A perplexed state

He has gone and done it again. Nobody seems to have any idea why he keeps doing what he's doing (see pic above). Scooter says he knows of only one other animal that will 'wash' their food before eating it and that is the raccoon. Even though Snicks has a tail that resembles that of a 'coon, we're pretty sure he is just a simple gray striped Tabby...or tomcat if you prefer. We adopted him 2 1/2 years ago from a rescue shelter, and of course, they didn't have much information on him other than his birth name was "Artichoke"...umm yeah, that didn't seem to fit so well. We couldn't even bring ourselves to shorten it to "Arti", so because he was so playful, Scooter decided a better name for him was "Snicklefritz", meaning clown in German. Then that got shortened to Snicks. Now, where was I?..oh yeah...he has learned the safest place to be outdoors is in his own backyard and does a pretty good job of staying there. Grazing on the lawn, sunning himself, and pretending he's in the wild among our vines and shrubs and is hunting for his next meal. We have a couple of liquid amber trees in the yard, and at the end of winter, they begin to drop those round spike-like balls. At some point during his safari on Saturday, our clown carried in one of those seed pods into the house. Scooter and I were enjoying our morning coffee yesterday in the living room instead of the den, and Snicks had his prey hidden under the rug that lies in front of one of our sofas. Scooter had just gotten up to refill his cup when Snicks slithered past him carrying his spiked ball in his mouth through the kitchen, into the sunroom, and promptly proceeded to drown it in his water bowl. Flippin' amazing!!! What is running through that little brain of his??? I suppose I could call our vet today, unless one of you out there happens to be a cat behaviorial analyst or something. It has now become a daily quest of ours to check his water bowl every morning when we get up. He has never drank from his water bowl, but we always keep his dish filled with fresh, clean water, just in case.

Very little knitting happened over the weekend. We took a drive to the mountains yesterday to see how my new car handles itself on the inclines and downgrades. It's not my turbo-charged sports car, but it did very well considering it's a five passenger SUV. I just need to get used to the steering and the fact that I'm now sitting more than 6 inches off the ground. After a very nice dinner at one of our favorite out-of-the-way Mexican restaurants, we headed back home. Scooter has to get up at an obscene time on Monday mornings for a conference call with his boss, so he reluctantly went off to bed before me. The time change always throws me for a loop at first and so I wasn't ready for bed yet. I was having knitting withdrawals anyway, so I stayed up for about an hour after him and worked on my February Lady Sweater. Half a sleeve left and I can go shop for buttons!! YES!!! Oh, we also stopped for a little bit to visit some friends up in the canyon yesterday, and the wife has no problem at all with me knitting while we chat. I always keep some mindless, chat-worthy knitting in the car, and in this case, it was the socks I've been working on for Scooter. I managed to get to the heel of the second sock, so he should have some nice dress socks very soon. I'm anxious to get back to my socks I call Leaping Leprechauns (Embossed Leaves is the design name). Once I finish those, I plan to cast on for another new sweater that I'm not sure I've shared with you yet....soooooon my friends, very soon!

Have a great start to your week, and until next time...Cheers!