Let It Rain, Let It Rain, Let It Rain

The first real storms of the season - an atmospheric river, even - are supposed to arrive any minute now and I've been getting ready for days.

The garlics are in the ground. And the last of the eggplants have all been harvested. Yup, we had baba ganoush at our Thanksgiving. It could become our new traditional Thanksgiving dish, given how well received it was this year.

The counter is almost cleared of the the last-to-ripen Marzanos. Just in time for the lemons from the tree to take over that space in the kitchen. And the fava beans are up and well on their way to becoming good eating by early spring.

So why not curl up and relax - with or without that favorite book. It's all good.

¡Viva Princess!

It was a stay-close-to-home summer for us, filled with worry and sadness. Princess wasn't doing so great. She hadn't been eating well since early spring, and had lost almost 30% of her body weight. The vets couldn't find anything - they called her blood work, "boring" - which I suppose should have been comforting, but only made us fear the worst. We though she was a goner.

But somehow she has turned herself around. Fancy Feast® may have played a role, along with trying to entice her to eat 15 to 20 times a day. Or maybe it was the three different types of wet food, in addition to the two new types of dry food that I bought. Or maybe she just got over it, whatever "it" was.

But recently Princess has been putting on weight, scarfing down her breakfast each morning and munching away throughout the day without prompting. She is even showing glimmers of her old tortitude again, which, truthfully, we would be happy to do without.

Could it be nearing time for a worry-free get-away?