Sometimes You Just Have To Pause.

By Harlequin Cat’s estimate, the hummingbird must have been trapped inside the garage for at least five hours. No telling how it got there, but it did, and after flying frantically from aluminum ladders to rented pegboards, it finally landed on a dusty shelf next to a bottle of SUPERthrive.

For those of you who don’t know, SUPERthrive is touted as the unchallenged “World Champion” vitamin-hormone mix used to plant, grow and revive things. “Science miracles” are in each and every drop, and it promises "EXTRA LIFE" in all-cap letters.

And may I say, SUPERthrive is the best-smelling thing in the whole wide world.

I digress, but only to say that the little bottle must have been a good-luck charm. After commandeering a butterfly net and leaping over cans and boxes, the homeowners finally captured the trembling bird. It was so tired that it allowed itself to be held and misted with – no, not SuperThrive – but with a few tiny droplets of water.

After a minute or two, just when the homeowners had given up hope, the exhausted but fearless hummingbird gathered itself up and speeded away, sunlight flickering off its iridescent feathers, the air currents lifting it to whatever faraway kingdom it came from.

OK, you can go back to your Twittering and Retweets now.

Remembering Small Blessings This Thanksgiving.

Harlequin Cat has always enjoyed nosing through old postcards tucked inside dark, dusty antique shops. So finding a 1913 card of stenciled grapes just five days before Thanksgiving was a real joy. The verse reads:

May blessings great

And blessings small,

And faithful friends,

- the best of all -

Bring you

A glad Thanksgiving.

Nowhere does it mention a family feast or guest preferences for pumpkin pie over pecan pie or white meat over dark meat.

Instead, it simply expresses appreciation for the little things in life.

Harlequin Cat wishes you and yours a Happy Thanksgiving.

Crying Fowl.

I like chasing ducks just as much as the next cat, but mention foie gras and my claws come out. French for “fatty liver,” foie gras is made by shoving pipes down the throats of male ducks or geese and force-feeding them until their livers swell up to 10 times their normal size.

The birds that survive this agony are then killed and their livers sold as delicacies.

Why am I straying from the focus of this blog?

Because I’m already reading about restaurants serving “untraditional” Thanksgiving Day meals that include foie gras. And because if civility is defined as polite behavior, then exchanging civilities over foie gras should be considered obscene.

Preserve It, or Scrape, Sand and Prime?

Harlequin Cat wonders how to view this VIEW inside a boathouse on Shallowbag Bay.

Does it stand for unwavering conviction?

Or does it illuminate the need to renew and adapt?

Preserve?

Or scrape, sand and prime?

Unfortunately, and all too often, it depends on the perspective du jour, which today is Fickleness thin and clear, and tomorrow Obstinacy thick and chunky.

But that's just my view. I'm sure you have yours.