Doubling Down On Good Behavior

The tree now has ornaments. It does look much better.

My brother went out and bought several packages of cheap, solid-colored glass balls of different sizes. Most are more or less traditional colors: shades of red, green, gold/yellow and white. But some are just weird. Gray? Brown? Maroon? Seriously?? I can't even imagine on what sort of modernist artificial tree those might be appropriate. We did put up some of the darker traditional colors, but those stayed in their plastic cradles. (They came packaged with the nicer colors. Otherwise he would never have bought them in the first place.)

We refrained from hanging anything on the lowest branches, which does look a little weird but, overall, the tree is better for having ornaments than not. The cats have not taken the bait and are still behaving themselves, although Jasmine gets a longing look in her eyes whenever she sits under the tree and gazes upward. It's the lights.

Paribanour has been especially good considering she's the electronics nut of the clan. Whenever the TV goes on, she has to run over and hop on the table, pressing her nose against the screen and standing as tall as she can to bat at the picture. She crawls around behind and peers around the edges to discover where the sound and imagery comes from and where it all goes when it's turned off. Ditto with my laptop. She's the one who remapped my keyboard for me. Of course, it's not just electronics; any sort of tech fascinates her. She comes over to inspect the faucet whenever the water is turned on or off and has to stick her nose into the flow when I pour water into their drinking dish. I frequently catch her in the sink, inspecting the tap. The Christmas tree lights, however, she is content to lie under and just stare up at.

The train tracks still lie in great piles on the kitchen counter. Moving trains under the tree will be more temptation than any of them can stand, I'm afraid.

And, yet, who knows what my brother may dare next.