Why do my day-off-for-all-things-writing involve things other than writing, like giving my just-back-from-the-hunting-camp husband a buzz cut?
No matter, I have already checked two things off my To Do list, one of which will result in me receiving money, so all is good. Now I can get back to watching the kitten do cute kitten things. I think this might prove to my mother that no, Archie is not afraid of the dogs.

Kind of unrelated, here are Dwayne and Abby heading out on the bike. Abby is wearing Stella's coat which is why it looks so big. It's a Chilly Dog coat, out of Ottawa -- awesome! -- and we haven't got around to ordering one in "raspberry" for Abs.

Bad news.
Dwayne's shoulder surgery has been cancelled.
If the first date for surgery had gone as planned, he'd be recovering from it right now (it was November 17). Then it was bumped back a month and he was just hanging on through the pain until December 15.
That is the date that was cancelled.
But worse: not rescheduled.
So he's gone away for two nights to a friend's hunting camp. Not to hunt (and not to shoot himself!) but I think he just needs a break.This news was a blow.

I threw food at my mother last night.
Whatever universe wrath is going to befall me because I threw food at my mother is worth it because not only did she deserve it, it was hysterically funny.
I laughed and cried so hard, I thought I was having a heart attack.
How I came to flick a forkful of cabbage salad at her is a little difficult to explain, in part because it involves understanding how important my rituals are to me.
"By the way, you need cranberries," my mother told me during supper last night.
"No, I don't. I need Thompson raisins."
"Well, you're almost out of both," she insisted.
I eyeballed her because I know what I need and I was twigging that while I'm talking about one thing, she's talking about another  - and I don't think I'm going to like what she's talking about.
"Where did the cranberries in this salad come from?" I asked her.
"From the container in the cupboard above the stove."
"There are raisins in that container."
She looked down at the salad on her plate. "Oh."
"There aren't supposed to be raisins in this salad. And the cranberries for cooking are in the cupboard with the lazy susan. With all the other cooking and baking supplies. You used my breakfast blend."
Well, that set her off. She laughed at my breakfast blend.
This from the diet-controlled diabetic who wouldn't give a starving child any of her food because "it's counted."
As she continued to laugh and mock my breakfast blend, I looked down at the clump of cabbage salad on my fork.
"Don't you dare," my husband warned.
"Sara --- " my mother said.
I wished for the nerve to do it. Instead, I ranted about the mess these two had made of my new pantry shelves, how something that was barely organized to begin with was now in utter chaos because Mum and Dwayne just chuck stuff into the pantry without following my objective for each shelf. It's on my To Do list to take everything off the four shelves and organize it again. This time with large labels.
"Get over it," my mother said.
That's when I looked closely at the clump of cabbage salad on my fork. That's when I saw a raisin sitting there. There are not supposed to be raisins in our cabbage salad and they are not supposed to come from my breakfast blend. I closed my eyes and turned away. Then I flicked the fork. I knew my aim was good when my mother shrieked.
I have no idea how much landed on my mother's face or in her hair or on her shirt because I was laughing too hard to look. She was laughing, too, and my poor husband was sitting there in shock. Perhaps wondering if he was next. But by god it was a great shot.
"I was going to take you out to a nice restaurant before I leave," Mum squeaked out as she brushed bits of cabbage out of her hair.
"Um, Lynda, there's a piece still on your forehead," Dwayne said.
"I just washed my hair this morning," Mum said.
I can make this promise: I will never throw another forkful of food again. I could never repeat such a perfect shot as the one I threw last night at supper.
Worth it. Even when no one eats supper with me again.

In the dog-eat-cat world that is our home -- this refuge from that really nasty world out there -- it's all about survival.
Mainly, will the fern that my friend Jane gave me for our anniversary survive body-surfing by the kitten?

