Amazing Gadget!

use it to hold harmonica around my neck while i play guitar and sing.
use it to hold up a book or manuscript while i type.
and -- used to hold ipad while i read ebook or do facetime!

in which i make it stop raining

weeks and weeks ago it got rainy a bit almost every day and my shoes would be soaked after a bit of gardening.
then it got rainier, raining some every day, sometimes really really hard.
and HOT too.  the humidity was around 90 to 93%.

how hot was it?  this hot

i've never found rainboots in narrow sizes, but i was desperate and ordered some i found online because people in the comments said they had a narrow fit.

they were due to arrive on Friday.
NOW it will stop raining, i told everyone. because I ORDERED BOOTS.
probably have a draught!

meanwhile it rained even more. and harder.
then FLOOD WATCHES.
and i got stranded in Windsor due to flooded and washed out roads one night and had to call some folks i know and ask to sleep on their floor!

friday came, no boots, flooding getting worse, i realize the email said the NEXT friday.  
don't worry i told everyone, my boots will be here next friday.

by wednesday i was sleeping with essentials all packed and the car facing out right by the road. everything was soaking, the river was roaring and roaring, thunder and lightening were added to the mix.  
more storms moving in for thursday.

a mushroom grew on our doormat!

 but thursday came and YAY the next batch of storms had veered north.  AND MY BOOTS ARRIVED!

aren't they adorable?  no more rain in the forecast.  but SHHHHHH!!! i am sending them back...way to wide to stay on, even with thick socks!  don't tell.

i love them but they won't stay on

go

liz's cat died.
so sad.
but then,
you know i'm sure.

it was her smart cat.
so now will the dumb one be the smart cat?

i mean if you don't care about cats, why are you even on the internet?

anyway it's a chance to reprint (without permission) the best dead cat poem by someone who really gets it.

On the Death of a Cat
- Franz Wright

In life, death
was nothing
to you: I am

willing to wager
my soul that it
simply never occurred

to your nightmare-less
mind, while sleep
was everything

(see it raised
to an infinite
power and perfection)--no death

in you then, so now
how even less. Dear stealth
of innocence

licked polished
to an evil
luster, little

milk fang, whiskered
night
friend--

go.

^ ^

keeping warm before dawn

early morning cat caught on the stove! 
i've never seen him with burnt paws...how does he know when the fire has burned down enough and the stove cooled enough to warm his tum but not hurt?  i often find him here mornings.

teeny xmas book

liz made some teeny tiny books to sell at the xmas craft fair in december.
they were so well made, with such good quality paper, i had to have one.
even tho she had added a ribbon to hang it on the xmas tree,
which is not something i do.
but they were so wonderful, i got one anyway.

after xmas i realized i could write in it if i wanted!
what if i wrote in one every year, what happened on xmas?
what if i'd started this years ago?  

as the chinese saying goes "the best time to plant an apple tree is 10 years ago. 
the second best time is now" 
or something like that.

so i wrote in this one and plan to buy a few more...
let's see, if i live to be 120 i'll need...omg.

well it turned out the darn thing had like 40 some pages! (each page had 2 sides)
here's the first 4 pages (i only wrote on one side)

"now two-thousand twelve is ending"
"tis december twenty five"
"and despite the mayan warning"
"we have managed to survive"

and on and on and on it goes!!

i can haz book?

sewing with CATS

no sewing class or instruction addresses the subject of CATS, but they ought to.
this is not an acronym.  i mean those small furry creatures.
they love to be involved, and they make me laugh so much!

i appreciate their holding down the fabric while i measure or cut.
...until they decide that ...
a. some of the pins would look nice dropped in their water dish (try catching a cat running off with a pin in his mouth!)
b. the voices in their head are telling them there's a mouse under the fabric.
c. it might be useful to find out how much thread is on that spool on top of the sewing machine. 
d. it's cool the way things drop off the table when you push them.

general rules are: 
1. don't leave the room if there is a hot iron on the ironing board
2. don't leave the room if there are pins anywhere in reach
3. don't leave the room if the sewing machine is uncovered (unless you want to have to thread it all over again with slightly chewed thread)

there may be more rules, but meanwhile, here are my helpers:

mouse portal

there's a certain kind of toy mouse my cats like.
they have others of similar size, shape, covering, noise (a rattle sound) but they ignore them.

