IDIOT

I don't know about you, but I would go to the zoo to see something like this. ---------------->

Most days I wake up with it parked on my chest staring into my eyes even before they are open.

She smells like kisses and perhaps just faintly like cat biscuits too.

During the last 4 years, I've learnt to sleep flat on my back in order to accommodate Poppy's love affair with my neck, despite the discomfort it causes me. Sometimes I hear her arriving on the bed and think,

"Oh noooo...I'm so comfortable on my side...", yet the instant that first white pompom touches me, I rearrange myself happily.

I wonder if that counts towards my karma somewhere?

She's currently sitting on me as I type this, with her face tucked under my chin, my left arm encircling and supporting her, thereby disallowing any use of capital letters and my comfort in general.

Not a bad turn around for a flea ridden gutter waif.

Hooray for Pompoms.

"...all the bags I want"

Yep, you heard right.
All the bags I want.
Hong Kong bags too.
Hey, if I'm going to carry a bag, it's gonna have silly animals and dancing ice cream on it, dammit.

I loved Hong Kong.
I loved the people.
I loved that I could wear lime green pompoms down to 7am breakfast and not feel in the least bit conspicuous.
I loved that their clothing stores only have one size. My size!
I loved that people gut fish in the streets, yet there's not a speck of plastic litter to be seen.
I loved being the minority.

I even loved the sound their pedestrian crossing signs made.
I'm going back.
And I'm getting more bags.

Paragon mit Pom Poms

In this house, we all have agreed jobs.
And among us is one whose attitude to their tasks is beyond reproach.
One who performs her duties with such meticulous care and indefatigability that ordinary people gather together and kneel in awe.

Poppy, the domestic paragon.

She has only 2 jobs. But damn if she doesn't do them well.

The first is to assist me on Fridays when it's time for the linen change.
All I need do is sing out, "Poppy, it's time to..." and she arrives, an excited blur, direct from the garden before I can even finish the "...change the bed".
Some days she even brings me a lovely clump of damp wisteria leaves and spider web bits and pieces too.

The second is to appear from nowhere every night at sundown and sit patiently on the cane box by the study window, waiting patiently for the birds who live in the tree just outside, to arrive home. Once they're settled in bed and I've pulled down the blind so that they're not disturbed by the lights, she sticks her head behind the blind and guards them until they go to sleep. ;O)

Now, if only ALL of us could feel and display such enthusiasm for our most mundane tasks...

Clair, you're the only person I know who comes close. ;O)
I kneel at your robe.