Music, mice and poltergeists

"Vino"

This weekend our ex-cat Vino showed up on the doorstep, strolled in, looked around and demanded to go right back out again. Well, nothing strange about that. But how about this? At 2 am on Saturday, our little kitchen TV turned on all by itself. Honestly. We were jarred awake by a loud, twanging infomercial for country western CD's.

Earlier that evening while I was peacefully reading, a mouse ran out from underneath the bed and toward the kitchen. It's unnerving how they dash around in zig-zags and circles to get where they're going. Or, maybe they don't know where they're going? No wonder they terrify some people. Where is that worthless cat when you need him? Needless to say, I woke up Saturday morning all out of sorts. My nerves were "bad." A Victorian lady would have taken a tonic and stayed in bed.

Instead I went to QFC and bought (among other things) 5 yellow primroses. The morning was warm and cloudy and it felt good to get out of our haunted house during a 20 minute break in the rain. I finally took the Christmas lights off the arbor, pulled the holly out of the window box and planted primroses to keep away the spooks. Then it started to rain again. We had a record high of 55 degrees at SeaTac Airport.

On Saturday afternoon we went downtown and heard a (free) Chopin piano recital at Seattle Public Library. A free concert on a rainy January weekend in Seattle? It was PACKED. But it's hard to ruin a live Chopin performance, even with the auditorium door slamming, babies crying and cell phones going off.

But, the big, big event was Sunday afternoon. (And I don't mean the Seahawks game.) We went to The Barber of Seville at Seattle Opera. More on that later...