the arrival

So, so far in this so-called winter, we've had rain and we've had wind.  And yes, sometimes we've had rain and wind together.  We've even had slush.

Yeah, that's right, I swear that one day, it rained slush.

MOUSES!

And we've also had snow that changed to rain, before changin' to more slush.

And the wind!  Did I mention the wind?  Boy-oh-boy have we had wind.

And sometimes it has been cold.  Not super-duper cold, but cold enough that I wanted to be inside all day where it was nice and toasty.  And sometimes it has been mild!  We broke a mildness record in January, I do believe, on account of it bein' so mild.

MOUSES!

But two days ago...

Two days ago, on Monday...

Winter officially arrived.

MOUSES!

It snowed and it snowed and it snowed.  Then it snowed again, some more.

Did I mention it snowed?

And this time, the snow stuck around.  Here it is, Wednesday, and there's still a whole whack of snow on the ground, with no sign of it meltin' and disappearin' any time soon.

MOUSES!

Now as a Canadian kitty, you'd think I'd be used to all of this snow.  Truth be told, I kinda am.  But the fact is, snow is snow, and it makes it awfully difficult to get around.

You have any idea how hard it is for a kitty to wade through a foot of snow?  I mean, I'm only like...  well, around a foot tall.  How the mouses am I supposed to lift my legs high enough to walk through that kinda snow?

MOUSES!

But luckily for me, Peepers went out first thing Tuesday and shovelled all around.  Oh sure, snowplow guy came late Monday, but he only plows the driveway.  I, Seville the Cat, was in need of some paths just for me.  And Saffy, of course.

But, you know...  Mainly for me.

MOUSES!

Well I've got my paths, now.  A kitty can now walk from the front door to the back, and back 'round to the front, once more; without havin' to wade through all that freezin' cold snow.  I can walk out to where Peepers feeds the birdies, too.  I can even walk over to the compost, if I want.  Which I really don't.  But if I want to, I can.

MOUSES!

And...

And Peepers managed to shovel all that snow without slippin' or slidin'.  Or trippin', for that matter.  She didn't fall down.  Not even once.  Not once!

And if I'm bein' totally honest, that was kinda disappointin'.  Her not slippin' and fallin', I mean.  'Cause let me tell you somethin', my friends...

Let me tell you...

Let me tell you somethin', my friends; when a kitty gets all comfy on the windowsill, EXPECTIN' a fun-filled humorous show, A KITTY EXPECTS TO SEE HIS PEEP SLIP, TRIP, AND EVENTUALLY, FALL DOWN.

At least one time.

Instead,  Peepers put on THE MOST BORIN' SHOW of all time.

THERE'LL BE NO EMMY FOR HER.

MOUSES!

*******************************

And remember:

IF IN DOUBT,

DON'T. GO. OUT.

Continue to practice SOCIAL DISTANCIN' measures

AND KEEP WASHIN' YOUR PAWS.

MOUSES!

Remember to mask up, too.

enough already

I said, ENOUGH.

MOUSES!

I swear, every time I turn 'round, it's snowin'.

MOUSES!

Now you'd think I wouldn't care all that much 'bout the snow.  I mean, my bathroom is indoors.  It's not like I have to out to use the loo...

LIKE A DOG.

MOUSES!

But you see, every time it snows, the snowplough comes through.

I know, I know...  I know what you're thinkin'.  You're thinkin', gettin' ploughed out is a good thing, for sure.

And actually, you would be right, except...

Except...

'CEPT THOSE PLOUGHS ARE AS NOISY AS ALL GET OUT.  Worse than the vacuum, for sure.  Hard to believe, but they are.

And they kinda scare me a bit.

But don't tell anyone I said that, okay?  It's a secret, you see.  I don't want the whole world knowin' I, Seville the Cat, mancat of all mancats, is scared of a little plough.

Although to tell you the truth, they're not little at all.  They're huge!  Huge, as in HUGE, I say.  They're the kinda things that give cats nightmares at night.

Also durin' the day.

MOUSES!

And then there's the problem with peeps havin' to shovel and stuff.  You know what happens when peeps are outside shovellin' paths and things, and diggin' out cars?

