The peanut butter bag

So I couldn't face it yesterday, but managed this morning to stick my hands into the bag and get out the various detritus of my lunch from yesterday, rinse them off, and dishwasher them. The worst hit was an apple, but at least it was easy to wash off. And as The Man said, at least it's a knitted bag you can wash, as opposed to a bag that would felt when you didn't want it to. Which is a very good point.

Needless to say I've put peanut butter on the grocery list for today.

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On my other list of things to do today is to make these. The banana bread, which disappeared within days (even The Man ate it!) was from her site, and I'm just so darn excited about making cookies with quinoa. It's almost like health food!

But at the moment, my living room is full of men and possibly soot as they clean the chimney, so they have to wait -- a reasonable thing too, because I have no room temperature butter (I always forget to get out the butter!) It's raining steadily (we had ONE WHOLE DAY of sun yesterday, which is I think it for the entire month of November -- we've set new records for rain! -- and now we're back to deluge again) and the idea of later sitting back with warm cookies in front of a roaring fire is absolutely seductive.

(See what happens with pregnancy? I have a clean house and that combined with baked goods and warmth is what suffices for marital intimacy.)

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Whilst we had the chimney scoured I begged a favour of a friend to take The Boy off our hands, and she called this morning to say she was planning an errand up to a nearby store, and would I like her to come and pick him up? I was terribly grateful, so she's come and gone. This is the same friend with the same aged son we had playdates with regularly over the last year, so The Boy calls her by her first name and went happily off to her car with her to play with his small friend. So while the house is noisy with vacuuming and brushing, at least there's time to sit quietly and relax.

Playdates are essential in this weather -- snow, if you are so inclined (which I am not), can be played in, but rain is just rather unpleasant to be out and about in for anything longer than an errand or a walk. Oh, they get the kids outside every day at the daycare, but I've suited the child up in the very best rainwear, which wasn't at all cheap but it's Vancouver -- it's SO worth it. He has fleece and boots and pants and a jacket which keep him pretty much completely dry, but given the expense we only bought a single set, and they are at the daycare. (I could bring them home; I just forget.) So weekends must include playdates lest we all go entirely squirrelly. Thankfully other parents seem to agree, so we're setting things up for as many weekends as possible over the next few months.

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The cat sits huddled at my feet. She almost never lies down anymore; it's not clear why. She huddles instead, restless and a little irritable. I suppose it's likely she's not comfortable. I don't think it's pain, but I think general discomfort is very likely. We figured out she's lost I think about 2.5 kilos in the past three months, and she was only probably just over 6 to begin with; her size is startling. Unless this newest medication can help her put on weight -- or at least stem the tide -- I think we'll lose her alarmingly fast. It's most likely cancer, they tell us -- 75% chance, with the other 25% being some other unnamed terminal illness. We are lucky in that with her age, she probably doesn't have the leukemia virus, which would endanger the other cats. The only thing worse, I think, than losing one cat would be losing the other two in a similar fashion soon afterwards.

So we wait, and see, and hope for the best. And prepare for the worst.