Sounds of Spring

Tales of the Unlikely:
Cat with Vacuum

Usually, if we so much as reach for the horrible vacuum monster, 3 of the 4 cats scatter like a cat-banishing-bomb just went off. Catrina, the oldest (who doesn't seem to believe she's also cat) isn't much bothered by it, but Zabartik usually won't go near the thing.

So imagine my surprise when I found Zabartik taking his nap next to the vacuum cleaner this afternoon.

* * *

It's evening, and my Mister and I have just gotten home from dinner out and a trip to the pet store to stock up on pet food, litter, etc. Now he's beta testing a new MMORPG, Requiem: Bloodymare. Judging by the time it took to patch, and the amount of lag he's running into, a LOT of other people are all beta testing it right now, too.

There's a small but fast moving rainstorm passing through, and I've got the sliding glass door open. The smell of the rain is filling the living room and there's a chorus of frog song drifting in on the breeze. A welcome change after the quiet of winter. Earlier in the year that quiet was broken mostly by Canada geese honking a few blocks away, traffic on the highway a bit farther up the road, and the occasional train horn in the distance. And since it was so cold outside, most of those sounds were muffled or blocked entirely by our double-paned windows. If we were outside, it was often so quiet that when it snowed you could hear the hiss of the flakes as they hit the snow that had already accumulated on the ground.

Now the air is alive with sound. The kind of high, vibrating frog songs we get around here are among my favorite ambient noises. Mix them in with the song birds doing their evening things, the raindrops on the deck, and the rustle of the wind in the newly sprouted leaves and you have a heavenly feast for my ears.

Soon it will get hot and muggy, and we'll have the windows closed again while we run the AC. I'll still be able to go outside to enjoy the frog chorus, but it won't be something I get to enjoy indoors as well. So I'm soaking up the sounds of spring while I can.