One Charlie Brown Christmas tree coming up

I was on vacation last week and you'd think I'd have more to show for it, wouldn't you? In that 9-day period, we celebrated my dad's birthday, I ran a lot of errands, finished reading a book and one of my stealth knitting projects, did some Christmas shopping, baked cookies and put up the Christmas tree:

Yes, it really needs more lights, but since I wasn't the one putting them on, I guess I can't complain (much). I know there are very few ornaments on it. I do have more ornaments. Lots more. However, this is what my tree was decorated with last year, so I hope you understand why we're hesitant to put a bunch of stuff on it this year:



That would be Runt, about 18" from the top of the tree. We didn't even bother putting lights on it last year, with 7-month-old kittens in the house. She's bigger this year and hasn't shown any interest in climbing it. So far, the skirt is the only thing that's been moved. This is how I found it when I got home from work:

Does this look familiar?

I went to Wild Mango for lunch on Saturday with my friend and her daughter. I got the same thing I had last time -- the Romano Shrimp with sauteed spinach and sweet potato fries. No dessert this time, since we were coming back to my house to bake cookies later (which I should have, but didn't get pictures of). Here's a shot of the ceiling in the foyer at "the Mango":

Pretty, isn't it? If you're ever in the Greater Cleveland area you have to try this place. It's less pricey for lunch than dinner, but the food is just as good.

In other news, Ripley, who is 16-1/2, is starting to have liver problems.


I look pretty good for my age, even in a crappy cell phone picture.

She's showing some early signs of kidney disease, too. Neither of these is surprising for a cat of her age. I'm just glad she's not diabetic, since giving her daily injections would be out of the question. To me, it's not worth prolonging her life if I'm making her miserable. Emma complains when we give her the sub-q fluids, but 2 minutes later, she's on a lap (usually dripping on us for payback). We tried to put ointment in Ripley's eyes last year and after 2 days, she hid from us all the time. She even waited till we went to bed to eat.

So for now, we're changing her food to a prescription liver support diet plus a supplement. I have to mix the wet food 50/50 with non-prescription food or she won't eat it. Can't blame her, that stuff looks nasty and doesn't smell much better. The canned kidney food Emma eats smells much better. Ripley should be fine with the dry food, since she ate it when my other cat, Lucky, was sick. Of course, that was almost 6 years ago, so her tastes might have changed. She's a much pickier eater than the rest of the cats. She's the only one who won't eat table scraps.

That's all the news I can think of at the moment. I should have some pictures of crafty stuff later in the week. I'll be taking a cookie tray to work at some point and will take a picture of that.