Four cats, two dogs, one sysadmin, and a spaceship

I was feeling a little cruddy today so I stayed home and worked.

Somebody flew a spaceship right over my house.

Other than that, I spent much of my day in this chair with a tiny dog on me.

And a cat to my left.

And another dog down on the floor.

When I finally retired to the living room after putting in my eight hours, Olli was gazing at the street.

Dori and the Shnorkie wanted to cuddle

And even Nazca came down to hang out

An evening at Chez Dory

DeLee came over for dinner and then we hung out talking.  Because we're happening that way.  Poor poochie is not feeling so hot so she just snoozed on the sofa.

Andy.  The center of attention.

Nazca, with fricking lasers.  He stuck to the edge of the room.  Just outside of it, actually.

My pet-averse husband

Dory.  Would not hold still for a picture.  Here seen sniffing the woodstove.  I guess that's what the kids are into these days.

Olli.  With fricking lasers.  (Also DeLee)

In which I don't have nearly enough fried food

JD had a hankering for some Chanan's this weekend.  We tried to eat moderately beforehand so as not to blow the calorie budget.  It was a little easier for him since he did 12 miles while I was sleeping in this morning.

Still love the fact that our local joint is a Mongolian grill

I started with soup and plantains, as one does.

And then a bunch of vegetables, a little tofu, and some chicken.  Note:  not as good when  you cut back on the sauces.  It tasted primarily of parsley.

And more veggies, and one piece each of coconut and General Tso's chicken, because they are hard to resist.  Plus several french fry bits.

Then, the traditional honeydew pieces with loquat

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loquat

There was some kind of manufacturing error with my fortune cookie.  I got two cookies (well, one cookie and some crumbs) and three fortunes.

After the restaurant we went grocery shopping.  I stocked up on veggies and fruits.  That was most of the cart actually.  When I got home I cleaned and packaged enough for all my snacks this week.  If nothing else my upcoming week will be crunchy.

Sadly I wasn't actually full after all that.  Or after all that plus grocery shopping plus a couple of hours.  I went into the living room away from all the food to read for a while.  However, I live in a houseful of cats, so I was not left in peace.

First Olli tried to shoot me with his laser beams.  He has cleverly concealed himself under the rug where nobody can see him.  At all.

Dori either doesn't realize how hard it is to read with her between my face and everything else, or she doesn't care.  Guess which.

So it was a pretty exciting day here at Chez Dori.  Whew!  I'm going to have to take a nap to recover.

Achievement unlocked: napping

I finally got a nap today.  I'm not sure how long it's been since I've had a nap.  Weeks if not months.  I fell asleep on the sofa with my shoes on.  Andy the cat was pinning me to the sofa by way of my lap.  DeLee and I were supposed to go out today, but she got some horrible bug bites while we were hiking on Saturday so she was taking it easy and trying not to scratch them.

After I established that we were not, in fact, going anywhere, I wandered into the living room.  I wasn't really thinking nap.  I wasn't thinking much of anything.  I sat on the sofa and invited various cats up to get petted.  However, being cats, they snubbed me as soon as they realized I wanted to pay attention to them.  So I was just reclining there, not thinking about very much, when zzzZZZZZ.

At some point Andy curled up on me.  And then later I felt chilly and took off my shoes and dragged a blanket over me.  Of course Andy left while I was in the shoe-taking-off process.  Only Dori has the fortitude to stick around for that.  But as soon as I was reclined again, I felt the weight and needle pricks of a cat navigating his way around a prone body.

I fell asleep again only to wake up sweaty.  There is no middle ground.  Some day I will probably discover clothing which will keep me comfortable, neither too chilly nor too warm.  Guaranteed the clothing will be too expensive to afford, fragile, ugly, or all three.

So, basically, I got nothing done today.  I haven't left the building.

Although, I *did* swap out the air filter up in the attic.  I think it's the first time this year, which is ridiculous.  What's more ridiculous is the athletic routine required to swap out the filter.  A) I'm not tall enough to reach the rope to pull down the attic door.  B)  Once you get up there, you have to duck walk under a roof support.  C) Once you've gotten under the support, you have to edge across a couple of wobbly boards spanning the chasm over the front hall.  And then of course after you've swapped out the filter you have to reverse the process in the opposite direction.

