Franken-kitty

Halloween 2008. We only had five trick-or-treaters. So disappointing. The first set was a trio of teenaged “dice.” The three girls were dressed all in black and each was sporting a big white box with black dots – very clever. Randy was so excited that someone had finally rung our doorbell, that he threw a huge handful of candy in each of their bags. As they walked away, I heard on of the girls exclaim, “That was awesome!”

We went back to our reading. Rusty was curled up in my lap and I was scratching his head when I discovered that he had a HUGE abscess behind his left ear. So, first thing Saturday morning, we took him to the vet. Dr. Chan said it looked like he had been bitten all the way through the cartilage of his ear, and as she flicked off the scab we could see that it was, indeed, filled with pus. Totally gross and disgusting. Sorry. We left him to her ministrations and wandered through the farmer’s market just down the street and relaxed with our purchases at Tully’s Coffee.

When we picked him up an hour later, he had been transformed into Franken-kitty, just one day too late for Halloween. She had put two drains through his ear. We were instructed to wiggle them three times a day, to keep them from scabbing over. We were to apply a hot wet compress to his ear for five minutes three times a day. Right . . . about that – Rusty doesn’t like water any more than the average cat. We also had the joy of shooting pink Amoxicillin down his throat twice a day. Thanks to my friend Peg, I know the secret to giving a cat medicine. Grab him by the scruff of his neck and lift him up so his front paws are off the ground and he can’t resist. It’s a miracle!

Anyway, you’re probably wondering why I am sharing this. It’s because of a comment Randy made while trying to hold yet another hot, wet compress to the cat while holding him in a hammer lock. He said it’s like hurts and unforgiveness in our life. If we don’t take off the scab, so the poison can drain out, it just continues to fester and grow until it threatens to explode, or it spreads into our blood and sickens the rest of our body, soul and spirit – as the infection had caused Rusty to become feverish and lethargic. The cleansing process was not pleasant for Rusty. He hated it, and fought it to the best of his ability. But as of Thursday, the drains have been removed and he is back to his normal bouncy self, with just a little missing hair and a few scabs to show for his ordeal.

You can see from these photos that Rusty spent much of his “convalescence” supervising my work in my studio. Now, in addition to pushing my mess out of my way as I continue to work, I have to periodically remove the cat from what I’m working on as well. And I’ve learned in a hurry to never leave open bottles of any kind of liquid unattended.

Any excuse to play with my art stuff!

Alyssa is in the school play, Shakespeare for Dummies. We saw it last night and it was delightful, but that's not what I want to write about. The cast is exchanging "secret pal" gifts for each of the three nights they are performing. So, today after school, Alyssa and I went to the mall so she could get her "pal" a gift. She got two shades of purple nail polish at Hot Topic. About 1/2 hour before she had to leave for tonight's performance she asked me if we had a small gift box. I said, "No, but if you give me a few minutes I can make you are really cool triangle box." She humored me and I went to work. I found the directions for this box on www.splitcoaststampers.com.
It's really quick and easy to do. All you need is a 5 x 10 inch piece of cardstock. I have been looking for DAYS for the Heidi Swapp masks that I KNEW I had, because I saw Tim Holtz' mask tutorial on his blog (www.timholtz.typepad.com) and wanted to try out the technique. I hadn't been able to find the masks anywhere until TODAY. When I opened up the stamp drawer to get out my Memory Box flourish stamps, I FOUND THEM. So, I used the damask mask on this little purple box. After using the foam applicator tool to apply the ink over the mask. I inked a word background stamp with the same ink and stamped right over the top of the mask. I then removed the mask and did the rest of the stamping. What a fun little box to put a small gift in. With the ribbon on the top, it could also be hung on a Christmas tree with a small gift inside. We are going to make them at our church's Family Advent Celebration coming up soon.

Saturday Soccer

Because I am both a native Californian and someone who survived the brutal winter in Iowa last year, I think I can get away with poking some fun at Californians when it comes to weather and soccer. Randy has been a soccer official at all levels from the little tykes in recreational leagues through the college level ever since Emily was in first grade (she’s now 21). The rule in Iowa is “we play in the rain, unless there is thunder and lightning.”