Well I can't tell you what is happenin', on account of my not bein' outside helping 'em shovel, but I can tell you what's not.   What's not happenin' is that they're not inside tendin' to my every need.

Want...  Need...  Whatever.

MOUSES!

And you know why else I'm complain' about the snow?  Snow is icy.  Snow is cold.  And as my good pal Summer kinda pointed out the other day, snow is not conducive to the growin' of nip.  And if there's anythin' I, Seville the Cat, nipmeister of all nipmeisters knows: it's that the growin' of the nip is of the greatest importance, for sure.  The greatest, I say.  THE GREATEST!

Right after the imbibin' of nip, of course.

MOUSES!

And now that I'm thinking 'bout nip...

Hey Peepers!  You wanna make me a hot nip toddy, please?  Not too hot, mind you.  But not cold, either.  Luke warm, should do.  And keep it light on the water, would ya?  But heavy on the nip.  Worst thing a peep can do is waste good catnip by dilutin' it too much.

MOUSES!

And make one for Saffy, as well.  I heard he was really, really, REALLY SCARED by the snowplough the other day, so he'll need one, too.

MOUSES!

***********************

And remember:

IF IN DOUBT,

DON'T. GO. OUT.

Continue to practice SOCIAL DISTANCIN' measures

AND KEEP WASHIN' YOUR PAWS.

MOUSES!

Remember to mask up, too.

snow

Hmmph!  Now who the mouses thought this would be a good idea?  I mean, who?  WHO? WHO?

Oh hello there, my friends.  How are ya? You caught me...

No, you did not catch me callin' for owls although truth be told, I can totally see how you might be thinkin' that.  You know, with my callin' out who and stuff.

Pardon me?  What's that?  Am I...?

No, I'm not callin' to peeps livin' in Whoville, either.

Truth be told, I'm just sittin' here, starin' out my office window.  Starin' and starin' and starin', and noticin' that even with all my starin', ALL I CAN SEE IS SNOW.

That's right, my friends, Mother Nature has gone and...

OH YEAH....  That's the answer.  You know, the answer to my question.  My question 'bout who the mouses thought dumpin' two feet of snow all over my yard was a good idea.  It was Mother Nature, that's who.

But it most definitely was NOT a good idea.  MOUSES!

There should be a law or somethin'.  Really, there should.  No one's mother should be dumpin' snow like that in anyone's yard.  MOUSES!

You ever think to yourself, you should just go smacky-paw somebody?  Smacky-paw 'em in the face, just because?  Maybe 'cause they looked at you funny?  Or maybe 'cause they stole your nip mouse or somethin'?

Yeah, well that's what I'd like to do that natural mother, for sure.  MOUSES!

Why, a kitty needs a pair of snowshoes just to get around out there.  MOUSES!

Well technically, two pair, but that is neither here nor there  Or even hare.

Hare... Snow...  Snowshoe hares...  Get it?  Hehehehee...

But seriously folks, if a kitty were to try walkin' around in my yard right now, a kitty would sink right down into two feet of snow.  Well technically, the kitty would probably just sink down to his tummy, and then kind of hang there, floatin' on the snow, in mid-air.  Or mid-hare!  HAHA!

Oh my mouses, I'm KILLIN' it here!

And speakin' of hares, have you seen Peep #1's HAIR?

After gettin' all bundled up to do some shovellin' through all of that snow yesterday, the first peep is sportin' a serious case of hat head, for sure.  And let me tell you somethin', IT IS NOT A PRETTY SIGHT. MOUSES!

What's that, Peepers?  What am I tellin' everyone? What am I sayin' about your hair?

Nothin'.

Anyway...

Back to that snow.  It's everywhere.  I've looked out every single window, both upstairs and down.  I've even had the peeps openin' doors for me.  Both front and back.  Yup, I had 'em open 'em up, multiple times.  And each and every time, everywhere, all there was, was snow.  Snow!  Up, down, all around...  SNOW.  There's white stuff as far as the eye can see.

I spy with my little eye, somethin' that is white.

