TGIF.

So...is it Friday yet? Cause I'm looking forward to Friday. I like Fridays.

Fibre Love.

Last Saturday morning, my Loverlies, I woke up really early.

I don't know why. I would have liked to sleep in. Anyhoo...

I went upstairs, yawned for a while, sitting in the stairs between the kitchen and the living room, scratched behind a few cat ears and slowly made my way to the kitchen after having drawn back the curtains in the dining room. I am realizing, writing this, that I am making my house sound huge. It is. I live in a mansion, have I not told you? I have sold most of my estates, such as the chalet in Switzerland and my pad in Hamburg, but have yet to find a suitable owner for the one in Brazil. It's...I don't know - it's too beautiful, although it reminds of my villa in Costa Rica, but I cannot part with it.

(Several hours later)

Hello, Loverlies! How are you? Been here long? What? I was talking about my estates and I was using my John Cleese voice? Oh, dear. I am SO sorry. I sleepwalk. That happens. Let's start over.

Last Saturday morning, I woke up really early. I'm talking 5:15, which is my weekday wake-up time. I went upstairs, sat in the stairs, scratched behind a few cat ears and slowly made my way to the kitchen to make some coffee. I was planning on sitting in the living room to watch a movie until The Man woke up. He sleeps through almost anything, but I was feeling rather lazy and looking for an excuse to sit in my jammies and sip coffee, so I chose a few Pixar classics and sat down, headphones on, with my knitting. Just as I was starting the movie, I heard some scratching noises coming from the corner of the living room.  "Come on, Ezio. Lie still. The Man is asleep. Don't start now..." I begged him. But Ezio was doing his groundhog pose, sitting up on his hind legs, looking at my knitting cabinet intently. I swear, he does this. The hind legs thing.

I walked over slowly, and sure enough, there was a weird scratching noise coming from inside the drawer. "F*%@ing mice", I thought. I cracked open the drawer ever so slowly, baseball bat held three-quarters of the way down in my left hand, ready to wield the Fury of Almightyness into their helpless little faces and completely smash my beloved knitting cabinet. Well, not really. Knowing me, I would have collected the mice by their little tails while making gentle cooing sounds and put them in a shoebox for the day, given them human names such as Edward, Elliot and Ingrid and fed them some grated carrots and pieces of cheese. I would then have taken them to the park and set them free.

What really happened, though, as I know you are all sitting on the edge of your chairs, is this. I cracked open the drawer, and here is what saw:

"What the heck?" I thought. So I took a closer look. It seems my embroidered Squibbit is loving my Sock Monkey. (the Monkey's not really, technically, a Sock Monkey which I made, but he used to live on a sock, and I saved him from Doom and am keeping him for some other project. Turns out he was showing the Squibbit how to monkey around...ahem...) Don't they look happy?

They look almost as happy as Ezio does with his white ribbon. He looks like he's going to a wedding or something. I got this off a gift wrapping and he loved it, so I put it on his collar for 15 minutes. The Man would like me to tell you that I have a mental illness, although I am not sure what he is referring to.

Hideout.

Since Ezio joined the family, Boo has had his patience tested over and over again. I think that's why he escaped for a few days at some point: to get some perspective and mull things over. Boo has acquired a bad ass personality, and he shuts down Ezio with one paw to the head. The funny thing is, Ezio always comes running back for more. Loves it. He doles out most of the abuse, though, and is frequently caught in the act of booting Boo from a quiet spot or generally acting out to piss Boo off. I mean, look. Case in point. He always has the mischievous face, even this morning:

 

We've never seen the two of them be affectionate to one another and I know you can't force these things (I've tried taping them to one another with duct tape and locking them in the bathroom, to no avail), but I still feel bad that Boo gets kicked around like that. I was fascinated when I saw Ezio wash Boo's face yesterday. Boo did not move. He had his teeth bared, but kept still as as statue and let Ezio do the grooming. He eventually turned and - lighting quick - whacked him upside the head, when Ezio bit his ear. I know he has reached wit's end when he goes here (the little one doesn't have an inkling that this place exists):

The top of the kitchen cupboards: perfect hideout.

