Music and Cats

This weekend, I shopped at the University District farmers’ market on Saturday, rather than at the Ballard market today. As always this time of year, the flowers were magnificent, though as it has been a cool spring, the poppies, peonies and roses that often make their first appearances on Mother’s Day weekend were absent. And as it was the day before Mother’s Day, rather than the day itself, I saw few young children bearing paper-wrapped bouquets through the market.

Did you know that Anna Jarvis, who founded Mother’s Day 100 years ago, wouldn’t have approved of giving these gorgeous flowers (or candy, or greeting cards) on Mother’s Day? She thought that we should give our mothers white carnations, which she felt signified the purity of a mother’s love. While a mother’s love is a wonderful thing, I don’t much like carnations, and, more importantly, neither does my mother. I’d rather give her flowers she loves than someone else’s idea of the appropriate symbol for her love.

As always, I wish that I could hand-deliver these flowers to my mother, and to my grandmother and my sister.

Happy Mother’s Day, Mom.
Happy Mother’s Day, Grandmama. (The violas are especially for you.)
Happy Mother’s Day, Melanie.
I love you all so much.

And to all the mothers I know in the blogosphere, Happy Mother’s Day. There’s a tulip here for you. (I hope you weren’t expecting a white carnation.)

Today I made a decision that will change my life… sometime next month. Because I don’t blog about the details of my job, I’m not going to tell you more than that.

Today I got some great news. My father will be the 2008 recipient of one of the American Institute of Architect’s highest honors, the Edward C. Kemper Award for service to the profession. Yay, Dad! He’ll receive the award at the AIA’s convention in May. Hooray! We’re going to Boston!

Today I read an article that made me so mad I could spit. If the city council of New Orleans allows it, the Department of Housing and Urban Development will begin bulldozing several of New Orleans’ public housing projects this weekend. And they’re planning to replace the buildings, some of which are WPA-era, high-quality construction that could be restored, with this sort of shoddily built, poorly designed crap.

Did I say three things? I guess I’m done, then.

To open the Advent calendar window for Day 19, click here: (more…)

When someone mentions penguins (and doesn’t that happen often?), most people think of Antarctica. I think of our bathroom. That’s where we keep our penguins. The formally-dressed birds in our black and white bathroom are toys: a pair of squishy terrycloth sponge penguins; a tall, rather somber Guatemalan cotton penguin; the blue, yellow and fuschia penguin, which giggles when you squeeze it, that Paul brought me from the San Diego Zoo; a Zibbies rockhopper from our friend Robin; the beanbag-bodied “personal penguin” that came with the Boynton book I gave Paul last year.

I love the words of Your Personal Penguin, which are also the lyrics to a song recorded by former Monkee Davy Jones:

Your Personal Penguin

I like you a lot
You’re funny and kind
So let me explain
What I have in mind

I want to be your personal penguin
I want to walk right by your side
I want to be your personal penguin
I want to travel with you far and wide

Wherever you go, I’ll go there too
Here and there and everywhere and always with you
I want to be your personal penguin
from now on
 
Now, lots of other penguins seem to do fine
In a universe of nothing but ice
But if I could be yours
And you could be mine
Our cozy little world would be twice as nice

I want to be your personal penguin
I want to talk with you night and day
I want to be your personal penguin
I want to listen to whatever you say

Look at these wings
So perfect to hold you
I’d like to say again what I have already told you
Let me be your personal penguin
from now on

Wherever you go, I’ll go there too
Here and there and everywhere and always with you
Please may I be your personal penguin?
Imagine me your personal penguin!
I wanna be your personal penguin
from now on.

– Sandra Boynton

Lucky for me, Paul agreed that I could be his personal penguin. And I don’t even have to wear the suit.

To open the Advent calendar window for Day 7, click here: (more…)

The Christmas before I moved from Texas to California, my aunt gave me a snowglobe. I don’t like snowglobes, but I cherish this one. Contained within the 5-inch-diameter glass ball is a snowball designer’s representation of my hometown of Houston. A snowglobe designer might choose any number of ways to represent that sprawling Texas city; this globe celebrates one of the things I love about Houston: its skyscraper architecture.

