-toned hair.

My friend looks to my flaxen mane, compliments of Jean down at Genesis Hair and Day Spa (PROPS TO JEAN!), and surmises, "You may have more fun, but you also have more idiocy." I remain silent as I decide that maybe I should keep things like forgetting what day it is to myself. My friend walks by my desk with a flip of her highlighted ginger locks, throwing over her shoulder, "I'm only a streaky idiot."

My dander good and up, I toss back over the row of cubicles, "Yeah!? Well at least I'm consistent!"

So there.

Kitty has diarrhea. Convenient, isn't it?—that Nick's working extra house and the cleaning up of messes falls largely (entirely) on myself. I grew up around animals. My father believed it important that his kids were exposed to things early so that they wouldn't be afraid later on in life—a result, I have always thought, of his inherited fear of water (his mother takes wide berth around puddles). So, along with swimming lessons before kindergarten, we had always had a dog and cats running around the cattle.

Growing up on a farm, I'm used to nasty smells, but I'm very worn out with cleaning up after Sophie. I talked to her the other night after cleaning up the 2nd mess in as many days on Nick's side of the bed, about how much easier it was to scrub a carpet than it was to clean bedding...and I concluded the discussion by sing-songing that the litter box was even easier—can you imagine!?

And I look at her sweet face. I know that her stress with her new home is likely the cause of her diarrhea, and feel badly as I scrub this spot or that...and know that I'm completely whipped. Pfft. Feeling guilty that I'm causing her to create a mess for me to clean up.