Living With Genius

Day 57: The first puzzle I gave Merry was no longer a challenge. Every morning, I get a small handful of treats and say, "Show me where your puzzle is. I'm going to put sprinkles in your puzzle." He dashes into the living room, sits beside the puzzle as I load the cups and close the lids. "Solve your puzzle!" He head-butts me as a thank-you, and immediately swipes the nearest lid aside to get the treats. I decided it was time to up the game, so after looking at dozens of puzzle feeders, I settled on this one by Catstages. It has multiple ways treats can be hidden. They can go in a pocket and be covered with a blue lid. The blue lid can be gently held in place by one of the white sliders, making it a two-step process: slide the slider, open the lid. The white sliders can hold treats as well, and have to be slid over a pocket to drop the food into it, then slid aside. It took him about ten minutes to figure out how all those secrets worked, but he was baffled by the rotating dial which covers seven pockets. He could smell the food, but no amount of sliding sliders or opening lids was getting him any closer to it. We went to bed with the dial unsolved.

Merry seems to be somewhat like his mama in that he does his best analytical thinking when asleep. I've solved a lot of personal puzzlements in my sleep, waking up with a start with my own version of "Eureka! I have found it!" Sometimes it's a weaving draft, or a warping method. Sometimes it's a word which has escaped my mind. Sometimes it's how something is constructed or how it can be deconstructed. We won't talk about the time it was all about how flying saucers break the light barrier to change course on a dime. I actually leapt out of bed and had pen and paper in hand to write that one down until I realized the fatal flaw in my hypothesis, i.e., no proof that flying saucers exist. In any event, my genius-level cat slept on the problem and apparently had a brainstorm because the following morning, as soon as I opened the bedroom door, he ran over to the new puzzle, spun the dial and sat there crunching his rewards.

Holiday Must-Have

Day 56: As I grew older, I came to realize something: traditions change. St. Nicholas no longer throws a bag of candy through the back door. Santa doesn't come down the chimney. The screw bases on the old lights don't fit the new strings. The ancient glass ornaments shed their paint like dandruff and are replaced by sets of plastic apples and handmade velvet baubles, which in turn are replaced by wooden birds. Conscience rears its head to dictate that killing a tree is a grievous sin, and an artificial one takes its place. Even now, my traditions are in flux. I've stopped sending cards or even a Christmas letter. The sisters-of-the-heart have decided that this will be our last "12 Days" gift exchange. The tree and almost all the decorations will stay in their boxes because it would be unfair to spend the season reprimanding a small cat for being a cat. But spritz? It's not Christmastime without spritz. I almost always make them on St. Nicholas' Day (I decorated this batch this morning). Sometimes, a week or two later, I make Russian tea cakes (aka "Sandies"), but they are not as traditional as spritz. It may be a small straw, but holding onto it gives me hope.

St. Nicholas' Day Spritz

Day 55: The Midwinter/Christmas holiday season has officially kicked off with the baking of spritz for St.. Nicholas' Day. I make 3-5 different shapes, and although I put Sprinx on top of most of them, if I have candied cherries or fruitcake fruit, the "wreath" gets that in the center. We have a list of dangerous words here: spritz, Sprinx and "sprinkles," i.e., the Fancy Feast "gourmet" kibble Merry regards as a treat. I have to be extra careful when muttering to myself so that he doesn't misunderstand what's about to happen. In any event, the cookies will be decorated either tonight or tomorrow (probably tomorrow, because 3 PM kinda sneaked up on me today). Happy St. Nicholas' Day!

Pussyfoots

Day 54: People look at me in disbelief when I tell them Merry's fingers are as big around as my own, but here's visual proof. In fact, I think he'd probably wear a size larger thimble than I do because of the depth of his pads. That said, that's a soft little hand holding mine, and unlike most cats, he likes the contact. When he sleeps in my lap, one of my hands is supposed to support at least one (if not both) back feet while the other rests on his shoulder. No, I don't get a lot done in that configuration, but what's more important? A project I'm going to give away when it's done, or the love of a precious, trusting pussycat? As for Carl Sandburg's fog coming in on little cat feet, that line of poetry tells me that Sandburg never owned a cat. A herd of stampeding elephants makes less noise than four little cat feet chasing a toy at 3 AM.

These Make Good Scents

Day 53: Long before the word "potpourri" came to designate those overpoweringly odorous bowls of wood chips and dyed flower petals now sold alongside scented candles, your grandmother probably made at least one of the items pictured above to put in her "dainties" drawer both for their fragrance and/or as a moth deterrent. They kept their scents much longer, as you'll see as I describe each one.