Barney will bring it to me to throw for him over and over when he's in the mood. Drop it on my foot or under my chair, then stand on hind legs with paws on my thigh and do the "i'm sending you a telepathic message" thing that cats do.  if that doesn't work, the claws go into my thigh.  THROW MY MOUSE!

after a bit the mouse disappears. totally! i've searched under furniture with a flashlight, used a stick under the fridge, cleaned the house (after my fashion).  gone. 

these mice are sold loose from a bowl in the pet supply store. lest they suddenly stop making them or stocking them, as so often happens, i bought a bunch of them to dole out on days when the cats are bored to crabbyness.  they are popular for awhile, then GONE. VANISHED from the earth.

recently john gave them a new orange one.  hank ate the tail right away. by the next morning the orange mouse was still in evidence, and a red mouse had appeared in the food dish. 
by that evening a green mouse had turned up on the rug behind the rocker.

it seems cats have access to some parallel universe.  perhaps our missing socks will begin to reappear now that the portal is open.

STRIPES

don't you love it when the log on the fire
matches the cat on the rug?

early one saturday morning

me:       what's all that noise in there!?
hank:    dis box had spider innit mebbe
me:       who's going to pick up all those styrofoam pellets and put them back in that box!
hank:    i haz to wash dis foot now

castle cats

lucy's second life cat went missing.
i finally rezzed another one
fluffy turned up lost in the castle!
now there are two, fluffy and fussby.

they play together -- and when lucy's not online
they really like getting lost in the castle.
lucy put some chairs down to block the door
it works!

napping 4 dummies

cats indulge in napping as a hobby.

they find new and interesting places, and then take a nap there.

you might say "what a lovely spot for a picnic"

or "we should definitely kayak here"

cats say "what a perfect spot for a nap"

 if they could, they would keep life-lists of places they've napped.

they'd want to nap on every covered bridge in the country

or every lighthouse

or every state park

they'd have slides to show you

an online photo album of their last 100 naps.

humans check right out when they nap

cats nap their way into the sounds and smells and breezes

and especially sunbeams

let them eat ants

it's been awhile since i shared my kitchen with ants. in florida it was normal.
here it is not.
at first it's "eek ants!"
then efforts at improved housekeeping.
eventually they become pets.

i found a tiny hole where some were coming in, and just as i put a bit of duct tape over it, an ant arrived carrying a really good crumb.
what to do!
let her through?  send her on to her next life as perhaps a great bodhisattva?
karma is too complicated for me.  i did nothing.

where is she now?  roaming the kitchen carrying her crumb, endlessly following the ant trails that get her nowhere until she succumbs.
or did she find another way out?

sometimes i let the ants search the counter -- i haven't figured out what they like.
they have ignored a banana, but seem to like an empty cereal bowl.

we moved the cat's dishes to the back room to get them away from the ants.
the cats dumped their water, tore up the newspaper under the dishes and put bits into the dishes, and dumped the dishes.

we moved it all back to the kitchen -- let them eat ants!

a long tailed cat

a visitor recently observed that Barney has an unusually expressive tail. 

it's true!  not only expressive, but quite long and useful. 

we actually measured to be sure it was not an illusion.  his tail is about 2" longer than Hank's.

here's a picture of Barney using his tail for stability on a narrow shelf.

something fishy

caught in the act...
the great St Pete Beach sand investigation
what is this stuff, anyway?

home again

mmmmm so nice to be home and sleep in my own flannel-sheeted bed under my heavy pile of quilts in the land of snow and mud after weeks of sleeping on other people's lumpy sofas and guest beds in the near-tropics.

warning - if you put some beautiful powdery white beach sand in a small zip-lock baggie, your carry-on will be searched and you may be treated as slightly suspicious at first, then dotty afterwards. 

but your cats will enjoy scooping it around in a bowl and tossing it on the floor!

bunny cat

this came to me with the information that Penelope is now a bunny.
then later i received an update that it is not actually Penelope but some other cat that looks like Penelope.
you can believe what you want.

fetch boy! meow!

my cat was was a retriever in his last life, maybe a black lab.

with tiny toy mouse in mouth, he comes to me and drops it on my feet.

impatiently, clawishly, jumponmeandmesswithmylaptopishly he waits for me to pick it up and throw it.

and he brings it back fast!  barely does it leave my hand and he is ON IT!

tiny mouse in mouth, he trots back to my feet.

again and again.

it isn't fair!

i keep cats to avoid such doggy demands.

cat typing

what Barney cat-typed while i was AFK on the phone:

,.nb              mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmpoooooooooooo


.

cat toy!

it's fun to invent new ways for the cats to amuse themselves. 

one cat finds an ice cube in the water dish fascinating, the other doesn't care, he's more of a jock than a philosopher.

recently i dropped a translucent sparkly marble into a quart size tonic bottle, and he played with it for a few days!  that's a success.

then after a few days of ignoring it, he's running it around the house again!

it's a winner!

i see u in there you marble!!!

here they are