Opening Night

Saturday was opening night for our annual dinner show. Gregg, Jerry, Uncle Dave, and Karen came to cheer me on. We have some enormous talent in our choir and I'm blessed to be surrounded by them.

My mother had a sweet angelic voice; I'd like to think that I inherited that from her. This music gene was quite prevalent in her family and it's a joy to sit in church with my aunts and just listen. I have always enjoyed singing along to the radio in the car or doing dishes -- one of the many things I drove the girls crazy with. I know that they probably won't admit it but I've heard them each sing and they too have that Miller gene -- they just haven't tapped into it yet.

There is a song that's popping into my head -- can music save your moral soul . . . American Pie?

I look forward to my Thursday night choir rehearsals and am able to forget about all the stupid little things I fret about during the week -- did I remember to post that journal entry? How am I going to make that program work? Where am I going to find time to do all I need to do? In choir I just sit back and listen God's glory in all the voices. It gives me a tingling feeling when the pages of my music begin to vibrate from the tones.

Yes, music can save your moral soul and calm the salvage beast in each of us.

Zackie -- I rescued a human!

I had never given much thought to adding a cat to our family after our beloved Pudgie left us to go to doggie heaven but after Christie found Mac my heart started to soften. My sister had a farm cat as we were growing up; he used to escape and come back home with all kinds of half-eaten treasures. Yuk, I certainly didn't want to go through that again . . . Christie had a skidish cat, Mittens, and he decided that my couch was a more convenient litter box than the one downstairs -- nope, I thought, too much maintenance. Then Christie invited us over to meet Mac and the moment that he crawled up into Gregg's lap and fell asleep we were hooked. Before the magic wore off Christie and Kent accompanied us to the Wisconsin Humane Society and as we walked in this huge, gorgeous cat met our gaze. I tried to convince Gregg to look at the other cats but he wouldn't hear of it. Even when I learned that this cat was missing something (a tail!) he still was mesmorized. So, Zackie entered our hearts and family. He was exactly what we needed with all the changes going on in our lives at that time. He listens to my sorrows, shares my joys, greets me at the door, reminds me when bedtime is, and makes sure that I keep the bird feeders full for his enjoyment (and the birds meal ticket)! We're constantly learning more and more about him and ourselves . . . he's pretty sendimentary but when something catches his fancy he'll enjoy it immensely -- Ladybug season is one of his favorites, thank goodness those little guys have wings! I cut out the pattern and fabric for one of Manny's Christmas gifts and I learned that Zackie loves the pattern paper so much I ended up sending him downstairs with Gregg and Don while I finished my project!


Gregg often mentions that Zackie has the soul of Pudgie and often times see him laying in the Pudge stance . . . front legs royally crossed one over the other. Pudgie loved bread and would come running whenever he heard the sound of the plastic bag wrapper (which we learned is a completely different sound than any other plastic bag -- Christie used to bring a loaf outside to convince him to come in but that's a whole new blog) . . . our Zackie goes crazy over ice cream. He won't flinch when I open the freezer door unless I have taken the ice cream scoop out of the drawer. He starts pacing until either I'm done with my Ben & Jerry's fix or he has his own. He does this 'kneading' type of thing whenever he's trying to get comfortable; usually it's on my stomach and poor guy -- just as soon as he's gotten comfortable I have to get up and go to the bathroom and the process starts all over. He's quite a talker and where Christie and Gregg taught Pudgie how to say his name, Gregg has taught Zackie to call out my name 'Marrrrrr'. We've thought about bringing another rescue into our family but why mess with perfection?? Now, there's still the question of the excess cat hair . . . suppose I could send all my black clothes to Goodwill . . .