They are the best of cats, they are the worst of cats. Sam and Indy. Brothers by chance, and now by choice. These two are as different as night and day. Sam, the grey tabby is a handsome solid 14 pounds of serious cat, but has more characteristics of a dog than not. He must have been a star student at obedience school in his previous life, as he responds to all verbal commands without exception. If he is away under a quilt in the far reaches of upstairs, I only need to call him once, and within seconds I hear the thud, and click click click of him coming down to see what I want. He responds to “get down and “no” spoken only once in a normal tone. Sammy only uses his claws on the scatching post and mat, and mostly eats just his food, with the exception of a couple of times when he snacked on my slippers and a tapestry purse. He waits patiently for his tin and bowl of cream in the morning, then sits on the stool at the butcher block with Steve and me while we have our coffee. Some days we almost expect him to say something. We have dubbed him “The Good Cat. Then there’s Indy. Sweet, loveable, naughty, naughty Indy. Dennis the Menace, Blondie. Indy has certainly caught up with Sam weight wise, and makes no bones about his love of food – diving head first into the kibble and scattering bits all over the kitchen. He has no problem snacking on my asparagus fern, and eating the blossoms off my oxalis. He does not respond to “No or “Get Down unless spoken in a loud stern voice 5 or 6 times. He comes to you when he feels like it. He is probably the most loveable cat I have ever known, but if he is distracted by something else I may as well be invisible. Despite the fact that he has been provided with a scratching post, mat, and a whole couch in the basement he is welcome to rip to shreds, he would much prefer the living room couch and the hooked rugs as his scratching places. The other night I mistakenly left my almost new red leather purse on the floor by a chair. It had a beautiful soft suede covering on the inside flap. I got up the next morning to see the purse open, and that beautiful suede in a tattered mess. INDY! I have chased him around several times when he managed to get his head caught in a paper bag or other container and couldn’t figure out how to escape. They certainly balance each other out, and no matter what, I love them both dearly. Such a joy having a happy purring cat to keep you company through the day.

I know this will really date me, but here goes…. The dynamics of Christmas shopping have certainly changed. I can remember many, many years ago, there were two ways to shop. 1) drive to a department store or mall or 2) manually fill out an order form and mail it out to Sears or Montgomery Ward and wait for your goods to arrive 3 or 4 weeks later.  The latter took some long term planning. The former was a series of what ifs – what if I don’t have time to get to the mall? What if it snows and the roads are bad? What if I get there and can’t find what I want? Etc etc etc. The whole process was a stress producing ordeal that just added to the overload of things to stress out about during the Christmas season. The next phase of shopping was ordering tnrough a catalog company like LL Bean or Lands End. Before we had the internet to do this on line, you would have to call the 800 number and read off your list of items to a customer service rep. Again, you could be looking at two weeks or more for delivery. Then came Amazon, followed by Amazon Prime. Now I can be lying in bed with my tablet, and with one click, order everything I need. And it’s on my doorstep in 2 days. We always do some local shopping which is what we did this past weekend, as it’s important to support the small business owners, and they have so much to offer in the way of unique gift items. But for those last things that are still on the list…..  I looked at the weather forecast tonight, and there is snow predicted for three days in the coming week. In the old days this would stress me out. But I just smiled and thought “good thing I have my Amazon finger.” Click.