Randy has a rain shirt to wear under his official’s uniform and always carries an extra pair of socks, expecting to get soaked, so he can put on dry socks between games. I have used a sharp knife to scrape mud out of the grooves of three pairs of soccer shoes (since Ian and Emily both played) for as many years as I can remember. The rule was: strip in the laundry room after an especially mud-wallowing game. In Emily’s opinion, there was nothing more fun than playing in the mud. In fact, I can remember one miserable fall soccer game in Waverly, Iowa. I sat in my chair on the sidelines wrapped in a heavy blanket, covered by a rain poncho and holding a stadium umbrella, as the rain poured off the sides of the umbrella like a waterfall. There was no thunder or lightning, so the game was “on.” We all had to go the nearby McDonald’s afterwards to thaw out with hot chocolate.

As of Thursday night, we are having our first rain here in California since we moved here in July – no wind, no thunderstorm activity – just gentle rain. Randy received an email this morning that all soccer fields in Dublin are closed due to rain. Really? Wow! If that were the standard in Iowa, they would seldom be able to play. Think of all the great mud these poor California kids are missing out on.

Alyssa After School

I just picked up Alyssa from play practice.  She was in the kitchen looking for something to eat.  Isn't she cute?  It's hard to figure out how to dress in this weather.  It's 46 degrees when she leaves for school and 80 degrees at noon.  She has to walk outdoors in between all her classes.  Today she chose fashion over comfort.

Prayer Box

My first project in my new studio was painting/stamping this wooden box to hold the prayer requests at our Friday morning women's Bible study.  I got the box at Michael's for $3.99.  I watered down some white acrylic paint (Neopaque) and rubbed it onto the box with a wadded up piece of paper towel.  I applied it generously and then rubbed off the excess, in the direction of the wood grain, to give it a whitewashed look.  The floral stamps used are from Rubber Stamp Tapestry.  I applied them with pigment ink, for permanency.  I used a stipple brush to apply the wisteria color (the same ink used to stamp the swirl background) to the lid and the green color around the base.  I used a variety of brands of ink: mostly Ranger Adirondak Pigment Ink and  Color Box Fluid Chalk Ink.  This was a fun, quick, easy project.  Maybe a gift idea for Christmas?  I know I'm going to be trying to make more of my gifts this year to save money.

My New Studio in California

Here's my studio!  It's a great place to play!  Everything is at my fingertips, although I need to finish labeling the drawers so I can actually find things without actually having to open each drawer.  It's small enough that I have to clean up my messes as I make them (totally not my style), but it's a good discipline. What a joy to be able to walk down the hall, first thing in the morning to dabble in a project in process, or do work into the wee hours of the night knowing my loved ones are snoozing just down the hall.  Usually I can count on Rusty to be sprawled out on my table top right in the middle of what I'm working on - keeping me company.  You are welcome to come "play" here any time you want!  I miss all my art buddies from Iowa.

Rusty on the Red Couch (or Lessons About God)

This morning I was sitting here in the guest room typing a reply to an email.   I looked over my shoulder and saw our cat, Rusty, curled up asleep on the red couch next to me. I hadn’t seen him silently enter the room, but there he was – my shadow. He seems to have an “antenna” tuned in to me. He often looks like he is sound asleep, but if I stand up to leave the room, he jumps down from his current “perch” and pads along behind me.

He jumps on the counter to supervise me while I wash dishes, climbing into the sink for a drink out of the faucet. He sprawls right in the middle of the mess in my studio while I am creating something. Last week while I was making a book for Emily’s birthday, he reduced me to giggles. There he was all curled up in the middle of a huge assortment of yarn – all colors, textures, and thicknesses. What kind of self-respecting cat is content to sleep in the presence of so much yarn? He just wanted to be with me.