I wanted to take a look at our gable fan, which has gotten insanely loud, so I didn't reverse the process right away.  First I clambered over the ductwork (which thank goodness can hold my weight, because there is no way to just step over it), then held onto the rafters as I stepped from beam to beam.  The gable fan, is, of course, at the far end of the attic.

I determined that the gable fan is all rusty, but that's not why it's loud.  One support was screwed into one of the 140 year old vent louvers, which has finally come loose after a couple of decades of stress from the fan vibration.  Now whenever the fan comes on it rattles that louver, and the vibration transmits itself throughout the structure of the house.  Even JD's closet door vibrates, at the other end of the house and one story down.  It's delightful.

Still I figure it's time to replace the fan, and we'll attach it to something more solid.  I spent some time shopping online for a replacement fan.  They all look pretty much the same, but the price ranges from $45 to $400+. It's crazy!  How am I supposed to figure out which one to get?  My googling hasn't led me to any independent reviews which might help me decide.  There are actually a bunch of attic gable fan websites, believe it or not.  They aren't helpful.  They say things like "attic gable fans reduce your electrical bill by reducing the heat load in your attic!" as if this were news.  But actually comparing different fan manufacturers?  Not so much.

The most expensive fans have 10 year warranties, and the cheapos have 1 year warranties.  I really would like something that would last 20-30 years as this one appears to have, but I guess people don't really build stuff with the intention of having it last anymore.  I mean, how would that benefit them?

So my Labor Day was spent napping and not buying anything.  You're welcome, economy.  Anytime.

All cat, all the time

A typical morning in our household.

Dory, Andy, and Beauty totally sacked out in the living room.

Nazca on the stairs.  A good location from which to run away.

Olli hogging the heated catbed.

Personalities are becoming more clear.  Olli likes JD, he likes to be on my lap, he likes to get into trouble.  Dory seeks out cuddling but is gradually becoming more independent.

Nazca likes Harry Potter.  I found this out last night.  I put on the first movie and settled in on the sofa.  Nazca bounded over to the tv and set up riiiight in front of it.  When I stopped the movie for a second he poked his nose at the screen to find out why it stopped. 

I have no idea what this has to do with Nazca being fat.  Maybe it's a coincidence?

I somehow ended up with enough diverse characters to do summer stock theater

As I watched the various cats bop around the dining room this morning, I pondered how different they all are.  Andy is an athlete with serious stamina.  Olli is a rowdy frat boy type - athletic, but likely to get fat later.  Dory is friendly, sensual, and trim but not terribly physical.  And poor little Nazca is a whiner.  He's fat, unathletic,  and scared of everything.

The kittens are all from the same litter.  But boy, are they different.

I have had some fine athletic cats in my lifetime.  I can't decide who the most impressive is.  Hoot was crazy strong.  He had no problem jumping to the top of a door and perching there.  But then Figaro would regularly jump up to the top of the fridge and from there bump up a ceiling tile to get into the kitchen.  And they both had a quirky sense of humor.  They were also both fast enough that you generally only got a blur when photographing them.   Both would do really impressive somersaults when chasing those feather-string-stick toys.  Hoot would do his somersaults pretty near the ceiling.

Andy may be the most impressive of them.  He doesn't jump quite as high or move quite as fast, but he has the best endurance of any cat I've met.  We got a mouse in the house about three years ago.  JD and I gave up on it and went to bed after a couple of hours.  Andy sat in the living room, waiting for the mouse.  When I got up, he was still there, still watching.  And less than an hour later he caught that mouse. 

For a creature who normally sleeps most of the day, that's quite impressive.  That's like me sitting up for four days and then running a sprint and wrestling a guy.  Andy is the ace sniper of the cat world.

