Ah, another early start to a day. I set my alarm (or rather, I had Richard set his alarm, since my clock was still in the kids’ room) for 5:30 and got up and took a very quick shower, and then went upstairs and woke up both sisters. We tried tip-toeing around the upstairs in mostly darkness, but as I’ve mentioned before, old houses have noisy, creaky floors, and I think the kids were still too excited by yesterday, because at 6:30 on the dot, all of a sudden up the stairs they came. Heh. At least this time they knew the rules (silly aunt Jennifer for not getting that info from their moms *before* yesterday morning!) and waited until exactly the time that they were allowed to be out and about.

My sisters and I grabbed some leftover pumpkin scones and cinnamon rolls and headed off to pick up my mom, who was waiting with my dad in the parking lot at their hotel (they stayed in a hotel because for some reason they thought that might be quieter than a house with six adults and three small kids. Heh). And then we were off, for the traditional after-Christmas shopping.

The lovely thing about the day after Christmas is that the shops only open about an hour earlier than usual, instead of the insanity of the day after Thanksgiving when shops were opening at insane times like 4am, or even midnight. Since we’d scouted out where we were going to go yesterday, it was easy to get there, and even though this is a new place for all of us to go, we remembered the lessons of previous years and avoided any sort of indoor mall.

We hit Target first, which meant once we’d exhausted the holiday stuff, my sister and I could make a quick detour through clothing, since we were both in need of some new jeans and pants. There’s also a Starbucks in that Target, which was quite lovely, as there had been no coffee for any of us until then. And while we were there my younger sister and I browsed through the toys and games, and she helped me pick out what she promises will be an awesome present for my niece’s birthday next month.

We next swung through Cost Plus, because it seemed the sort of place that might have a lot of cute Christmas leftovers, except there wasn’t much leftover from Christmas. Nevertheless we did have fun there. I picked up a few necessities – a new set of measuring cups and a citrus juicer – and a few things I didn’t need, but got for fun, like a little set of adorable juice glasses, each with a little animal on them.

Our last stop was Michael’s, because big craft stores always have lots of Christmas things. We spent an hour or so there, poking around in aisles and snagging some fun stocking stuffers for next year, but by then we were all started to fade. My younger sister kept making noises about not having had any food except one cinnamon roll at o-dark-thirty in the morning, and my feet have been sore since the ice skating experience on Sunday, so I was more than ready to find a chair and sit for a while. So we called my house and got all the guys to pack up all the kids and head out to meet us for an early lunch.

While we women were out shopping, by the way, Richard and I had found this really fun idea for the kids to do – marshmallow shooters. I’d seen them for sale in stores and catalogs for about $20 each, but then I stumbled over instructions for how to build your own from lengths of piping and a few plastic joins, and so the days before Christmas one of the tasks we had to do was get to Home Depot and stock up on a whole pile of T-joints and elbows and end caps and a few long plastic pipes, and Richard cut them all up into the appropriate sizes. I guess the kids weren’t entirely sure about the whole process until Richard brought out the prototype we’d put together earlier in the week, and even then the youngest nephew wasn’t sure he wanted to play with his until they all trooped outside and the mini marshmallows started flying. And flying, apparently, they were. I’d tested our prototype with one marshmallow at a time but, considering this was a group of kids and dads and uncles, I guess it wasn’t long until they were all seeing how many marshmallows they could cram into the mouthpieces at once. We’d bought one large bag of marshmallows but completely forgotten to pick up a few extra bags, so apparently after they’d made it through the bag, they started ‘recycling’ the marshmallows, except that after the second or third use, they were starting to get a bit sticky (they did this outside, and the grass was still all covered in frost and dew). This certainly explained the strange white marks all over the jackets of some of the kids and the t-shirts of some of the guys – heh.

After lunch – and lots more fortification with coffee – we all headed back home. There were suitcases to pack, and video games and beds to disassemble, and boxes to stuff full of things and seal for shipping, and once that was all done we adults had just about had it and collapsed weakly in the living room. Kudos to my younger sister, who managed to distract the kids (all of whom wanted to run-run-run) by reading most of a book of Shel Silverstein poems to them until it was time to go.