And the answer would be... MY ENTIRE YARD.  MOUSES!

Of course, it's not as bad as it was on Monday.  At least today there's some sky.

The thing is, peeps don't realize just how annoyin' all this snow is for kitties like me.  I mean, sometimes, EVEN IN WINTER, I like to do garden patrols and whatnot.  But in this snow, garden patrols are out of the question, for sure.  Oh yeah, I could patrol along one of those paths with the two or three foot walls of snow, the peep has dug.  Yeah, I could do that.  I could, I suppose... But...

BUT THEY'RE JUST TOO DARNED SCARY!  You can't see anywhere but ahead.  You never know who you might meet up with in one of 'em, and that, my friends, is for sure.

And even more to the point, none of 'em go where I wanna go.

I told the peep, yesterday.  I told her, "Oh Peepers, dig me a path, please, all around the garden out back."

Well Peep #1 looked at me like I was crazy or somethin'.  Like I was the one goin' around in public with that case of hat head.  MOUSES!

And then, get this.  She said, "If you want a path all the way out there, Seville, you need to dig it yourself."

Yeah, she said it just like that.  I half expected a na-na-na-na-na-na at the end.

Well let me tell you, my friends, I nearly fainted right there on the spot. "Are you crazy or somethin', woman?" I said.  "I, Seville the Cat, am a cat, and shovellin' is beneath me, for sure. MOUSES!"

Next thing I knew, she was out the door, and the path I requested has not yet been dug.  And I'm kind of thinkin' it's not in the works, either.  MOUSES!

you can stop it now

Okay...  You can stop it now.  MOUSES!

Hey Peepers!  You have any influence in Ottawa, you can wield?  Get 'em to stop....

WHAT THE MOUSES AM I SAYIN'?  If anyone has any influence, it's gonna be me.

Hey Peepers!  You have the number for the Prime Minister's Office, on paw?

WHAT THE MOUSES AM I SAYIN'?  I, Seville the Cat, have the Prime Minister's Office on speed-dial.

Well kinda.  Kinda as in...  As in, I can look it up and dial it really speedily.  MOUSES!

Hey Peepers!  You wanna talk to this guy from the Prime Minister's Office, for me?  He's wonderin' why a cat is callin' him and quite frankly, I have better things to do than start explainin' stuff like that.  Stuff I shouldn't have to explain at all.  I mean, I'm Seville the Cat.  If I deign to call someone, that someone's first response should be somethin' about how...  How..  How honoured they feel 'bout my calling 'em, and not...

What's that, Peepers?

No...  No.   He says he wants to talk to you.  Well, he says he wants to talk to an adult.  He's talkin' like I'm not an adult cat or somethin'.  Like I'm a kitten!  For mousin' sake...  MOUSES!

Hey Peepers!  You might wanna come talk to him now.  He's sayin' somethin' about callin' the police and...

Never mind, Peepers.  He hung up.

Kinda rude, if you ask me.

Of course, it might have been an accident.  We might have been accidentally disconnected.

I'll call him back.

Hey Peepers!  I've got that Prime Minister's Office guy back on the phone.  You wanna come talk now?

Oh there you are, Peepers.  Hold on for a second, would you?  I just need to straighten one thing out, before I paw the phone over to you.

No, YOU stop it.  No, No...  YOU.  You as in, YOU. You can stop it now.  Anytime now.  Now as in, NOW. Why the mouses do you think I called you in the first place?

Hold on, Peepers.  I need another minute.  This guy appears to be hard of hearin' or somethin'. Soon as I settle this one matter, you two can have a little chat.

Like I was sayin', I need you to stop it now.  I need you to stop this snow from fallin'.  Stop it from fallin', right away.  Right away as in, right now.  We've had enough.  It's already as deep as I am high, which is way too deep, for sure.  Over a foot, at least, and...

Well of course you don't control the weather.  I know that.  You're just some guy workin' in the Prime Minister's Office.  But the Prime Minister, himself.  You know, your boss?  Now that's a different story.  So if you could please run along and get Prime Minister Trudeau and...

You don't say.