Possibly because of incidents like that, he is pretty weird about mice.  If there is a mouse in the house, I usually don't find out until after the fact.  He catches them, he eats their little feet, and then he puts them in the food bowl on top of the kibble.  Gross!  But demonstrative of the fact that mice are food to cats. 

I don't know why the feet.  I've been watching cats for thirty years and I have little more insight into their psycho little minds than I did when I was 11.

The other cats I've had (and man, I had lost track of how many there were) were:  1) Scoops, a truly exceptional hunter and magnificent bitch.  She really deserves her own post.  I will say that she killed animals larger than her, that she was far nicer to strangers than to me, that the way to catch her was to grit your teeth and hold out your arm for her to latch onto with all her points, and that her last act was to bite through my hand.  2)  Batty, a complete nebbish.  There was absolutely nothing spectacular about him.  He caught pneumonia as a kitten and was never really healthy or strong after that.  The one thing he did best in all the world was to love me.    You don't have to be impressive to be wonderful.  And finally 3) Trouble, about whom much has been said and written.  He was Scoops' evil twin.  He didn't care to hunt, to the extent that mice would run right in front of him.  But he was definitely a magnificent bastard. 

Ah, Trouble.  Miss you, you old jerk.

A typical Thursday

Pluto was fine when I got there today, although as far as I can tell he hadn't drunk anymore water.  I started to worry, then pondered how many times I could remember seeing him drink water (none) and decided to let it go.  He did a victory lap around the field and then zeroed in on the manure pile, where he pulled a piece of hay out to eat.  So really the question is not "why did he colic?", it's "why doesn't he colic every day?" and also "how is such a smart horse so dumb?"

I attempted to clean the stall he spent the night in, but was stymied by the lack of a wheelbarrow or bedding.  So I left it with a pile of trashed bedding in the middle of it.  Welcome Bonnie!%

Not finishing the stall left  me with time to meet my beloved for lunch, wherein I got free french onion soup.%%  Mmmmm soup.  Love soup time of year.  Which is pretty much 12/12 for me, but who's complaining?  I like soup.

I kicked JD out of lunch and went shopping.  You may or may not be the recipient of an after-lunch Xmas gift, in which case I love you.  If you are not the recipient, I may love you anyway but just not have found the right gift.  The manufacturers are not making the things in my head, which is a pity, because I have wonderful things in my head.%%%

After after lunch, I stopped by the house to gather up Trouble's remaining medical supplies.  JD and I had agreed to donate them back to the animal hospital%%%% where he received all his treatment.  Especially the Aranesp, which is freaking expensive and a damn shame to waste.  Not that I wish anemia on anybody, but I hope somebody needs it before it expires. 

I gifted the hospital staff with Aranesp and sharps%%%%% and then asked to meet the kittens.  JD had taken pictures of them before, jailed in a crate in the middle of the waiting room.  He had mentioned how we didn't have enough cats.  And when we were there on Tuesday to kill Trouble (6), I saw them and they looked just the right amount of insane for me.  We don't need nice furniture or untroubled sleep.  We need cuteness abounding!  And also the opportunity to pet more critters.

I petted critters.  They were freaked out not to be in a crate and to have a stranger petting them.  After a while I returned them to the crate, and then I had a decision to make.  Did I know anything about these cats? (7)  Did I care? (8)  Pretty much with kittens, especially kittens that have been in a weird situation, you're taking a leap into the unknown.  And if you know me, you may find this weird, but I am okay with taking a leap into the unknown.  When it comes to adding a new animal to my life, anyway.  You really don't know what they will be like two weeks after they enter your household.  And that's okay.  Once you've made the decision to live with them, they're family.  And you work with family.  You work around them, if necessary. (9)

Anyway, tomorrow I am going back to apply for adoption of two black kitties. Hijinks may ensue.  Or pictures. (10)

%Sergio said he'd take care of it.

%%Inasmuch as JD paid for it.

%%%Such as items with a tiny label reading "I Am Loved by Mrs Joy"

%%%%A-PAW

%%%%%Look how medical-sounding I am.

6)  Call it what you want, it's killing.

7) No.

8) No.