The "lavender bottles" (yes, that's what they're called) are something I made with homegrown lavender about 25 years ago and still have their fragrance, although it's faint. As complicated as they look, the process for creating them is fairly simple, although care must be taken not to break the stems, which are very brittle even when freshly picked. Pick a dozen or so spikes with long stems, tie them with heavy thread just below the flowers, then carefully bend the stems back. Weave lavender-coloured ribbon in a simple over-and-under pattern until the flower heads are entirely covered. Tie the remaining ribbon in a bow, and you're done.

A pomander is made by studding an orange with whole cloves, as tightly packed together as is possible, and then it can be placed in a net bag if desired. The orange will dry out, shrinking as much as the cloves will allow, and holding them in place. I made mine about 50 years ago, and it still perfumes my undies drawer, albeit lightly.

Last of all are rose beads, a versatile and popular Victorian-era project which can be put in with clothing or even worn as a bracelet or necklace. I made this set at least 50 years ago, and they are still fragrant. Some people say that the ones their grandma made in 1900 still have a light fragrance. They're a bit more complicated to make than the lavender bottles or the orange pomander, though. First of all, you'll need an old, rusty cast-iron frying pan and a handful of rusty nails, the rustier the better for both. Then you'll need to gather rose petals, a lot of rose petals, a huge amount of rose petals, way more rose petals than you think you'll ever need. Wild roses are best, but any strong-smelling rose will do. Grind them with a mortar and pestle if you have the tools. If not, crush them with a rock, cave-man style. Put them in the rusty frying pan with the nails and stir them up good. Every day for the next several weeks, stir them again, adding a little water if they start to dry out. Once they're thoroughly blackened, they're ready to be shaped. Roll up gobs of rose-petal mush to form balls about twice the size you want them to be when dry. Stick a round toothpick through each ball, and poke one end into a piece of styrofoam or a bowl of sand and let them dry thoroughly (give 'em a month or so). Remove the toothpicks carefully, twisting to release them from the dried petal mush. You'll lose a few, so make extra.

Any one or all of these make more scents than buying stinky potpourri!

Stages of Development

Day 52: After exploring multiple options for how to lay out "Memory Wreath," my plan is finally carved in stone...or fabric, as it were. Did I want a dark background or a light one? How many colours did I want to use? Did I want the center to be the same colour as the corners? Where did I want to put the darks, the lights? I settled on a layout I've not used before in this design: white background, two colours, darks for the outer points, the center a lighter shade of the same colour, dark in a second colour for the big triangles and inward-pointing small triangles, and a lighter shade of the second colour for the interior points. Having come that far, it's time to put together a test block! For it, I used leftover solids, and have laid a few paper pieces on the sample for the sake of illustrating. Each piece gets glue-basted around a paper piece to hold its shape while sewing them together. The paper is not removed until additional pieces are attached to all sides, and in fact are often left in until the quilt is completed. However, the finished product will not look much like the test block because I'll be using prints, and I will make the outer points in all blocks (12 total) using the same green fabric. The center will also be a green print, different from the points. The remaining points and large triangles will be made using lights and darks of the second colour. Corners and edge triangles will be white. I've started sewing the test block together, although I may not dive into making the actual quilt until after the holidays. It will be smaller than usual, lap-sized, three blocks by four.

Uncles

Day 51: Uncles! I had a favourite uncle who used to tickle me, play games with me, spin me around in circles; who read science fiction to me while I was still in a crib, who taught me algebra when other kids were struggling with long division, who took me to stay ten days with him at his duty station on Mount Rainier the summer after my father died (and thereby set the course of my life). Some uncles are just blah. Others are Special, always to be remembered with great fondness. Such was my uncle Gus. Merry loves uncles, and especially his uncle Kevin who he sees most often. Kevin gets down on the floor with him, shares his toys, tickles his tummy, and Merry soaks it up. He recognizes Kevin's car (or the sound of it, perhaps) and gets excited when Kevin pulls into the driveway. "Here comes your uncle Kevin!" I tell him, and then grab him to be sure he doesn't dash out the door (he's not allowed outside). As soon as greetings have been exchanged, the fun begins. And the one time Kevin came in and could only stay for half a minute, Merry watched at the window as he drove off, sad little cat-nephew meowing his unhappiness that uncle Kevin went bye-bye without a proper visit.