As I type this, Ingrid is sitting atop the tall bookcase beside my desk. Occasionally she chirps at me, although I’ve no idea what she is trying to tell me. Cat communication often errs on the cryptic side, at least to us humans.
Today’s focus has been on getting everything out of the way in preparation for Christmas. We did a massive grocery shopping trip (the sort where the final total makes you wince, but at least we’re all set for a while now. Or at least that’s the hope). We bought stamps and applied them to the giant stack of cards that will be dropped into the mail tomorrow. I made two batches of biscuits to take with us to tomorrow’s family gathering, using those as an excuse to pull out a few of the gadgets I don’t often use – the bands that go around the rolling pin that let me roll the dough to just the right thickness. and my circular biscuit cutters. And then, on a whim, I also whipped up a batch of English toffee which necessitated pulling out the thermometer and stirring constantly until the mixture of butter and sugar turned just the perfect shade of golden brown.
Otherwise, it’s been a fairly low key sort of day. We got all the presents for tomorrow’s gathering wrapped. We did a bunch of laundry and ran a few loads of dishes in the dishwasher. I did a whole bunch of knitting and finally caught up to where I needed to be by this time of the month. And I turned a bunch of leftovers into a scramble and we ate that for dinner while watching the finale for the current season of The Next Iron Chef.  It was a satisfactory ending for the show – both of us were ambivalent about which of the two final contenders we wanted to win, and to be perfectly honest, I think I could have been perfectly happy to have stopped watching once I found out who those two were, since I had more hoping and wishing riding on that decision than on who got to stand on the podium and see their giant picture on the stadium wall. Admittedly I kept hoping that a miracle would occur and Faulkner would somehow be back in the game, and then proceed to wipe the floor with the rest of them and take what should have been her rightful place a season ago, but as I do not rule the world, I have to settle for the next best outcome.
‘Tis the season for Holidailies.