The Gift Has Already Been Given

Christmas a little hectic this year?

Take a deep, prayerful breath and a moment to remember what it's all about...
A Blessed and Merry Christmas to you!

Leslie and the Aliens

(Lots to say, no time to say it! For now, I thought maybe you'd enjoy a true story I wrote a couple of years ago.)

Because my sister was older than me it was only natural that she was smarter. I learned a lot from her. For instance, I learned that I was adopted. My parents had never told me about this, and in fact denied it when I asked, but then my sister had warned me that would happen.
"They don't want to upset you," she explained. "So they'll never admit it. But I remember it well! My parents and I went for a walk one day." Here she paused and looked at me to see if I realized the idyllic life she'd given up for me. "And there you were, floating in the sewer."
"How could I float if I was so little?" I questioned breathlessly, picturing my pitiful little self drowning in a sewer as a baby.
"Oh, you were floating on a log," she said airily, "and I found you. We all felt sorry for you so I fished you out with my umbrella and we brought you home. I've had to pretend like you were my sister ever since!" she finished with a sigh.
Naturally I appreciated the sacrifice she'd made for me. But just in case I wasn't grateful enough, she let me in on a weighty secret that burdened her young mind terribly.
"There are aliens, you know," she confided in a nervous whisper one day, as our kitten streaked across the bed.
"Really?" I quavered, making a grab for my sock just as the kitten attacked it and getting scratched in the process. "What are aliens?"
"Oh, they are monsters from space," she told me, "and they are mean!" I let go of the sock to suck on my scratched finger and the kitten disappeared under the bed with it. "If you don't do exactly what I tell you to do, they'll come and you'll have to go to space with them and be mean, too!"
"Why do I have to do what you say?" I inquired indignantly.
"I'm only telling you what they said," my sister said, hurt. "I'm warning you!"
"How do you know this stuff?" I inquired skeptically.
"Because I'm the only one who can understand them. So I'm useful."
"Well, I just won't go with them," I decided, but she shook her head sadly at my futile defiance. "They'll turn you in to one of them. Then you'll have to go."
"How?" I demanded shortly, a little fed up with these persistent aliens. I looked under the bed, but the kitten was up in the mattress springs destroying my sock. I got back on the bed and began bouncing, hoping to drive her out.
"There's something you have to drink," she started to explain, but I interrupted her.
"I won't drink it!" I avowed.
"Sure you will," she predicted, "after awhile, when you get thirsty enough. They won't give you any thing else to drink."
And that, it seemed, was that. Leaving my other sock on the bed, I went off barefoot to play. Leslie suggested we play "princess," That sounded good - until she informed me I had to be the prince! I started to argue, but then I remembered the aliens. I played prince. Later, she got to be Batman and I had to be Robin. It was a long day.
The next day, I suggested we play Mousetrap. "No, we're playing Chess," she announced. "Let's play jump rope," I'd beg. She'd get out pick-up-sticks. Eventually my mother began to notice my cheerful acqueisance to everything my sister wanted and one day she took me aside privately.
"You know, you can do what you want once in a while," she said, trying to pull my hair ribbon out from under the coffee table where the kitten was tearing it up. "You don't always have to do what your sister wants." She pulled her hand back quickly and reached for a magazine.
"No, I want to do what she does," I quickly answered, watching her poke at the cat with the magazine. "Especially since I'm adopted, you know."
"Tracie, you are not adopted," my mother said through gritted teeth.
"Mom, you know I'm not a baby anymore," I said. "You can tell me the truth."
"I think I hear your sister calling you," she said. She laid the tatters of the magazine on the table and left the ribbon to the kitten.
This went on for quite a while. One night, after our story, prayers, our drink, a trip to the bathroom, the bonus story my sister always shared with me about monsters, another drink, a swat for refusing to stop talking, and another trip to the bathroom, we settled down to sleep. Our backs were touching all the way down to our cold little feet to prevent anything from grabbing us from behind. We'd jumped into the bed so quickly and from such a distance that even the monster under the bed that waited each night to grab us by the ankles and drag us under for his dinner, had given up and gone to sleep. Aware of my parents on guard in the living room and the kitten closed up in the bathroom for the night, quietly shredding toilet tissue, I drifted off.
"Ow," I yelped. I'd been startled awake by something sharp poking me in the side. I tried to turn and look, but got poked again. "Leslie," I hissed in a whisper, but got no response. Sleepily rubbing my eyes, I got up and pushed the curtain aside. Moonlight poured in and I turned to the bed. My sister had vanished! In her place a small fury was twisting and turning, all claws and teeth and strange, hissing sounds.
I stared in disbelief for a moment, and then it dawned on me. The aliens had gotten mixed up! They'd missed me and gotten her by mistake! I burst out laughing and laughed so hard my parents came running from their room to see what could cause such mirth in the middle of the night. The light went on and the alien turned into our kitten! She'd been sprung from her confinement by none other than my sister, failing to shut the door tight after her last visit. My sister herself appeared, having been taken in to my parent's bed after a bad dream.
The spell was broken. I no longer believed in aliens. I no longer waited on my sister hand and foot. She didn't have a willing slave any more. Instead, we grew to be friends. One day she even admitted that I hadn’t been adopted after all.
“Nope, it was really me that was adopted,” she confessed with a melancholy smile. “I was a princess in Egypt, and you were my loyal servant. One day my kingdom was attacked by enemies. You managed to escape, and...”