The buildings in the snowglobe are classics: the Astrodome, the Philip Johnson triumvirate of Pennzoil Place, RepublicBank Tower and Transco Tower (with waterfall), and SOM’s dollar-sign-plan, green-clad Allied Bank Tower. However, the crazy snowglobe designer took these architectural icons, some miles (or at least blocks) away from each other, and clustered them around a tiny San Jacinto monument, which in real life is on the outskirts of the city, not downtown. In addition to these buildings, the globe contains an oil derrick (just like the one in my parents’ back yard!), a NASA rocket (oddly, shown more than half the height of the skyscrapers), a few trees and, or course, cars.

The base of my Houston snowglobe is a music box. Twisting the pin on its underside starts up a tinny, surprisingly loud version of Deep in the Heart of Texas. Any card-carrying Texan knows the lyrics and will perhaps sing and clap along with the scratchy melody:

The stars at night are big and bright (clap, clap, clap, clap),
Deep in the heart of Texas.
The prairie sky is wide and high (clap, clap, clap, clap),
Deep in the heart of Texas.

The sage in bloom is like perfume (clap, clap, clap, clap),
Deep in the heart of Texas.
Reminds me of the ones I love (clap, clap, clap, clap),
Deep in the heart of Texas.

My snowglobe traveled with me to California, and several years later moved north with us to Washington. It now sits on the bookshelf in my office, here in Seattle. Each time that I tilt it over, set it upright, and watch the glitter snow swirling around that madman’s mental map of Houston; each time that I turn the crank on the music box, and listen to that tinny Texas tune, I am indeed reminded of the ones I love, still deep in the heart of Texas.

To open the Advent calendar window for Day 3, click here: (more…)

When she came to live with us five years ago, Miss Lyra was a frightened little cat. As I’ve noted before, she has long since overcome most of her fears, and is now the most affection-seeking cat in the known world. My known world, anyway. Not only does she actively seek out the attentions of her two people, she now considers visitors to our home to be perfectly acceptable petting providers.

Any visitors, that is, who are over 4 feet tall. She’s not so sure about the shorter ones.

Our nephews Max and Reed, their mother and their grandparents are in Seattle for what’s known around here as Boy Days. When they all arrived at our house yesterday, Sergei and Sasha raced up the stairs to hide under our bed. Brave Miss Lyra stayed downstairs.

Max and Reed live with dogs. They spend little time with cats. Therefore, they are fascinated by cats. When they see cats, they want to pet cats. They know that Aunt Kimberly and Uncle Paul live with cats, so they arrive at our house ready to see our cats. (Interestingly, three-year-old Reed told someone recently that his Aunt Kimberly and Uncle Paul have 15 million cats. Fifteen million?!? Can you imagine the fur?)

What little experience Miss Lyra has had with boys has been with these two boys, each of the past two summers. Each year, the boys have tried to pet her, and have been a little clumsy in the attempt. Each year, both boys have been scratched, not because Lyra is mean, but because she was scared, or had had enough, and the boys didn’t know how to read her body language. When handled roughly, or backed into a corner, Lyra has batted at the outstretched little hand, then run upstairs to join Sasha and Sergei under the bed.

Yesterday, Max and Reed were once again drawn by Lyra’s lovely feline form. When Max got a little too close, or rubbed her a bit the wrong way, Miss Lyra batted at him… and stayed around. When Reed crowded in on her, she swiped a paw at him… and didn’t run. And eventually, as she became accustomed to their being around, Lyra even greeted Max and Reed’s approach by rubbing her face against her front paws — her way of requesting petting. For a few moments, Max stroked her back gently… and then he rubbed her ears a little too roughly, and she swatted at his little hand, and he backed off. And so it will continue, I’m sure, each time that Max and Reed are at our house: Miss Lyra will gradually teach those boys how to pet a cat.

You can see lots of other animals (who may or may not want to be petted!) aboard the Friday Ark. Please pet all the cats at Weekend Cat Blogging, hosted by Sher and Upsie at What Did You Eat?