Christmas on the run

Here's a wooden bendy guy I bought a while back at IKEA. I actually got it for Big City Girl, since she loves to draw. But when she left it home (it was apparently too big for her shoebox apartment) I kind of adopted it to use for sketching my annual Christmas cartoon. It can be posed in an infinite number of ways. I'm not very good at coming up with cartoon figures on my own, but I do find it fairly easy when I have something to copy. It has other uses too. I can put it on the breakfast table and arrange it in my "mood of the day," thereby warning family members not to talk to me too early, or at least not until I've had my coffee.

The ornament is an old one that used to be part of my mother-in-law's collection. I have a few others, as well as her button collection and some sewing notions. I used to think most of these things were junk, but I've changed my tune and now refer to them as "vintage." And to a dollmaker, they become vintage treasures. I also have some of my grandmother's tatting. Now there's a craft I've never tried. But no need. I have more tatting than I'll ever need.

A few months ago I posted about doing some cat-sitting for my neighbor across the street. She's the owner of Henry and Clarence. She was so pleased with my service that she gave me a special kitty calendar for Christmas featuring...you guessed it......H and C. Here is Clarence romping in the snow. Well, maybe romping is the wrong word. Clarence looks more like he's thinking, "What did you do to my grass?"

This nice neighbor also gave me two jars of home grown tomato sauce and two large chocolate bars. I'm using the sauce sparingly in homemade soup. The chocolate didn't make it through Christmas Eve. To my credit, and in the spirit of the season, I did share it with the family.

So Big City Girl emailed me today to say she and her boyfriend will be arriving on Friday evening for a short visit before continuing on to New Hampshire where they expect to find some snow for winter-like sports. Mr. Gadget and I have offered to bunny-sit. She will bring her cute little bunny up on the train again and we will do our best to keep him alive and entertained while she is gone. I think this is what you do with grandchildren, but I'm not sure. We will try to hold off on spoiling the bunny though, since this will most certainly result in more little bunny pellets to clean up. We'd just as soon keep those to a minimum.......