My older sister and her family left first, and then my parents headed out, and then we packed my younger sister and brother-in-law and niece and all their stuff into our cars and drove them to the airport. Lots of hugs and thanks for all the help, and we really loved having you guys here, and then they were off to the terminal and Richard and I were back to our cars, and back to our home, now oddly silent and feeling extra-large and empty, now that rooms were no longer full of day beds and trundle beds and air mattresses, and all the piles of presents and stockings and bags of wrapping paper had been cleared away.

The cats have been slowly creeping around the house, giving quizzical chirps here and there as they search for those interesting smells and people that are no longer there. Richard and I have been camping out either on the sofa in the living room, or in our computer chairs, trying very hard not to do anything at all. I loved having my whole family here, and I am so very glad we got to host because it really was so much fun, but I am also just as glad to have the house back to the way it was – calm, quiet, filled with nothing more than the clatter of fingers on a keyboard or the occasional holler or purr from a cat.

Today started far too early. I’ve not been sleeping well anyway these last few days – the usual insomnia issues – but I tend to wake anyway at any small noise, and with the kids sleeping in the guest room right next to our bedroom, I was even less able to doze off for very long. So I woke right up when I heard their door open and then a small figure wandered into our room. The oldest nephew just needed to use the bathroom, so back he went into the room, but then it wasn’t long before the youngest nephew was also wandering out, this time wanting to go upstairs to his parents. Since it was about 4am at that point and I didn’t think his parents would appreciate being woken up quite this early, I redirected him back to his room, and of course it wasn’t much longer that all three kids were up and awake.

I had to get up at 5:30 anyway, to bring the dough in from the back porch to warm up, so at that point it didn’t seem worth me trying to go back to sleep. So I told the kids that as long as they were quiet they could stay and play in their room, but they had to stay there until at least 6:30, seeing as how the grandparents were supposed to arrive by at least 7am. Of course, once I’d dealt with the bread and set a kitchen timer, and curled up on the upstairs sofa, it occurred to me that it would be hard for them to determine when 6:30 would arrive, just about the time I saw three little shadows coming up the stairs, looking for a clock.

By this time my older sister’s mom radar has kicked in, so between the two of us we shooed all three kids back downstairs. I plugged my bedside clock in and set it on a shelf in their room so it’d be easy to see (it’s digital, nice big glowing numbers). And then my sister reminded the boys that in their house the rule is that there are no lights on until 6:30 (a much better option than my idea to just let them play for two hours – heh), so everyone had to crawl back into bed and turn the lights off, and now that there was a clock in there, no more excuses to keep poking little heads out “just to check”.

By this time, sleep was pretty much a lost cause for me, although I did try curling back up on the sofa with the kitchen timer – but that didn’t last long because then my younger sister got up and the two of us had to roll out the dough for the rolls and by the time we got all the pans prepped and the dough rolled it was close enough to the time kids were allowed out of bed that they came upstairs to help make breakfast.

We all did stockings, and by the time we were done with those, enough of the rolls were ready that we could get started on breakfast. And after we’d all stuffed ourselves with homemade cinnamon buns and sticky rolls, and some of us had fortified our very tired brains with large quantities of coffee, we all congregated in the living room and opened presents. Lots of squealing from little kids, and oohing and aahing from adults, and cryptic thanks to “Santa” (once we figured out which ‘Santa’ to thank) for presents as they were unwrapped, and I think everyone was quite pleased with what was waiting for them underneath the tree. The youngest nephew immediately dove into the packaging for his giant nerf gun, while the other two kids and several of the adults all sat down around the table for a few games of Clue. While the kids were all occupied, my older sister and my dad and I all piled into the car and went off to scout out where we’d be doing our shopping tomorrow, and by the time we got back my mom had pulled out lots of veggies and dip and people were scarfing them like candy. I pulled out crackers and cheese and then I tried to take a nap, but old houses have noisy floors, and there was lots of laughter and chatter upstairs and it just wasn’t meant to be.

