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
JK;LOL
This is the message you get when you go to www.nasa.gov (among other sites). And the awesome thing about this is, it’s pure spite. There’s no earthly reason to shut down an existing, fully functional website. It’s not like anyone pays hosting fees day-by-day.
If you click through to the list of stuff that isn’t happening due to the ‘shutdown'(LOL), you get a bunch of hilarious drama queenery. The very first bullet point is:
Vital services that ensure seniors and young children have access to healthy food and meals may not have sufficient Federal funds to serve all beneficiaries in an extended lapse.
Translation: Meals on Wheels and Head Start have will run out of money in a few weeks if this keeps up. ZOMG!
The BEST, though, was the veterans thing. Even though most monuments in DC aren’t actually staffed and even though the Park Police are an essential service and still on the job, some bright spark decided to pay people to put up barricades on the Mall. Pure theater.
A group of elderly veterans from Mississippi turned up to see the WWII monument and (with an assist from their Congressman) — dramatic pause — stepped around the barriers and did it anyway. Park Police wisely stood aside and let them.
Anyway, there’s still time for this all to go horribly wrong, but so far Obamacare sucks and the ‘shutdown'(LOL) doesn’t suck. Such timing.
October 1, 2013 — 8:43 pm
Comments: 32
Here we go…
Ted Cruz. Still getting the hang.
Pretty sure I’m on Team Cruz in this thing. I can’t predict how this Mexican standoff will turn out — likely badly for the GOP, but that’s true of every single option that I can see. The media will make sure of it.
So, what the hell? Why not look like bomb throwing maniacs. My mother told me, first promote the notion that you’re a little bit crazy, then people will always be a little bit careful around you.
September 30, 2013 — 10:05 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
OMFG
Is it real? Well, it’s out there. Nobody’s taking responsibility as yet. I can just hear the brainstorming session, though:
“We need healthy young people to sign up for this thing. What do kids like?”
“Pictures of cute animals with funny captions?”
“GO!”
On a related note, we’re thinking of calling the kitten Buster. Short for Filibuster.
September 26, 2013 — 10:19 pm
Comments: 20
Narcissus
Oh, hell no, I didn’t name the kitten Narcissus. We’re still weighing options. And of course he’s tracking the arrow, not looking at himself.
But if I can’t use my new baby to score cheap posts on busy days, what IS the point?
September 25, 2013 — 9:12 pm
Comments: 22
Himself
Big and in color. Go on. You know you want it.
As I suspected from the slightly evasive emails, the big chunky dark ginger boy in the pictures was spoken for. May I present — that cat’s little brother.
This is a seriously tiny kitten. When I said “no way!” to age ten weeks, the woman copped to eight. Yeah, I dunno. He’s as small as Damien was at six weeks, and Damien was a shrimp. Well, we’ll stuff him full of calcium and protein and let him keep his balls as long as practical and see if we can’t big him up a bit.
Anyway, he’s a beautiful, charming little booger. He purred all the way home (almost a two hour trip), got out of his carry box, trotted to the john and had hisself a proper pee and poop (good GOD kitten shit is pungent), followed it with a big meal and now he’s tapped out on Uncle B’s chest, sparko.
I kind of painted myself into a corner here. I told Uncle B if he didn’t come up with a name, I was going to call the cat Jesus Christ Monkey Balls. That was two weeks ago. And. Well. No, it hasn’t stuck, but the poor little bastard is in peril of it sticking.
So here’s what we’re considering so far (audio).
September 24, 2013 — 9:23 pm
Comments: 52
The saddest lil’ chicken in the flock
Oh, god, look at that chicken! She’s fine. I mean she’s bitchier than an imperial crap-load of instant PMS cubes, but that, ladies and gentlemen, is a perfectly natural end-of-season chicken moult.
There’s supposedly a relationship between egg laying and moulting. The better the layer, the faster and more complete the moult. Then a good hen brushes herself off, grows new feathers and gets back to the business of laying eggs.
My girls usually shed a feather or two but otherwise sail through the moult looking okay, but they aren’t exactly cham-peen egg producers. Lucia puts a little more oomph into it, as befits Head Chicken.
Those awesome professional egg-a-day hybrid layers supposedly drop all their feathers in one big go, and you find them next morning clinging to the perch looking like an oven-ready roaster.
Violet didn’t go quite like that, but it was the most spectacular moult I’ve seen. The henhouse was like they’d had a pillow fight in there — feathers EVERYwhere.
And there she was, smoldering in the back of the run, giving me her best stink-eye. I think this process must be pretty uncomfortable, because she’s in an incredibly shitty mood. And she’s not a nice chicken to begin with. We don’t call her Violence for naught.
Anyway — yes, she was easily my best layer this Summer. Here she is in happier times — like, two months ago.
A hard moult is just the price you have to pay to be Miss Awesome Comb 2013.
September 23, 2013 — 9:12 pm
Comments: 17
Baby maybe
Good lord — who knew it would be this hard to find a ginger tom? I’ve been kitten shopping daily for two weeks now with nothing to show for it.
I can find plenty of pedigree cats — especially bengals and birmans — for hundreds of pounds each. For some reason, there are scores of little white, little black and little black and white kittens to be had out there. And tabbies (sorely tempted — I do love me a tabby). Any gingers were either too white or too fluffy (hey, it’s an illustrator thing) or way, way out of our neighborhood.
So, anyway, I think I’ve found a litter of gingers just inside our comfortable day-trip range. One is perfect, one is a little pale, one is a little fluffy and one is a girl. I can’t seem to get a clear answer which one is available, so — FIELD TRIP! I’ll let you know.
Good weekend, all!
September 20, 2013 — 9:43 pm
Comments: 46
Ohhhh…I mean…arrrrr
Oh, I wondered why the websites I visited today were talking all retarded, and the daily specials from Steam were pirate games. Yup. Talk Like a Pirate Day. Again. Gosh, it doesn’t seem like any time at all since the last TLaPD.
No, not a proper post at all, but I didn’t have NOTHING queued up for today, so I’m’onna run with it.
p.s. I bet this isn’t Lucy Worsley’s favorite holiday.
September 19, 2013 — 10:21 pm
Comments: 23