If I go out in the backyard to eat my breakfast, he curls up in the shade at my feet. If I am getting ready for the day, he stands on the counter quizzically watching me put on makeup. If I am reading in bed, he is curled up on the comforter wadded up down by my feet. He is always THERE!

God tapped me on the shoulder this morning when I turned and saw Rusty on the red couch. He said, “You don’t always hear me, or see me, but I’m always here. I’m HERE. You are never alone.”

Rusty will meow loudly when he is in distress, but the sound he makes most often is a rolled chirping with a question mark at the end. When I have left a room, a few minutes later I can hear Rusty padding down the hallway “chirping” out the question, “Where did you go?” God is like that. He seeks us out. If we have wandered away, He comes looking for us.

There are still other ways He reveals himself through my feisty orange and white cat. Often, while in the middle of working on a project, Rusty decides it’s time for me to play with him. This usually involves throwing one of his jingly balls so he can play fetch (he chases the ball, picks it up in his teeth while meowing at the same time, and brings it to me where he drops it at my feet so I can throw it again). Sometimes it means getting out his purple leash and twirling it so he can leap up to grab it or chase after it. When he is in one of those moods, he really doesn’t care if I am in the middle of some “important” task. He wants me to pay attention to him, and he will not leave me alone until I stop what I am doing and play with him. If I persist in ignoring him, he jumps onto a nearby surface and looks for something, anything, to push off onto the floor. I’ve grabbed glasses full of water, precious figurines, cell phones, and cameras just in the nick of time on more than one occasion. Although God is patient, there are times when He wants me to pay attention to Him. He finds ways to distract me from what I am doing what seems so important to me at the time, because He wants me to just spend time with Him.

Sometimes Rusty makes me laugh out loud. He jumps straight up in the air about three feet and then tears through the house. He bats his little ball around all over the back patio until he finally knocks it into the pool. Then he leans precariously over the edge of the pool so all you can see are his back haunches and tail, to fish the ball out with his extended claws. He launches himself at the top of his favorite rust-colored rocking chair, setting it swinging and then leaps from the top of it, nearly knocking it over. He climbs to the top of the fridge and bats as me as I walk by. God startles me back into the present like this sometimes, too. He wakes me up with a song about his glory playing in my head. He startles me with a spectacular sunset. He prods me into doing something I never thought I’d have the courage to do. He encourages me with an unexpected email from a friend. He presses his fingerprints into my days so I can see them later when the angle of the sun is just right, or when I stop long enough to notice.

When I returned from swimming today at noon, I opened the front door and Rusty was sitting there on the dining room carpet looking at me. From the way he stood, yawned and stretched, it was apparent that he had planted himself there when we went out the front door and was waiting for our return. He serves as a reminder that God, too, waits patiently for me to return to him, when I have been off on one of my tangents.

I headed into the bathroom to take a shower. I put the sage colored bathmat on the floor and pulled the shower curtain closed. Every time I take a shower – every single time – I pull back the shower curtain to grab my towel and find Rusty sitting there looking at me. I never feel embarrassed to be naked in front of him – it just warms my heart that he has come looking for me. Unlike Adam and Eve in the garden when God came looking for them after they had sinned, I do not have to feel ashamed about being naked in front of God, either. He knows me inside and out and He loves me anyway. I don’t have to cower in front of him, or try to hide my glaring flaws, because Jesus has clothed me with his righteousness. Now, that is freedom!

On occasion, Rusty will disappear for a while, out exploring the neighborhood and charming the neighbors (who are all fattening him up!). His absence awakens my curiosity and I go looking for him to see what he is up to. God also draws me out of myself and bids me to come out into the world to see what he is up to.

One thing cats do better than any other creature, is sleep. There is no better picture of utter contentment and rest than a cat curled up in a cozy patch of sunlight. God calls me, too, to rest, to stop my frantic pace and just “be.” He gently reminds me that sometimes the most spiritual thing I can do is take a nap.

Today I am thankful for my furry friend on the red couch. He not only delights my heart but also points my heart toward the One who delights in me. What a gift!