After a yummy stuffed pork chop dinner and a movie, we wandered out onto the deck last night for a short nightcap and to enjoy the evening air. Ricki loves evenings on the deck. She was out there and waiting for us long before we had everything arranged. We finally got our ducks in a row, settled in for the evening, Ricki happily sharing the cushion Dave was resting his feet on, when there’s a slight clump, a clatter, and a bit of a flutter. Next thing we knew Ricki was half way across the deck from where she’d been resting her eyes, now wide awake and keen on a bright green grasshopper.

Well, sometimes her attention was on the grasshopper. He knew the trick of most prey, and stayed quite still between bouts of sudden movement. When he was still, she clearly couldn’t see him at all, and occasionally wandered a few feet off to look into the night, knowing there was something she had been watching, but not clear on exactly what or where it was. Then he’d move again, and they’d be off, cat and grasshopper. They played with each other this way for the better part of an hour. The photo above where Ricki’s looking off into a corner of the deck, when the grasshopper was directly in front of her was taken not long after the two had had a bit of a squabble. The grasshopper won that round by actually briefly landing on Ricki’s back, right at the base of her tail. She certainly kept her distance after that.

At one point the grasshopper decided that being within the cat’s reach was probably not a good idea, so he fluttered up onto the underside of our deck umbrella. You can see him there in the third picture, sitting on the off-white fabric near the string of rope lights. I thought his position way up there was unsporting, so asked Dave to move the grasshopper back down where Ricki could watch him. Dave muttered something about women and bugs, picked the grasshopper up, and set him down where Ricki could easily watch (and not watch) him again.

Our Miss Ricki is has the curiosity of all kitties, but she had no idea what she was supposed to do with a bug this size. She eventually got bored with the whole thing and went back to her cushion to resume her nap.

By the time we were ready to retire, the grasshopper had slowly made his way up the wall to the top of the light fixture we have up there. Dave grabbed him, and tossed him over the deck, at which point the grasshopper quite happily flew out of our lives. He’d had quite the evening.

It’s been ages and ages since you’ve heard a peep about the blue Wanida sock that got started at TNNA and Stitch ‘n Pitch in Ohio in June. There’s finally enough progress to bother reporting it again: the leg is done, the heel turned, the gussets decreased. I’m in the home stretch, knitting along on the foot. Hooray! One day it will even be long enough to start decreasing for the toe. Then I can knit the second sock!

It occurred to me that I built up all this stuff about Classic Elite’s newsletter and my Basket Whip design on Saturday without telling you what they have in common. It’s this: on September 15, my pattern will be featured in Classic Elite’s free weekly newsletter!