New daily ritual

Now that Advent's past, the main daily ritual around here, since the debacle of the dead battery, is to go out and run the car for a few minutes even when I'm not going anywhere.

 

It doesn't have the interest and variety of a daily calendar window, though, so I think this is the one and only entry about it.  But there's something to having a little activity  to look forward to doing each morning, usually in the arts, a drawing, or painting, or knitting or reading,or something that you will always do for a little while.  If you're a follower of  The Artist's Way, it's your morning pages. I think I'll get back into my Basho poetry  which I have on my Kindle.  Haikus are about the right size for this purpose.

 

In the evening, I've had my annual viewing of The Bishop's Wife, and it was as good as always.  Now I'm revisiting some of my own collection. Here the ever hilarious Mapp and Lucia, still as good as ever, humor intact, interiors and fashion wonderful, acting first class.  Five star viewing chez Boud.

And there's reading.  Winspear is the author of the Maisie Dobbbs books, to which I'm devoted, and here's her memoir, showing how she's always been interested in a good story without losing track of actual events in the process, and has done her own research from an early age.  Her path hasn't been an easy one, and you can see how she's been forced to consider other people's quirks as they affected her, all her life.  Also where she gets her grit from.

And the Maggie Rudy books, which I can't take back to the libe without showing you a bit more.  This is from The City Mouse and the Country Mouse, traditional meme written in her own take. This is the kind of illustrations that makes you sit like a little kid, noticing all the detail and finding one more thing, one more thing.  Here's the city. All the inventiveness in the dioramas!  The great observation of street scenes and people doing their daily stuff.

And a country scene, with tiny mice in proportion to enormous flowers and birds, seeing all there is to be seen.

Then there's I Wish I Had a Pet, which is a great intro to little kids into the realities of having a pet and how it's about taking care of them and enjoying their company and working for them, too.  This is one I picked out for knitters here!  And I, the insect lover, one of the first visitors to the Smithsonian Insect Zoo, appreciate that she includes all kinds of insects and beetles and other tiny life forms, as potential pet friends.

 Maggie Rudy isn't just for kids. In fact I wish a lot of people who ran to adopt dogs from shelters for company in the pandemic were aware of a lot of the advice in this book.  I hope they're all doing well, particularly first time dog owners not really knowing, until they got into it, what it's like to share your life with a dog.  As well as a lot of pleasure and fun and company, there's a lot of work and responsibility and expense.  Take this from a lifelong pet person who has rescued many a dog and cat and bird.

 Currently petless, because of age, don't want to leave an animal in need of a new home at midlife since they will almost certainly outlive me, ruling out a kitten, and because of finances, just couldn't keep meeting the vet bills, which are as high as human ones, why not, same machinery and skills, but without Medicare! Which rules out older animals.

I don't foster,because that comes with the obligation to load up the animals and crates and take them out regularly to adoption meets, in order to get them permanent homes.  More than I can physically do.  I'm not sure how adoption meets are working during the pandemic, come to think of it.

Anyway, I salute you dog owners for your care of your animals, especially people who have to get dogs out in zero degree weather no matter what!  Been there, done that, know what that predawn cold is like! And how dogs get you up and out early to walk them, then when you get home, cold, and it's too late to go back to bed, because the day beckons, the dog hops right back into bed to sleep till noon.