Show Me: A View and Something that Relaxes Me

Robert at Thoughts of a Father is trying his hand at a photo meme. He has named it Show Me and each day he will ask us to "show him" a photo relating to a specific request. I skipped yesterday in favor of letting my 9/11 post stand alone, so I'm going to do two days in one again. I don't know that these three things represent my favorite view - I already posted the view out my back door (see show me your kitchen) and have posted elsewhere the park-like yard across the street. Instead, I've chosen three small things that delight my eyes on a regular basis. As for things that relax me... well, when Angel isn't driving me crazy doing something naughty she give the best hugs in the world and when Tara Grace isn't yelling at me she has the loudest rumble and the sweetest spirit you could wish for. They give me joy. They are my kids. I considered taking a page from Robert's book and letting them stand as both my favorite view and something that relaxes me, but... I had already uploaded these other four yesterday so...

This tree trunk is what I see if I look straight (well, almost straight - if I look straight I see a wall) ahead. There are often squirrels running up the trunk, sometimes a woodpecker and often wonderful sunlight. I love that stone wall too. Hancock is famous for it's blue stone quarries. I think that's what it's called.

One of the aforeomentioned squirrels looking very cute.

And many mornings if I look up at the sky, I see the turkey vultures circling. When I look out the back door in the mornings, I often see their shadows. Keep wishing I could figure out how to capture the shadows on film but haven't figured it out yet.
I love this birch tree. It's in my neighbor's yard and I think its just one of the most beautiful trees ever. Not my best photo of it, but I (well, my friend Nate did it, actually) moved all my photos into a new external hard drive and I haven't quite got a handle on getting them from there to here yet.


This is Tara Grace. As I'm typing this she is running around the room playing with a little mylar toy. She's so darn cute when she plays. She has come such a long way since being rescued. I'm repeating myself from other posts, but Tara moves like a ballerina and talks like a long shore-man. Here is some very modest (she's MUCH MUCH MUCH louder) footage of her.

Angel has the face of an innocent - and the spirit of an innocent - just a very very very very very creatively naughty innocent. My friend E. - who has many, many cats - took care of Angel and Tara Grace when I was in limbo in a motel before the deal on my house finally got settled (long horrible story). Anyway. E always says that having Angel around was like having another 11 cats. If she can't find mischief she invents it. And then she gets all snuggly and gives you a hug so you forget that you want to wring her little furry neck.

Camera Critters: Angel Joy

This is my first time joining in with Misty Dawn's Camera Critters. Sundays are usually reserved for One Single Impression - and I will probably post that in the morning - but Angel (aka the world's naughtiest kitty) has been exceptionally photogenic this week. She is always photogenic but she has outdone herself (at least to my doting eyes), so I thought I'd post some pictures of her.

This first one is a bit older than the rest. Most days since I got my new camera, I sit at the back door and watch for birds and critters to photograph. Angel thinks this is bizarre behavior and doesn't approve of anything which she doesn't get to participate in. Early on, she would walk around crying, jump up onto my back or into my arms (she still does that) or find her way onto the top of the refrigerator from where she would make her dismay at my behavior clear.

Over the course of a couple of months she has mellowed considerably about the process. Not completely - she still jumps into my lap and fusses on and off - but now she will often lie on the table next to me and only act up intermittently. As long as she gets a little attention from time to time, she seems to have made peace with my new strange activity. Some days I turn the camera on her. Some days she lets me do that.

Have a lovely day!
Check in at Camera Critters and see all the other wonderful critters who are out there.

Project Looking Through

The magnificent, witty and talented Dianne at Forks Off the Moment has been participating in something called Project Looking Through hosted by Mark, whose blog is called Regular Life.

I thought I'd participate too. I feel a bit guilty because this project favors Angel who spends much of her life "looking through" and dreaming about what's on the other side. Tara Grace who lived long and hard on the other side can't see very well as a result of days out in the big world. She glances out from time to time, but she would rather sleep or circle the room yelling at me than waste her time peering out windows and doors.

Wordless Wednesday: Images of Angel Joy

Angel Joy

A kitty as naughty
as she is sweet
and as sweet as she is cute.

