The blanket of snow glitters like diamonds in the morning sun, and our home carries the spicy aroma of Wednesday's Chex Mix and the more-subtle fragrance of sugar cookies. The golden rays of light streak through the windows and paint the side of my face in glorious heat.

I am alone this day. I feel the absurd need to smile. The biggest, brightest, face-cramping grin I can muster. It feels so good to feel so absolutely happy for no reason at all. I am not smiling because someone is watching, I am not smiling to convince anyone that I really am doing okay. Spooking Sophie who sits with eyes closed in a band of sunlight, I sing loudly and off-key, "IT'S THE MOST WONDERFUL TIIIIIIME!—OF THE YEAR!"

I yearn for the warm glow of white Christmas lights and the intermingling of scents of cinnamon and evergreen. I want to feel bundled up in my memories and my hopes, and I want to tell my loved ones how dear they are to me. Last year was a hard Christmas. It was my first without the woman who made them so precious to me.

Hot cocoa with candy canes, mulled apple cider with cinnamon sticks, dancing candle flames, Mannheim Steamroller, and It's a Wonderful Life. Champagne flutes with metallic ornaments in the hutch, twinkling boughs around the doorway, life bathed in a wash of amber light, warm fuzzy blankets, and stories of yore. This is the most wonderful time of the year, and this year I tend to do it justice.

Happy Holidays! Blessings to you and yours!

Sophie handled her first Halloween here reasonably well. She foraged through the candy and looked longingly at the crowds of little witches and ghouls. Nick patted her head and told her, "You're too young this year. Maybe next year you can dress up and go trick-or-treating at Grandma and Grandpa's."

Sophie likes the basket, too. She likes it a little too much and has now gnawed through the weaving at every corner.

This was Nick's project last night after I abdicated control of the laptop. I found a site that designs South Park characters because I swear there is a lady at work who looks and moves like one. Anyway, the site was addictive. So, this is us with big eyes, no noses, and legs that don't really move. Nice job, Nick! His first version had me decked out in accessories: a mug of beer in one hand, an iPod in the other, and a camera around my neck. Eerie that he knows me so well...

"Will extra hugs help you be less sad?"

. . . Always.

I took her to the vet yesterday, both of my aunts coming with for moral support. Up until the afternoon, I had remained optimistic. As Nick put plainly, no matter what happened, Friskey likely wasn't to return to live with Dad. I was thinking that she had become a high maintenance cat in her advanced age, and I would gladly go the extra mile with her providing that she could still have a good life. I watched her waddle around, I listened to her gasp while she ate the can of Fancy Feast I brought with me for a treat, and I heard her scream when I lifted her to leave for the appointment. I guess sometimes you just know your pet, and I knew when I lifted her how the appointment was going to go. I started crying right then. This animal was in pain.

At the clinic, she cried, hissed and growled while the vet examined her. My sweet natured cat was actually hissing. She left the situation open to me, the vet did. She offered that we could do blood work, take x-rays...her statement ended on a higher note than it started, questioning what path I wanted to take since one seemed so obvious yet so painful. I tried to keep my lower lip from trembling as I replied, "I think at this point, the humane thing to do..." and she nodded in agreement and fetched the paperwork. I had as much time as I wanted to say goodbye before they started everything.

I have no doubts that I did what was best for her, and thankfully I had my aunts to reassure me of that in the tender moments just after when I felt like a murderer. I remember so clearly the day I brought her home. Now, I will remember so clearly the day that I didn't.

This was my landscape one morning while doing my homework. I suppose this is how I would feel at four o'clock too if I had spent the entire night running over my parent's faces while they slept, bringing my entire collection of toys to their bed and begging them to play.

Sophie, we've decided, some king of cat-dog hybrid. Every time I arrive home she runs out from wherever she is nestled or from whatever she has been doing to grind her head into my ankles and purr. She plays fetch. She goes ga-ga over table scraps. She chews everything (I recently found gnaw marks on the creamer pump on the kitchen counter). And, the most un-cat-like thing about her? SHE LIKES US.

So rare is it to find Sophie sleeping, I tip-toed over to my camera to capture a series of shots. I loved that she was curled around her ball and that her tail didn't even try to find room in the basket. I came home from work that day and sat down at my desk again. Looking over to the scene so sweet this morning, I found this:



Cat-dog hybrid. I'm telling you.

It is not like I see her all that often. It is not like she is a daily part of my life.

But, I cannot stop the flow of tears. She has brought such a quality to our lives, and she nursed my mother with affection up until the end.

Dad called me on Friday, to tell me that Friskey isn't doing so hot. She misses her litter box, and cries incessantly...sometimes it seems like her front paws do not quite work. He said he didn't feel like the decision was his to make because she is my cat, my ninth birthday present. At the time, I advised that maybe he should take her to the vet, perhaps there existed a treatable ailment...and if not, well we would know what had to be done.

I went to see her yesterday. I crawled back to the corner where she rested and talked to her. She wobbled the foot it took her to get from beneath the wingback chair to my petting hand. Closing her eyes, she leaned back and let me love her, forcing a faint purr out of an old throat. She does not clean herself anymore, and she does not move far before she lies down and dozes off again. Only then did I grow emotional, understand the full choice ahead of me. This animal so dear to my heart, so full of love still, and I had to make the call whether or not she should be put down. So much like my mother, her body is breaking down while her spirit thrives.

I got home and watched Sophie run around, almost like a rubber ball, bouncing from couch to chair, against the wall, to couch...and I sobbed. Such a contrast to the listless animal I had just caressed. I don't know if Nick really gets the tears...I know that I don't. I am an adult, and have taken a lot harder hits in the last few years than an elderly cat...truth is, I do not have a vivid memory of my life when Friskey wasn't there. She was always a constant, a lap cat who loved her family, allowed a little girl to wrap her in blankets and push her around in strollers, and smothered us in purrs when someone was crying. I found myself losing my bravado as I asked to Dad or Nick, or whoever could answer, "Will it hurt?"

Happy birthday, Sophie! We adopted you six months ago, and the vet that your foster mommy had taken you to said at the time that you were approximately six months old. We stressed for so long about your age, Sophie, often wondering if you would have adjusted better to domestication had you been younger. You did not trust us, often running from the sight of us. I knew you lived here only because your litter box regularly required attention. When I took you to the vet for the first time, I asked Nick to come home and help me catch you. You still had so much "wild" in you. It was difficult for me; I am sure it was worse for you.

We paid extra attention when a pet pro spoke on talk radio on the subject of antisocial cats. We believed that was you, Sophie: antisocial. You wouldn't sit in plain sight of us. You never made so much as a peep. You treated us as potential predators. You are resting in my lap and purring as I type this. My, how things have changed.

You spend a lot of time rolling on your back. People tell me that you must feel secure. People tell me that you must be happy. I know that you are both of these now. I have this picture hanging outside my desk at work. People I don't even know stop to look at it and tell me how adorable you are. Pft. Like I don't know. You fell asleep purring in my arms the other night and I nearly cried.

After our week away, I fear our little kitty with never look at suitcases with the same innocent cordiality as she did a month ago when she saw her first. Indeed, she has been beating up the luggage that I borrowed from Debbie and Brenda, showering an array of karate chops and donkey kicks to the piece of devilry that stole her parents away for seven days straight. Mean, stupid suitcase.