Cat Sitting and Gardening

 That sounds like I'm actually doing something.  

The cat sitting I have down to a science.  Open the door, greet sweet Gus, and feed him.  The rest of the time is sitting beside him and letting him sleep or roll over and touch me with his paws.  I can't think of too many things more enjoyable.  

My visit the first evening after he had been by himself for more of the day.  He had no idea who it was, but I think he did recognize my voice and talked a good bit to me.

He had already eaten that day, so I checked his water and gave him a few treats, which he didn't seem to be too interested in.  He liked to sit beside me while I listened to my audio book and caught up with deleting emails.  He did keep his eyes and ears focused on the front door, because I wasn't exactly his first choice.

What a fur ball.  He and I worked on smoothing down his under-the-chin section, and then he watched me water the back yard plants.  I wish I could have let him out in the fenced yard, but I couldn't take a chance on him escaping. 

This is the third day, and he's resigned to my being his person forever and greets me and rolls around and lets me brush him.  He's also content to take long naps and leave me to whatever I'm doing. 

It's so hard to leave him at night.  I go over in the mornings and stay for a couple of hours and then back in the evening after Elise and I water the garden, but he still would prefer not to be alone, I can tell.  

I did a good bit of neatening up some of the plants and watering them.  The sweet peas had taken over the side bed and was smothering the dahlias, so I trimmed them back to bloom again later and brought a few dahlias (probably 20 of them) home to enjoy and share.

I might be in trouble for taking the clippers to some of the front bed plants.  A couple of next-door cats have been sleeping in a bed of yarrow and just flattened it out over the walkway.  I trimmed that back pretty severely and once looked up and saw the gray cat watching me from the next yard.  

I got to have a nice conversation with a neighbor whom I hadn't talked to in a few years.  His daughter and Graysen started kindergarten together, and we were the designated pick-up relatives and birthday party chaperones and just generally ran into each other nearly every day.  He's from India, and I'm from the South, so we enjoyed sharing and laughing about our different customs and adjusting to Washington's weather.  Since the girls have grown older and are no longer being picked up, we just haven't run into each other in a few years.  Schradda is devoted to tennis and spends a lot of her time on lessons and tournaments, and Graysen is the same with soccer.  I miss those days when the girls had simple little lives.  Now our discussions are teenagers and phones and how glad we are not to have cobras and rattlesnakes here.  

Speaking of soccer, Graysen's team, the one that got second place here in the Cascade Cup last month, is playing in San Diego this weekend and doing great.  They won Friday and Saturday and will be playing in the finals tomorrow.  This is a sweet and very talented group of girls, and I hope to get to watch them play this fall before I hibernate for the winter.  Some of them will be playing on the middle school team in just a few weeks too.

Maija and Graysen, also teammates at Snoqualmie Middle School.

I'm still waiting on some pictures from the current tournament.  Emily sent me a short video from Friday but I don't know if I can get it to work here.  I'll try that tomorrow along with Ryan's video of Kate doing 25 pushups beside the pool.

In the meantime, they seem to be having the time of their lives, all staying at the same hotel with the rooftop pool to swim in at night and the ocean during the mornings.  

Little sisters get in on the fun too!