It worked. That little runt can't find me now. Mwahahahargh. Sucker.

Sometimes, Boo lets his guard down and migrates back down to earth with the rest of us. He still loves his spot on The Man's ugly blanket. 

I swear: one day that blanket will 'accidentally' burn or be used for the rag it is. As long as it makes him happy, I can't take it away from him. I am not that mean and controlling. So in the meantime, I bleach the hell out of it in the hopes that the fabric eventually disintegrates. It's the only thing I can do about it...it's a slow, tedious process, but mark my words: I will prevail. Oh yes, I will prevail (okay, I don't really hate it that badly...ahem).

Simpler Moments.

Happiness. Total abandon.

Boo & Ezio.

Boo. Now seems huge, more graceful and mature. Great mentor for Ezio.

Ezio. Includes thumbs, folded ears and ruckus at night. Cuteness Factor: Eleven.

Still figuring out territory issues and buddy boundaries.

Antipodes.

Last Friday started off very brutally and ended with a happy surprise. Now you get the title of this post. You don’t need to read this if you don’t want to, it gets graphic and I just need some sort of outlet. Warning: there are no Little Pixies that Rule the World in this post, nor are there references to Boo, my awesome Cat who talks like James Mason.

Early in the morning, I heard noises in the entrance hall and staircase of my building. People going up, people coming down. Stamping their feet. Running. Then I heard an engine running outside my bedroom window. Newspaper Guy comes around 5 a.m. It wasn’t him. So I looked out the window and saw an ambulance, a cop car and a fire engine. I instantly freaked out. About 5 minutes later, one of the firemen took out the gurney from the ambulance and laid a blanket and pillow on it. By this time, I had gathered something had happened to my upstairs neighbor, as he had undergone surgery a few weeks back. I thought he wasn’t feeling well, and that he needed to go back to the hospital. I just did not expect to see him like this. The ambulance tech was practically jumping up and down on him, trying to revive him. He was not responding, and I’m guessing they had been trying upstairs too. He was grey, he was dead, and I lost it.

Why did I stay at the window? I couldn’t look away: I’ve known this guy almost 4 years. We spoke 3 days before in the garage. He was my neighbor. With all my might, I was willing him to open one eye: to turn his head away from me, to breathe, damn it, breathe! He was not my best friend or a member of my family, but his death hurt me deeply. And the image of him, dead on a gurney outside my bedroom window, will haunt me for a long time to come.

I had my day planned out, but couldn’t just carry on as if nothing had happened. I had to leave. I was crying, pacing alone in my living room, wishing I had not seen what I had seen. So I called my friends and left. I spent the day with them. It made me feel better. When I came home, The Man told me he had an errand to run and he’d be back in an hour. When he returned, he asked me to close my eyes and sit on the sofa. He gently placed something in front of me on the floor. When I opened my eyes, there was a black basket with a fabric drawstring top, closed. When I opened it, two little blue eyes were staring at me from the depths of the basket. I closed it again. I started crying. I said to the The Man: “Oh no! Boo is going to kill him!” I looked again, and the two little blue eyes mewed at me. Two little beady blue eyes, in a furry little head with folded ears, the sweetest stripes ever and a spotted belly, and four thumbs on its little paws. We called our new little baby cat Ezio, in honor of the character in Assassin’s Creed, Ezio Auditore da Firenze. The Man had been planning this surprise for over a month with a couple of friends of ours. I had held this little furball when he was two days old, and had fallen in love with him then. But he would never be mine, or so I thought…Now I fall in love with him every time I look at him. I know, it’s corny. But true.

Thanks for putting up with the corniness. When I post pictures of Ezio, you’ll fall under the spell too.

Last Friday started off very brutally and ended with a happy surprise. Last Friday was the first time in my life I cried in panic, in sadness, in surprise and in joy, all within less than twelve hours.