Music and Cats

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…)

At five thirty Wednesday afternoon, as my office began to empty and grow quiet, I was contemplating the work I planned to do that evening. Another couple of hours, I thought, maybe three, before I’d go home.

“Anyone want baseball tickets for tonight? I got ‘em from a contractor. They’re good seats…” I turned to see one of my firm’s partners holding up a pair of tickets. K. continued, “It’s a beautiful night to go have a beer and watch a game.”

I wavered. I had so much work to do… but it was a gorgeous day, and we hadn’t yet been to a game this season. (We usually attend one game per season, and have always relied on the kindness of contractors or engineers for our tickets.) I asked, “What time does the game start?”

A few minutes after seven, Paul and I pushed through the turnstiles into Safeco Field. The seats were just beyond first base, in the third row. A sign posted at the aisle into our section read Please be alert for balls and bats leaving the playing field. I’d never seen that sign before. When we reached our seats, I noticed the same words on the back of each of the seats in front of us. I looked out onto the field. I could see individual blades of grass.

Other times we’ve been to Mariners’ games, we’ve had to walk up a couple of flights of stairs to reach our seats. Often, the players on the field have appeared no larger than they do on our television. In my experience, watching a ball game live has been much like watching the game on TV, but outside, with surround sound and the smell of beer.

Sitting in the third row at first base is, well, a different ball game. First base is a happening place, and we were close enough to hear the thwack of a ball thrown by a fielder hitting the first baseman’s glove, to see the concentration on the face of a runner rounding that base, headed for second. There’s a lot going on in the stands near first base, too. Popped-up fouls landed in the sections to either side of us. One hard drive just foul of the first base line came straight at us — straight at me, it seemed — but the ball hit the edge of the stadium wall, and bounced back onto the field. I was ready to duck behind Paul if that ball kept coming. I am such a girl. (Speaking of girls, the cute teenage ball girl sat right in front of us, and chatted with the young fans between batters. They were thrilled.)

Not only was it a perfect evening for a ball game, blue-skied and breezy, but the Mariners played a game worth watching. They batted well, stole a couple of bases, and made seven runs, including two home runs. (The second home run was along the first base line. I’ve never understood the roar that goes up from a crowd before a homer goes over the fence, but from where we were sitting, I could see the trajectory of that ball, and I knew that it was going into the stands before it was halfway there… and I yelled along with the rest of the crowd.) And the M’s pitcher threw a four-hit shut-out.

But the best part of the evening was not the game, nor even the perfect midsummer’s eve weather. The best part was spending a few hours away from work, away from the house, having an evening out with Paul. We haven’t had enough of those recently. I don’t see this smile on his face often enough. It’s time for that to change.

Lance Armstrong Foundation
LiveStrong Day

As I’ve noted once or twice in the past month or two, I’ve been working too much. This takes the form of both going in to work early and staying at work late. The net result of all this work is that I haven’t spent nearly as much time in our new kitchen as I’d like. I’ve done a bit of unblogged baking, some barely blogged preserving, and some not-even-photographed (horrors!) soup-making, but I haven’t spent anywhere near the time in the kitchen that I’d imagined I would once the construction was finally finished.

While work has been having its way with me, Paul has been having his way with the new range. One joy of cooking with serious gas is that the middle burner (it has five) puts out enough BTUs for high-heat cooking. When I arrived home tonight, Paul was just firing up our wok. He doesn’t like to be watched while he cooks, so I left him alone in the kitchen, and 15 minutes later we were sitting down to lovely, spicy bowls of shredded pork with garlic sauce. Morsels of pork and slivers of vegetables enrobed in ginger and sesame, vinegar and (saltless) soy, and lots of minced garlic. Yum. So much better than take-out Chinese, because it was made with love.

I don’t need a fortune cookie to tell me that I am a lucky woman. And there are leftovers for tomorrow. Oh, yes, I am lucky indeed.

For the first time ever, this blog has two Feline Friday posts with nothing between them. My husband Paul is guest photographer for today’s Feline Friday, as I’ve been too busy this week even to take a few photos of the gatitos. Don’t you want to snuggle up for a nap with those two? I know I do…

I won’t be too busy this weekend to visit the Friday Ark. When Cats Attack hosts the Carnival of the Cats on Sunday.