…is a lovely thing indeed.

I'm not sure why I like working in black and white better than I like working in color, but it's always been that way for me. It's not unlike drawing - by subtracting the inessential, you're left with only the subject's essence.

I woke up this morning with a feeling of…quiet panic. I opened my eyes when Tenzing jumped onto the bed, hinting in his oh-so-subtle way that "breakfast would be nice soon, Mom," and thought, "agh! I have to get up, get started, do…"

What?

My brain, still numbed and sluggish from sleep, ran through the possibilities that, given recent events, were likely to be true.

The phone was ringing. It wasn't.
Code work—I only have a few days before… Oh. Wait. I've already moved Quarto live. That rush is over.

Since I've been doing little but coding lately, I thought I'd offer up a photo that has absolutely nothing to do with coding and everything to do with what really matters in this house—the cats. After all, you can't have 'domesticat' without the 'cat.' (Those perverse ones among you who sat up and said, "But you can't have 'domesticat' without an 'omesti'! Where's the picture of the omesti?"—you are not tall enough to ride this ride. Go away; you're bothering me.)

At four p.m. on Monday afternoon, I lost my mind.

Standing in the laundry room with a pile of temporarily-dirty clothes, with a cat twining between my feet and a half-finished song lyric bubbling through my vocal chords, I was completely unprepared for anything out of the ordinary.

BANG!After gravity reasserted its hold on my feet, the Panic List took over my mind. OhmyGod…burglars-gunshots-mutant-furry-cockroaches-in-the-garage-ohmyGod-ohmyGod-hiiiiiiiiiiiide!

Tenzing continued to twine himself around my feet, purring. We like to joke about how they wake up in a new world every thirty seconds or so, but it was so plainly obvious that he'd already forgotten that the noise even happened.

10:13 a.m., Eastern time. If anyone else is awake in the house, this would be the first I'd know about it.

As I grow older, I find myself generally incapable of sleeping late in my own house and completely incapable of sleeping in at other people's houses. At least last night I had the presence of mind to grab one of Suzan's books to take with me, so that I could stay in this room after waking up, entertain myself, and not have to tiptoe into the living room to find something to read.

Close the door. No need to be quiet; for now, there is no one else here.

The lock on the door slides home with a satisfyingly solid click. Two sets of whiskers slide cautiously into view from behind the divider; they are followed moments later by four cautious, reddish-golden feline eyes.