LIFE IS JUST A CHAIR OF BOWLIES

It's a cold, damp, dreary day here in Germantown but the cats and we are now snug and dry. I've finished some laundry, cleaned the kitchen, and assessed the bills that need to be paid for my mother's stay in the assisted living facility. Before the morning completely gets away from me I'll bake some chocolate chip cookies for my dear neighbor, Rose.

Last night Glenn and I were on our way home from a quick stop for a few groceries and saw Rose and her sweet dog, BooBoo, walking down the road in front of her house. BooBoo was his usual happy little self and Rose said she had something for me - a cat. She waited to see how I was going to react before telling me she was kidding. I was SO relieved. Miss Rose rescues kitties and has a growing litter of adolescents right now. Someone dropped a very pregnant mama cat on her doorstep a few months ago so she took in the abandoned cat and cared for the kittens after they were born. Rose had the mama spayed and saw that all the kittens were spayed or neutered. She found homes for some of them and decided she'd keep the mama and the remaining kittens. What she actually had for me was the cutest little vintage chair. She said it came from a church that had been destroyed by fire a few years ago. Church members had saved what they could and the little chair had been used in one of the Sunday School rooms. Glenn said he remembered sitting in similar chairs when he was a child. I thanked Rose and told her I had a doll that would look just right sitting on that chair. As we stood there petting BooBoo and visiting with Rose, we could hear the cows across the road mooing to each other and saw them hurrying to their barns. I guess they were smarter than we, since we were the ones who stayed outside too long and were caught in the drenching rain that began to fall. I was glad our home was just around the corner. We pulled into the barn and when I went in to visit the cats, rain was seeping under the back door to the cat area. Some of the cats were lapping up the water while others smacked the puddle with their paws. I keep towels and other supplies in the barn for just such an occasion so I pulled those out and placed them on the floor to soak up the water. The cats thought the towels were put down just for them and promptly began positioning their furry tails on the dry ones. Glenn went outside and placed a tarp over the side door to the barn in order to shield it from the rain. He vowed to fix that leak under the door, along with all the other things on his to-do list. This old house and barn do have some issues and there's always something that needs tending, but that makes life interesting and I still love being here.  

I was blessed with visits from my sisters over the weekend and one brought me some vintage bowls that had been given to her. She said she had no room to store them and she knew I liked "old stuff". She's right. So now I have a sweet little chair and a colorful stack of old bowls with which to play. Life is good.