More "et Cetera" ...

I absolutely adore the look of the sun coming through the sprinklers watering our front yard. Everytime they come on, I take the time to go enjoy the view. I've seen birds taking the opportunity for a fresh bath, I've seen dragonflies dart in and out of the water in the air, but most of all, I enjoy the light filtering through the water. This is what I saw this morning:

Our Blue and White Maine Coon, Zak, insists on being with his humans ... if you're at the computer, he's preening in front of your screen; and if you're taking a picture out the window, he's right there. You can see his ear at the left side of the image, above. I love this trait of Maine Coons, always wanting to be with you, "in the moment," and companionable.

So I decided to include him in the shot. Here he is, above, looking out the window to see what I found so fascinating.

And barely visible (right bottom corner), napping in our "cat window" (about 8 feet away from where Zak is looking out) is Nox, our Black British Shorthair, who could care less about the sprinklers outside!

This window is why we bought this house. I called it "the cat window" from the start. During our house hunt in 1998, when Ken was surveying the prospects with a video camera (while I held down a desk job) and playing the results of his search each evening, he found this house in a neighborhood whose hilly terrain was carved out by a brook and is totally unlike most of the Dallas/Fort Worth area, which is "pool table-flat." He strenuously persuaded me that we NEEDED to go see this house the next day at which point it had only been on the market for 24 hours.

So we did, when I got off work. Some other prospects were just leaving when we drove up. The owners of the house were into cat rescue and had cats which made them kindred souls. :) And there was a lot to like about the house itself, as well as the neighborhood. But the feature that sealed the deal for me were these windows that canted out at the bottom and created a window seat. The view from these windows looks out on the berm that is our front yard and because the house sits on a bluff, the only thing we see of our neighbors are the treetops in their yards. Long story short: I whispered to Ken that we should pay the owner his asking price and write him a deposit check on the spot. This was the house for us -- I knew it in my bones. Ken calls it my impulse purchase since I didn't even want to go see a similar house on the next corner that the realtor wanted to show us. Ha!

We moved in two weeks before we left for Florida to get married on the beach and spend a week in a beach house with some old friends. One of these friends, Kirk Wilder, called that week spent together, "The Cantebury Tales," since few of the guests at our wedding feast (Ken's words, here) knew each other, going in. So Ken, the house, my wedding, and cats are all entertwined. I'll post some pictures of the wedding on the beach later. But this morning, the view of the sprinklers in the morning with Zak right next to me is a daily reminder that life is good.