Christmas Time

I don't know why this time of year gets me so nostalgic, but it does. Growing up Christmas was always a special time of year for me, and not just because of the presents either (although my former nickname of "Present Pig" would lead you to think differently). As a child we had a long break from school which allowed us to fly back east to Illinois from sunny California and spend the holiday at my Grandmother's house. My Grandmother was the Martha Stewart of her day.

She'd work so hard to make the holidays as special as she could. Everything from velvet ribbons on the polished apples to thoughtfully selected and beautifully wrapped gifts. One year she even had the groundskeeper tie red velvet ribbons on the flock of white pigeons they owned. Hm, that sounds kind of exotic doesn't it? Someday I'll tell you about the peacocks and then the pigeons won't seem exotic at all.Seriously, she had peacocks.

When my Grandmother passed I spent years boycotting Christmas. It made me too sad to see the world wrapped up in its Christmas finery when my Grandmother wasn't in the world to enjoy it. It was silly really. Who was I punishing?

I found Christmas again a couple of years ago, but now I am all in (not velvet-tied apples in - but who is?). I started to gather the glitziest, most sparkly ornaments I could find. Although my husband hates glitter because it "gets" everywhere, I even have sneaked some of them in too. I love ornaments that remind me of the way snow twinkles and frost both illuminates and obscures a window pane.

I love to sit in my quiet house and stare at my sparkly Christmas tree. If I can get my precious kitty on my lap and have a good book in my hand, well it's nothing short of perfection.

Life is like glitter, it's beautiful, it's messy and you never know where it's going to end up.

The First

Hello World!

It's me, Meg, ::whispers:: and I'm human. Maybe some of you saw that one coming. If you're new here you're likely to be confused by that revelation, so let me explain. 

I'm starting my own blog after blogging for three plus years using my cat's voice. Why blog as a cat? It started as a way to find an audience for a book called Housecat Confidential that I wrote in her voice. I guess I should back up even more - why write a book as a cat?

Speaking in my cat's voice all began by trying to mimic my cat's many variations on meow. She is a true kitty linguistic, and it did seem like you could really understand her wants and needs if you could just crack the code.

Eventually my hubby and I began to interpret those vocalization into English. Once we had her talking, it didn't take long for us to begin to insert our humor into those interpretations.Why ask "Honey, can you feed the cat?" when there are so many more fun ways to ask when you ask it like the cat would?

I have to admit my girl Fin didn't initially seem to be the brightest star in the sky, until the day I realized her "playing dumb" was an effective way to get what she wanted. Finny De Floof - Master Mind was born. 

Suddenly all the odd (but turns out perfectly normal) behavior of a cat took on new meaning to me. I began to try to see life through her eyes, and it was a life I liked looking at. It was filled with love (for us and a more forbidden variety with a toy mouse), hope (surely that can of tuna will be opened soon), work stresses (humans don't wake themselves) and many of the same frustrations we all face.

The world was a more interesting place from her point of view. I could learn to take life and myself less serious - why just have self-deprecating humor when you can have a cat do it for you. 

Her world was much smaller, but somehow much richer too. I started to realize that she had everything she needed to be happy within our home, and when I opened my heart I realized I did too. I started a journey to find the same joy and wonder in life and within myself, and I stopped looking for outside things to make me happy.

In the end I found that I wasn't alone, turns out there were a lot of other kind people who also like to look at the world through the eyes of a cat. So what does the world look like through my human eyes? I guess we'll all figure that out if you stick around, and I sure hope you do.