Dinner was the traditional meatloaf, baby peas in butter sauce, cranberry sauce, pumpkin bread, and mashed potatoes. Along with this being the first time I’ve ever made the yeast rolls, this is also the first time I’ve ever made mashed potatoes. Apparently I am a far more limited cook than I realized. Heh. I’d intended to try to set the table all fancy, with candles and such, but the timing just never quite worked out, and I’m not sure there would have been room to put them on the table anyhow.

The boys and their dad got a Wii from Santa (aka my older sister) , so after dinner, Richard and the brothers-in-law hooked up the Wii to our television and we all crowded into the living room and each got one turn on the Wii. That was a lot of fun, if only to see my mom trying out bowling on a video game, and my dad take on golf.

We finished the evening with pie and cookies (so very many cookies) and more coffee (decaf this time, though), and the kids have all been put, protesting, to bed. And I am pondering the massive pile of dishes waiting in the kitchen (and really hating not having a working dishwasher) and weighing that against just giving up and going to bed and dealing with them later, and right now, I think that the second option is definitely going to win.

Happy Holidailies!

Today was the day for a little bit of relaxing. I made pancakes for breakfast, and my niece helped me stir the batter. The pancakes were shaped like hearts because she asked if we could do shapes, and it turns out I actually own one set of pancake molds, so naturally I had to fulfill a little girl’s wishes (since that is my role as auntie, of course). After breakfast, I packed up some cookies and the last of the chocolate peanut butter fudge and sent those off with Richard as he left to go spend Christmas Eve with his family. The rest of us all did a little bit of lounging – reading and taking showers and I even got a chance to catch up a little on my Holidailies reading (note to self – maybe the year you are hosting your family for five days at Christmas is not the best year to agree to be a Holidailies reader).

People were starting to get a little antsy, and I wanted to make a new batch of fudge and needed to go to the grocery store, so we all bundled up in coats and mittens and walked over to Trader Joe’s. It’s a good length of a walk for a small person – not so long as to completely tire her out, but long enough that it used helped her work out some excess energy. While at the store, we picked up a few extra tidbits – a box of candy cane Oreo-clone cookies, and some potato and cheese perogies, and a little box of dark chocolate covered espresso beans and some licorice for my dad. Then, since it was right there, and it was just about lunch time anyway, we stopped by a cute little soda fountain and all got (huge) ice cream cones before walking back home.

The irony here is that I did not end up getting all the ingredients I needed to make that new batch of fudge. But I did, at least, remember to pick up an extra bottle of cinnamon, which we needed to make the dough for cinnamon ornaments. My niece and I mixed up the dough, and then put it in the fridge to cool, and then she got distracted by some Christmas themed word searches and other word puzzles I’d printed out for her, and so we never did make the cinnamon ornaments after all.

Dinner was English Muffin pizzas and the potato and cheese perogies. And then we all bundled back up in coats and piled into the car, and headed off to Davis to my parents’ church for the early Christmas Eve service. My older sister and her husband and the two boys had spent the day with his mom, so after the service, we all piled back into our respective cars and then caravaned back to my house. Except on the way home, I remembered the little neighborhood all covered in lights, with the giant muscle Santa, so a few quick calls to the other cars, and we all took a detour down that way so the rest of the family could see them.

Back at home, there was just enough time to get kids bathed and changed, and crowd onto the sofa so Grandpa could read them “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas”. I’d set up the Google Earth Santa tracker this morning for my niece, and all three kids kept dashing into the computer room to see where Santa was. It was very cute.

Everyone hung their stockings (by some miracle we had exactly enough stocking hangers, and they all fit on the plate rack over the double-wide door between the living room and dining room). Cookies and milk were left out for Santa, and the oldest nephew carefully wrote out a note to Santa while the niece and her mom went outside to leave some carrots for the reindeer. And then we finally got all three kids bundled off to bed.

