sleeping – Page 25

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.

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.

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.

Little Lover

Trixie is probably a little over a year old now and weighs in at about 7 pounds. She’ll fill out a bit more with time but the vet’s prediction when we adopted her is proving itself true, she’s going to be a pretty small cat. She’s our first tortoiseshell, some claim that torties have a lot of attitude but so far our little lover has been sweet and affectionate and particularly enjoys rubbing noses. Fair warning, biting them too.

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.

Sam in a Sunbeam

Sam enjoys the warmth of the sun as he naps in our living room.

Our snuggly Sam has mostly returned to form after a difficult couple of years when he lost both of his older sisters, he has been glommed all over me this weekend and when I get up steals my spot, then when I return lets me pick him up and he goes right back to snuggling. The one thing we’re working on is that he’s not ready to let his new sister Trixie snuggle up with him. Bless her heart, she keeps trying and will approach submissively so he can lick her head, but he’s still rather agitated and will end up nipping her and moving away. There has been some progress and I think he’ll come around, we’ve had some snuggly cats before but Sam is in a class of his own. I think he’ll appreciate the extra snuggling partner that he hasn’t had since Scout died.

Some Days I Don’t Get Much Done …

… but I can’t figure out why.

Changes

A lot has changed since I took this picture of a sleepy Sam a few years ago. The mattress and box springs of the bed he’s sleeping on have been replaced, and we took the bed off the frame so our aging dog could still get up on the bed. The curtains have been replaced with knockout shades that do a much better job of blocking out light.

But the big change for Sam was that then, he was the youngest of three cats, and now he’s the oldest of three. The deaths of Scout and Emma have been hard on the little fellow. Yesterday he was fed up with his younger siblings and swatted at them if they even came close, but last night went a little better. He climbed in my lap when I went to bed and then Trixie jumped up and lay down on my chest. She stayed for a little while but then she snuck down to curl up beside him, a maneuver she’s tried a lot lately, which usually ends with Sam swatting or biting her and then running off. I reached down to pet him and he stayed for a while, but then got up. To my surprise though he didn’t leave but lay down beside me with my leg separating the two of them, and both seemed happy with the arrangement.

Trixie was gone when I woke in the morning, but Sam was back in my lap.