Merry Christmas

It was such a nice gesture, it made me cry. My family has a long-standing ritual for Christmas Eve where we burn candles and read the story of the birth of Jesus from the Bible. Back when we were young we also sang "Silent Night", but that has sort of fallen by the wayside. Never mind . . . it's still a good ritual.

I am working tonight in order to allow the younger employees to do their thing with their children. There's not much going on anyway, so it's not much of a sacrifice. I'm watching whatever bowl game is on TV at the moment. (Although a little earlier I was busier than a one-armed paper hanger. The girl who ran the switchboard today failed to switch the phones into night mode when she left, so no one could get through to us! I just thought we weren't busy. Then I had to catch up. Anyway . . .)

I had asked several of my family members to call or text me when they were about to burn their candles so that I could burn mine "with" them. Lil Sis obliged, and my candle is still burning. However, around 7:00 p.m. my son called and said they were about to burn candles, so I lit mine and was preparing to bid them all good night. Suddenly I realized he had me on speaker phone and was reading the Bible story. After that my grandchildren read "'Twas the Night Before Christmas", taking turns reading passages. It literally brought me to tears.

I don't have much Christmas spirit. I don't know why. I just don't. (Oh, I do know why but it's so illogical.) But tonight I am filled with happy memories and looking forward to the coming year.

It has to be better than this one.

Lucinda Update

If I live to be 100 I will never understand cats. Lucius is perfectly happy to lie around in the blanket-lined plastic container I have placed on the deck for him, moving only to go under the deck and eat or to walk with Chico and me (only when it is dark, though). Lucinda hides from me, coming out only to eat. She hears me when I call to her and comes running from somewhere in the woods behind the house, meowing furiously as if I am going to forget she is there and hungry. I have placed a blanket-lined plastic container on the deck for her as well, but I have yet to see her in it. In fact, Lucius has taken over the one I put out for Lucinda even though the containers are side by side. Lucinda rubs against my leg as if to thank me for the food, and she will let me pet her. I could probably pick her up and carry her around if I wanted to, but she'd really rather be eating.

But she's there . . . somewhere. I don't know where she goes, but she comes back.

As soon as my landlord gets his computer back and hooks up the router again so that I have Internet access, I will post pictures of my sweet kitties and my Chico. Right now I am posting this at work. Oops!

And She's Back!

Just as quickly as she departed, Lucinda has now reappeared after an eight-day absence. I don't know where she is living these days, but she drops by to eat and will let me pet her for awhile. Then she's gone again. As I stated before, she has never been quite the loving cat that Lucius is, but after all I HAVE fed her!

It is a comfort, though, that she is still among the living.