Bed and breakfast

When we go on vacation, it seems Meow Meow does too.

At the beginning of this year, one of Dieter's colleagues at work, who also has a cat, found out that we usually boarded Meow Meow with a local facility whenever we had to be out of town. He offered to take her instead when we visited family back in May as he had plenty of room for her -- and he loved her so much that she's been his to spoil at every travel opportunity we've had since then.

We are thankful to have someone who dotes on Meow Meow (and his own cat) so much. She gets the run of his house and more human companionship than a boarding facility can provide. Meow Meow even gets along with the resident feline, Shanti, a beautiful male who shares his food and indoor territory quite graciously. (He spends a good part of the day outdoors too while Meow Meow does not.)

During our trip to spend Thanksgiving with Dieter's family, the host of the Hotel Shanti, as Shanti's dad likes to refer to this arrangement, has sent us updates on Meow Meow, which he was happy to let us post. Here are some video stills from a lazy morning on the couch:




Shanti's obviously the kitty in the foreground. Most recently, we've heard the cats have been touching noses when they meet, which we had not seen Meow Meow ever try with Lily. Perhaps a male foster should be our next guest chez Kittitas?

A very belated Halloween update

You know that window between the last trick-or-treater ringing your doorbell and a great big turkey suddenly taking up residence in your refrigerator? Yes, I have no idea why it vanishes so quickly every year, but I think it has something to do with the appearance of Christmas decorations in every retail store I've walked into in the last two and half weeks. Somebody hand me a noisemaker; it's practically New Year's.

We feted Halloween with Dieter's Aunt Chris, who came to visit for an extended weekend filled with ghoulish activities. Meow Meow enjoyed most of it, even with the extra bustle of small children alternately screaming in terror when Dieter opened the door (he painted his face quite scarily) and clamoring for candy.

When we weren't loading up the neighbors' kids with sugar, we were carving produce with vigor. Oh yes -- we don't just do pumpkins around here. Dieter decided to break out the power tools and do coconuts.


Inspired by some crafts we saw in Hawaii, Dieter adorned his scraped-out coconut with feathers and seashells. I thought the end result was properly creepy:


But Meow Meow was unfazed.


Note, however, that she preferred to sit in Aunt Chris's lap while she was working on her pumpkin with a knife rather than risk joining Dieter and his noisier drill ...