So close…
I’ve been playing Mad Jack Keepaway all evening, so no good content from me tonight. That boy is a nutcase.
But have a gander at this. Charlotte is a jealous goddess, so this represents real progress.
We went from: aware he exists, refuses to come in the house. To: aware he is in the house, runs as fast as possible from food bowl to front door and screams to go out. To: aware he is in the house, can curl up and sleep quite happily in the same room unless he hoves in sight, then much hissing and yowling. To: sleeps in the room with him quite happily, hisses and bops him one if he gets too close.
Sooner or later, they WILL curl up together, because cats are heat-seeking missiles, and other cats are soft and warm.
December 4, 2013 — 11:58 pm
Comments: 9
England stuffs
This style of roof is known as a “cat slide”. Okay, I think technically a cat slide is lower on one side and ours is symmetrical, but boy howdy — that cat sure slides purty on it. Go on, you know you want him big and in color.
On Saturday morning, we woke up to the hunt. Well, I didn’t. I slept right through it. But the hunt swept through the neighborhood.
I’m a little disappointed that nobody told us in advance. It’s a trust issue. Fox hunting is still hugely controversial here.
The people agin’ it say it’s impossibly, unnecessarily cruel to the foxes. And destructive of property. And illegal.
The people for it say foxes are vermin, country people have been dealing with them this way for hundreds of years and — Jesus Christ, mind your own business.
I have neighbors on both sides of the argument (though mostly pro-hunt, I suspect). I’m deeply ambivalent about it, but I have decided I don’t have to have an opinion on every little issue. I think this is proper foreigner attitude.
They keep the hunt secret as best they can to avoid protesters (though apparently there were a few), but I would have appreciated a heads up. I’m told when their blood is up, a pack of dogs has been known to sheer off from the main group and kill cats. And chickens. (Yeah, ouch, there’s that ambivalent thing again).
They scared up seven foxes this time, so I heard. They didn’t get them all, though. I sat outside with Jack last night (I have to run him around every few hours to work the satan out of him), and there was one screaming loud ol’ fox in the field next door.
It sounded like somebody was skinning a live swan.
December 3, 2013 — 10:25 pm
Comments: 26
Four walls couldn’t hold him
The plan was to keep Jack in all Winter, then give ‘im the snip and let him go when the weather took a turn for the better. We hoped to have a worry-free few months, and give him as much intact growing time as possible, ifyouknowhwhatImean.
So, rethink. November has been so mild and Jack has been so bounce-off-the-walls crazy, I let him into the garden over the weekend. Not much of a risk at this age; he sticks pretty close to home. The question is, when do his little hormones kick in and lead him astray? In three directions, it’s cat paradise — fields and hedges as far as the eye can see. In the front, a death trap of a really busy road.
I can only hope the weather turns miserable soon.
p.s. If he looks wet, it’s because he got a spritz with the squirt gun every time he chased a chicken. After an hour, he was soaking, and they wouldn’t come out of the henhouse any more.
November 25, 2013 — 10:27 pm
Comments: 21
SEND HELP
Locked in kitchen with fearsome creature. Not allowed out until beast asleep. Much loss of blood. Wifi signal weak, skootch behind fridge to get two bars. Can’t hold out much longer.
Fading.
fading…
November 13, 2013 — 11:49 pm
Comments: 22
Help me, Edna! You’re my only hope!
I had coffee with one of my neighbors this morning. She’s an earthy farmer’s daughter type. I walk in the shop and she stares thoughtfully at my left tit for a moment and says, “you know, I think that’s the largest spider I’ve ever seen.”
I did my best shrieking Lord of the Dance impersonation. After I did, in fact, GEDDIDOFFAME! GEDDIDOFFAME! she said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t think you’d be the type…” Real disappointed-like.
Jesus. Live-and-let-live a placid kitchen spider is one thing, but how many people are cool with flipping tarantulas creeping up their chests?