He stands on the arm of the chair nearby and leaps into the middle of the fern. This photo was taken a few days ago and let me tell you, it's looking a lot worse now. There's a huge, kitten-sized hole in the middle of it.
Since he mainly plays in the fern while I'm doing yoga in the morning, I haven't had a chance to take another pic. It's like doing yoga in a jungle now.
"I live in a zoo," my husband says. Ha. He should try Down-Dogging while Archie Fern Surfing.
I was lying down in final relaxation on Wednesday when he jumped off the chair, using my unbraced belly as the trampoline to the floor. Then yesterday, while lying straight out on my stomach to rest my back, he dove -- DOVE -- between my legs, ramming his head into my crotch then proceeded to reach his arm out me as if he expected to crawl underneath me.
It's turning into Laughter Yoga.

But see here, he's just so darn cute. He likes hanging out in Nana's room. Apparently, he enjoys listening to her classical music. Seems violin music is his favourite. It's time to introduce that boy to some down-home country tunes.Or I'll have to change his name to Niles.

Well, I wanted a snuggly little cat who would keep me company while I wrote and I guess I have that. I also have Abby wanting to play with him but not understanding how little Archie is. This are the conditions under which I wrote this week's column for the newspaper:

No wonder my back hurts. To make room for a cat on my lap, I'm about two feet from my keyboard!

Dwayne didn't say No so that meant Yes and since there are five females in this house, I thought poor Dwayne needed a little male energy. Therefore, we have a new addition to our household:

Meet Archibald Stewart Pick-two. Big name for a tiny kitten. We call him "Archie" - he's named for Dwayne's maternal grandfather.
Abby has taken a very intense interest in him, so much so that she hardly slept last night. Stella is cool - "It's a cat. No big deal. Now where's my treat?" - but Abby actually quivers when she is made to simply sit and watch him. She's tried to eat Archie a couple of times so I'm not sure how this is going to end. Hopefully, as he gains for confidence and some size, it will end with his claws sunk into her nose...and that will teach her to leave him alone.

Back in the summer of 2002, the first summer I was back "home", spending the first of many summers at the house on Pugwash Point, I walked outside one evening and looked up at the sky. Then I took a really good look at the sky.
At the time, I was reading a book that was a collection of writings by Madeleine L'Engle and the most recent selection I'd read was about disaster (from a book published in 1983). The roots of disaster are 'dis-' meaning away from, and '-aster', meaning star. A "dis-aster" means being separated from our stars, separated from what guides us, separated from God.
As I'd stood there looking up at that vast night sky, I'd thought, "This sky makes me believe in infinite possibilities." I'd just left my marriage, my life on the West Coast, moved across the country with no idea what I'd do next only to learn my father had Alzheimer's. in that moment, standing there in the backyard looking up into a sky I hadn't seen in the five years I'd been living in a big city (Vancouver), I felt like I'd left the dis-aster of my life behind and I needed to believe that infinite possibilities lay ahead of me.
(This moment was so sigificant, I wrote about it in my column for The United Church Observer.)
Which all leads me to this point, ten years later:
I just took Abby outside for a short walk up the lane in the dark. She was wearing her collar light bulb and I am amazed at how bright it is. Makes it easy to keep track of her in this country darkness, where there are no streetlights, and tonight, no full moon. When she was done her business, she tore back to the house, leaving me up the lane alone.
Alone except for the one hundred billion stars above my head.
I don't go out after dark and look up at the sky as much as I should but when I do, I always think, "Infinite possibilities," and right now, I need to believe in this again. Only this time, there is no dis-aster to find my way back from, no wrong turns or lost paths. This time, I'm already on the path, taking a big leap forward, fearlessly, faithfully, on that path. I believe I believe I believe.
As the saying goes...If you shoot for the moon, and miss...you still land amongst the stars.

******
Sunday:
Hahahahhhahahahhaahahhahhahahaaa!
Although I am not a fan of Twitter, I am a fan of writer Anne Lamott and I read her tweets online. She tweeted this yesterday and I AM TAKING THIS AS A SIGN (of what, I don't know, but damn it, it has to be a sign, IT HAS TO BE.)
"I wrote on FB today about missing God and my plain old life. Then 3 great phone calls, 2 Tootsie pops, 1 walk, 1 night sky: secret formula."
Now I must go to her FB page and tell her about infinite possibilities. I know she will love it.