Happy weekend, Cutetropolitans! Reader N. Fritz has a special treat for us this Caturday, from her beautiful garden in Vienna, Austria!
“This is Mutz (technically ‘Kitty’ in Austrian German). Mutz is helping us get ready for our annual garden party in Vienna on Saturday.”
It must be great to be a cat in Vienna, because I assume you can have all the Vienna sausages you can eat.
The garden and Mutz are beautiful. Good luck with the party!
Thank you, Dubravka! It is now 1:30 am in Austria and our guests left about 1/2 an hour ago. Good party, beautiful weather, hedgehogs made an appearance. Mutz (rhymes with “puts” not with “cuts”) skedaddled when three dogs showed up – 43 guests in total!
Hedgehogs?!?!
lol…there’s a forum I used to be fairly active on (these days I only do the Christmas card exchange), and they had a chat room thing that I would hang out in for a while, and one of the other regular chatters once mentioned going for a walk and seeing hedgehogs. We were like, where are you that you see hedgehogs just walking around the neighborhood?!?! He lived in Sweden.
I live in England, and on several occasions I’ve seen young hedgehogs strolling about in broad daylight near busy footpaths – one of them was so engrossed in eating a mushroom it didn’t see me coming, then climbed over my foot on its way back into the long grass!
!!!!!
You have a wonderful space back there Fritz and Mutz is handsome as heck. I am glad your garden party was a great success.
OMG hedgehogs made an appearance? What wonderful planet do you live on?
Here’s the link to the hedgehog post: https://cutetropolis.com/2018/06/07/hedgehog-in-backyard/?ref=ttl
Lovely kitty and lovely garden. Have fun today!
Today’s going to be a crazy day. Getting invaded anytime now by friends and her dad to help us re-organize the garage and remove cabinets that aren’t being used. All that to make room for the old fridge that’s being moved to accommodate our new fridge. Plus her dad is helping us hang a lamp and put an outlet in the garage so we can start charging our electric car at the house. With the way the home owner did things in this place, I’m just praying we either don’t blow up or start a fire. While the guys are doing that, us womenfolk will be in the kitchen having a tamale making party! And I have a feeling tomorrow I’ll be on the couch recuperating. Hope everyone enjoys a sunny and warm summer weekend!
AJ, that sounds like such a nice day and isn’t it such a blessing to have friends to help with things like that?! I totally get the electrical concern, I need mine upgraded but oh well, just a little thing like $$$$. One of these days…
And, N. Fritz and Mutz (such a cute name!) (and what a beautiful kitty!!) all I can say is while it would be great to be a kitty in Vienna, it would be even better to be a human with a kitty in Vienna!!! “The hills are alive…..”
(You know someone would have to go there…”Edelweiss….?”)
Good morning, everyone.
No sleeping in today. Crows, bluejays, robins, and a truly annoying dove all conspired against me. That, and a sinus infection on just one side (can barely see out of my right eye), make for an interesting change from the regular issues going on.
My deck garden is growing slowly, because of the weather (I wouldn’t mind a cooler summer, but many people would). Peas, tomatoes, cucumbers and mini globe carrots are this year’s attempts.
Our back yard got fenced in this week, and the birds and squirrels are discovering that cats can’t get through. I’m enjoying watching the squirrels taunting the cats from behind the chain link. We have at least two squirrel families with babies, and I’m having hysterics watching the babies learn to navigate. I don’t know what is funnier, watching them learn about gravity, or watching them walk sideways on the grass.
We leave on Wednesday for Prince George, but I’m feeling VERY apprehensive about it. BIL is not doing well, and I’m not in the best of health right now, either. People keep telling us we need the break, and it’s only for five days, and we should go, but…
I’m going to have a mug of vanilla tea on the deck and see if that helps. N. Fritz, your Mutz kitty is so cute. (I wonder why autocorrect wanted that to say ‘kittysaurus’?) I think we should all go visit you and help you with your garden party.
Have a great weekend, everyone.
N. Fritz: Mutz is obviously demanding to be the centerpiece of attention. Very pretty kitty.
Duckie: Very lately, I have been able to override my tendency to not get to where I should or could go. I’ve had three weeks of sticking to my plans (even as simple as sitting outside) and showing up to appointments on the first try. Very difficult for an anxious introvert. Try.
I’m okay on day trips. I just seem to have issues with overnights.
Yup. Me too. Haven’t done that in ages.
And good news!
Signed up to take painting classes beginning this coming Tuesday and Wednesday at a local studio. Very excited. I’ll update and post as these works are going to be semi-abstract color experiments with no PTSD flashbacks. ?
Very hot and humid. Chores. Dithering. Taking Millie out tomorrow in cooler weather.
My best to you all!
Dithering! One of my main pursuits!
Lovely garden and kitty!
Today is my youngest grandson’s 1st birthday, so I’ll be at a party this afternoon. The weekend will be spent finishing up a name doily I am making for my late brother’s granddaughter. I have the basic construction done, just the fun stuff to do; weaving in ends, washing and blocking. I think it turned out nicely.
Wow, Patty! It’s lovely! I do so admire filet crochet when other people make it!
Thank you! It’s my least favorite type, even though the results are usually lovely. Graphs are no fun, IMO, especially when I have to make it myself.
N Fritz, Mutz is a gorgeous baby and your garden looks fantastic! I got to visit Vienna many years ago and loved the city–so beautiful and so easy to get around.
Everybody else, wishing you good luck on your weekend projects and health. I’m about to start my freelance workday, but the worst is behind me! Last weekend’s 4-day break (I took an extra day off) made a huge difference. With any luck, I can finish today’s freelance tasks in just a few hours.
