And the beat goes on...

I don't know why I thought of that particular phrase..... it's a line from an old Sonny & Cher song... and I guess that's just what is happening here-- the beat goes on.

Sonny & Cher.... my friend Fran and I used to talk about all the 'good old music,' and the early songs by Sonny & Cher used to come up in those conversations. I've been thinking about Fran a lot these days.... I don't write too much about her... it makes me very sad still that she's no longer here. No longer here. Such a polite phrase. There have been more than a few days lately when Fran would just pop into my mind when I wasn't even thinking about her, and one time when that happened, I said out loud (without even realizing it) "I know you're here, Fran... I know you're here." I surprised myself when I said those words. And then I hoped that she truly was right here.

Oh well. Our temperatures are cooling off some... mid to high 90s instead of the simmering broiling beastly mid 100s.... walking in the morning is a pleasure-- if you can call getting out of bed at 6:10 a.m. 'a pleasure.' Three mile walk..... down the hill, up the next hill.... flat for a while, then up a hill again..... then flat again...... somehow, the three of us get out there every morning with something close to a smile on our faces when we start off. (Bigger smiles when we're all done.)

Houdini and Bluebell have their own little parakeet-routine these days... they spend a little bit of time out on the back porch... I put the cage on the table and make sure they're not in the sun or the wind..... they eat their food and the seed coverings go all over the porch deck instead of my kitchen floor (much easier and quicker to sweep up the mess outside than inside). Gatsby has decided that he's no longer afraid of the parakeets, and has jumped up on the table out there to closely inspect the birds. Gatsby looks into the cage, Houdini and Bluebell look out. Six little eyes, and no one blinks. I can easily see the cage from the back door, and I don't put the cage out there if I'm not going to be in the kitchen. (I trust Gatsby only so far.... after all, he's a cat.)

When the parakeets are on the back porch, I let Mickey and Sweet Pea out of the TV room... they run into the kitchen and stand by the screen door and they watch the birds in the cage and the chickens in the yard. When they get tired of that view, they run back into the TV room and watch all their feathered friends from the screen doors in there...... and if one of them wants to get up close and personal, they will jump up on one of the kitchen windowsills that look right out onto the outside table-- close enough to the birds as Mickey and Sweet Pea can get (with a window-glass inbetween them). It's like playing musical pets in this house at times...... but it's working. The cats are happy, the birds are happy. Even the chickens are happy-- they walk up on the porch and stare up at the parakeets in their cage.... two parakeets staring down at the chickens... four chickens staring up at the parakeets...... all those little eyes. And no one blinks.

We nearly had rain today.... the sky got dark just before dinner time, and the wind kicked up some.... I thought for sure that we'd have puddles in the pond again within the hour. But nothing happened..... surely it was raining somewhere, with the sky as dark as it was, but we didn't get a drop here. The weather wizards are calling for rain this weekend. (I've heard that story before.)

Couldn't sleep last night, so I was up wrapping Christmas gifts after midnight. At this time of the year, I'm usually working on Halloween decorations and/or the Halloween party as well as the Christmas gifts. I don't like to push through one holiday to rush on towards the next, but (and I say this every year)-- once the Halloween decorations come down on the first of November, it seems that Christmas is knocking hard at the door. I figure that if I can get Christmas gifts wrapped before Halloween, then I can box the gifts up for mailing during the first couple of weeks in November when I'm putting up all the Christmas decorations.... then into the hands of the post office go all those packages as soon as the leftover turkey finds it way into the fridge.

I say this every year also-- while other people are fretting over this year's Christmas shopping in December, I've got my gifts mailed out and I've started shopping for next year's holiday gifts. Jingle bells to that. It works for me.

By the way, in case you're interested... as of today, there are just 80 more days till Christmas. Unless you have a live-in staff of house-elves, that's not really a lot of time for shopping, wrapping, boxing, mailing, decorating, cookie-baking, house-cleaning, Christmas-cards.... and the list goes on. As does the beat.