Early awake

I got up at 4:30 this morning, after having dreamt all night about fleas and woken up itching. Hmph.

The next thing I did was stand in the kitchen with one finger on my lower lip, and one hand on my hip, and contemplate, blueberry waffles: yea or nay?

And just then... There was a loud crash on the back porch!

Now let me tell you about the back porch, when it's in the dark. It's scary. It has always seemed to me that at some point in my residence here on Fig Street, I will come upon either a) a homicidal maniac in a drug-induced coma on my glider, or b) the recently expired body of said maniac slumped on the steps. It's a shadowy, tucked away place - the back porch. It harbors deep forebodings in the night.

So as you can imagine, the crash alarmed me. I turned around slowly, with a grimace, and in the light from the kitchen shining through the screen door, I could see zero hulking lurking things. Good! But kinda bad, because now I had to approach the door to flick on the porch light. Throwing caution to the wind, I did just that. I turned on the light, looked out the door, and... relief! No men on the glider, bleeding!

In fact, nothing at all, except one fluffy little raccoon cub the size of a cantaloupe, scampering round the end of the glider and down the steps.

Doom turned to glee, just like that. I made like a raccoon cub and scampered down the inside stairs to alert the baker to These Exciting Happenings. Outside we could hear little skitterings, and then we saw six tiny eyes glinting way up high in the dark bulk of the hemlock tree. When our eyes adjusted, there were three raccoons, clambering over one another and dangling from branches. They considered us briefly, and just when the horizon split open a little bit of blue light, I think they realized how sleepy they were, because they all three scritched their way down the hemlock trunk, and off they went through the garden. One paused to peer in the bakery window, which starts a few inches above ground, at raccoon's eye view.

Matt said he knew I wouldn't be grumpy once all day long, on account of the raccoons, and well, he was right. I wasn't. The end.

the Each Week, One Beast project: week 31

One more Otto. I'll share the complete drawings that these little Ottos came out of soon. Happy weekend, all!

Kittens in my shrubberies

This picture is from just before Ricocheting Kittens happened in my backyard on Friday evening. They came bursting out of the bushes - four of them - like little cotton ball/cannonballs. After a brief warmup routine, they did some pear tree exploration, which involves scurrying up and then plummeting out. Then there was a slower paced and not especially successful lightning bug hunt, after which everyone got very, very sleepy and it was time to nurse. I hope they come back again another night.

the Each Week, One Beast project: week 30

Ha! It's Otto again! It's now the Each Week, Otto project. Maybe, maybe not. This is again a sneak peak of a bigger, tiny picture. So far, with your help, I now know that Otto hates: cold milk (which is the same as milk that has not been warmed), the tedious task of painting trim, wet shoes (who doesn't?), dogs and everything having to do with them, sticky paws (and even just the mere thought), and Rude Awakenings. Please feel free to add to the list! Either here in the comments or an email to me, Otto's personal assistant and keeper of files, records and such.

Arts on the Square

Local friends, I'll be vending at the first annual Arts on the Square in Scranton this Saturday, from 12-8pm. I'll be donating 5% of my sales that day to the True Friends Animal Welfare Center (where my good old girl Laika came from many moons ago, back when we just called it The Pound). If you are like me, DON'T CLICK THAT LINK. You'll see the first dog on the adoption list, start crying, and jump in the car to go pick her up. Luckily my truck is broken down in the back alley, so I can't go. Anyway, back to Arts on the Square - there will be music! art! food! poems! The organizers for this event have really been putting in their time and planning what promises to be a great day. Hope to see you there!

the Each Week, One Beast project: week 29

This week's beast is a small part of a larger (but still very small!) drawing, and also an introduction to Otto, a cat of extreme grumpiness. I think we'll be having more of him around here, because, since I am currently pet-less in real life, I have been entertaining myself with tales of Otto and all the shitty things that annoy him. Like being stuffed in a loaf pan. He hates that. I'm just at the brainstorming stage, so if you can think of anything that might really get Otto's goat, do share!

Third annual Conca d'Or lily post

I was explaining to Matt this afternoon about my Conca d'Or lily anxiety. It goes like this: Conca d'Or blooms, all of a sudden, earlier than I was expecting. And immediately, while I am rapt with her beauty, I can't bear the thought that the bottom flowers are going to turn brown. Nooooooooo! But it's inevitable, folks. Also, there are only so many hours in the day, and I feel that to maximize the good things in life, I should spend them all with Conca d'Or.

Some facts: Did your lily salesman claim that Conca d'Or is so fragrant that just one bulb's worth of blooms will attract fairies? It's totally true, and completely unfabricated! And one bulb will multiply quickly. That's all I started with, as you can see in this post: A Rosie and a lily, which I think was year two for my bulbs. Now I have, like, so many. And the tallest ones are taller than Matt, who is six feet tall. He's my measuring stick. For last year's post, see here: Conca d'Or and friends.