Bo the Fruitbat

Bo lives in his own little world, as always. He still attacks all the other cats, playing the "I'm an enormous tiger; grrrrrrr!" game he's so fond of. I've been shooing him away from Willow and BC when he starts beating up on either of them. Today, he leapt under the couch and then attacked my feet when I moved into range. He's a total, 24x7 fruitbat.

Fortunately, Bo is highly susceptible to catnip. The other evening, Bo leapt into the cat carrier I've had in my office from when I took Willow to the vet for boarding while we were at Orycon and snuffled up the bits of catnip that remained there from a while back.

Bo in the cat carrier

Catnip hits the little guy very hard. Within 30 seconds, he'd lost any shreds of dignity and was whapping at anything that moved outside the cat carrier. (I enjoyed seeing the little claws come out through the mesh.)

Bo, cattywhompus

Bo doesn't have to stoned to be strange, though. I caught him leaping onto the kitchen counter a couple of times this weekend but I couldn't figure out why. Finally, the mystery was revealed: Bo was hunting. Hunting what? Pistachios, of course!

Bo stalking the wily pistachio

There was a big bag of pistachios on the counter and they'd apparently been telling him he was ugly and his mother dressed him funny, because he was hot after them. He finally cornered one as it tried to escape and, when it wouldn't talk, he ate it.

Bo eating pistachios

Well, when I was a kid, we had a golden retriever that loved eating apples, so wotthehell, wotthehell? I am only thankful that Bo (who is this very minute attacking the wheel on the other Aeron chair in the office because it had Looked At Him In A Funny Way) suffers from Kitty ADD too much to ever figure out how to actually shell the pistachios; otherwise, we'd have shells from here to breakfast.

Bo the Fruitbat

Willow & BC

Willow is still alive and still in no significant discomfort, but her Time is getting close. Once a plumptious little plush-budget production at 13 or 14 pounds, she's now just skin and bones. I haven't weighed her, but she's probably around 6 pounds, maybe 7 at most.

Willow looking thin

The lump on her rib cage has doubled in size from when we found it. She's still eating (good) and still very affectionate (same as always) whenever I pet her or even say her name -- just saying "Willow?" starts her purring vigorously - - but she's also sitting and sleeping so as not to lie on the side with the tumor, which doubtless causes her some discomfort to lean on.

Willow en basket

Willow still grooms, but she's looking rather ratty around the edges. Like I say, her Time is getting close. I still hope that she dies peacefully and painlessly in her sleep, because I really don't want to have to take her to the vet to have her put down.

Willow perching on the couch

BC has been a bit on the nervous side lately and I'm pretty sure that it's because Willow is sick and he's sensing that. He's been keeping Willow company lately and comes up and touches noses with her, something he hadn't been doing as much of as he used to.

BC keeping Willow company

Old habits don't go away from lack of use, however, and the two of them are still champion synchronized sleepers.

Synchronized sleeping

When not occupied with Willow, BC has been an extraordinary pest for attention lately. He's been jumping all over the desk. Today, he tried jumping into my lap (something that he's done with painful results recently as his claws are long overdue for clipping). Unfortunately, he hadn't considered that he was under the desk at the time and was trying to leap onto my lap under the desk, so the result was that there was a loud bang caused by his head connecting with the desk on the upstroke. He looked a little hurt and very confused but he was okay. History has shown he's got a thick skull.

BC on top of the monitor

Willow & BC

Our Halloween

The biggest thing about Halloween this year (for us at least) was the pumpkins. The Babe wanted to carve pumpkins right before Halloween and so we picked up a couple of likely prospects and went at 'em. I was able to find the pumpkin carving tools and we both did very good jobs of it.

I went with a genie-ish theme this year.

My pumpkin

The Babe, on the other hand, liked a skeletal pirate motif.

The Babe's pumpkin

We had cut the bottoms of the pumpkins out rather than the tops, so they set nicely on the ground. We also carved a big chimney hole in the back so the candles would burn well. I put a big candle in each one and we had two really great looking pumpkins.

My pumpkin in the dark

The Babe's pumpkin in the dark

My pumpkin looked pretty good in the light, but the Babe's looked awesome in the dark!

We actually had a fair number of kids this year. Most notable was the first set of trick-or-treaters. I heard the doorbell ring and I looked out through the glass and I saw… no kids. I only saw a big blue recycle bin, one of the 60-gallon ones with wheels. My first thought was along the lines of "Ohhhhhhhhkaaaaaaaay, this is too big for the 'burning-bag-of-dogpoop' trick" followed by some vague recollections of childhood nightmares of large boxlike things coming after me. But I could not figure out what was going on. Rather cautiously, I opened the door and stood there for a moment. I think I even said "Hello?"

BANG! The lid of the recycle bin burst off and a 12-year-old boy leapt up while his two compatriots in crime jumped from their hiding places in the bushes on either side of the house and they all yelled "TRICK OR TREAT!" as loudly as they could. I'm sure I made their night: I went "Ahhhhhh!" in surprise, my arms and legs waved, and I generally looked pretty idiotic. They laughed. I gave them a lot of candy; it was a heckuva good gag.

Sidenote: Okay, so I'm slow on the uptake sometime. Years ago, when someone called me at 2 in the bloody morning and said "Does your refrigerator run?" I was so befuddled by sleep that I actually said "Yes" before the filters kicked in. (The anonymous caller then said, "Well, you'd better get it, it's running down the street!" and hung up to the sounds of laughter in the background. I stood there in the living room staring at the phone for a moment, smiled, and said "Not bad!")

I was the trio's first victim of the evening. After a brief discussion of who got to be in the recycle bin next time, the chosen one clambered inside and closed the lid, then the other two wheeled their lifesize jack-in-the-box off to the next sucker's house.

Who says that kids today don't show initiative?

Our Halloween

These are a few of my favorite things

Well, two anyway: here are a couple pictures of BC curled up next to one of the banjos.

BC and a banjo

BC and a banjo

And yes, I found the widget for the digicam's memory card. I've uploaded a bunch of new pictures from Halloween, Orycon, and the kitties to my Flickr photo account and I'll be posting them with appropriate text shortly.

These are a few of my favorite things

Have you been touched by His Noodly Appendage?

Many of you may already have seen this, but just in case, here's something you should take a look at.

Given the current flap over "Intelligent Design" (which is supported by people who are generally the counter-proof to the very concept), you may enjoy this. If there's a premise for an all-powerful Gawd, then there's no reason whatsoever why it can't be in any stupid form you choose. The popular model is pretty anthropomorphic, so it's nice to see someone who's got a better sense of balance for non-anthropomorphic deities.

Have you been touched by His Noodly Appendage?

Have you been touched by His Noodly Appendage?

Reed newsletter

I got my copy of the Reed College Alumni Newsletter today and the blog got mentioned in the note about me in the alumni news section. Cool. :)

And I still haven't spotted the memory card adapter. Sheesh.

Reed newsletter

Darnit, I had it here just a moment ago...

The adapter for the memory card is missing from the camera bag. Lots of pictures will be coming shortly as soon as I find it. (It's probably in the bottom of my shoulder bag; everything else seems to be there along with all the pens in the world.)

Won't be long. Talk amongst yourselves.

Darnit, I had it here just a moment ago...