9) Unless they are heinous child abusing axe-murderers, but I expect six month old kitties not to have gotten to that stage yet.

10) Though in my experience it is hard to take pictures of black cats.

InterContinental Ballistic Lipizzan

My horse has a cat.

I went out to the farm to ride in the dark this evening.  It was our first dark ride of the year.  Pluto thought it was a little exciting and maybe a little scary.  And the scare factor was heightened by the cat.  He showed up when I was grooming Pluto, and that was fine.  He announced himself with a meow.  I petted him, and he went off to inspect some machinery.  But then he started following us.  I was wearing a headlamp, so I'd look back and there'd be two glowing eyes in the dark.  It's a quarter mile walk to the arena (or a half?  I've lost track) and he went all the way over there with us. 

I thought he'd run off, but when Tara and Timber came to the arena he showed up again.  And I commented on the cat, and Tara let me know that in fact Pluto was friends with the cat.  They hang out.  Pluto then demonstrated by nosebombing the cat, who was totally cool with it.

How did I not know that my horse had a cat?*

The non-cat portions of our ride were slightly excitable.  I decided that our first dark ride of the year could all be at the walk, except for the one spook/canter.** After I noticed I had nearly all my weight on one seatbone, I spent the next fifteen minutes or so focused on keeping my weight even.  Pluto totally got into it and started paying all his attention to my hipbones.  For some reason we both found it a really valuable exercise.  I kept the seatbones even and then expanded my chest, keeping my shoulders back.  To be honest he didn't seem to care much about my upper back posture.  But getting my shoulders back let me keep a lighter hand on the reins, and he kind of dug that too.  So for a night where it was dark and scary and catty out, we got some good work done.  He gave me a few excellent steps of leg yield.

Also, for the first and perhaps only time in his life, Pluto was the Good One tonight.  Timber was being a handful.  One wonders if Pluto deliberately was on good behavior after he noticed Timber acting up? There's a very good chance that the Good One will get extra cookies, so maybe.

Oh, let's see, last but not least:  Pluto has figured out that he should not use his teeth AT ALL when he gets cookies.  This is a welcome change.  Also he was stumbling around, tripping on the mounting block today, and it didn't worry him at all.  In the past he would have gone ballistic.***


*I'd have taken a picture but it was dark out.

**And that wasn't my choice.  Thank goodness for full seat britches.

***As in ICBM ballistic.  Lipizzans can go UP.

Delicious barley beverage

I'm drinking a hot beverage.*  And why am I doing that?  Because it's 47 degrees out.  That might seem warm to you if you're in Minnesota, but it was nearly 80 here earlier this week and I have not adjusted.  All my surfaces are cold.  You can feel the cold through my clothes if you put a hand on me, as JD is wont to do.  Fortunately he usually has enough warm to go around. **

I look forward to the change of season, because it means I get to wear different clothes.  They're the same clothes I had last year, but different from what I wore last week.****  Fuzzy sweaters, warm socks, hats, scarves, gloves.. it's all novel for a little while.  By April I will be desperate to wear shorts.  And to do five loads of laundry instead of ten.  Winter clothing is so bulky.

This week has contained something new to me.  Headaches.  I get migraines, yes, but on a schedule.  I don't get, you know, HEADaches.  Like other people, I mean.  Only the left side of my head ever hurts.  But now I'm like regular people.*** I've been squinting at teeny weeny eye-strain-o-vision type while trying to make sure that three columns of similar numbers are all correct.  I've heard that this can give you a headache but I've never experienced it before.  Fortunately it's not bad.  More of an annoyance than anything else. 

With luck tomorrow will involve no numbers.  What it will involve is chili and candy.******  I'm making chili because JD and I disagree on what chili is.  He makes a very nice stew, but it's not chili.  So I must make it myself.  (And it's DELICIOUS.)  He had the nerve to suggest I put it in the ... what do you call those things that slow cook your food?  With a ceramic pot and a heating element?  One of those.  The thing is, chili is supposed to cook down.  Those ceramic thingies just don't do it for me.  There needs to be browning involved.  Preferably a layer of starch actually bonds to the bottom of the pot.  That's when you have good chili.*****  We have habaneros so it should be spicy.  I hope so.  Ideally the top of my head will tingle when I eat it.  Less ideally, I'll probably have a a burning ring of fire the day after.  I consider it a sacrifice to the gods of chili.

