esprit de l'escalier

My cat is missing

When I moved from my parents' house this summer, I left behind my cat Frank, because he's become an outdoor cat and I couldn't let him outside at my new apartment because of traffic. Plus my parents' house is sort of cat paradise - plenty of places to climb and explore and all sorts of small furry and winged creatures to chase. It's been hard not seeing him every day and I have had good amount of pet owner guilt about not having him with me.

The last couple of weeks he's been taking off from the house for several days at a time. My mom hadn't been telling me til he was home again, because she didn't want to worry me. Now he's been missing since Monday morning. She's walked around and talked to some neighbors and has found out that our neighborhood is exceptionally cat friendly. There are people around all over that feed cats. Plus there is apparently a little cat tent city that some people created for the cats that live at the mill in town, which is close to us. She thinks he's okay and will be home at some point. It's hard not to worry and feel a lot of guilt about leaving him behind.

I'm sorry Frank. Please come home. We miss you.

Curled up

I'm headed to bed early tonight. The only thing missing in the photo above is me. I've been tired all day, humming "Cicadas and Gulls" from Feist's new album (which I adore) to myself. The day was cold, and each proceeding day is to be colder and wetter. I came home to a package - a new book not yet on the bookshelves. Somehow I was asked if I'd like an advanced copy of James Wolcott's new memoir Lucking Out. Um, yes. I'm still not entirely sure how my name got on whatever list, but I am grateful. I already dove into it and am loving it. Thanks Mr. Wolcott, for saving me from a night of bad tv with your delightful prose. I'm headed back into it now. Full review when I'm done.

Craft night!

Tonight I had four girls over for a craft night. Five (total including me) is an important number, because at the moment I only have five plates, so that is the total amount of people I can currently feed. (And at the moment my chairs top out at 7.) I made dinner and baked cookies and topped out my plates. Dinner was good; cookies even better. Plus my friend Amie brought Shrinky Dinks. Oh yeah. And we talked about our feelings. It was awesome. This is me making baby steps to having parties. I like hosting, but we might start rotating. I still plan on baking for wherever we have it. Now I'm watching bad tv and killing a bottle of red. It's a good night.

Frank turns five

Today a co-worker asked if it was Thursday. (Actually, he asked me twice.) I said yes, that I was sure of the day of the week, but had no idea the day of the month. I am slightly adrift in October. Tonight I headed to Granville to help my mother move some furniture around. After we had finished, we settled in front of the television to catch up on a show we love, and Frank the cat settled in my lap for some attention and napping. At some point I looked at my phone and noticed the day of the month. It's October 13th. Which is Frank's birthday. Today Frank turns five. Happy birthday to my cat. My mischevious, spoiled little monkey cat, whom I adore. I'm sorry we are currently living apart. I'm also sorry I don't have any recent photos; my photography mojo has been off. Here are some good Frank-through-the-ages shots, though (more here).

A couple of good reads

Hello blog. Last week saw the end of a grant proposal at work, which had been a long time coming. Over the last couple of weeks it has made my brain somewhat mushy and had lead me to drink. But it's finished and I'm slowly regaining my normal thoughts, though I'm not quite up to blogging. My mind is not retaining things as it should. Luckily, I have Twitter and Evernote to store some good links for you all. I've got three great pieces that I've read over the last week to share.

I'm going to go in the order of most recenlty read. Today the fabulous Nikki Peeler retweeted a link to this essay entitled, "Don't date a girl that reads" by Charles Warnke. I don't have anything to say except I find it excellent. Read it. (Forget the Dorothy Parker quote.)

The second piece is by Erin Hill, who writes a blog about television. (Yes, I'm the type of couch potato who also enjoys reading in-depth discussions of tv. Thank god for the internet, or where else would I be?) She's only written a couple of posts, but she's excellent. I found her through Dan Harmon's Twitter a while back; they are in a relationship. She makes me like him even more. (He's the creator of the show Community, which I love.) Anyway, this particular piece is her response to the glut of "women's" sitcoms on tv this season. She (rightly in my mind) calls it tokenism and bullshit and not necessarily good for women. (I could only get through about 5 minutes of Whitney and dread Chelsea Handler's sitcom.) I agree with so much Erin has to say. Please read it.

The third piece has to do with weddings, and I found sort of via my friend Jess (also through Twitter, aka how I find almost everything I read these days). It's by J.M. Henderson for the Atlantic and is about how she finds weddings to be uncomfortable because they take what she thinks are intensely private moments and makes them exceptionally public. Now, I love attending weddings and have been so proud and happy to be involved in the weddings of my dear friends and family members, but I can't help but agree with some of her points. Maybe it's just coinciding with me realizing that a big wedding is so not for me. Anyway, I enjoyed her article; read it here.

Random photos

These photos have nothing to do with each other, except that they were taken over a month ago. They aren't even from the same roll of film, or actually from the same state. The top photo is from the east side of Columbus, when my co-worker and I went on an outing to a taco truck for lunch one day. The bottom is some goldenrod from my friend's dad's house in Michigan. I dodged a lot of bees to take that photo. I love the dreaminess of the bright yellow against the green.

A busy Sunday

Given that I didn't really get out of bed today until after noon, I have been very productive. Part of the reason I stayed in bed so long was because I didn't turn on my heat last night and really should have. I woke up and read in bed for awhile. Then fetched tea and toast and returned to my bed, books, and warmth. Besides finishing a Diana Wynne Jones book that I had already read before, I also found myself flipping through Joe Yonan's book Serve Yourself, which my friend Sara had alerted me to several months ago. I think I'm going to buy it - I have a lot of sticky-note flags in the libary's copy already. Tonight I made two recipes from it - a sweet potato-based soup with chorizo, chickpeas, and kale, and some cardamom snickerdoodles. The soup was great. I think I screwed up the snickerdoodles, because I accidentally doubled the amount of cardamom. I do think they'd be good with ice cream, though. I was hoping to bring them to a dinner tomorrow night where I promised dessert, but I might have to make something else on the fly.

My friend Beth came over to hang out and chat while I cooked, which was nice. I am currently using my computer in my kitchen, because another thing I did was get my new wireless router set-up. No more stealing spotty wi-fi from the restaurant kitty-corner from me! I am feeling more at home in my apartment. Today I also spent a couple of hours at work finishing something that I should have finished this week. Blarg. I'm very much looking for this particular project being over. Now it's almost 11. I need to start thinking about bed. I hope you all have a good week!