Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. Jasen sent a Christmas card saying how much he values everything I do for the team and a gift for the kittens.

2. Sunday afternoon, I run across town in a desperate bid to finish my Christmas list. I am delighted to discover that Sarah, who’d been ill, is up and doing one final shift at her old job to help them out with the rush. She helps me with my shopping, and since she won’t be back in time to join us for our New Year’s Eve tradition this year, it feels particularly good to see her one last time in 2024.

3. Christmas was lovely, with a slow start to the day after Mum & I were up late wrapping. I think everyone liked their presents, the dinner was delicious, and we finished the night with The Bishop’s Wife, most of which Mum & I dozed through.

How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world lately?

Last year on this day, we said goodbye to Corey, our cat of 13 years. Named Corazon, because as a kitten he came home with us after Amani and Marcus’ wedding in Greenbelt in 2010.

Corey was a gorgeous grey fireplug of a cat, with short legs and tail and big, round eyes. He used to remind me of James Cagney, in his more thuggish roles. He weighed almost twenty pounds and never met a situation he wasn’t confident he could bash through.

He was a surprise addition to our household and it took a while before the pecking order settled in with the older cats. But eventually they became friends, particularly him and Jer. But after he became a solo cat, Rudi and I made the reluctant decision that he might not appreciate a kitten, and decided to stay a trio for a while.

Because of that, and because of his very gregarious nature (he took after Rudi), he was a very doglike cat. My friend Neal, who catsit for us several times, expressed surprise that Corey would stop eating (his favorite activity) to stare at Neal in dismay if it seemed like he was going to leave too quickly. He liked being in the middle of a party, with a particular flair for stealing the lime tortilla chips. He’d demand to be spooned on the couch or to hang out draped over me. He wanted most to have Rudi and me both in sight, but if we were in separate places, he’d follow Rudi until he got settled and then come back to me until I finally took mercy on him and took us to bed.

I was very much his person, and it hurt tremendously that I got so little time with him after I got back from a caregiving hiatus last fall. But that time away meant that he got to have more intense bonding time with Rudi and that was good for them both. And he waited for me to come home before getting really sick, so at least I was able to be there at the end.

Because he’d been a street kitten for a bit, he had no interest in returning outside, so he was safe to let out into the entryway. We knew he wouldn’t try to escape. He’d run out and then when I clicked at him, he’d head right back inside.

He loved people food. In addition to the lime tortilla chips, he liked corn, greens from the garden or farmers market, oatmeal, popsicles, puff pastry, and candy corn.

He loved catnip toys, particularly a banana that he unstuffed, rendering it just a banana peel. He thought the little bugs that lived in the bathroom were fascinating and he’d try grabbing some of them, but never the pill bugs, much to my surprise. He enjoyed disabling and dispensing cockroaches, and my late-night squeals when I’d discover a gigantic one somewhere in the apartment (we live in an urban basement; they happen) never failed to bring him sprinting. He was also an early alert system for them because he’d hop on the counter only to hunt them, so we knew if he was up there we should be extra vigilant.

I miss him still, because he loved me so thoroughly and unconditionally. But we mourned him for ten months before we expanded our family again, and I think he’d be glad that we’d opened our hearts once more.

Love you, Corey. You were a very good kitten.

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. The Building Museum (a lovely venue should you ever visit D.C. and off the normal tourist track), with help from the downtown business improvement district, set up an indoor “ice” rink inside their vaulted space, and I pounced on tickets as soon as they went public. It was definitely a different experience than skating on actual ice (natural or manmade), but it was fun and festive. We had a very uncrowded weekday afternoon experience, and I’m glad we did it.

2. Saturday morning, the cats and I were abruptly awakened by the sound of falling debris crashing just outside the bedroom window. Turns out the construction crew next door was working on deconstructing part of a brick wall that separates our back properties, and they didn’t realize there was a window just beyond it. They managed not to send bricks into my bedroom and stopped as soon as they understood the lay of the land beyond. (I don’t blame them for not knowing, but I still would have been super pissed off if their pickaxe had sent a brick flying my way.)