*Pero
**So much so that he goes to lengths to get cold before bed so he doesn't roast under the covers.  I'm not sure we're of the same species.
***In this instance only.
****The cat just introduced Christmas lights into the coat closet.  He has lit the Cat Cave.  I am still speculating as to whether or not this was on purpose.

Notice the strand of lights now tucked behind the closet door

Did he do it on purpose, or not?

 

 

*****As long as you're not the one cleaning the pot.
******Oh god, candy.  I hope we have a lot of trick or treaters on Sunday or I'm going to be wearing a bag of candy on my thighs in a week.

How am I the only one who sees this?*

There is a never ending wave of diets in the media.  Everybody is sure that if they eat the right combination of foods, they'll finally get skinny.  Yet the nation gets fatter and fatter.  Even our dogs get fatter.  We've tried the diets.  There are entire genres of food now that didn't exist before we got fat, created solely in the hope of getting us skinnier.  Or rather, capitalizing on our desire to get skinnier.

Yeah, that's not gonna work.

We were not designed to be idle.  Cats, now.  Cats were designed to be idle.  They can sleep twenty three and a half hours a day and still have a perfect feline figure.  Nobody expects them to go to work either.  Maybe I should have been a cat.

Of course I'm not a cat.  I'm a human.  We're actually a compromise in a lot of ways.  We walk upright and our backs never forgive us for it.  We eat meat AND vegetables, and our teeth and digestive system have evolved pretty well to deal with it.  We have virtually no fur but we live cold places.  Fortunately our giant brains have solved the cold problem by inventing clothing.  Or by telling us to steal the skins off of the cats.  (gross!)

But one thing we so far can't seem to compromise on is exercise.  We were designed to move.  We're like horses.  Horses HAVE to move.  They actually can't stay off their feet very long or the weight of their own body will make it too hard to breathe.  (Or so I've heard.)  Without enough exercise, their intestines don't work properly.  Their muscles atrophy and fat develops.  And often they will go a little insane.

Most of us aren't so heavy that lying down is a strain on our lungs, but we have the other problems.  IMHO, it's because we're designed to move.  We aren't designed to sit.  The end product of our current civilization is a populace that sits all the time.  It's given us bad backs by changing the stresses on our back ( to ones our spines and disks aren't prepared to deal with ) and weakening our abdominal support structure.  It's given us hemorrhoids through constant pressure on our bottoms.  We now have weak knees and feet, so when we actually do get a chance to exercise, it hurts.  We have many forms of mental illness that are aggravated by lack of exercise.  And, of course, we're fat.

Grapefruit juice is not going to fix this.  The perfect 1200 calorie diet isn't going to fix it.  We are designed to move, just as we are designed to seek out high calorie foods to offset the famine that never happens.   At the same time, we are lazy.  Evolution set us up just right to be a man on the move.  We want the honey, we want the fatty animal meat.  It gives us the energy to run and seek.  And then we want to collapse and rest so our bodies can recover for a while.  But after that?  We need to be on the go again!

So, Science, please stop looking for the perfect low calorie diet.  How about finding ways to make us more like cats?**  They evolved to the life we have right now.  Somehow they're dealing with it just fine. 

And Everybody Else?  I'm sorry, but you have to exercise.  You were designed to be a long distance hiker, a marathon runner, a manual laborer.  I'm proud of you for using your massive brain to become a doctor, a lawyer, a librarian, a pharmacist, an architect, or something else thinky and sedentary.  But evolution hasn't caught up.  If you want to feel good, you have to move.  A lot.

*I realize I'm not the only one who sees this, but it feels like it sometimes.

**Somehow this post went in an entirely different direction than I was intending.

Trouble says "Go for a walk, Fatty, until evolution catches up with you."