orange tabby – Page 21

I’m not tired. What makes you think I’m tired?

Oh, I don’t know Sam, let’s call it a hunch.

It had been a long day for Sam, he spent the day at the vet getting his teeth cleaned and a tooth removed. We kept him in isolation for the night since he had to be fed in stages and we wanted to keep an eye on him and make sure he didn’t throw up. It wasn’t easy at first as he made several (successful) escape attempts, but I finally got him settled in and he snuggled up in my lap and started purring loudly.

A while later to my great surprise Trixie came sauntering out from under the bed so I had to put her outside the room without letting Sam out. After he finished his food I let Ellie in as she had been patiently waiting on the other side of the door (patiently waiting apart from the occasional loud sigh or tapping of toes) and then Sam and Ellie both took a nap.

He earned his freedom and at the moment is curled up in his usual spot on my legs.

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.

Stopgap

Eight years ago, after accidentally smashing my 24-85mm lens on a hiking trip, I narrowed its replacement down to two Canon lenses, a 17-55mm lens and a 24-105mm lens. The 17-55 was a better fit for my crop camera but making some guesses at Canon’s future plans I figured I would be moving on to full-frame within a couple of years, and so ordered the 24-105 lens.

Looking back I might have made a mistake for I’m still shooting with crop cameras. My reasons for thinking I’d be moving to full-frame weren’t far off, it’s just that it was Nikon who went down the path I thought Canon was going to take. While I like my SLR (the Canon 7D II) quite a bit, I’ve been increasingly frustrated by the limitations of my Canon M mirrorless camera (I guessed wrong on what Canon would do with that system as well), but am not quite ready to commit to a different system yet, so in the meantime I adopted a stopgap solution.

The lens I bought was a Sigma 17-50mm f/2.8 lens, similar to the Canon 17-55mm I looked at all those years ago, but it was both vastly cheaper (it was on sale for the holidays) and can focus closer, important for the pet photography that will be one of the primary uses of the lens. This is our youngest cat Trixie curling up (literally) on my lap while our oldest cat Sam sleeps on my feet. The 7D II I will use it on is much larger and heavier and noisier than my M, but it has a nice Live View mode that lets me hold the camera away from my eyes, and the Sigma strikes a nice balance in being almost as fast as my prime lens on the M, but with the image stabilization of the zoom. This picture was taken at a quarter of a second in the dim lighting of my office, so a fast aperture and image stabilization let me get a picture I often couldn’t get before.

While Canon has been moving in a different direction than I’d prefer on several fronts, I’m very thankful for my cameras, it’s remarkable what we can do today compared to when I started in the mid-90’s. Sony is getting pretty close to having a camera that does most of what I want, and rumors are Canon may get serious about mirrorless next year, but in the meantime the Sigma should tide me over.

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.

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.

Revelry

Sam is slowly — slowly — beginning to accept Trixie. She’s learned, much like Scout with Templeton years ago, that if she comes up to Sam when he’s fast asleep, he might let her curl up next to him. On this occasion she started off in my lap (he’s on my legs) and inched closer and closer. When he didn’t budge, she eased over on her back and stretched her head up onto his body and just reveled in the moment.

Bless her heart she is relentless in trying to win his affection, and it’s starting to work.

Ask Me Your Questions, Mortal

Sam on a higher plane of existence

Exterminate! Exterminate!

Doctor Who fans will understand the title, but our “Dalek” is a recently purchased portable air conditioner. Our long term goal is to have central air but in the meantime, with an unusual and extended heat wave gripping Portland, we picked up a portable unit so at least one of the rooms in the house would be tolerable. Especially so for the 4th of July, our least favorite day of the year, as we keep the windows closed even at night to minimize the noise from fireworks that freak out the pets. And especially so for our aging dog Ellie, who when the first hot days hit was panting just sitting still in my office and is tiring quickly on her walks.

My wife and I brought up our MacBooks and iPads into our little bedroom and all the pets have been hanging out with us, although the cats come and go. This is Sam enjoying the cool air, at first the cats weren’t too sure about the noise of the thing but they came to see it as more friend than foe.