cat – Page 58

Sam Offered Me $1,000,000 Not To Post This Picture

I’m amazed at how far Sam has come in accepting young Trixie.

It has been a long and slow road to be sure. She is relentlessly affectionate and if he gives her an inch of acceptance, she takes a mile. Back in the summer he started letting her curl up next to him (at times), then gradually over the months he’d let her sleep with her head on his legs, then against his chest, all leading up to what she really wanted: sleeping face-to-face. And I mean literally face-to-face, she pushes hers right into his. And bless him he’s allowed her to do it on multiple occasions now, I could hardly blame him if this was a bridge too far.

Which is not to say there aren’t occasionally tears. Sometimes he’d prefer a little more space, and while Trixie has gotten better about reading his moods, there is still more work to be done. And sometimes our young cat just has a little too much energy for her older brother.

They’re curled up next to each other on my legs at the moment after earlier hanging out together under the Christmas tree. How thankful I am that this is the new normal.

Boo the Pillow

Trixie using Boo as a pillow. It took a long while to get Boo to accept Trixie, but our two youngest cats are now friends and can frequently be seen (and heard) running and playing throughout the house. Even so I was a little surprised that Boo let Trixie climb on top of him as they took a nap.

Boo Hangs Out

This was Scout’s beloved cat bed. It’s probably best she didn’t live to see it used in such a disgraceful fashion.

Downtime

Between being overly tired or sick, I’ve spent a lot of time this fall not doing much of anything but sitting on the couch covered in cats. It was supposed to be an easy year for me at work but my project proved unexpectedly difficult and left me mentally tired at the end of the day. To top it off traffic, which has been getting steadily worse since we moved to Portland years ago, crossed a threshold this year and I’m spending almost as much time on the road (and sometimes more) as when we used to live much farther away.

By the time I get home and take Ellie on her walk, eat dinner, and take care of the cats, I’m so tired I fall asleep on the couch surrounded by the little ones. On the weekend I just want to let my brain shift into neutral and not think about much of anything. Making decisions, even minor ones, has gotten more difficult, so I put off what I can. I haven’t been hiking at all this year apart from a few days in January, at first because I didn’t feel up to it after Emma died and later because I was either too tired or didn’t want to get back in the car after dealing with traffic all week.

The past couple of months it feels like I’ve been sleepwalking through my life. I’ve had this post half-written for weeks but stringing nouns and verbs together didn’t sound too appealing in my free time. It wasn’t a conscious decision but I realized I not only wasn’t taking pictures, even of the pets, but wasn’t editing my backlog, usually a favorite way to pass the time.

I’ve taken a few days off to extend my Thanksgiving break and am starting to get back on track. I’ve been able to get a bit more sleep, and this weekend I was back taking pictures of the pets. No hiking yet as I hurt my foot, it’s nothing serious but it hasn’t mended enough to risk it on the trails quite yet. It’d probably heal quicker if I stayed off it and stopped taking Ellie on her walks, but I can’t give that up, it’s one of the best parts of my day.

This picture of Sam sleeping on my legs is from September. He and Trixie are curled up on my legs at the moment, with Boo beside us and Ellie asleep in her dog bed below my feet.

Birth of the Cool

We bought a portable air conditioner to get us through a miserable record-breaking summer and tide us over until we could see if we could get central air conditioning installed in our old house. Boo loved to stick his face into the stream of cool air flowing out of the vents, although I’d guess he was drawn more by curiosity than a need to cool down. We spent so much time in our little bedroom that I almost came to view the air conditioner as a member of our family. While not a large room, it did a fine job keeping the room cool even when it broke 100 degrees outside and despite the body heat from two adults, our black lab, and three cats.

I tried all summer to get this picture of Boo and this was the best result, although it isn’t sharp. I had to move quickly and in the low light my camera usually couldn’t focus fast enough, and if it did because I had to hold the camera out to get the framing I wanted, camera shake made the picture blurry (which is what happened here). Plus the sickly light from the fluorescent bulb in the lamp isn’t that pleasing.

That said, I love the picture and it makes me smile.

Today’s title is a reference to Miles Davis’ groundbreaking album Birth of the Cool.

In Which Boolie Destroys the World

Our cats Boo and Trixie play with an old leather shoelace — It was a major effort to get Boo to accept Trixie, but eventually he not only grew to tolerate her but now even enjoys playing with her. Here they’re goofing around with an old leather shoelace.

A few weeks back I had the worst nightmare I’ve ever had. The earth was going to be destroyed if I didn’t kill Boo and Trixie. They didn’t just have to die, they had to die at my hands. I learned from my mentor that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few — or the one — and since their young lives were forfeit no matter what I did, I agreed to do it. I picked them up and held them in my hands. They gave no resistance.

But I couldn’t do it. I would give my life but I wouldn’t take theirs.

I don’t remember anything else, so presumably the earth was destroyed by whatever malevolent force threatened it. Sorry about that.

A couple of weeks later I had the gentlest nightmare I’ve ever had, consisting of me walking around with my pants pockets overstuffed with pennies. That was the entirety of the horror of the dream, me walking around with jingly-jangly pockets weighed down with worthless currency. As much as I hate pennies, that’s a pretty easy cross to bear.

The Hunger Gaze

One of the things I love about the Canon M is how quiet and unobtrusive it is, which makes it a lot easier to take pictures of the pets without alarming them — despite what Sam’s appearance might suggest. The reason his eyes are wide open and his ears pinned back is that it was nearly dinner time, and he heard a noise downstairs and was at full alert to determine if he was about to be fed, with his ears angled back to pick up any noise coming from beyond the door. He had been curled up in my lap and kept hinting that it was time to be fed, starting about two hours before his actual dinner time. That’s Trixie back there on the bed, we were all hanging out in the room with the air conditioner with the door cracked open so the cats can come and go. Another nice thing about the M is I could put it down by my side to take the picture, so that I could include not just Sam’s hilarious expression (he was staring at the wall, not at me), but also my legs to show he was curled up on my lap, Trixie as a reminder we were all up there, and the slightly open door to show the real reason he was on Red Alert.

This record-shattering summer gave us one last weekend of cruel, hot weather and we had to retreat to the bedroom once again, but this picture is from a month ago. The weather was much cooler today and should stay nice from here on out until we are firmly in fall’s embrace.

Sunshine Sam

A break in the heat allowed us to open the windows during the day, so Sam took advantage to climb to the top of the cat tree to enjoy both fresh air and sunshine.

Lazy Weekend

Not the most productive weekend I’ve ever had, spent much of it with at least one of the cats (and sometimes all three) curled up on me. Sometimes I may have joined them in a nap. Saturday I spent much of the day in our air-conditioned room as the high winds and occasional rain made it hard to keep the windows open and the house was still pretty hot from the past heat wave. Today brought more (much needed) rain but less wind so we could keep most of the windows open, but the wind had stirred something up that upset my sinuses as I was a bit loopy and woozy today.

This picture of a sleepy Sam in my lap is from this afternoon, but he’s in the exact same spot as I write this late at night. I held the camera down at his eye level and over to the side so my legs and feet would be visible, emphasizing that he was curled up in my lap. The ability to move the camera away from my eye is my favorite thing about mirrorless cameras, I do it constantly for my pet pictures. It’s not a stable way to hold the camera though, which is why I’ve been thinking of switching to a camera system that builds stabilization into the camera.

The Angel & The Stained Glass

I loved Boo’s angelic look as he watched birds outside our picture window, with stained glass windows hanging behind him. I believe the windows may be homemade, they were there when we bought the house, I like the flair they add to the room.