Good Things Happen in Threes!

"Magic is desire made real." --Diana Bishop, after both her desire and magical prowess exceed her expectations. (Borrowed from A Discovery of Witches: A Novel by Deborah Harkness)

Cloud Number Nine
is where you'll find me,
and here be why:

Inside the special double-issue of Entertainment Weekly that Thomas did deliver Friday morning ~~turning those particular minutes into the brightest and shiniest part of my day, not to make mentions of the plenty of glitter that continues to fall from my sky ever since, because, yes! My postman and I will date again, come Thursday’s evening!~~ was printed this joyful noise:

(My words~~>) To be released 08 February of this very year,
a fiction by writer Deborah Harkness titled:

Reviewd by Karen Valby (Her words, courtesy of my forever bible, Entertainment Weekly):

“Does this sound familiar? A woman falls in love with a moody, chiseled vampire with a great wardrobe and a quick temper. Of course it does, and comparisons between Twilight and Deborah Harkness' extraordinarily fun debut — the first in a planned trilogy — are unavoidable. But A Discovery of Witches, a thoroughly grown-up novel packed with gorgeous historical detail, has a gutsy, brainy heroine to match: Diana Bishop, a renowned scholar of 17th-century chemistry and a descendant of accomplished witches. Diana has spent most of her life resisting the magic within her. The power she's long denied swirls to the forefront, however, when she opens a bewitched manuscript in Oxford's famous Bodleian Library. Suddenly every vampire, witch, and daemon — yes, they walk among us; we humans are just oblivious to their presence — is up in her grill, hungry for the secrets she's unknowingly unlocked. It's 1,500-year-old vampire Matthew who makes the biggest impression. Diana falls madly for him, breaking every rule about interspecies dating. They're a formidable team, which is lucky because Diana's roiling power has unleashed all kinds of crazy.

Harkness writes with thrilling gusto about the magical world. Whether she's describing a yoga class for witches, daemons, and vampires or Diana's benignly haunted house, it's a treat to suspend disbelief. Alas, there's a bit of bloat to the book. In a particularly saggy patch, Diana and Matthew loll around a French castle, checking e-mail and tracing each other's collarbones. But just when I began to wonder whether A Discovery of Witches was nerdy-cute rather than truly magical, the plot accelerated. As the mysteries started to unravel, the pages turned faster, almost as if on their own. By the most satisfying end, Harkness had made me a believer!”

Did your ears catch that?!
It’s a planned trilogy!

. . . . .

Postscript of great importance:

Might I interest you in some

boysenberry
for the go?

Side by side with good news,
it’s a wonderful start to any day!

Come in from the Cold, Josiette, Josiette!

Today and quite suddenly, our wee early morning, earmarked as a the start of a Satchel Packing Day, took a turn! Presently, Josiette and I would be at the close of her and her shiny new, black kitty Clarinet’s makereadies for

(A "something" about Josiette that you might otherwise would not have known, unless this little birdie told you: Upon her return to her charges, she will be celebrating her happiest year yet (number six) as their loving nanny! A well-deserved congratulations be yours, dear “Miss Poppins”!)
their road trip home,

as they shall point themselves in that direction, come bright and dawny Friday. (O the funs and frolics we have pulled from each others pockets during her memory~album~pages~filling, several~weeks stay with me, here, while I am caretaking at Gemmama’s!) Instead, and as if mysteriously triggered by the unlatch of the first suitcase we intended to make thick with freshly foldeds, Josiette did ACHOO! And, then, again...and again...and AGAIN! “Oh, no!” to the very thought of such an untimely, respiratory echo!

All matters regarding the making fluffy of

Josiette’s luggage

were put on ice, as I chop~chop gave answer to her “What ever shall I do?!” “The Brick,” I assured her, “The Brick!” And with scurry in both feet I did trot off to my grandmother's kitchen.

After red~hotting by oven Gemmama’s medicinal ashlar, I placed the block in a pan beneath Josiette’s chair with a flannel covering the seat. Whilst a back~into~her~pajamas sneezer claimed sips from a large cup of ginger and yarrow tea, the minder nurse (<~~~ That would be me!) poured hard humming water over the brick, until the tin it be in was full to the half~way. Swaddle~wrapped in a blanket fat and heavy was my dear Josiette, who I had sit down upon this healing throne.

