cat – Page 70

Suddenly Salmonny Sam

Sam and Emma get a serving of Tiki Cat wet food in the mornings. We’ve alternated flavors over the years, sometimes even getting a variety pack where they get a new flavor every couple of days. That was all good and well but now they’re hooked on Wild Salmon and won’t touch anything else. Emma I can kind of understand, she’s always been a bit picky, but little Samwise was a surprise as he’ll eat anything that isn’t a vegetable.

If they ever discontinue Wild Salmon, may God have mercy on our souls.

The Comforter Has Come

Sam lay beside me on the loveseat, too agitated by the 4th of July fireworks to sleep. Scout came in but walked past her normal spot in my lap or her cat bed and instead lay down beside him. Sam immediately curled into a ball and fell into a deep sleep, safe and secure in his sister’s shadow. Sleep wouldn’t come so easily for Scout, but hours later exhaustion took hold and she too fell asleep.

Soon sleep beckoned me as well and I walked to the bedroom with the darkness murmuring at my feet. The murmurs jumped onto the bed as I approached and I eased myself under the covers so as not to crush them. As Sam and Scout curled up on me the murmurs turned to purrs, the purrs to silence, and at last we all were at rest.

Mr. Ambassador

I’ve been doing a lot of work on my home office lately, but it isn’t just my physical life that’s getting organized. I’ve been shooting digitally since Christmas of 2000 and over the years my pictures ended up pretty scattered around. Worse yet I have gotten hopelessly behind in sorting and editing. Worst of all I wasn’t sure which ones were properly backed up.

So it was time to start getting my digital life in order too.

Thanks to a few days of drudgery, all my pictures are now stored in a common directory format on one big hard drive, loaded into Aperture, and being backed up onto a second hard drive as I type. While loading in my older pictures, I couldn’t help but take a break every so often to play around with a few.

For some reason I never edited this picture of Templeton back in the day, he was inspecting my 15″ Powerbook shortly after it was delivered in May of 2004. I’ve written about the two of them before, so it was kind of funny to see them together at the moment the laptop arrived. I was rather ambivalent about cats until I met him, but he was such an ambassador for the feline kind that I can’t imagine my life without them now.

What a wonderful little creature he was.

Room to Snuggle

Heretofore the only real place to sit in my office has been the Throne of Kings, the recliner we bought when we moved here a decade ago to replace my beloved window seat from the previous house. It’s a Scandinavian style recliner, incredibly comfortable, yet small and lightweight and easy to move about, perfect for my small office. But it has a fatal flaw — there’s no room for a sixty-five pound lap dog.

I’ve been trying to figure out how to re-arrange my office to be able to both have something large enough for Ellie to curl up beside me, yet where I could still recline so that Scout and/or Sam and occasionally Emma could curl up on me as well. A visit to Ikea this weekend appears to have solved the problem. This Kivik loveseat is big enough for Ellie & me, while the footstool on the left is big enough that I can recline on it and the cats can sleep on me as before.

So how come it is Scout curled up on it in this picture (and Sam & Emma are sleeping there now), and not Ellie? Well, she somehow hurt her rear leg and is limping a bit, so she’s confined to bed rest in the basement for now. Not that she’s at all happy about it.

Soon, Ellie, soon.

WWDC Postscript

I loved watching Steve give Apple’s keynotes, even if I wasn’t interested in the products Apple was introducing, as it was infectious to see the enthusiasm he had for the company he founded and the direction they were taking the industry. So hats off to Tim & the team from Cupertino, for while no one on stage today could replace Steve, their love for what they were doing was obvious and I enjoyed the show from start to finish.

What I hoped to glean from the day was what my future computing setup might look like. I’m about to start on the second half of renovating my office and wanted to know what sort of desk arrangement I should plan for. I had been thinking that a MacBook Air / iMac setup might be better for my photography work, but after today I’m not so sure that an iPad / MacBook Pro solution isn’t a better bet.

The biggest surprise from the week came not from Apple but from Emma. She normally likes sleeping on the floor so I’ve kept a bed there for her, but lately she’ll only use the beds of Sam and Scout up on my desk. So I need to make sure my new setup has room for the cat tree, my TV, three cat beds up high, a couch with room enough for Ellie & me, and a desk for my computer.

A tall order for my little office, but I’m not complaining, I love snuggling with the little ones.

The Softest Alarm Clock

Many mornings I wake to these paws poking softly into my cheeks. It’s so adorable I can’t be angry. Plus it’s Scout, The Cat Who Can Do No Wrong. She’s tried a variety of techniques over the years but sticks with the ones that wake me in the best mood. Another technique I love are her gentle little headbutts. She crossed the line when she started flipping my lower lip, thankfully that phase didn’t last too long.

WWDC

We’re all waiting on pins and needles here to see what Apple announces on Monday at their Worldwide Developer’s Conference. We’re so anxious we can barely sleep! Well maybe not all of us. And in fact this picture of Lady Em was taken last summer as she tried to beat the heat by catnapping on the glass table on our porch as she and I enjoyed a nice day in Portland.

Jedi Mind Tricks

When I started reorganizing my office, I moved out an old printer stand that the cats used to sit on when they watched the birds in our garden, so to make amends I moved the cat tree into my office by the window. It towers above my chair so I now spend my days under the intense gaze of my very own gargoyle.

Your mind tricks will not work on me little one!

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have the irresistible urge to dump a bagful of salmon treats all over my floor for no apparent reason.

Yin & Yang

Oh corks! Has it really been almost two months since I last posted? The spigot is getting turned back on, but it’s time for bed so for tonight just a quick pic of Snuggle Twins One and Two bringing balance to the universe.

The Throne of Kings

All the men of the house have loved this chair.

We got it for my office after we moved to Portland and it has been the place I sit most ever since. Templeton liked it too in his day, and now Sam in his. I sat in it a lot the past couple of months as I recuperated from a twisted ankle. The worst part is, I don’t even know how I injured it.

When I explained to Ellie that hedgehogging was temporarily on hold, I expected her to be crestfallen, but instead she got strangely excited and her eyes grew wide. “Put him in the cage!” she shouted to the cats. “Put him in the cage!” they cried. “Put him in the cage!” they shouted as they circled round me. I escaped incarceration from my would-be jailers with a heavy bribe of belly rubs and head scratches and was able to serve my time under general house arrest.