THE THIRTEENTH TALE by Diane Setterfield

This is by far one of the best books I’ve read in a really long time. The story draws you in and doesn’t let go. The characters stay with you long after you’ve put the book down, and, if you’re anything like me, you are furious with yourself when you finish because you want it to go on and on.

This is Diane Setterfield’s first and only novel to date. There is talk of a new novel coming next month – I hope so because I love her style. I would recommend The Thirteenth Tale to everyone. Seriously, don’t miss this one!

Gratuitous Cat Shot

Several of the felines have pointed out to me that nowhere in the name of the blog does the word dog appear and that it might be a good idea to start showing some of them again, since they haven’t been featured for quite a while. So throughout the month of March, expect gratuitous shots of cats scattered through my posts.

Just in case you’ve forgotten who they are(hah!), the reigning quartet in our house are as follows:

Gentleman George

male, orange, knows just what buttons to push!

Gretel

the only female in a sea of males – the grey diva.

Andrew Eugene

truly one of the greatest cats that ever was!

And the baby of the bunch – Dudley

whom we worried would not make it through the night, let alone 1.5 years later. As you can see, he usually is where he doesn’t belong … but then he’s a cat.

ONE OF A KIND

We often talk about how Andrew is the kind of cat that you get once in a lifetime, if you’re lucky.

It’s not that he’s so patient with the demon Dudley or that he puts up with all our foibles.

It’s not even that he’s one of the most RELAXED creatures I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing.

It’s that he is such a comfort. I was holding him this morning, in his preferred pose – draped over my shoulder and relaxing into my arm – that I realized he was calming me down just with his purring. As he burrowed into my neck, I noticed that subconsciously, my breathing was matching his. This is why I cannot hold him for any extended period of time – I would be comatose, I’d be so relaxed.

That or my arm would fall off. That’s 20 pounds of pure muscle right there. Nothing fluffy about this one!

There’s a reason he earned the title of “Greatest Cat That Ever Lived!”

FACIAL SCARS – or lack thereof

There was a slight altercation last night. When I got back from walking the dogs, Gretel

was upstairs, where she did not belong, and Dickon

decided to let her know how he felt about that, which just made her more insistent on staying up.

When we’re at the beach, we try to lock the cats up in our suite overnight because someone,

and I’m not naming names (Andrew) has a tendency to go visiting during the wee hours and Dad just doesn’t understand when 17 pounds of cat lands on him at 3AM.

In trying to get Gretel down and into the room, she took offense and scratched my face in her attempt to launch herself from my arms. My first thought was not oh crap, the cat scratched me, or I hope she didn’t get my eye, but rather how am I going to explain this at BlogHer next weekend.

Since I had what started as a small scratch at the corner of my left eye, that then morphed into a red welt across the cheekbone, and ended in another small scratch on my lip, I thought I’d go with knife fight at the bar. Or maybe catfight – you should see the other bitch. Anything other than admit the truth – Yeah, I picked up my cat when she was in a hissy fit about the dog and she let me know her true feelings.

When I saw my face this morning, all that’s left are two tiny scratches by the eye and on the lip. Knife fight just isn’t going to work because I don’t think there’s anything that small that would explain the scratches – dueling penknives, anyone? Besides, the way it’s healing, I won’t have to explain anything at work on Monday, let alone next Friday. Damn my super healing powers!

THE FACE THAT LAUNCHED A THOUSAND SHIPS

Andrew Eugene, lost in thought 3/25/09

REASON #724 WHY I NEVER GET ANYTHING DONE ….

Meet Andrew Eugene. He, like George, feels he can do a much better job blogging than I can. Notice, he’s giving me his good side.

Actually, what he really likes is sitting on a nice warm computer to warm his butt because obviously, we keep the place too cold!

Obligatory profile picture to show what a fine creature he is:)

WHAT!!!!????? I’m helping!

LETTER FROM SCHOOL – Monday Mission

Hooray – Monday Mission is back! As usual, our host is the lovely Painted Maypole, and you can head on over to her site to see the rest of the entries. This week’s Monday’s Mission, should you choose to accept it, is to write a post in the form of a letter home from a teacher.

Dear Mrs. G.

Here at the BH School of De-Stress and Relaxation, our goal is to teach our students stress management techniques which they, hopefully, will then transfer to their daily lives, thereby lowering their blood pressure and prolonging their lives. Examples of our classes included deep breathing exercises, yoga, relaxation poses, etc. We are happy to report that your child, Andrew fits right in with the other students. He adopted our way of teaching from the very beginning, going so far as to exceed every one’s expectations. We do have one concern though – he relaxes to the point where we’re not sure he has a pulse! We only wish everyone embraced our techniques with such fervor!

We are looking forward to great things from young master Andrew this year.

Sincerely,

The Staff at BH School of De-Stress and Relaxation