We gave them a little bit of time to fall asleep, but then everyone had to spring back into action. Eight adults were tip-toeing around the house, filling stockings, bringing in all the remaining presents from where they’d been hidden on the back porch, somehow fitting everything under the tree. The guys took care of the milk and cookies, while my little sister dashed outside to pick up all the carrots and I wrote a note to the kids from Santa thanking them for everything. Only after all of that was completed could we all finally collapse in the living room and stare blearily at each other until we could drag our own tired bodies to bed. Except that there was one more thing to do, so my sister and I instead dragged our weary bodies into the kitchen and stirred together four batches of cinnamon buns for the traditional Christmas breakfast, and now everyone else has gone off to bed except me, because someone has to wait for the dough to rise before punching it down and then stashing it on the back porch. There is no more in the fridge for huge bowls of yeast dough, but the back porch is plenty cold enough to qualify, and even if it isn’t, at this point it’s a little too late to care.

Happy Holidailies!

It has been a rather whirlwind sort of day. We got up early and had cheese blintzes for breakfast, and then climbed into the car and headed off to Napa to see the nephews in their Christmas pageant. It’s a longer drive, now that we’re in Sacramento, but luckily there was no traffic to speak of, so we made it with time to track down bathrooms and then find a good seat in the sanctuary.

The pageant was very cute and rather well done, for a group of little kids. The oldest nephew was Joseph (second year in a row, he told us proudly), and the younger was one of the shepherds, and got to have one of the best lines of the pageant: “Great jumping polecats, it’s an alien!”. Lots of laughter and singing and quite fun.

Then it was off to lunch with the whole family, where my sisters and my mom and I all sat on one end of the table and ate an entire plate of onion rings between the four of us. Yum. My parents headed back home for their own Christmas church rehearsals, and we stayed behind in Napa, going back to my older sister’s house. First, however, there was a detour through Target, to pick up kits for gingerbread houses, except they had no gingerbread houses, so instead we picked up a kit to make a gingerbread tree and a gingerbread train.

The kids were a little wound up (no big surprise, considering Christmas is only two days away), so it worked out well that they had lots of toys to play with, and then could go outside into the cul-de-sac and tear around to their hearts content. Eventually everyone calmed down enough to come back in and tackle the gingerbread decorating, and then we shooed the kids back off to play, and we adults all sat around in the living room and tried very hard not to move.

Dinner was Chinese food with all the sisters and cousins, and then my younger sister and niece and brother-in-law and Richard and I headed back to Sacramento, with a short stop in Dixon to pick up a trunk load of presents and things from my parents.

So now we are all back home, eating cookies and drinking decaf coffee and trying very hard to stay awake, although I’m not entirely sure why, and looking forward to having a slightly less busy day tomorrow, before Christmas finally is upon us.

Happy Holidailies!

My sister and her family are early risers, so poor Richard isn’t going to get much chance to sleep in over the next few days, I can see (I am also an early riser). I got up this morning and chatted with my sister and brother-in-law, and then after she made coffee, I made a double batch of pumpkin scones for breakfast. The niece is a rather picky sort of eater (but in her defense, when I was her age I was probably just as picky, if not worse). So the veggie stew last night did not make a hit for the small set (too many things ‘touching’ – heh). Luckily, the pumpkin scones this morning were met with enthusiasm.

The morning was spent fairy quietly. My niece borrowed our copy of Harry Potter, Goblet of Fire and camped out on the sofa with a book and a few cats, while us adults all sat around reading, or chatting. Eventually, my parents arrived (I think they simply couldn’t wait any longer to get to see their only granddaughter), and we all went out to lunch. And then it was off to the ice skating rink at the Downtown Plaza mall.

Ice skating was…interesting. We met my older sister and her family there, and most of us got skates. The problem was that the ice was pretty rough, and the skates were all hockey skates and not very good, so the rink was mostly full of people stumbling around trying very hard not to do a face plant on the ice. My sisters and I used to ice skate all the time when we were kids (one of the side benefits of growing up in Alaska), but we had figure skating skates, and those are thinner blades and easier to maneuver in than hockey skates. Nevertheless, we all gave it a very good try. I’ve skated most recently of the three of us (my sisters and I), since there’s a rink up in Roseville and one in Vacaville, but even with that, I still managed to hit a particularly rough patch on the ice and launch myself face first onto the ice. Heh.

