Madeline And Lexi

Littles

Whoever said you can't buy happiness forgot about kitties and puppies. - Anonymous

I've saved the best for last. Here, pictures of the grandchildren and their recently-adopted furry littles are worth a thousand words. 

Second Granddaughter and Madeline

Second Granddaughter mimics a kitty as she tries out new cat bed set by cat condo (left). Crocheted teaser toy (above right)

Madeline has piercing green eyes, clumsy, a playful ball of joy wrapped up in all-black fur. 

A cat can work out mathematically the exact place to

bunk under that will cause the most inconvenience.

She has taught her humans since Day One that being a cat, she doesn't have to make sense.

And that she can purr her way out of anything.

Because to err is human, 

to purr is feline.

All you need is love.

                                           

 And a cat. 

First Grandchildren and Lexi

She's brown and white with soulful eyes and an upturned, tilted head. What's not to love?

Lexi, a pit bull terrier at a few weeks old (above, left). Pencil sketches by First Grandson (center) and First Granddaughter (right)

Picked as the prettiest one of her whole 

litter, she models a Christmas dress.

After almost a month of waiting, the little princess arrives on Hawaiian Airlines.

 

And finally, home.

A cross-stitched name pillow gift 

First Granddaughter says her happiness
 is through the roof.

Here's to all the littles of the world who remind us that stuff doesn’t have to be overwhelming, but that it can be as unpretentious as a chipmunk.

A pocket-sized crochet cube animal, or even a chirping katydid.

Or a cat who simply wants to sit in your lap and have her head scratched.

And a puppy, all gangly limbs and wiggly butt, yipping with excitement between her barks.

 

For in the dew of little things, the heart finds its morning and is

refreshed.

Katy

Littles 

In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous. - Aristotle

Just when you I thought cute couldn't get any littler, something drops in on us, in the kids' upstairs room, snuggled amongst the LPS furniture.

It's only about a half-inch long with green markings, threadlike antennae, and long back legs. 

A katydid, with a twinkle in her eye, our precocious Second Granddaughter declared. I know my insects, she affirmed. She's been learning from her walks around the Blacklick forested property with her Dada.

Katy what, did you say? 

As I've learned since then, a katydid, also called a bush cricket or a long-horned grasshopper, is a bug belonging to a family of insects related to grasshoppers and crickets.

To our delight, Katy has taken residence with us, one day gently treading on the narrow foliage of a draecena stalk by the dining table downstairs (left).

Or flying out to the computer

stand nearby (right).

And then scurrying back down the leafy sanctuary of the spider plant across (left).

Or even venturing, watching us, from atop a lit bamboo in the corner (below, left).

Light has changed to the light of early evening. I feel a chill breeze. It will soon be time to close the shutters.

I don't see Katy. She must have sought solace in the shadows somewhere.

Perhaps when I'm in bed, with not a light on so even the house feels asleep, I just might hear a musical chirp as Katy rubs her front wings together. 

The low and pure frequency of her katy-did, katy-didn't song.

Katy. Photo, V.E.V. January 2021

Cube Cutie

Littles

Just look at him.

He's two and a half inches tall, snuggled in a tiny basket.

Guess how long it took me to crochet this so-called cube cutie?

The pup, 50 minutes. The basket, 10 minutes. Yep. It takes only about two-thirds of a Netflix movie to complete.

So easy you can finish a menagerie in an afternoon.

What am I thinking spending all that time getting ready with full-on makeup?  Why do I spend hours feeling bereft, adrift in a dizzying haze? Why do I wallow for days in the fuzzy snippets of a myriad things? 

Why?

When with 60 minutes, I can be inspired and create something that makes me smile. (Aside: I know I could have done the project under an hour if I didn't have to look for a safety pin to mark my stitches.)

It's my favorite venture, thus far.

Not everyone wants to climb Mount Everest. Or become a billionaire. Or leap over buildings with a single bound and save the world with a cape.

I'm all in when it comes to seemingly trifling notions.

The celebration of the joy in the everyday.

The emphasis on littles.

Guess Who?

 From The Archives

Dadee wrote this poem on February 7, 1981

for First and Second Daughters.

***********************************

Wish I could pay you a call,

 but you're too far away.

Hawaii, 1981

Chip

Littles

'Sometimes,' said Pooh, 'the smallest things take up

the most room in your heart.' - A.A.Milne

There’s just something about anything small that makes me smile...

… and totally relate.

Some people might think it’s silly or random, and I totally get that. But it’s my kind of thing.

So it was on that chilly day when the sun was shining and there was a hint of approaching spring that I saw something that made my heart stop mid-beat.

A most fascinating little.

Chip. Photo, V.E.V., 2020

Only five or six inches long and weighing about three ounces perhaps. That was only two-thirds the weight of one stick of butter.

It had two tan and five blackish longitudinal stripes on its back ending at the reddish rump, and two tan and two brownish stripes on each side of its face.

Umm... Hello, Chip. Nice to meet you.

You guessed right. It was a chipmunk. 

He was scavenging for milo and white millet that had fallen on the deck floor from bird feeders hanging off the adjacent lilac bush. Spotting a cracked corn nestled among the leftover debris, he sat back on his haunch and began to grasp the kernel in his tiny paws. Then he turned it this way and that, and then nibbled on happily.

Second Granddaughter's chipmunk bistro. Photo, V.E.V., 2020

I couldn't tell if he was eating straight away or just saving food for later in his cheeks.

He soon became a fixture, a loyal patron of the chipmunk bistro that Second Granddaughter built just for him. 

It was odd how a tiny rodent could bring such a joyful swell in my heart. 

It felt like forbidden pleasure - guilt laced with exhilaration, like playing truant from school.

Truth.

Chip peruses Nutty Cafe menu

There was nowhere else on the planet I would rather be at that exact moment.

Except maybe in a cozy burrow in an alpine forest where the other chipmunks were, feeling a lift of pleasure at the hungry light of morning, the breath of spring in the air.