Sparky spent the morning sitting on the windowsill, lashing his tail and muttering evil kitty curses under his breath. I would go over and peer out between his ears in a vain effort to see what was getting him all riled, but saw nothing but the breeze stirring the azaleas.
This means the backyard is haunted, right?
I remember a book we had as kids said that if your pet was freaking out at nothing, then it might be a ghost. You could (maybe) see the ghost if you looked between the pet's ears. No word on what to do if your pet is a snake, but anyway.
That never worked. It didn't work today.
Eventually, though, I looked out the window from between Sparky's ears and saw…
a groundhog sitting on the porch!
This is a first. I've seen groundhogs over in Libby Hill Park and in the woodsy patches that grow on the side of Church Hill, but never all the way over by my house. This groundhog was a juvenile (you could tell by the piercings and the bad haircut), maybe he's striking out on his own.
Mint
When we were over in Carytown for dinner, I pinched a sprig of spearmint that was volunteering like a fool in someone's herbaceous border. This is a really minty mint, not a grassy-smelling, hybridized, weedy mint. I jammed the sprig into the dirt of one of my neglected flowerbeds. Next spring: mint juleps!
Copyright
A couple months ago I shipped a hard copy of my Church Hill novel off to the Copyright Office in DC and today I received my official Registration of Copyright. They processed my form on my birthday, so my paperwork has my birthday stamped all over it. It's not actually necessary to register your copyright, I know, but I just wanted the validation.
308 words | August 10, 2005 07:42 PM | Felis Major