That is a line from a poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay and it pretty much sums up how I feel right now. I guess it's silly to mourn a cat this much, but I do.

I'm coping in the Great American Way: I'm shopping. I have been on the internet buying a hand-tied canopy for my new 4-poster bed, a tablecloth big enough for my new dining table, and a bunch of little stuff I don't need but it looked so good in the catalog. This is all prelude to the shopping I really need to do, but dread -- window coverings. I did hang some drapes in the bedroom, but as for the rest of the house, I am flashing the neighbors. I have always planned to put plantation shutters across the front of the house, but then I saw the prices. OMG!!!

I should probably explain that both my mother's parents were born in Switzerland, which makes her full-blooded Swiss and consequently makes me half-Swiss. From what I've seen, the Swiss make the Scotch look like spendthrifts. And I definitely got the stretch-a-penny-till-it-screams gene. I can't count the number of times I've been in a store and found something I really wanted, but somehow the thought of actually handing over money for it was too much, and I've left empty-handed. That's where I am with the shutters. I want them, I need them, I know I'll love them (sounds like an Elvis song, doesn't it?), but working up the energy to spend the money is taking more time than I anticipated.

To really complicate things, I have incredibly expensive taste (which I cannot afford to indulge.) When I was looking at the tablecloth websites, I came across one with the most beautiful linens I have ever seen. You know that little moment of recognition, of "that's it!", when you see the perfect thing. I had it. I drilled down to the more information screen. The inexpensive tablecloths were $400; the one I liked best did not even have a price listed, and we all know what it means if you have to ask the price. Even if I could afford it, I would struggle with the ethics of spending that kind of money on a tablecloth, and then I would have to consider my family, several of whom seem to have taken after me in the clumsy department. I found another website with amazingly low prices and ordered one of their tablecloths. It did not make my heart sing but it will protect the table from scratches, and that actually is the point.

But I did spend some money that did some good. I send additional birthday and Christmas money to the little girl I sponsor in Kenya, and I just got a letter from her mother saying that she used some of it to buy a goat, then a hen. The goat had kids, the hen had chicks. They have milk, they have eggs, they will soon have meat and something to sell. You have to be careful, when their annual income is so low, not to change their economic status with your gifts, so I think I give M'Wende $20 at Christmas and $15 for her birthday. Now that is more bang for the buck.

I just cheered myself up enormously. Thanks for listening.