My parents are visiting so it’s quite possible I may not be updating for a week or so. It all depends on how much time I spend with them and whether I have enough time to do the little tiny things that make me so happy. Like brushing my teeth and reading. So feel free to check in but don’t be surprised if there isn’t anything here.

Chester made his first real foray into the world of crime last night. He has been charged with assault and attempted murder.

Let me explain:
Paul and I came back from doing laundry yesterday afternoon only to discover the fish tank had been knocked completely over, it was devoid of any water and poor little Jasper Darling Higgins had been deposited onto the kitchen floor. Chester had dabbled in criminal activities before, mostly he nibbled on the air tube of the fish tank. You see, Chester has a love of biting all things paper and plastic especially if they offer some form of resistance. For instance, you should never leave a fountain soda unattended and within eyesight of Chester or you will find your drink all over the floor and the straw will go missing only to be discovered a few hours later in some other room with fang marks all through it. It seems the air tube of the fish tank has long been a temptation for him, but I never thought it would lead to him such drastic measures.

We both thought Jasper dead, but while I was soaking up the spilled fish water with old towels we discovered the little guy still had life in him. Paul immediately rescued him to an undersized water-filled juice glass where he rejoiced at being returned to his natural element.

Jasper is currently de-stressing in an antique glass pitcher and will be moved back into his clean and filtered tank sometime Wednesday morning.

Chester faced punishment almost immediately upon the discovery of his crime. He was given an honest to goodness bath, in a bathtub, complete with cat shampoo. He was then forbidden to enjoy the luxuries of any piece of furniture in the apartment until he was completely dry. He also had to face the indignity of looking like a drowned rat for the majority of the evening.

All parties involved hope Chester’s short-lived life of crime has been ended for good, but I just might be willing to start a betting pool that it isn’t. Any takers?

When I was very small, my mother used to be a volunteer at the Texas Tech University Planetarium. On occasion, in the middle of the week, she and I would head up to the Museum where she would routinely give planetarium shows to kindergartners and to second-graders on field trips. The only rules I had to follow were to remain quiet during the program and to run to the office to get Steve if the projector decided to get sticky in the middle of the show. Sometimes I sat in the back row of the audience near the projection booth so that my mother could keep an eye on me, but most of the time I stayed in the booth with her. I liked our trips to the planetarium. The second grade program had snoopy, which was fun for a little girl like me, but it was the kindergarten program that taught me the song “Why Does the Sun Shine.” I still sing it in the shower when I think my neighbors aren’t home. That way I can sing it with real gusto.

It was my mother that taught me to look at the sky. She took my brothers and me out on the front lawn to look through some homemade gadget that would allow us to watch the eclipse in the middle of the day without hurting our eyes. She had a huge constellation map framed and hanging in her bedroom that glowed in the dark. She taught me the names of constellations, and the times of year which I would be able to see them. On one occasion she even woke me up in the middle of the night to sit outside with her to watch a meteor shower.

It was my mother that taught me to look at the sky. When Haley’s comet came around she and my dad packed all of us into the car and headed downtown to the Garden and Arts Center where some kind souls had set up telescopes. I was very small then, and looking at the comet through a telescope wasn’t very interesting to me. It was weeks later that we went camping. We went camping a lot when I was little, it was fun, and I don’t think we could afford real vacations. In the middle of the night, I woke up for whatever reason only to find that my mom was awake too, and she was looking up at the sky. We were in Nowhere-Ville, and out in Nowhere-Ville you could see Haley’s comet burning it’s slow path through the sky without the help of a telescope. It was much more impressive out there in the stillness.

It was my mother that taught me to look at the sky.

I still look up at night. I often can’t see past the clouds and the reflected city lights. Sometimes I see stars, and it is then that I look for those friendly constellations I learned so long ago.

Amanda isn’t missing anymore! Thank you, thank you, thank you to whomever or whatever reunited us.

All day I’ve been craving coffee. Well, I’ve been craving my kind of coffee. Any coffee purist would tell you that the atrocious stuff I drink is more like coffee’s illegitimate second cousin twice removed. There are a few qualifications that make my coffee so horrible to the regular coffee drinker and especially to the coffee connoisseur. First and foremost it has to be the instant variety. I have no patience for grinding coffee beans and definitely no patience for boiling water to trickle its way through the grounds and filter. Next, it requires the word mocha to be among the flavor description. If the word isn’t there, then the stuff won’t be going anywhere near my mug. Finally, it must be made with hot skim or 1% milk instead of the usual boiling water. For some bizarre reason, milk is the only thing that makes it drinkable. My friends think I’m a little off … which is fine, but they are absolutely horrified by the fact that I can drink my concoction with every bit of satisfaction at almost any temperature. I can’t do boiling, because I value my taste buds and I really hate that fuzzy-tongue feeling I get whenever I burnout on hot soups and such. But I’ll drink it with a grin even if it’s icy or simply lukewarm.