A touch of intentional gratitude

Well, since I've been complaining so much lately -- :-P to Cafemusique there -- and really not practicing my gratitude very much, I have noticed the lack. Yesterday's Friday Five was good, but I need to express some gratitude, unprompted.

So the first thing I am thankful for this morning is my home. I'm fortunate to live in a really great apartment complex, which surrounds a 14 (or so) acre lake. This lake and the surrounding landscape is home to dozens of ducks, some herons and egrets, probably hundreds of squirrels, a couple dozen geese, and all kinds of songbirds. I love being able to walk around the lake and see all the critters. And on my patio, I have two bird feeders, a hanging suet cake, a squirrel-treat suet cake, a little bowl for peanuts, and food and water dishes for the peripatetic boy-kitty we've been calling Cyrano because Midnight doesn't want anything to do with him.

I am also thankful that Midnight has recovered completely from her bout of acute pancreatitis. She is feeling so much better now, and is even a teeny bit playful. If you knew the fat-lazy-monster-cat that is Midnight, you'd know that "teeny bit playful" is just about as good as it gets. This is the kitty that used to be so lazy, she would recline on her side to eat - like a Roman at an orgy - and reach out her paw to scoop out one or two kibbles at a time. The hair is growing back on her kitteh belleh, from where they had to shave it for her ultrasound. (Hee hee - she looked soooo undignified with no belleh fur!)

With Midnight's recovery, my daughter and I adopted a rescue kitty from the Virginia Beach SPCA. May I have the pleasure of introducing you to Majesty. Majesty is a twelve-year-old light-grey-and-tan tortie. She is a sweet little thing, and now that she feels at home here, she has definitely claimed me as her hooman. Midnight was NOT happy with this intruder at first, but they seem to be reaching an understanding, and Midnight is grudgingly becoming more playful and frisky. (It helps when I spritz her toys with catnip spray.) This is good, because she needs to drop, oh, about half her body weight. Majesty is a slim thing - just perfect, actually - and like the kitty I grew up with, she's probably going to look like a kitten until she dies of old age. It was so neat at the SPCA, when we thanked the lady who helped us with Majesty's Soft Paws. She said, "No, thank you. It's not every day - well, it's not any day - that you see a twelve-year-old animal go home with someone." Everybody there was thrilled to see Majesty go home with us. And we're thrilled to have her in our home.

Finally, I had my cervical joint injections yesterday afternoon. I think I'm thankful for these, but I'm not completely sure just yet. :-) I'm still smarting a bit from having twelve injections in the back of my neck, plus three or four just to (supposedly) numb things up a bit back there. But when I woke up this morning, I almost felt... good? It was a real surprise. The back of my neck is still a little bit stiff, but it's nothing like the all-over tightness in the muscles back there, and certainly nothing like the muscle spasms. Activity has already made my knee a little sore, but it was so wonderful to wake up feeling this way, for the first time since... well, since I can remember. Yay!