Spoons of orange Royal
I did nourish her with,
until dew of her own body’s making
began on her face.

Afterwhichbe, a hasty but careful ---so as not to egg on chills, not even those of the slightest rank-–- cleansing rinse of warmed vinegar and water was next called for, followed by a blot~off completely. Then, straight to bed Josiette did go.

At her side and on Gemmama’s famous hilled~ottoman puffy~fabricated from a rich red upholstery with dotting white velveteen tuffs <~~all to mirror a toadstool’s look, ~~~> I perched. As my grandmother’s

phonograph played,

I listened with Josiette to special spots of Truman’s The Thanksgiving Visitor, till Dreamland kindly took her over. Despite delay, her sniffles~in~sleep became purrs of a kitten, and

the hovering Florence Nightingale
that I be
at last breathed a sigh of sweet relief!

In minutes short I will return to Josiette in the cozy Pink Room where she rests, to re~tuck and make coverlets to her chin. As her Nose Nasties continue to shift and lift, at her bedside I shall attentively sit. There and by then, since the knowings can now be counted on as All Is Wells, I will

cast on thirty stitches,

those of which I next shall knit one, purl one, knit six, purl two, (purl one, knit one) five times to make a first row. Row two will behave likewise, only a tadly reversed. So forth and so on but only a little bittle more my needles shall play clicky. Then begin again and finish again two times mair this mesh I’ll make from toty amounts of worsted~weight wool gray.

Once

catnip~stuffed and sewn into closed, I’ll have Mousies enough to treat Gemmama’s Spot, Josiette’s Clarinette, and my very own pointy-eared, fur bundle Puddle! I love when meowing faces smile! And I love happily ever afters, don't you?

Dearest Josiette:

Be well soon.
Love, E.

Postscript: Meant not only as remedy for that which calls for many consecutive geshudteits, vapor baths work their wonder on days when you think the water’s going to carry you away, as well!

Picture Book Illustrations: Mary Poppins by Mary Shepard for P.L. Travers' classic series, Harry Whittier Frees/Kitties!

O Witch Who Emboldens Me, I Am Beholden to Thee

On bended blog~knee, a plenty humble pardons I do beg. Even so it be but a mere wiggle-worm after the calendar’s circled day intended, I am nevertheless tardy sans excuses. A College Witch’s Experiences (who has since bibbity-bobbity-booed into Confessions of a Couuntry Witch) merrily hosted an

“Inspiring Witches Halloween Blog Party” on October 13 (one day x three ago = the wiggle-worm span). Presently, please do consider my late-to-the-table? I send lacey~hearted thank yous!

Ever and again --and consistently, too– it is the little things in life that this Cellar Door draws sweet inspiration from! A perfect illustration: the wee witch I did first encounter in one of my Mother’s well-savored comics, saved back from her early years. With all my heart and soul and, in all likelihood, several select eyes of newt, I wanted to mirror the hocus-y pocus-y do~gooder that

Wendy the Good Little Witch was!

Her certainty to use her magic powers to do all things charitable only, would leave an impression of the most forever lasting kind on me. Miss Wendy, my rooftop let~loose remains uninterrupted: “Estimable” be thy middle name!

Latterly, she would be

realized "live,”
top billing with friendly ghost friend (but and thus farly, not so “live”),
Casper, in the bewitching television movie,

Casper Meets Wendy,
over again and gently reminding me of where I needed to be.

HUZZAH! In the wave of a wand, Miss Wendy has grown up, and guesses be yours? She has flown her besom high plumb! My meaning: again inspiring and delighting, she has successfully navigated another air path yet! This go, it be the literary one called “Authoress”:

(Look what found its way into my shopping basket, today, it did!)

O the courage and sugared inspiration “Wendy” unknowingly and constantly offers! Perhaps, then, my time be the nowly, too?! YES and YAY-HOO! I shall gather my inked snippets and coral my many savings of jottings~downs, and weave them together, because *sniff-sniffle* methinks I might finally be catching scent of a Cellar Door page-turner, bubbling in that shouldered caldron I call “topknot”!

I Dub Thee...