Masked Bandit Discovered!

First we noticed food was missing. Then, after we tried to secure the food better, the vandalism began. Finally, last night, we caught the thief red-handed. Late last night we heard soft noises on the back porch and when we got there, a masked bandit in a thick, grey coat, in the very act of stuffing food in to his mouth, froze and gazed at us in fearful surprise at being caught. We froze too, and he suddenly had the presence of mind to make his escape. He turned to run off, and just before he disappeared from sight, he turned and looked me right in the eye so plaintively that my heart melted.

Perhaps I've been reading too much Dickens lately, but when someone is stealing food only, one assumes abject hunger drove him to it. And then, the little fellow was so cute - for he was small, although perhaps fully grown. But obviously, something must be done. So we are no longer going to be able to keep the cat food on the back porch. Kitty doesn't like to come in any more, but with such a desperate character afoot, perhaps she'll think better of it. And then the raccoon will have to find an honest way to feed himself!

Miss Kitty

This is our kitty. Her name is "Kitty." She was actually a birthday gift to our youngest son, and he had all kinds of creative ideas for her name, like Checkers or Chess or Sylvester. But, as he earnestly explained in his little 7-year-old way, none of them worked right when he tried to call her. After much practice to make sure, "Here, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty" was obviously superior, so that's what he named her. Of course, she's always made me think of Miss Kitty on Gun Smoke!

Kitty is beautiful, aloof, dignified, and quirky. She is loving, but hates to be petted with anyone's hand, or picked up. She doesn't scratch or fuss, she just sort of shrinks and freezes. However, she has a major thing about feet! She loves to be petted with feet. She greets people by coming close and flopping over on their shoes. She used to wake our son up by nibbling on his toes.

Kitty has never been much of a hunter, although several of her children were. But she's too obvious and impatient. One day a whole lot of birds were having a wild party in the Brazilian Pepper trees, eating the berries and getting quite tipsy and careless. Kitty got very excited and rushed over, jumping up, trying to knock them out of the tree! We knew they had nothing to fear from her. Besides, she's the pickiest eater imaginable, so I don't suppose she'd of known what to do with them if she had caught one.

Kitty has her uses for all of us. She likes to share tuna for lunch with me, or sleep spread across my feet in the evenings. She and my hubby have a funny relationship. He's sort of the disciplinarian, but whenever he tells her to do or not do something, she sasses him something awful! He acts indifferent to her, but I caught him warming her milk up every morning in the microwave, which gave him away as the softie he is. But she loves our son devotedly. She follows him around like a puppy. Or she did, before he got all grown up and moved out. For awhile she would look everywhere for him, calling; she'd come beseech me earnestly, then ask to be let out, and prowl around outside looking some more.

Kitty is old now, and she's beginning to look like the skin horse in The Velveteen Rabbit, with all her fur loved off. She spends a lot of time sleeping, and I imagine, dreaming of her boy when he was little, in the good old days.