The youngest nephew didn’t last more than a round or two, and then was content to just sit on the sides with grandma and grandpa. The niece gave it a valiant effort with her dad, although I’m not sure he managed to get her off the side of the rink more than a few short minutes of the entire time. But the oldest nephew we practically had to pry off the ice with a crowbar. He’s roller bladed before, so at least he has an idea of how to handle balancing on that sort of blade, and he just pretty much flung himself out onto the ice and went at it with absolutely no fear. We watched him do quite a number of falls, either face first, or butt first, but he’d pick himself up and get right back into it. It was so much fun to watch his determination.

There was a guy there making balloon hats, so my younger sister took the two youngest cousins over to chat with him. The boys only wanted balloon swords, but my niece came back sporting a quite impressive hat that stood several feet tall.

After ice skating, everyone came back to our house for dinner. By angling the table, we’re able to get all eleven of my family members around the table with room to spare, so it worked out quite well. There was spaghetti and meatballs (hard to go wrong with that combination, with even the pickiest of eaters) and salad and bread and then for dessert, everyone pulled out all the boxes and tins of cookies and fudge and I think it’s safe to say that no one went hungry.

My older sister and her family headed back to their house, since they’ve got to get up early tomorrow morning, and my parents headed back as well, so suddenly the house is quiet again. The cats are starting to creep slowly out from all their hiding places, and my niece is back on the sofa, with her book and a cat, and the house is lit primarily with the soft glow of Christmas lights, and I think eventually we will all slowly make our way to bed and get ready for another day.

Happy Holidailies!

As my first day off from work for a nice long holiday, it might have been nice to sleep in. But the little ‘maintenance required’ light has been visible on the Prius’s dashboard since shortly before we moved back in July (wince), and I finally tracked down a place where I could take the car that is close to home (yet another amenity within biking distance!). I’d thought about tossing the bike in the back of the car and riding home after dropping it off, but last night I made up the massive grocery list for everything we need for the next five days while my family is here. So Richard followed me to the mechanic, and then after I dropped off the Prius, we went directly to the grocery store, and did not leave there until we had a grocery cart overflowing with bags. Granted, most of the bags are still sitting on the kitchen counter, and will likely remain there, still full, until their contents are used for the meal for which they were purchased, but at least we’re pretty much set now for the next few days.

Today was all about last minute cleaning and rearranging, in preparation for my younger sister to arrive. The last of the empty boxes were piled outside (our recycling bin has been crammed full for the past few weeks!), and clean bedding was set up for each of the guest rooms. Plus, a tiny little sparkly pink and purple tree was carefully placed in the guest room where my little niece is staying, complete with a letter from one of Santa’s elves, confirming that she and her two cousins will be at our house for Christmas.

I have been antsy all day, watching the clock. When their flight finally took off, I had fun tracking it on the computer, watching where it was along its route. We picked up my car and then headed off to the airport, braving all the Friday evening rush hour combined with Christmas weekend traffic.

Richard and I cleverly misread the sign and ended up waiting at the wrong side of the terminal for them to arrive. Thankfully my sister has my cell phone number, so we eventually found them in baggage claim, where they were still waiting for boxes and suitcases to arrive. Big hugs and squeals from the niece, who was just beside herself, because coming down to visit Aunt Jennifer and Uncle Richard means Christmas is almost here!

She was excited to find the tree and her note from Santa’s elf (hey, I do my part to keep the magic alive). We all ate dinner and I broke out the chocolate peanut butter fudge I made earlier this afternoon. There were stories read, and songs sung, and long after my excited niece was finally put to bed, my sister and I stayed up and sat, curled up, in chairs in the living room, with decaf coffee and afghans and purring cats, talking, catching up.

It is so lovely to have the three of them here. I know the next few days are going to be a little noisy and chaotic and wild, with eight adults and three little kids all together under one roof, but I have been looking forward to this for years, this hosting of Christmas, and I am just happy to have them here.