At midnight twice ago, beneath the passing clouds that hid from us the night sky’s sparkles (whose twinklings we so largely hard~hoped would accent our evening’s planned and merry pandemonium, but, alas, could not ~~ yet make do, we did: several strands of blinking yuletide incandescents extention-corded from out the house’s jib door-window, snaked its way to the grapevine arbor where it draped quite nicely and began its stint as a magical, stellary garnish!), my dear friend and house guest, Josiette; her new catta kitty, Clarinet; my from~the~same~kindle tom,

(Look who is sprouting by bounces and pounces!)

Puddle;

Gemma’s gib and my charge while she is Across the Pond, Spot (who, in point of fact, had better things to do, so he was more “there” than “here”); my other dear chum, Soose, and I curled round Soose’s preferred lantern,

a family "heirloom,"
or so he claims (ahem),

middled on one of Gemmama’s plenty big, black sateen bedtop veils in the backgarden. Soose was about to draw the curtain on our ceremony with a reading. As it goes, during the afternoon’s early, whilst Josiette prepared our pre-ceremony supp: her variation of Shepherd’s Pie (Culinary genius that she be, Miss Josiette spins the original receipt by merely substituting the word “Shepherdess” for the word “Shepherd” in its title. VOILA! A more favorful dish indeed!), and

I stoved

a Streuselkin
(Pumpkin Streusel Pie)

for the desserting, Soose searched out Gemmama's library (in which the book is housed) for Mother’s from~when~she~was~a~little~girl edition of Margaret Embrey’s tender and charming and oh so sentimental Halloween story,

The Blue-Nosed Witch.

But first, if you asked our Moments Before, which found us on the coverlet under the outside night, this tale they would tell:

Howbeit I had chosen the name “Puddle” for Puddle upon my first looks at him, his formal Dubbing Ritual had not transpired until minutes ago, because it had to make waits until I settled on a Call Name before the rites could be made true. A Call Name is the name used by a cat’s keeper to literally call his or her pet. Typically, a one-syllable, peaky moniker works best. If it be more than one vocable, it most definitely must shrill the air upon meeting it to be effective.

We cast a magick circle in a clockwise manner and summoned the elemental spirits of Air, Fire, Water, and Earth. On that occasion, in the circle’s center was lighted the lantern’s candle that had been anointed with a few driblets of Catnip essential oil. With arms like a loving cradle, I held my kitten; Josiette, likewise hers. We put gentle strokes to our animal’s fur, and when each began to purr, we visualized the feline surrounded by a protective aura of the whitest light and then nine times we did impart the following prayer (once for each of the cats' nine lives):

Puddle Pie
(Josiette spoke “Clarinet Teasweet”)
is the name I give thee.
Puddle Pie (Josiette again spoke "Clarinette Teasweet")
is the one who ye shall be.
And may the sound
of thy new name
Magick and power ninefold claim.
May ye live free and blessed be
By goddess Bastet. So mote it be!

After the recitations, a consecrated wand traced the scared symbol of the pentacle in the air over each kitten. Along with Soose, we did give thanks, sealing a name to each cat with a forehead kiss. Before uncasting our circle, we bade farewell to the elemental spirits and stilled the candle’s glow. Including sleepyheaded kittens, Josiette and I did then gave listens while Soose read to us from

my favorite childhood novel:

[INTRODUCTION] "Not more than four of five Halloweens ago there was a very young witch named Blanche who owned a broom, a back cat named Brockett, and a bright blue nose. She belonged to a very special scurry of witched, Scurry No. 13, known in the best witch circles all over the country for its beautiful flight formation.

The Grand Madame, who had been leader of the club for as long as any of them could remember, flew center front. She used a vacuum cleaner instead of a broom, and when she gunned her motor it sounded as exciting as a fire engine.

On the far right was Minnie Max waving her blood-red finger nails in the dark; they really did shine like rubies. And on the far left was Blanche’s best friend, Josephine, who had long yellow fluorescent teeth that gleamed like stars.

In between and a little behind flew the nine rather ordinary witches who were only expected to follow the Grand Madame’s lead, and cackle with horrid glee at appropriate times.

And last came Blanche, usually far, far behind. If it hadn’t been for her marvelous blue nose that she could turn on and off at will, she wouldn’t have been allowed in Scurry No. 13 at all...”

POSTSCRIPT: If a cat number two be in my stars, I shall name it

Streusel!