Eagles Over the Kennebec

It's snowing here at the Cat Farm and Confusion Factory.  I hold Steve and the plowguy equally at fault.

Steve for putting the roof rake away in the basement yesterday.

The plowguy for delivering his bill on Saturday, with the announcement that, even if it did snow again, he was done for this winter.

In other news, there was money in the mailbox this morning, which is a good thing, even when not viewed through the lens of the plowguy's bill.  (Which, let there be no mistake, he earned.)  Hopefully, this small infusion of cash is But the Harbinger of many more, and larger, infusions of cash.  Note to Self:  Light a candle to Saint Expedite.  Timing is Going to Be Everything with cash this year.

I will say these two things regarding the ACA:  1.  It was. . .comforting to know that we had real health insurance last year, that actually paid for things.  2. Boy, does it not Play Nice with the way freelancers are paid.

Single payer.  Single payer.  Single payer.

Sigh.

In other news, work proceeds on Alliance of Equals -- bet you thought I'd forgotten all about Alliance of Equals, hadn't you?  Work also proceeds on moving house before it snows again, two acts of Greater Imagination that aren't necessarily compatible.

The cats remain endlessly fascinating.  Trooper has been, cautiously -- one might say, respectfully -- moving to occupy those Spots that had been Identified as Good by Mozart.  One of those is the cat hammock in the front window.  Another is my Mozart's Scrabble's THE rocking chair in my office.  The other -- is interesting.

In the last couple years, Mozart had taken up a position under my desk, on the UPS, or against the wall (one of the coldest walls in my office, being the outside end wall, without a baseboard heater on it) on top of various wires.  I tried to talk him out of it, but he was adamant, so I finally admitted defeat and put a floofy blanket in the spot over the wires and kind of skooched up the wall, so he could lean his shoulder on something vaguely warm.

When Mozart left us, I took the (in my eyes, temporary) floofy blanket up, and didn't replace it.

The other day, though, I (thoughtlessly, as you will soon see) put the blue file crate that contains the Working Papers for Alliance of Equals in that spot.  Trooper, who, up until that moment, had ignored the former spot under the desk, immediately leapt down from the rocker, chattered at me, climbed behind the file crate, chattered some more and made shift to fit himself into the tiny, tiny space that was left there, just to show his willingness to Work With Me, but Really, Mom, this is pretty small, yanno. . .

Sprite came in to see what all the palaver was about, instantly recognized the problem and in a show of solidarity climbed onto the UPS.

So, I moved the file crate.  And, in the days since my first thoughtless violation of Established Cat Space, every day, Trooper and Sprite have made it a point to spend some time in that space, even though there's no floofy blanket there.  Yet.

Yes, I do expect a letter from the Committee Cat regarding this incident, but by that time, I will have capitulated and put the blanket back.

And so, to work.