Crystal Clear

                When you’re a kid, you get really excited about things like staying up past bedtime, having a birthday, going to the zoo, and anything sugar related.  When you’ve reached middle age, you get excited about different things (except for anything with sugar in it—you still get excited for that) like naps and balancing the checkbook.

                This year I’m really excited to have new windows in our house.  These windows are awesome compared to the old.  They open, for one thing, without requiring pain or blood sacrifice and if you want them to, they’ll stay open.  Can they get any cooler than that?  Yes, they can!  They tilt in so you can wash both sides of the glass from the inside of the house!  I’m practically quivering with excitement just writing about them.

                Before you start thinking, “What is wrong with this woman?” let me explain a little about my window attachment.  Windows are my favorite feature of any building.  I see them as picture frames in the art gallery of creation.  Their scenes are always changing with the seasons, the weather, and the day-to-day drama of ordinary neighborhoods.   Windows are like TV screens showing the ultimate reality show called “Life.”  If I’m having a tough day and want to think of a “happy place” to help relax, I always imagine napping in front of an open window with a gentle breeze and dappled sunlight coming in.

                By now you’re wondering where the cats fit into this topic.  I could tell you how much they enjoyed window construction—coming and going out the open window holes, helping the carpenter measure and frame the new windows, exploring the rearranged furniture as it was pulled away from the outside walls.  I won’t though, because the point of talking about the new windows is to vent a little about a weird, annoying habit Frank has.

                Frank likes to rub his paws on glass.  Why?  Who knows?  I don’t have a clue.  Before he does it, he dips his paws in the water dish so when he rubs them vigorously back and forth on the glass, it makes a blood-curdling “scritch-screech” sound and leaves great big streaks.

                I am so excited to have easy to clean windows but to keep up with Frank I’d have to clean the windows in the dining room, kitchen, living room, and the front and back entry at least once a day.

                If we had a dog, there’d be nose and tongue prints and if we had younger children there’d be sticky fingerprints.  Life’s messy, windows get smudged.  If I know company is coming, I’ll wipe them down.  The rest of the time I enjoy my cat and try to ignore the smeared view.  If I start to get too irate about it, I remember my happy place with the breeze coming through the window on a sunny summer day and I feel much better.

The sun's not even up yet and Frank is smudging the windows