Happy almost New Year’s! Don’t you just love the week between Christmas and New Year’s? Everything feels so quiet, and almost nothing to do! Twenty-five degrees here this morning; clear-blue sky; outside the window the picket fence is shining white in the morning sun, tea’s poured; and here’s Jack at his lookout post over the kitchen sink; the shelf that USED to hold my Beatrix Potter People is now his perch, because he’s discovered there are bird feeders out there.
WHAT? WHO ME? I’m the normal one!
It keeps him busy for, I would like to say hours, but no; he has a hard time staying focused on any one thing for a long time, he requires variety. He thinks that’s why I was invented. I’m seriously having to teach him what is, and what is not, a toy — starting with me, reclaiming my arms and hands when he tries to make mincemeat of them. That’s OK, like any mother, I think the sun rises and sets on my boy.
I fear for the birds this spring when I finally let him out of the house. This boy will definitely be wearing a bell! You know he plays fetch with me, right? You all saw that video . . . how be gets the ball and brings it back, and puts it right in front of me? (If not, scroll down almost to the bottom of this page, it’s worth it, to see kitty genius in action!) I tell him how good he is for bringing me the ball . . . The thought has occurred to me; I’m imagining what he will do with any dead critters he finds? Yikes. How does one teach a kitty the difference between a ball and a dead bird? Before there’s a dead bird?
Besides the fact that he can fetch, look at what else he does!!!
HE PUTS ALL HIS TOYS IN ONE PLACE!!!! He did this, not me. I come around the corner, and there are all his toys in a pile!
Here they are another time, where I found them, next to his food bowl! Isn’t that wild?
Believe it or not, I don’t have the only adorable kitten on Martha’s Vineyard! Last night my girlfriend Annie came over — girl talk, and diet spaghetti in front of fire, had a lovely time, comparing kitty pictures. This is her Sugahpuss McGee. Look at her feet!!!! See her little teeth sticking out? Sadly, no fetching – or gathering. But still, a really nice kitty. 🙂
So, what have you all been doing? What’s everyone planning for New Year’s Eve? Annie says she’s staying home; she calls New Year’s Eve “Amateur Night!” She doesn’t want to be out on the roads with the amateurs! Hahahaha!
Oh! Almost forgot, I have to show you this!
It’s a gift I got from Kellee and Judy at the studio. I put the spoon there just so you can see how little that package is. Isn’t it intriguing????? Wrapped so cute; don’t you just want to know what’s in there?
It’s a book! A teeny-tiny printed book with full-color Beatrix Potter drawings and everything! Santa was very good to us this year, as he always is, but I have to say, this darling little thing was one of my very favorite gifts, from two of my favorite people! ♥
Did you get anything fun? How about movies, have you gotten all movied out yet? We’ve seen so many good ones on TCM this week (For Me and My Gal is on right now!). BTW, if you need to see my Favorite Movies List again, it’s still there if you scroll down, but we’re going to move it soon; you’ll be able to just go to the top of this page, click on “About Me” and we’ll have it there for you on a permanent basis. (Also, btw, while I think of it, I hope you click those little icons at the top of the page from time-to-time; we’re always adding new things to those drop-down lists.)
OK, off I go! I have a couple of writing projects I’m working on. Plus I’m finishing the new Blotter Calendar for 2013 (only eight months to go!), and then the rest of the winter (I resolve!), I’ll be working on my new book! How about you, any resolutions planned???
HAVE A WONDERFUL DAY!!!
my very favorite movies — hoping they’ll bring you happiness and give you a very wonderful winter 2012!
movies (like The Bishop’s Wife for example) that, because they’re in black and white, lots of people have just never seen. But that’s why I’m doing this . . . a cozy afternoon on a freezing day, with a cup of hot chocolate and one of these movies is my idea of the perfect Christmas present. They are soul soothers, inspiration-givers, joy spreaders.
the time I was old enough to be propped in a chair, she made sure the 
From Shirley Temple, it was natural for me to move up to Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers movies; they were made about the same time. I think they’re sort of the grownup version of Shirley Temple, sweet, innocent and charming; the fabulous genius-inspired 
By the time I was old enough to live out on my own, I was half-formed about what life was going to be like, and all of it, for better or for worse, was based on books like 
Farewell to Arms had just ended with Jennifer Jones dying, we were both sobbing hysterically, I had to get up and go into the other room. Oh we loved it! Janet called me Sue-Sue Applegate after the Ginger Rogers character in The Major and the Minor. (We called her Natasha after Boris’ wife.) We would get in her huge old car and go to the drive-in movies, wearing our jammies with big coats over them so we could go to the snack bar; we saw The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, in French with English subtitles, and sobbed all the way home. We really loved to cry at movies! Splendor in the Grass almost killed us. (You can tell by these photos, we’d been looking at too many fashion magazines. 🙂 Legends in our own minds.)
Old movies shaped my dreams: they showed me what I wanted my houses to look like, how I wanted to dress, what kind of a person I wanted to be; those shipboard romances in An Affair to Remember, The Lady Eve, Sabrina, and Shall We Dance; rose covered cottages in Father of the Bride and Love Letters; houses with darling curtains and wallpaper like in Dear Ruth; the train rides in The Palm Beach Story, Some Like it Hot, North by Northwest, and Brief Encounter. I dreamed of fields of bluebells as high as my knee, like the ones I saw in Howard’s End and one day, I went to England to see them. 
You could go around the world, even from a one-bedroom apartment, with The Quiet Man, Roman Holiday, Mrs. Miniver, Ninotchka (prettiest dress in the movies is in Ninotchka), Out of Africa, Two for the Road, and A Room with a View.
I planted flowering trees because of the tree-lined road Anne Shirley (of Green Gable fame) drove through, the petals flying, in the buckboard with Matthew just after she arrived on the train. Remember?
was just too real. I couldn’t sleep, thinking about man’s inhumanity to man; the TV news was unrelenting; I felt like it wasn’t healthy to hear it anymore. I finally turned it off, and began feeding my soul with childhood favorites . . . at first it was all Shirley Temple movies. When I saw Cary Grant, cutie pie Walter Pigeon, gorgeous Gregory Peck, Jeanne Crain, Barbara Stanwyck, or Myrna Loy — the laughter, beauty, whimsy, and charm, my troubles just floated away. It took a few weeks for me to find my equilibrium and remember that the overwhelming majority of people in this world are good; those movies really helped. One big bad apple had upset the balance. I think if 
Apartment for Peggy
The Seven Year Itch
The Canterville Ghost
Holiday Affair
All of Me
Something’s Got to Give
