“Well that is certainly an omen that we are going to have a good day,” I said to my husband one morning last week. He had just gotten up, discovered two furballs on the bathroom floor and cleaned up the mess.

In case you think I was being sarcastic, I wasn’t in the least. Our house is 85% carpeted and soggy furballs plus half-digested stomach contents are a snap to clean up from a tiled bathroom floor. Since the statistical chance of those furballs being catapulted on the tile was very low, we had a stroke of good luck.

The cliche about the half empty or half full glass has some basis in fact. We do get to choose our viewpoints of events.

It would be extremely easy these days to slip into the glass half empty syndrome. Events completely beyond our individual control are hurtling at us from all directions. If you think this is hyperbole, just read the morning news.

But there is good news. We can still find small moments of grace and blessings in our personal lives. For example, my cousin recommended an author to me she thought I might enjoy. I subsequently got one of Alice Steinbach’s books, Educating Alice, and savored every page. I then had my library retrieve her other two books and was equally delighted with them.

And then there’s our furnace. It’s 26 years old and has chosen (thus far) not to break down this winter. Ditto for the dryer. The last time the Maytag repairman visited, he told us that this was the last miracle he could perform. The miracle seems to be having a long shelf life…there have been no screeching sounds coming from the laundry room.

The grocery store was good to me last week as well. I found every item on my list including the Brownberry Ovens Original Wheat Bread which is not delivered to my store in great quantities. I have been eating that bread since I’ve been seven years old and do not intend to stop now.

In summation, I’m booked, warm, dry, well fed and have a husband who will clean up furballs. I must say my glass overfloweth.

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Consider the heart. Such a sublime shape. Two lush, voluptuous curves tapering to a point. A decisive “V” shaped dip in the center. Hearts are bilaterally symmetrical perfection.

Now, consider how unromantic it would be if our universal symbol for love were a square. That would be enough to kill off all thoughts of romance.

Here we are at that delightful time of year when hearts are proliferating everywhere. Valentine’s Day is a heart lover’s heaven, and I’m a fan. From the time I folded that first piece of red construction paper in kindergarten and cut out a heart, I was hooked. I’ve been making them ever since.

The other day I decided to take inventory of all the hearts around our house. Then it seemed like a good idea to photograph them. That led to asking my technically gifted husband to make a video of the results. And what good is a video without music? Fortunately, our family diva extraordinaire, Ivy, agreed to do the vocal. Here is the result, a hearty family collaboration. Feel free to share it…there is no copyright on love.

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We ailurophiles (cat lovers) in America have cause to rejoice. Once again, there is a cat in the White House and our country is in good paws.

The Bidens arrived at the White House with two German Shepherds and a promise of a cat to come. Their older dog, Champ, made a good adjustment, but Major, their three-year-old rescue, couldn’t resist nipping at the Secret Service Agents.

Being responsible pet owners, the Bidens had to address this problem before introducing another animal into the family. Major was sent back to Delaware for more training and a quieter environment.

Unfortunately, days after his reintroduction to White House living, Major had another biting incident. After consulting veterinarians, animal trainers and animal behaviorists, the Bidens decided to give Major to family friends who could give their boy a more sedate lifestyle. This left 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue petless, as their beloved thirteen-year-old, Champ, had died in June.

This past December, a new First Dog arrived. He’s a three-month-old German Shepherd puppy named Commander. Hopes are high that he will grow up thinking the White House is a normal environment and the Secret Service people aren’t invaders.

At last, the time was right for a cat, and, according to Jill Biden, one “was waiting in the wings”. Named after the First Lady’s hometown of Willow Grove, Pennsylvania, Willow is a two-year-old, gray, shorthair tabby. The two met in 2020 at a campaign stop at a Pennsylvania farm. The cat jumped up onto the stage and both decided they were a good pair. Willow was obviously ready for a career in politics.

The First Cat took up residence last week, and according to a White House news release, “Willow is settling into the White House with her favorite toys, treats and plenty of room to smell and explore.”

The President and First Lady no doubt are aware that their puppy and cat might get higher marks in the polls than they will. Being animal lovers, I’m guessing they can handle it. The same could not be said for #45.

P.S. Franklin D. Roosevelt also had a German Shepherd named Major, an ex-police dog. He, too, could not adjust to the White House. In 1933, Major bit both U.S. Senator Hattie Caraway and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Ramsay MacDonald. Major almost ripped off the seat of the Prime Minister’s pants. A pair of replacement pants had to be found before he could exit the executive residence. Major was banished to the Roosevelts’ Hyde Park home.

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I hope our daughter has thawed out. She’s been living in an ice palace for the last two weeks, and it all happened despite her best intentions.

Several years ago, she purchased a thermostat for her furnace with the cozy name of the “Nest”. She was excited about its promise to be environmentally friendly and also reduce her electric bill. Supposedly, sensors in the device would track her movements and warm the rooms she was in. In addition, she could program her desired temperatures for various times of the day, such as when she returned home from work or headed to the bedroom at night.

From the start, the Nest was not behaving well, but she was coping with it. That all ended about two weeks ago when its artificial intelligence took over completely. Think of the movie, 2001: A Space Odyssey, when HAL says, “I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

She came home from work after a recent cold snap and the house was a uniform 53 degrees. Every attempt to manually reset the Nest to a higher temperature failed. The only way she could eke out a few degrees was to walk around in circles in front of the diabolical device.

My husband, the guru of all things computer and electronic, was consulted. Fearing that hypothermia was in our daughter’s future, he took on the Nest. He quickly read all the techie instructions on how to gain back control of the temperature settings. He then began reciting the steps to her only to discover she had tried them all repeatedly to no avail.

A joint decision was made. He would make a house call and kill the Nest. She would go to Home Depot and pick out a new thermostat that would allow her to regain control of her life.

Our daughter returned with the new thermostat and informed us it was “$35 and lobotomized.” Then my husband turned the furnace off, murdered the Nest and, in less than an hour, wired up the new one. When the furnace was turned back on, it purred and purred and purred, filling the house with warmth. We all began shedding coats like butterflies emerging from their cocoons in springtime.

If A.I. is the way of the future, we predict that the A.I.H.R. (Artificial Intelligence Homicide Rate) will soar. And, F.Y.I., the Nest is a Google product.

5

French street artist Youri Cansell, a.k.a. Mantra, loves butterflies. As a child in Metz, he spent hours exploring his parent’s garden while dreaming of being a naturalist. “I was interested, curious and focused on the small life forms in those places,” he explains.

Mantra has taken his love of entomology and turned it into something big, very big. He paints gigantic murals that resemble three-dimensional butterfly specimen cases on buildings around the world. His “fool the eye” optical illusions are sensational, and with help from entomologists, they are also accurate portrayals of local species.

In addition to France, his super-size Lepidoptera have landed on buildings in Spain, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Mexico, Columbia and the United States. My husband and I serendipitously discovered one in Little Rock, Arkansas, and would now like to seek out the others in Bentonville and Fort Smith, Arkansas, as well as Brooklyn, New York.

Mantra explains his goal as follows: “Painting murals internationally has allowed me to get in touch with various communities, appreciate different cultures and languages and despite the current difficulties, connect beyond borders. In turn, I hope to put a smile on people’s faces while they walk by.”

It would be hard not to smile when encountering one of Mantra’s masterpieces. And although he is famous for his butterflies and moths, he is equally adept at painting other species, including humans and arachnids.

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