The cat who spoke French, or happy arbitrary birthday, universe!

So everyone and everything is about to turn another year older, and I'm celebrating with a bottle of champagne and a late dinner with Picasso, Madame and Benjamin. Oh, and of course les petits chats, who will most likely try to add a garnish of cat hair to our sauerkraut as they strut their stuff and try to block our view of the tv.  awww!

It's funny to think that this time last year I was in Paris with Ageless, the trip that inspired me to come live here in the first place!

New Year's in Paris, 2009

And now, 365 days later, here I am again, having eaten some sort of weird meat cuts that I think might have been trying to be hot dogs, along with some sauerkraut, potatoes, baked apples and 3 different kinds of cake for dessert! ahhhh! I think I might burst. Plus I drank most of the bottle of champagne so I'm a little swimmy right now, woohoo!

We watched some amazing tv this evening...it was a French 'spectacle,' which included more magic skits  in one hour than I've seen in all the years I've been alive, and a bunch of acrobatic numbers that were really pretty amazing. The French are SO WEIRD. I can't get enough!! And then, once it hit midnight, we yelled out the window at the top of our lungs, then shut it really quickly so we wouldn't freeze to death, and then faire-d les bises on each other's cheeks and clinked glasses and danced around the room a bit to the snippets of each decade's hit songs that the tv was blaring as a tribute to...well, each decade's best songs.

Me, Madame and Benjamin, New Year's 2010

Madame, Picasso and me (and CHAMPAGNE woohoo!)

All in all it was nicely tame and relaxing...I was warm and sleepy (yar, I nearly fell asleep at the table at like 10.30...I can't even make it until midnight any more!!) and I managed to keep up with all the French conversation 'round the dinner table all night! (I think I even managed to be funny en français, or maybe it was franglais, but woohoo none the less!)

And now we have some gratuitous photos of les petits chats, who really do only understand French! I tried talking to Sushi in English and she totes ignored me, then I said 'viens ici!' and she turned and looked at me! Of course, she didn't actually COME to me (b/c why would a cat actually do what you asked it to), but still, she understood what I was saying! LOL!!

Kikou

Sushi on her bed by my window

OK, it is nearly 4 am somehow, and I didn't even go out dancing tonight!

Happy New Year 2010!

kK

Grey hair and static cling, or, "merry christmukkah..."

Well, back in America for a few days to enjoy a white Christmas in good ole Indiana.

There are two Great Danes snoring on the couch, a kitty draped over the green leather chair in front of the fire, another white kitty nom-ing on a big chunk of dog food in the kitchen as she stares at me in pointed reference to the fact that her own food bowl is empty (as of five minutes ago, sheesh!), and somewhere around here a Siamese kitty is hiding, letting out an indignant mew every so often to guilt me into leaving my eating post in the kitchen and coming to snuggle under the warm down blanket on my bed. Christmas music has been playing nonstop for about 48 hours now, I've eaten my weight in chocolate and pumpkin pie, the whole house smells of fresh pine, and I'm sipping my way through a second glass of pinot. It's Christmas Eve, baby!

I took a rare look in the mirror the other day and found a nice little gift from mother nature: a handful of grey hair. Le Sigh. It would have been ok, probably, if I hadn't found them while combing through a mass of wildly static cling-y hair that stood out from my head like I'd just been electrically prodded in the course of an interrupted alien abduction. My morning coffee hadn't even been brewed yet, and my face looked like it was trying to swallow my eyes and go back to sleep. Merry Christmakkuh to me, woohoo!

Let's just pretend that this is merely a sign of me growing into my vast depths of wisdom I've carried with me all these years. It might mean I need to start an advice column or something, although the women who seem to be in charge of these types of columns usually espouse the virtue of rooting oneself in one's own natural beauty while hiding their own behind a bottle of Garnier Blonde 56. But hey, it might be fun to start of my weekly writing sessions with "Dear Reader..." or oooh my favorite, "Gentle Reader..." hahahahaha! Who talks like that, really. I'll gentle your reader right out the window and over the very tall cliff about a mile down the road.

Tomorrow starts early for my family, I really should be getting to bed. BUT I CAN'T. The Boss needs to finish Santa Claus Is Coming To Town, and these Christmas lights aren't going to enjoy themselves, y'know. My family doesn't really expect me to function properly until AFTER the baked eggs and coffee anyway.

We haven't had a random kK Tangent in a while...here comes No. 86:

Can I just say how much I LOVE CHIPOTLE.

Also, I don't really understand why everyone only wants to be nice on Christmas instead of trying hard to be a good person all year long.

Oh yeah, and MJ, why the HELL didn't you make a Christmas, or whatever holiday, album before chucking off this mortal coil! WHY. (And no, BBB, the Jackson 5 doesn't count.)

**possible end to kK Tangent 86**

Oooh, sing it Mariah! All I want for Christmas is YOU, TOO! WOOHOO.

Christmas Eve is my absolute favorite day of the year. I like the actual Christmas Day of course, but there is just something...'more' about the eve part of it all. When it's my time to become one with nature, I think every day is going to feel like Christmas Eve. The end bit, when the candles are lit, the Christmas lights are shining through the pine branches laying on the mantle, Bob Seger is singing "Little Drummer Boy," the kitties are purring, the fire is crackling and my wine glass is full...

Speaking of...is that the bottom of my glass I see?

kK