CATS IS STRANGE ANIMALS

With SWMBO gone all week, house sitting with the BRD's 3 cats, our cats seem to have gone into hibernation, at least in the daytime.  Muggles sleeps all day on the foot of the bed and this morning I caught her in a completely relaxed and unguarded moment.

Blackwell, on the other hand, is enjoying our packing and stacking boxes everywhere.  He frequently goes to the top of a tall stack just to see what's there.  And I have no idea how he got to this perch in an empty bookcase, about four feet from the floor.

Good climbing and leaping skills, I guess.  And he gets down by himself when no one is looking!

Meantime SWMBO and I are off to Phoenix to look at several houses for a possible new home today.  Wish us luck.

I'M GOIN' TO KATMANDU!!!

Colonel Colonel asked yesterday (in a comment on my post) if I was goin' to Katmandu.  I responded that I wasn't but I might sing it.  Needless to say, while I enjoy the famous song by that name, there is no way I could sing it.  But the legend from Detroit, Bullet Bob Seger certainly can.  Turn up your sound, folks, and look out for the next more than 6 minutes of rock and roll.

SOME THINGS ARE BEST NOT POSTED

I want to go to Annapurna

to watch the Annapurnans dance.

Perchance,

they’d let me dance

with them.

Or maybe they’d just say 

“Ahem,

We really do believe

that you had better leave.”

(For some reason, this poem(?) created itself in my head last night.  I'd explain it.  But I can't.)

SEQUESTER OR SESQUICENTENNIAL?

Take your pick.  There's been a ton of talk in the media and elsewhere about the Sequester the nation is facing on March 1st.  But another important day is today.  In Arizona, at least.  This is the sesquicentennial of the Arizona Territory.  President Abraham Lincoln created the territory exactly 150 years ago today.  Joanna Dodder Nellans has written a fine article about the history in today's Prescott Daily Courier newspaper.

Darned if there wasn't a light dusting of white stuff greeting early risers today to mark the occasion, I guess.

But the sun is up and the snow is rapidly melting off and being blown away by gusty winds.

Meantime, the BRD and her Beau Jack leave this morning for California's central coast, where the high temperature is expected to be in the 70's most of the week of their vacation.

Oscar night tonight.  We've only seen a couple of the films that are nominated but here are my predictions, based on many articles I've read.

Best Picture - Argo
Directing - Steven Spielberg
Leading Actor - Daniel Day-Lewis
Supporting Actor - Tommy Lee Jones
Leading Actress - Jennifer Lawrence
Supporting Actress - Anne Hathaway

But, as all "predictors" are wont to say - "who knows?"

OOPS!

I have neglected you, blogger friends.

I have just been reading your blogs, many since I have last entered my timeless thoughts.  Yours are very good.  Mine, not so much.

So, what have I been up to?  Today I watched a lovely movie, "Robot and Frank" with the excellent Frank Langella and the always delectable Susan Sarandon, among others.  I liked it.

And I have finally finished a book, "Telegraph Avenue" by the fantastic Michael Chabon.  I have no idea how he mastered the black lifestyle (good and bad) and "talk", but that he did.  He has already won a Pulitzer Prize (for "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay") and this novel is, while trying at times, ultimately fascinating and lovely.  I recommend it.

We are still packing boxes full of our belongings.  Well, at least, SWMBO is.  I've kind of fallen down on it but I am trying to find a realtor or property management person in the Valley who will do us some good.  But it will happen.  Our move, that is.  Eventually.

The BRD and her Beau Jack are off to San Luis Obispo and environs tomorrow.  SWMBO is off to Flagstaff to spend Academy Awards night with a good friend and her annual party.  Then she'll return briefly on Monday before leaving to spend a week house-sitting (or cat-sitting, actually) at the BRD's house.

Speaking of cats, I took our beloved Blackwell to the Humane Society yesterday to have a microchip implanted in him and to have his toenails clipped.  As has been noted before, he is a bit of an escape artist (though he has, to date, always returned).  But the microchip will give us an added feeling of certainty that we won't lose him in the move.  He was very good, very brave through a long waiting period in a room full of dogs, some barking.  But I think he's glad to be home.

I have another movie to watch.  "Little White Lies", which SWMBO (who watched it today) tells me is a French movie with subtitles about a couple of couples who go on a vacation at the beach . . and all that brings to mind.  Hmmmm.

Food!  Two nights ago SWMBO surprised me with one of my favorite meals: Chicken piccata with pasta alfredo.  Leftovers last night.  Tonight, baked chicken and rice.  It's smelling delicious as I write this.  And salivate.  I have a New York steak thawing in the refrigerator for my "escape night" dinner.  Steak and baked potato.  Just for me.  Only when SWMBO leaves me alone for a night.

So it goes for we older folks.  Books, movies, food.  What else does one need.

ARIZONA?????

Scottsdale, Arizona.

Yesterday afternoon.

That

Is

Snow

24 LITTLE HOURS

Yesterday, I was in Mesa standing around talking to friends under sunny skies in 70 degree temperatures.  But I had checked the forecast and I knew a change was coming.  Just a day later, this was the scene as I was driving from Prescott Valley to Prescott this afternoon.

But as I said to one of my North Dakota buddies yesterday, at least in Arizona it doesn't last long.  A couple of hours later the sun was out and the snow was gone.

Incidentally I was watching a golf tournament that began today at Marana, just a bit north of Tucson in southern Arizona.  It started out cold with the players wearing stocking caps and jackets.  A bit later and as Jason Day put it, "First it started to rain, then it changed to sleet and then to snow."  The rest of play was called off for the day as about two inches fell in less than an hour.  Most of the golfers were incredulous and some of them had never seen snow before.

Just an average day in the deserts of Arizona.