Really?  Are you sure 'bout that?  Sure as in...  sure?  Like...  SURE?

You're absolutely positively sure Justin Trudeau has no control over the weather, huh?

None at all?

Then what exactly does the Prime Minister do?

Hmmm...   MOUSES!

Okay, Peepers.  Here.  I'm done.  You can talk to this guy now.

But let me warn you, he's kinda in a foul mood.  Clearly, he's NOT diplomatic material.  Diplomacy is not a tool in his toolbox, and that is for sure.

And for some stupid reason, he keeps threatening to call the police.  I really don't know why.  I didn't ask to speak with the police.  I asked to speak with the Prime Minister.

Oh, and if he hangs up on you?  Like I think he might have hung up on me? Don't worry 'bout it.  It was probably an accident, and all you need do is press this little redial button thingy, and the phone will call him right back.  Yeah, that's what I did earlier. Worked like a charm.  MOUSES!

this is Canada, Baby!

Boy-oh-boy those weatherpeeps have been busy.  Busy doin' whatever weatherpeeps do, I suppose.  What do they do, anyway? Anybody know?

Well I can tell you what they don't do. They don't actually control the weather.  Surely if they were controllin' the weather, they'd be able to keep it in line, you know?  Keep it under control.  Make the ol' weather a bit more agreeable and well...   you know... controlled.

Lately our weather has been out of control. Totally uncontrolled, for sure.  Ol' Jack Frost, the real power behind the weatherpeeps, has been wielding his little weather wand thingy that he uses to frostify the place and makin' things a little too frosty for my taste.  MOUSES!

One day last week, the ol' mercury dipped to -17C at one point and that was without the wild chill.  Not sure what the wind chill was, that day.  It was way too cold to go out and see.  Then we got a bit of a break when it warmed up in the afternoon to -15C.    Warmed up to -15C?  Warmed up?  What can I say?  This is Canada, baby!

And speakin' of the ol' mercury thing...  Isn't it funny how we still say that?  I know that thermometers used to contain mercury but they don't anymore.  Haven't for a very long time, I think, but we hang onto the phrase, anyway.  I bet that one day, in the far-off distant future, peeps will still be usin' that phrase but so much time will have passed between then and when thermometers still contained mercury, that most peeps won't remember the origins of the phrase, at all.  Stuff like that happens, you see.  Those future peeps will have to Google (TM) it, for sure.

And I wonder if the phrase, Google (TM) it, will hang in there, too?  And I also wonder if the Google (TM) in Google (TM) it should be capitalised since, in all honesty, you really are - accordin' to the rules of the English language - usin' the word as a verb and not a proper noun.  Of course, schools 'round here teach less and less grammar, these days, so perhaps no one will figure that out.  Interestin'...

I also wonder how peeps manage to include the proper little trademark icon thingy when they're writin' on Blogger.  I mean, Blogger (TM).  MOUSES!

But back to the weather.  It was really cold last week.

Well at least it was cold for part of last week and then it warmed up.  By the end of the week, temperatures warmed up to right around the freezin' point.

By Friday, the weather got really freaky.  First it snowed for a bit.  Then it rained.  Then it slushed. Yeah...  slushed.  That's what I call it when the white stuff comin' down isn't really snow nor is it rain but rather, somethin' you would find on the ground when the roads are all slushy.  Somethin' you would choose to walk around and not through on account of its slushiness.  Somethin' wet, cold, half frozen and icky.  MOUSES!

Hard to walk around the slush when it's fallin' down from the sky, you know?

What's that, Peepers?  You're sayin' that it was sleet?  Sleet, slush, whatever...  MOUSES!

Anywho...  It was slushin'.  After it slushed it started to snow again and then it began to slush, once more. That's when Peep #1 decided to run out to do some errands.  What a peep.

The followin' adventure was told to me by the peep.  I wasn't there to personally experience said adventure on account of my bein' a cat and way too smart to go out in a slushstorm, snowstorm or whatever you wanna call it.  That and the fact that I don't like goin' in the car, period.  Whenever I'm in the car, the car drives straight to my doctor's office.  MOUSES!

