This morning things got really, really exciting. Sherman, who I have noted before is a very good escape artist, managed to slip outside and unlike every other time, he disappeared. Completely. To the point where we were all traipsing around the neighborhood, calling him (although why we thought that would do any good I haven’t a clue because he’s a *cat*) and peering into backyards and knocking on doors. By the fifteen minute mark I was starting to panic. Most of the rest of the family was due to arrive soon and there were some things that *had* to be done before they got there, so Richard left to go run the necessary errands while the rest of us tried to figure out where the heck a small grey brat of a cat would go to lurk. But then Richard came back home, far too quickly to have finished the errands, and sure enough, it was because he was delivering a not-at-all-sorry-for-what-he-did Sherman, who he caught an entire BLOCK away and had to drag out from under a car by his tail. Gah!
January’s high priority – figuring out a way to screen in the front porch in order to create a cat-proof airlock.
Anyway. Thankfully it was only fifteen minutes of panic instead of a lot longer. Once everyone else arrived, we divided up into teams and then, making VERY DAMN SURE that a certain fuzzbutt was nowhere near the door, we headed off to do the Urban Adventure Quest for downtown Sacramento.
This is something my sisters and I did when we were in San Diego this summer, and we had a lot of fun with it, so when I discovered they had one for Sacramento I thought hey, that’d be neat to do with the whole family. We did it in two teams 10 people was just going to be too many to try to corral, whereas five was a more manageable group, and this way there was also the tiny element of competition. We traipsed around the grounds of the Capital building (and found some stuff I didn’t know was there, so yay for learning new things about my own town) and then meandered down K Street mall, and for the first time I actually got a really good look at the in-construction new arena, and the quest ended in Old Sacramento. By the time we got to the end, we were pondering that it would have been a better idea to leave a car in Old Sac because it was a 2 1/2 mile trek back to where we’d parked, but hey, at least we all got our exercise in today, to make up for all the cookies we’ll be inhaling over the next few days.
Back to the house, we all collapsed for a bit, and then my little sister made massive quantities of royal icing and we all sat around the dining table and built gingerbread houses. Well, everyone else built gingerbread houses, but my niece and I built a gingerbread Tardis, which turned out surprisingly awesome.
‘Tis the season for Holidailies.