Happy Wordless Wednesday

Because I am a doting kitty "mom," who doesn't like to play favorites, you can check out Angel's sister/friend, Tara Grace here .

Angel: My Furry Family, Part One

I live with the two sweetest kitties in the world. I know others of you out there think that YOUR cats are the sweetest and the cutest and you are also right. I think I could probably win the naughtiest kitty category, though.

Angel Joy and Tara Grace are my family. They are my children and my friends. They enrich my life with laughter and tenderness and furry hugs. I thought I'd give each of them her own introduction and since I met Angel first, I thought I'd introduce her first.

Angel came into my life a week after Abigail (aka the Antique Kitty) passed ever so gently from this life at almost 22 years of age. I had planned to live empty for a bit but life had other plans. A friend of mine "E", who is a magnet for abandoned and wounded animals, was walking her dog when Angel - who was covered in cow manure and very sick with giardia - quite literally insisted on being rescued. At the time she was still very weak and all sugar. Who would have known the heart of creative mischief that burned under that sweet little face? Given the area where I lived at the time, we just assumed that Angel was yet another throw-away - something painfully common in an area where most people can't afford to spay their animals and the local vets did their best to prevent a spay-neuter van from operating. There were a horrifying number of stray and feral cats. Over time, though, it became clear to me that Angel was probably not one of them. She probably let her curiosity, which, alas, is not mixed with good sense, get her into trouble that almost killed her.

Angel is curiosity on four legs. She wants to know and see and do everything. She is the most creatively naughty kitty you can imagine. A friend of mine who is an artist hung some of the paintings in my house. She did it the "artists's way - not on a nail but on a long wire. Yesterday as I looked over from my desk, I saw one of them swinging wildly as Angel sat totally absorbed in her new game. Unfortunately I didn't get a picture. When we first moved into my little house, I woke up to an odd noise one morning only to find Angel proudly rolling the stopper from the kitchen sink around the bedroom floor. Another morning she had managed to bring her food bowl (which has a rubber bottom) over the kitchen jamb, across the living room and up onto a small throw rug outside my bedroom door. She's very fond of knocking things down from high places. I collect rocks and I have had three of them on top of my TV. Mini-monkey's newest game is pushing them off.

Angel loves to play and considers pretty much anything to be a toy. She will come whimpering out of the kitchen from time to time with anything from a piece of plastic from some package that I have torn open and foolishly left on the counter, to a plastic spoon, to.... pretty much anything. She carries them out like another kitty would bring a mouse and presents them to me for play. Her favorite toys are little felt balls that mostly end up under the refrigerator. My friend Dan now retrieves them every week. This week - and again I was too slow with the camera to get a picture - she came to me proudly dragging a little dust brush that's almost as big as she is. Angel loves people and would LOVE to go outside. People coming into my front door have to climb over a little gate I had to put up to keep her from getting out. She absolutely adores the man who brings my groceries. I think she would run away with him if I'd let her. She is an adventurer and since I'm cruel and don't let her go outside, she has to create her own adventures. I guess I can't blame her. I just wish sometimes that she was a little less gifted at thinking up naughty, destructive, maddening things to do... but then she wouldn't be the enchanting spirit that she is, so I guess I will just enjoy her as she is. As I type this she is about to swing the paintings again and is not at all happy that I am screaming "NOOOOO!" at her. I'm such a kill joy.

"E" ( the person who rescued Angel and brought her into my life) took care of her and Tara Grace when I was briefly without a home before I moved into my little house. "E" has 12 rescued animals of her own. When she returned my girls to me, she said she finally understood what I was saying about Angel. She said having Angel around was like having another eleven cats to care for. Angel is always into something that's there to get into or inventing something new to get into. She surely keeps me on my toes.

The other side of Angel (the part that makes her name fit) is her consummate sweetness. Angel gives the very best hugs there are. She will come curl up in my arms for ten or twenty minutes at a time, purring as loud as can be, kneading and rumbling. For all her antics and creative mischief, Angel is really pure love. She makes everybody laugh. I wouldn't trade her for a dozen well behaved cats. Well, not most days, anyway.



Tomorrow, I'll introduce you to Tara Grace...