Monthly Archives: March 2018

Meet Ginny

While Ginny was introduced on other social media, I should really include it here.

Hey world, meet Ginny… who weasled her way into our hearts and became a major foster fail. She’s about a year old and terribly sweet. I’ll be volunteering with the rescue organization in other ways, mostly chauffeuring and transporting stuff when I can.

Ginny, early March 2018

When she arrived in late February, named Bo Peep, she was our first foster cat. Fostering was a new endeavor for us, a form of community service where we chose to support those people who made rescuing, sterilizing, and rehoming cats their mission. HRH was off on a training exercise the day Jessica dropped her off. While we stood and chatted, Jiji spied the tiny cat in the carrier and fled. Owlet tried to carry him over to say hi, and he fled again. Jiji was afraid of the wee foster cat, which wickedly delighted me. After all, one of the reasons we had decided to foster was because Jiji was picking on Minerva and evidently needed distraction, someone to play with.

Bo was delightfully social after a couple of quiet hours in the master bedroom. The kids took turns to creep in and say hi, and she was very friendly with both of them. Everybody was getting snuggles and bumps and flops. And the purrs, oh my, the purrs.

The next evening HRH was home. When he went to bed, the little cat climbed onto his chest and fell asleep there. That was when I was pretty sure this was going to be a foster fail; this cat would never leave the house. It took a total of four days to confirm that yes, this was too good to destabilize. Bo was officially a foster fail. Then the game of trying to come up with a fitting name, taken from literature or a film as we always do, began.

Liam and Ginny, mid-March 2018

Seriously, I have never had a cat who acclimated to a household this quickly, and vice versa. During the first week, after she was introduced to the rest of the house, Jiji and Minerva were seen casually playing with her without looking like they were fully committing to the activity. This was obviously not the way fostering was supposed to go, but it’s how it played out. There are other reasons why we can’t foster again, mainly that the one room we can close off happens to be the master bedroom, where all the household cats come to sleep at night, and it’s unfair to them. But it will be good to be able to help in other ways.

Owlet Discovers Beethoven


Owlet started learning about Beethoven in music class at school just before March break. She ran to meet me at the school gate and this is the conversation we had:

OWLET: Mummy, do you know Beethoven?
ME: Not personally, but I know his music.
OWLET: Why not?
ME: Well, honey, he’s dead.
OWLET: WHAT. He can’t write any more music!?
ME: Trust me, we have LOTS of his music to listen to.

At home she shared the Beethoven’s Wig video with us, which led us to discover Beep Beep Beep and My Little Chicken. (Click on those links at your own risk; they are earworms. Hilarious and brilliantly done, but earworms.)

Her list of facts that she likes to share:
-Beethoven is famous because people like his music.
-His father taught him music.
-He was grumpy because he couldn’t hear his music very well.
-He was very messy.

I showed her the Beethoven Google Doodle game, and found the first track from Beethoven Lives Upstairs online for her to listen to, then we borrowed the whole CD from the library.

So next it was, “Mummy, can we listen to the Beethoven’s Wig music in the car?” Of course, my child. I own three different recordings of Beethoven’s fifth symphony that I know of. And this is a synthesis of the conversations we have about it, because now we listen to it daily with occasional breaks for Hamilton or Moana:

OWLET: Mummy, it started again!
ME: No, this is the repeat. In this kind of music, like I play at orchestra, the first part is usually repeated before playing the next section.
OWLET: Mummy, this part sounds like Beethoven’s Wig, but it’s different. Did Beethoven write this part, too?
ME: Yes, he did. It’s called the development section, which makes variations and new music based on the themes introduced in the first part.
OWLET: Beethoven wrote a lot! (And this is only the first movement of a Beethoven symphony she’s heard.) And he’s very good! I like this part!

Then this morning:

OWLET: Mummy, are there any pictures of Beethoven?
ME: Not photos, because there weren’t any cameras when he was alive, but there are paintings.
OWLET: Can I have one in my room? One of his head? And then another one of him writing his music. In a frame? Like a real painting?

Yes, my child. You may have a framed portrait of Beethoven, your first musical crush.