Happy Holidailies!

We had grand plans today, at my office. A few months back, as we were discussing what to do for the holiday season (no one was really in the mood to do a food drive again, and with only five of us, collecting donations can get really expensive before the pile starts looking more than just slightly pathetic), we hit upon seeing if we could volunteer at a local food bank. Since I’ve been the primary leader of this sort of thing in the past (the blame for the company-wide food drive we did two years in a row can be laid solely at my feet, for example), I poked around, fired off some emails to people (who never responded) and eventually found one of those sites where you can find lists of volunteer opportunities. I signed us all up to go serve lunch at the local food bank, and had several email conversations with the guy who was in charge of coordinating this. It sure seemed like everything was going along swimmingly. He even sent the promised email a few days before, providing the address, and instructions for how to get there.

So it was a bit of a surprise when we showed up at the food bank, only to discover that they had no record of our little group coming at all. And there were more than enough volunteers there already – so many that the woman in charge looked a bit vexed when she was trying to think of something, anything, she could have us do. Ultimately, we all agreed that it wasn’t meant to be for today, and that we would try to schedule the food bank outing for sometime later – perhaps in January. And this time I will coordinate directly with the food bank itself, instead of going through the volunteer site. Grumble.

The plan had been that we would all go serve lunch at the food bank, then go out to lunch as a group and then go home early. Since the food bank thing fell through, we went to an early lunch instead, and then back to the office. As I noted to my boss with a laugh, I’d already shut down my computer – and my brain – for the year, thinking I wouldn’t be back. Oh well.

Happy Holidailies!

I came home today and for some reason I was just in a grumpy sort of mood. I suspect it’s likely due to just being tired, and it being cold and wet outside, but it did not help that we finally got broke down and assembled the ugly monstrosity of a bookshelf downstairs and it reminded me how much I don’t like that thing, and how much I had hoped that we could have had something else built, or bought, in its place by this time. When we got this thing, years ago, it was only ever supposed to be a temporary solution, except that once it was up, we never got around to replacing it, and my fear has been that if we had to put it up here, sheer inertia will prevent us from ever getting around to replacing it in this house too. And it just fed into my continuing frustration about my inability to make even the most basic of design decisions about my own house because if we could have just made a decision about the damn stain and wood, this would have all been a moot point anyway, and, well, it just kind of snowballed from there. All because of one big ugly stupid bookshelf. And I realize it is a silly thing to be gloomy about, but logic rarely comes into play when one is in the midst of a grump, self-doubting sort of funk.

After we hauled just a few boxes downstairs, and then Richard left to go to a writers group meeting, I decided that unpacking the books was only going to make me grumpier. So instead I got some dinner, because I was also extremely hungry (and I am sure that had *nothing* to do with my grouchiness at all – ha), and then I baked cookies. Because it is very hard to maintain a stupid grumpy mood when the house smells like cookies. And it is even harder to maintain a stupid grumpy mood when you then *eat* some of those cookies.

By the time Richard got home I was feeling much better. We moved a dozen or so more boxes of books downstairs, and I looked at that big ugly bookshelf against the wall that is painted just the exact shade of red we had been hoping to get (think old library, or old study – it’s that sort of red) and I knew that I could live with it and all of its accompanying mental baggage, even if it’s there for a lot longer than the word ‘temporary’ might suggest. Cookies made. Cookies consumed. Crisis of confidence averted. Let the holiday merriment begin.

Happy Holidailies!

So buying that file chest was a terrific idea, because by the time I got home yesterday afternoon, Richard had managed to fill the bottom drawer entirely with all his files, and in the process, got rid of every single box that remained in the office. Granted, some of them are now hiding in the coat closet, but the point is, they are no longer piled messily in corners, and the office looks absolutely huge now, with all this empty floor space. Heh. We shall not speak of the printer, still in its box, that I need to set up on my desk, or the fact that my own desk is a big ugly mess right now. The issue right now is all about clearing away the boxes.