So after pickin' up the mail at the mailbox, Peep #1 drove to the post office to pick up a parcel and then down to the first grocery store on her list.  Walkin' into the post office from the car, and into the grocery store, too, the peep got slushed upon.  She walked through some of the slushy stuff, too.  Had she had more sense, she would have walked around that pile of slush but truth be told, had she had any sense at all, she wouldn't have gone out in the slushstorm in the first place.  MOUSES!

She found the stuff she needed at the store, paid for it and headed out.  By then it had stopped slushin'.  It was snowin' once more.  In fact, it had snowed enough that the peep had to clean off the car before gettin' back on the road.

Now one would think that Peep #1 would head straight home after that, right?  Wrong.  Sometimes I really wonder 'bout my peep.

She had two more errands to run so off to the mall she went.  She did what she needed to do there as quickly as she could, cleaned off the car AGAIN and then drove to the second grocery store. After racin' through the grocery store aisles, she was ready for home although she did have to stop and clean all the snow off the car once more.  MOUSES!

By this time is was dark.  Really, really dark and when I say really, I really mean, REALLY.  To the right and to the left of the peep, it was pitch black.  Not a thing could be seen.  It wasn't even six o'clock yet but if the clock in the car hadn't been tellin' her the time, Ol' Peepers would have thought it was well past midnight.

Snow was comin' at the car and makin' it hard to see but that was the least of Peep #1's worries. She couldn't see the road itself, at all.  The snow was coverin' the road so completely that she couldn't see the centre line or the ditches on either side.  All she could see was the white stuff, blanketing everything in sight.  The white stuff was here, there and everywhere!  The headlights were shinin' on the white stuff comin' at her and the white stuff lyin' on the road.  The road, itself, was completely hidden from view.

Slowly but surely the peep made her way home, eventually turnin' off the main road and into our subdivision. Inchin' her way home, she pulled into the driveway, stopped the car and headed inside.

The next mornin', I awoke to find the sun glintin' off white stuff in every direction.  It was really quite beautiful. A little on the cold side, though.  That's why I sent my sister, Tess, out on a reconnaissance mission.  I needed her to gather intel on the condition of the car.  I would have done it myself but like I said, it was cold.  Tess has more floof than I and floof, you see, helps keep a kitty warm.

Anywho...  Peep #1 had managed to return home with all parts of the car intact.  Well at least all parts that were there before she went out.  The car still had one side mirror.

Only one mirror you ask?  Yeah, 'bout that...

A couple of weeks ago, Peep #2 was drivin' when apparently, someone's green bin jumped out into the middle of the road, colliding with the car.

What's that, Peepers?  FINE.  The green bin didn't actually jump into the middle of the road and collide with the car.  It just reached out from the side of said road and gave the passenger side mirror a swipe. The second peep told the first peep 'bout the incident but neglected to include the fact that the mirror had gone missin'.  Gone.  Gone as in it had disappeared off the face of the Earth in a puff of smoke.  Another has been ordered and will be replaced as soon as one of the peeps is in the town where the car doctor works.

There's no word on the health and welfare of the mysterious, car swipin', green bin.

Well that'll teach the green bin to mess with one of my peeps!

And speakin' of messin'...  The other day, I was workin' on my blog when I heard yowls and howls comin' from the front of the house.  I sent the peep to investigate.

Peep #1 found my brothers, Seville and Anderson, both lyin' on the landin' leading upstairs with the small, two-and-a-half foot Christmas tree that usually stands on that landin'.between 'em.  The tree was lyin' down just like my brothers but the tree wasn't yowlin' or howlin'.  It wasn't growlin', either, unlike my brothers.

Apparently, marmie brothers don't always get along with one another.  It's a well-known fact that Seville and Rushton don't get along with each other and apparently, Seville and Andy don't, either.  Don't know who started this recent altercation but I can tell you this.  The innocent by-stander that was the small Christmas tree, took the fall...  LITERALLY.  Like I said, it was lyin' on the landin'.  Lyin' down.  'Cause it fell. Fell after bein' knocked down, is more like it.  MOUSES!