3. The caliber of play in the NCAA women’s volleyball playoffs has been incredible, with Louisville upsetting the number one team in the country to advance to a home court final on Sunday, even after losing their ace partway through the game. And Penn State, whose coach is actively undergoing chemo for breast cancer, pulled off a reverse sweep (and staved off four match points) to eliminate the team I thought was going to win it all. I can’t wait to watch the final on Sunday, which will be the first time in history both teams are coached by women. (It’s on ABC at 3 p.m. should you want to join me.)

How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world lately?

I love the seasonal Top Ten Tuesday topics That Artsy Reader Girl posts, and, in a true surprise, I find from the last time around that I’ve finished five of the ten titles I included (and started three others). Sometimes I don’t get to any of them.

So here’s hoping that I actually get to a majority of the books I’m including today of the top ten titles on my to-be-read list for this winter:

1. The Rivals by Jane Pek
2. Back After This by Linda Holmes
3. Rainbow Rowell’s Slow Dance
4. Jasper Fforde’s Red Side Story
5. The Lost Bookshop by Evie Woods
6. Somewhere Beyond the Sea by T.J. Klune
7. Aliya and the Infinite City by Laila Rifaat
8. A Winter in New York by Josie Silver
9. Reynard the Fox by Anne Louise Avery
10. 1000 Words by Jami Attenberg

It helps that I own five of these books already and that several are by favorite authors. No excuses about the library holds list being too long!

How about you? What are you hoping to read this winter?

Oops. Karen texted to ask me why I hadn’t posted this week, and I thought, “But I did!” But that was last week. Not this week. Ahem. I feel like I’m a little young to be claiming such forgetfulness, but I’m going to do it anyway.

Here, slightly belatedly, are three beautiful things from last week:

1. Our tree trimming was last weekend, and it was a fun event. We had folks from our earliest political days in D.C. (and their teenaged children!!!) and bikey friends and volleyball friends, and while everyone important to us here couldn’t make it (and thank goodness, because we most certainly would not have had room for them all), it felt like a nice balance of the people who make this home. (The photo shows the crew who stayed until the end of the night, with thanks to John for thinking to take a picture.)

2. While Rebecca gamely produced a steady stream of nearly all our ornaments to get them on the tree in record time during the party, I always pull aside a bag that contains the ones Rudi likes best so he can add them himself afterwards. He tucked them onto the tree during the week and then whisked the Christmas box back to our storage unit so it wasn’t cluttering up the living room.

3. While last season it took until the very end of the season to drop a set, this season the team lost our opening game in the second week. And then we were down in the second set, too. But we kept our cool and kept talking and won the second set and then dominated the tie-breaker, which felt extraordinarily good.

How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world lately?

Three beautiful things from my past week:

1. Karen and I had lunch and a catch-up when I was up for Thanksgiving. I hadn’t been able to get away the past couple times I’d been north, so it felt particularly good to finally get several hours together with my oldest and dearest friend.

2. My journal has been lying neglected for months, with good intentions overwhelming any actual momentum. (I know, a common theme in my life.) But this week, I’d signed up for a little online writing session, and I wanted to do it on off the computer. So, I pulled it out and started working on some of the pages. It’s not caught up — not by a long shot. But pen has been put to paper again, and that feels really good.

3. Our new volleyball league started tonight, and Katie suggested going out afterwards, since she had to head to the airport later on. No one else was able to go, but I approach team outings with a “Yes and …” mentality, so the two of us got a chance to catch up one-on-one, which hasn’t happened in a year.

How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world this post-Thanksgiving week?

P.S. You may have noticed the Virtual Advent Tour is taking a hiatus this year. Apologies if you were looking for it and were surprised by the radio silence. I meant to share I was going to take 2024 off and reevaluate, but then I just never got around to it.