November colors

"November is a brown month," my husband groused recently. But this November has tended much more toward the brownish gray, since it's been a lot colder (about 20 degrees) than normal, making me quake at the thought of the below zero temperatures that January might bring.

While my husband and I try not to mind the browns and the grays and the rainy, dark and cold days like today, for the furry beings in this house it's all business as usual.

I captured Magellan's preferred pleasure in this, her very favorite pose of late fall and winter: crawling onto my husband's chest (that's his red shirt) and snuggling herself onto a tight, pudgy ball on top of him where she will remain for hours, purring up a storm and, if he's working on his laptop, registering her displeasure at his interrupting her beauty sleep by biting his hand.

Darwin's favorite place is the guest room bed, where he has the stuffed animals (Lanty Poo and Sissy Poo), which he sexually assaults, pretending they're female cats that he's mounting. Very disturbing to see. In this pose, however, he was just lying against the cushion, and it was hard to tell which one was the real cat.

Rusty, who's getting older and more senile by the minute (he will often go outside and have to be reminded that he's supposed to pee), loves his play balls, especially the ones that squeak and make him think he's killing something. Another disturbing sight, especially since the cat is neutered. But these red and green ones that I got recently don't squeak, and only give him a chance to sit in one place for a while and munch at them until he's destroyed them and I have to throw them in the trash.

Yesterday was the best day yet of this ugly November, when the temperatures soared to the 40s and the sun shone all day. Magellan, good boricua cat that she is, pushed Geni off her bed, which gets a full treatment of sun in the late morning, and located herself there for hours, basking in the sun and tanning for the winter.

Meanwhile, I'm on break for the whole week (thank God that I teach at a small, liberal arts college!), and while I have a lot of work during this "free" time, it's just a great feeling to be able to set my own schedule rather than always having to be running here and there to meet a pre-set itinerary almost each and every day.

But for the past two weeks I did a lot better than I had for all the prior weeks of this semester, managing to protect one entire day of the week for my own purposes and prepping for my classes enough in advance that I was more than prepared, which always makes me feel at my best. I don't enjoy "winging it," even in classes I'm teaching again, so making sure I have plenty of prep time is important to my peace of mind.

I'm hoping that the trend of the past weeks continues for the last 2 weeks of classes when we resume work at my small college on the hill after Thanksgiving break, and I'll be looking forward to the end of a busy semester that has taught me a lot about myself, about teaching, about being a citizen of the college, about being a minority in a predominantly white institution.

I guess that, before this year, I was so focused on getting my Monster done and leaving graduate school behind, that this semester has felt like a true education in what it means to be a tenure-track professor. It's still the best job I could ever have the privilege to hold, and I'm blessed to be at a place where I have good friends and colleagues, and great students, and one that's not too far away from the friends I have back and the things I like to do in the big city.

I'm already bemoaning that it's Monday, not because it's so brown and gray outside, but also because it means my week off will soon start careening toward its too-soon end. But I'm going to make it my purpose to enjoy every moment of this free time, including keeping an eye (especially the camera's) on those who provide the best November color in this house: the wild, wild creatures we call our pets.