He also managed to clear out several of the boxes that still lurked in corners in the dining room, so when I got home, I tackled the remainder. Amusingly, we finally found the other battery charger, lurking in yet another unlabeled box of ‘miscellaneous items’; naturally we found this only after we invested in a bulk package of double A batteries. Ah well.

In preparation for having all the family at our house, I’ve worked up a menu, and emails have been flying fast and furious between my mom and my sisters and I over the past few days. I am realizing important things, like the fact that I have apparently never made mashed potatoes before, and that I never paid much attention to how stockings got stuffed at holidays past (or, for that matter, by whom). I’ve also been poking madly around on websites, looking for craft and game ideas to keep the younger set happily occupied while they’re here. I’ve got activities planned (ice skating, gingerbread house decorating, trip to the zoo), but it’s been a bit gray and soggy out lately and I’ve started to have second thoughts about the wisdom of including so many outdoor activities for a joint family visit smack in the middle of winter.

Happy Holidailies!

I was browsing through the latest batch of Holidailies entries this morning and started following links (a dangerous thing to do when one really ought to be ceasing with the blog reading and heading off to work), and I stumbled across this site.

Basically this couple in Kansas decided it would be fun to designate an unofficial holiday called Live-Like-A-Cat Day (much like Talk Like A Pirate Day). To this end, they started the appropriately named Live-Like-A-Cat-Day blog, and have been encouraging people to commit to joining in. Come January 12th, 2008, their goal is to have a whole lot of people spending one entire day living life as if they were their cat.

I am finding this whole idea more than a tiny bit amusing, and not just because of the mental image of hundreds of otherwise fairly mature and responsible adults taking the whole idea far too much to heart when it comes time to take their daily shower, and foregoing the usual bathing routine to instead assume the cello position.

Anyway. Naturally, I sent the link along to Richard, along with some thoughts on the whole idea, most of which focused on the difficulty a household with multiple cats faces when considering this sort of event. Namely, which cat do we choose to live like?

My thought is that, to be truly fair, we would have to rotate throughout the day, spending four hours following the lifestyles of one cat, then four hours with the next, and so on until we worked our way through all six.

To make things easier, we’ll need to go in age order, which means that the first four hours of the day would be spent mirroring Sebastian, curling up on a chair in the computer room, snoring. This will last the entire four hours except for one brief interlude, picked entirely at random, to leap down from the chair and go wandering aimlessly through the house, yelling at nothing in particular at the top of our lungs for up to fifteen minutes.

Next we move on to shadowing Zucchini, which means basically we have to huddle under the bed and only come out if someone turns out the light, or if there is the remotest possibility that someone might be opening a can of cat food in the kitchen. Bonus points for who can look the most horrified if someone happens to look under the bed to see if we actually do exist.

Round three of the Living Like a Cat Day brings us to Tangerine, who will show us how to spend all our time curled up into a very neat little ball on top of the nearest pillow. During these four hours we will also have to practice the nearly silent squack.

Next up, Rosemary, which means this is the four hours we’ll get our exercise. Time to gather up all the little stuffed critters and then trot industriously from room to room, carrying one at a time in our mouth while carrying on a running commentary about the whole thing, before depositing them carefully in some random spot (likely on one of the stairs, or perhaps in the exact center of a doorway, or maybe even in Richard’s slipper). After we were done with critter placement, we’d retire for a cozy nap, tucked underneath any conveniently placed blanket or comforter.

Fifth on the list is Azzie, which means checking the brain at the door. We’d spend that four hours beeping pathetically at closed doors, skittering madly at random things on the floor, and following people around demanding attention Right Now. Also critical during this time period – all water must be drunk only from a sink faucet, and must first be batted at with paws before actual drinking can occur.

Finally, we’ll end the day with a good glare, and who better to train us in that than Checkers. We’ll find a good high spot to lurk, glaring suspiciously at anyone who might be walking by, or thinking of walking by. Or we can sit on the bed, but only if no one else is sitting on the bed, and if anyone else even *thinks* about sitting on the bed, we will whine about it and then go stomping off to some place high to sulk. And also to glare. We will be one with the glare.

Happy Holidailies!