Anyway, I won’t post a picture of the kind of spider I think it was. I’ve done a spider this week. Have a recent picture of Mad Jack. He’s old enough for his first shots now and he goes in for them tomorrow afternoon.
Today, he fell in the toilet and discovered water.
November 6, 2013 — 11:25 pm
Comments: 26
Service interruption on account of: kitten
Not pictured: tiny needle-sharp fangs sunk in my flesh.
Mad Jack and I have been exiled upstairs, on account of Uncle B is doing data backups and the cat is having a little episode of bugfuck insanity, so I’m afraid this is it for tonight. Talk amongst yourself.
I understand the Obamacare website is having some problems, maybe you can find something in there worthy of conversation.
Oh, hey. Our clocks change this weekend and we’re supposed to have a hell of a storm Sunday night. The weather service is a buncha pansy drama queens, but maybe it will be something after all. Wish us well, and if you don’t hear from me Monday, don’t panic. Good weekend!
October 25, 2013 — 10:39 pm
Comments: 27
Look at that little face. LOOK AT IT!!!
How could anything so tiny and sweet produce such giant squishy radioactive turds five+ times a day? AND he’s starting to drop them in bad places, mostly under the wood stove, where they melt holes in brick.
We’re convinced he was pretty malnourished when he came to us. The home he came from was loving enough, but he was the smallest of ten cats in a small flat with nothing but cheap dry food and lots of competition.
For the first week, he did nothing but eat and sleep and poop and look adorable.
Week two: swashbuckling hell cat! Well, okay, ordinary rambunctious kitten. I’m delighted to see it, for all he’s a pain in the ass sometimes. It’s much more normal. And it’s all a tribute to my strategy of shoving high-quality calories in his little gob at every opportunity.
That probably explains the turds, though.
October 16, 2013 — 9:03 pm
Comments: 23
Ahhhhhh…
Uncle B had to go into London for some tiresome bidness thingie, so this is pretty much what it looks like at Badger Acres today.
The original is not my .gif — it’s something I loved and snagged off the internet a thousand years ago — but I spent a good hour squeezing it and tweaking it and getting weasel all over it (the eye twitch at frame 35 is mine). The current iteration of Photoshop has some much improved animated .gif tools and I’m just getting around to playing with them. I could swear they weren’t there a few months ago, so it must have been a silent update.
I’ll be thrilled if they’re still updating this thing. Adobe is trying so damned hard to get me on the cloud version of P’shop.
Right. And now I think it’s naked videogame and potato chip time. Good weekend, folks!
October 4, 2013 — 5:46 pm
Comments: 20
d’awww
Baby thinks Uncle B’s beard is his mama.
It’s been a week yesterday, and he’s just starting to kitten up. He did nothing but eat, sleep, purr and poop nuclear waste for a week. We think, being the runt in a household of ten cats (did I mention this?), he was chronically malnourished. Oh, they clearly loved their animals well enough, but it was a small flat and a lot of competition.
Now he’s getting bigger by the day, he’s developed the strength to run up and down the bed like a nutcase and ruin sleep. The three of us had a pretty broken night, and the two of us that should have remembered totally forgot an early morning appointment to have the boiler cleaned. There was a hammering on the door in the wee hours and I somehow managed to throw open the front door wearing my jeans inside-out, white pockets waving jauntily.
Yep, I was all tee’d up to post about the shutdown. But frankly, you guys read the same web sites I do and I didn’t have anything original to add.
Except, maybe — thank you, O Lord, for the ham-fisted incompetence of mine enemies.
October 2, 2013 — 11:01 pm
Comments: 17
Well, that went better than expected
No, really. She growled and hissed and tensed like a guy wire on a suspension bridge, but no swipe at him. He’s been around three days, and she’s okay as long as she can’t actually see him. She’s hiding in the back of the house right now.
Last time I took a kitten in, she wouldn’t let me near her for a year. She let me feed her, though. She’s good like that.
Good weekend, folks!
September 27, 2013 — 11:11 pm
Comments: 11