Valentine's Day

Lots of sun today, and it's beginning to warm up again. There's a tropical breeze blowing, which makes the palm trees look magical. I do wish the warm weather would just stay put.

Valentine's Day always seems so quiet here, being that we had 26 people here on Saturday night for our Valentine's party. Really, we've already celebrated Valentine's Day with all of our friends. We're going out later on..... for a nice lunch rather than dinner. The restaurants are all too crowded on a holiday night, and neither one of us would enjoy that.

The cats have a bit of cabin fever still, because most of the nights have been too cool for them to be sleeping on the screen-porch. Mickey Kitty and ShadowBaby can come in and out of their little cat window between the breakfast room and the screen-porch, and when I wake up in the morning, the living room is covered in cat toys. (AngelBoy sleeps in the laundry room on cool nights--- I can't trust that cat in the house unless I'm able to keep an eye on him.) Mickey Kitty brings all their toys inside during the night..... one by one, through the little open window. I find the toys on the carpet, on the chairs, on the table behind the sofa. I pick them up and put them back on the screen-porch (except for the few that are always in the house)...... and the next morning, they're all back in the living room again.

Mickey has taken to running a race all by himself around the living room. He will start out on the screen-porch, fly through the little cat window, leap up onto one end of the sofa, jump the entire length of the sofa and land on the other end, then fly from the sofa to the back of the tall upholstered chair which is sitting in front of the Oriental screen. The screen will bounce back against the wall, which then hits up against the beaded lampshade of the tall lamp on top of the small buffet in front of the screen...... making a sound like thwaaacccck rattle-rattle-rattle-rattle. That's when I will walk into the living room with my hands on my hips and look at Mickey Kitty with a What are you doing?! look on my face. And he will sit there and stare back at me, just as calm as can be, waiting for me to be the first one to blink. (Last night's thwaaacccck rattle-rattle-rattle-rattle was at 3:30 in the morning.)

Mickey Kitty will never fly around the porch furniture like that...... my guess is that there's too much going on in the backyard for him to waste time going through the acrobatics. Between the birds and the squirrels, and the cat next door who will sometimes be sitting on V's garage roof, there's plenty of action out there to keep the cats occupied. Another reason for me wishing and hoping for warm weather.

I was watching "House Hunters" last night on the Home & Garden channel. I like that program because it shows you different styles of homes in lots of states, and when they do their International shows, you get to see European cities. Last night, a couple was looking for a home in Hawaii, on Maui. Beautiful views of the ocean.... nice homes.... lots of palm trees swaying in the tropical breezes that never end on the Hawaiian islands. We have been to Hawaii (the big island) and every day was just filled with sunshine and perfect temperatures. When we were there, we said that we could live there easily. One look at the prices of houses on the Hawaiian islands brought us back to reality, not to mention the tour of the lava fields which were once communities filled with pretty homes and happy families.

One interesting thing about Hawaiian homes.... most of them have an ohana on the property. An ohana is a little guest house, usually with one bedroom, kitchen, private bath, small sitting area. The reason for the guest house is because when you live in Hawaii, you just have to expect that everyone you know will be coming to visit. Our friends K and B have a little guest house in their backyard. What they did was take a two-car garage and convert it into their "Casita" (little house) as they call it. The casita has a small kitchen, bedroom, living room, small bathroom. K's granddaughter sleeps there when she comes for her week-long visits during school breaks and summer vacations. It looks adorable, just like a miniature house, complete with heating and air conditioning.

Whether you call it an ohana or a casita, it's a great idea to have a little guest house on your property. Not only could you use it for company, but when your cats have cabin fever and start leaping and flying all over your living room, you can keep them in the ohana and save your sanity. =^..^=