Won't You Be My (Feline) Neighbor?

We've been in our new home two weeks now! In some ways it feels like much more than that--we feel at home here. But I'm also aware of how much we are still transitioning. Yesterday we made our pilgrimmage to Ikea and bought a couple more bookshelves. D spent a good part of the rest of the day building the cases, emptying boxes, shelving and re-shelving books, and attaching the cases to the wall. Me? I crashed. I was exhausted yesterday and was not much good to anyone.

I rebounded today, however, and had a good solid morning of studying. Then in the afternoon I ran errands, swept and mopped the bathroom and kitchen floors, and re-filed our papers into sturdy file boxes to replace the behemoth, ugly-as-sin filing cabinet with the cranky drawers.

As I write this blog entry, you should know, my dear 8-year-old boy is whistling, a long single note until he runs out of breath, then gasps for air and starts again: "Do I sound like a fire whistle?" he just asked me (having no idea that I was writing about him at the moment). Apparently this is the sound he's happily going for. :)

In the two weeks we've been here, I am delighted at the number of neighbors we've managed to meet. As soon as we meet someone, we scribble down their names so we can remember them later. Then we post the list on our fridge.

This neighbor list is my favorite of all time. Because everyone has at least one cat around here. A number of them are outdoor cats, too. So we get to interact with them also. So of course, whenever we meet someone we also ask the name of their cat! The names are fantastic. And since I don't think cats are concerned about anonymity on the internet, I thought I'd share their names with you. So without further ado, here are our feline neighbors: Ghengis; Bonkers and Bogey; Myles and Isabella; Niko; Menchu; and our own marvelous cat Felix.

Alright, I guess that's it for me. Maybe I'll try and catch up on some of my Bible reading for the day.