Bad kitty, good kitty; northern lights, and cooking

Yay, it's the weekend!

There are lots of reasons to be celebrating. My friends had a baby, and mom & baby are coming home from the hospital today. Their baby is a girl, healthy and all fingers and toes. The pregnancy was difficult and touch and go sometimes, so we are all thanking the Lord for a new soul added to a loving family this morning.

In Mid-September the heat breaks and fall here in Georgia is spectacular. Though today is supposed to be hot and humid, the rest of the week is supposed to reach only the upper 70s and low 80s for high temps. I truly love having the windows open all day and night, feeling the fresh breeze, enjoying my cats at the window smelling and chirping at bugs and birds going by.

There was a moderately severe solar storm this weekend. An X-class (the biggest) coronal mass ejection launched off the sun and hit earth. Though sometimes CMEs can put out radios or interfere with electronics, it usually just sparks auroras. The harder hitting the CME the brighter the northern lights. Get a look at this. It was taken at Casco Maine last night, a town only a few miles from where I lived for many years. I used to know the photographer. The photo was featured on Spaceweather.com

"I took the picture from Casco, Maine, facing north
towards the Presidential Range in New Hampshire,"
says photographer John Stetson. "Red, purple, green, blue--all the colors were there!"

The storm sparked Auroras as far south as Arizona! See the red glow?!

Aurora viewed in Payson, Arizona (Chris Schur/SpaceWeather.com)

My kitty Murray is coming along. His personality is developing. He is becoming more loving and demonstrative. He still won't let me pick him up from the floor. He runs away like smoke, it's like trying to cuddle a wisp. But when he wants cuddling he jumps on the table next to my laptop and lets me hold him against my shoulder. He throws a paw over my upper arm and nestles his little head in.

Last night he got yelled at three times in three hours. At 3:00 am he started trying to bang the pictures off the wall. There is a very heavy one hanging over the couch, and if I forget to build a pillow barrier, he sits on top of the back of the couch and gets a paw under the picture and whacks it. He actually did knock a picture down once, it broke the frame. It was a first edition, original Fred Thompson hand tinted photograph. Aside from being valuable, I love it. I would be crushed and upset if it had broken. I bought it when I was 8 years old at a church flea market, and my mom had it framed for me.

So I sat up in bed and hollered "No, Murray!"

At 4:00 am I heard him banging something around on the floor. I mumbled "nooo, murray..." and then remembered it was the empty stationery box I'd left on the bureau. That was the sound. I fell back asleep.

At 5:00 am I heard a tinkling like a bell or keys. But they weren't keys, it sounded more like change jingling. I could not figure out what that sound was, so I sat up in bed and hollered "NO MURRAY!"

At 7:00 am I was sitting at the table with my coffee, typing. Murray hopped up and looked at me. When I looked at him, his head bowed a little. If it was possible for a kitten to look abashed this was it. I folded him in my arms, and he threw his head and body into a full hug, tight. Awww.

It reminded me of the children's book, "No David!" by David Shannon, where on every page, David is getting into trouble. His mom is hollering "No, David!" until the last page where there is a big hug, and the mom says "I love you David."

I love my kitty. He really is a good boy.

Ahhh, weekends. I have a lot to do today and I'm happy about it. I already wrote a blog essay at The End Time. I will answer several substantive emails, people asking for help with research. I'll do the dishes, laundry, change the sheets, and vacuum. I want to get my chores done today so tomorrow I have time to read. I've got a lot of good books and somehow days and days go by with no time for me to read them.

The cooking for this week's meals will be: salmon patties, tomato-mushroom soup, banana-oatmeal bars, and quinoa salad. Of course the usual bible reading and prayers are added in, and hopefully a nap.

Oh my, that's a lot. I better get going!