Then I can shop for groceries and think about the next home repair projects. Can’t remember if I’ve mentioned it here: I *may* be able to sell the house off-market to a coworker. If not, house goes on the market in early August, after I pack up a bunch of possessions, do a lot of quick cosmetic fixes, and try not to mess anything up while my realtor shows it. Things will be so much easier if my coworker buys it!
Happy Saturday, all.
That dog looks buzzed.
Hey, a lot of people would do that if they thought they could get away with it.
I turned my Cutetropolis calendar to June and saw The Juneteenth had been marked which made me wonder how many people outside of Texas know of its existence?
I know of it, but it deserves much more attention.
Mutz is a very languorous pussy cat, I must say! (does he know what “Mutts” means here in the states?) And a garden party, how nice is that! I hope you have a lovely time – your garden looks lovely.
Faye, I’m so pleased you’re taking a painting class! That’s wonderful.
I’ve been preparing for a workshop in water color that I’m giving at a retreat for people who run senior center sorts of places. I’ve made up kits for 25 participants with everything from a brush, a color wheel, templates, paper, etc. I wanted them to experience good paint so I bought tubes of Winsor Newton (3 colors) and figured out the best way to distribute evenly among the 25 was to liquify them and carefully syringe them into palettes and let them dry out. I think I haven’t charged enough money (how like me) – the prep alone has taken hours and hours. Oh, well, ’til what ’tis.
Have a great day everyone – Duckie, please enjoy your time away – I know it’s hard when there’s so much going on, but you do need time for yourself And feel better – hope the infection clears up. DEBG I hope your coworker buys the house, Patty, your crochet looks great. OH! DEBG! I’ve been finding all these great crocheted shoes on Pinterest – what a cool project – I suspect Ravelry has instructions for them? Great use for flip flops. What if any experience do you have with them?I know you’re a knitter mostly but was wondering. AJ good luck clearing out and making tamales – in no particular order.
Murray C, I *know* Ravelry will have patterns for crocheted shoes because my former company has published similar patterns. You can build them off flipflops or work just the insoles and add sandal soles. That’s all I know–hope it helps.
You grow kitties in your garden?!?!?
They were threatening rain but it seems pretty bright outside.
Just trying to relax right now. This week sucked and I got out of work after 6:00 every day except yesterday, when I actually left at 5:15, went to the bookstore, had my annual strawberry frappucino and got three new books (still have $4 left on my gift card).
…aaand I think I just heard a rumble of thunder….but I see blue sky and fluffy clouds and sun reflecting off the cars in the lot. Maybe it’s on the other side of the building…or possibly a big truck went by on the highway…? I suppose we’ll find out soon enough!
I’m just catching up with everybody’s news because I left before the weekend open tread was on this morning to have breakfast with friend and then catch SOLO at the cinema, then we had diner with my mother in law and stayed to keep her company until my sister in was back form visiting her son. My mother in law is now 98 years old and she’s afraid of being alone in the house for any length of time.
N Fritz, Mutz is gorgeous and I wish I could have been at your garden party to enjoy and appearance by hedgehogs. Ducky try to enjoy your week at Prince George and use the time recharge your batteries. Faye good luck with the painting class. Murray C. how busy you are that workshop sound great.
I hope everybody enjoyed the rest of the weekend.
My weekend got off to a good start with an excellent performance of “The Marriage of Figaro” at the local theatre, and my third book – “A Complete Somersault Into The Orchestra” – is now available on Amazon.
I can’t compete with other Cutetropolitans in the garden department, having only a few window boxes and a patch of soil about the size of a tea tray, but the plants are doing well in spite of last night’s colossal rainstorm. I half-expected to find them battered to death this morning, but they all survived their ordeal and are producing lots of buds.
Many thanks, Mike, for posting pictures of Mutz (rhymes with “puts”)! And thanks to everyone for the well wishes. This was our 14th garden party – my boyfriend grew up near the Central Cemetery in Vienna, and the theme of the first party was “Life and Death and Love and Art” at the Central Cemetery. The theme of this year’s party was “Fakes” (in German “Täuschung und Enttäuschung” – or “Deception and Disappointment”. The biggest disappointment is that I lost my magnetic sunglasses somewhere during the preparations). But no one was disappointed that the resident hedgehog kept popping up. On the contrary, they were delighted!
As a culinary contribution, I made “Fake Rabbit” (Falsche Hase) which is the German expression for meat loaf. I had lots of other “fake food” planned, but couldn’t find most of the ingredients (and couldn’t find the recipes I wanted online!).
The problem with the party is that we have a 24 hour window where we have to do everything to get ready for it. That means buying flowers and planting them in window boxes, buying food and preparing it, cleaning the garage for the book display, cleaning the studio for the buffet, cleaning and moving lots and lots of furniture (we set it up like a beer garden with tables and benches), getting all the glassware and cutlery and dishes ready, making signs, corraling candles, hanging party lights, setting out tiki torches and setting up the book display (we collect books all year and people can stock up on reading materials between entertainment and food).
The morning after the party we have leftovers for breakfast (usually cake and chocolate mousse). Then we have to run all the dishes and glasses through the dishwasher, count the empty bottles and make statistics for next year, clean the benches and tables and put them away, take down the lights, move all the furniture back to its respective places, and… let’s just say that, although the party was deemed a success, I didn’t have much of a weekend!
Wow! It is wonderful of you both to do so much work for the party! Your guests are lucky!
Is there a special discounted parking venue for the Garden show this year? Last year we parked at Etihad & caught a shuttle bus over to the show & returned back to our parking.