Not yet. But I’m sure it’s coming.
All through the Great Remodel, there was no feeding the cats in the kitchen—just too much dust for health, and too much chaos. With my range free-ranging nearly daily and even the icebox waltzing matilda, the fate of the cats’ food tray, well, it was just impossible, and at times I had to get the Terrible Twosome out of harm’s way of saws and paint.
So I began to feed them in my bedroom, one of the only cluttered-as-may-be but stable places in the house: our bathroom is too small to cuss a cat in (as the saying goes) let alone feed two of them, and the living room was stacked waist-high with boxes.
Well, I decided, now that I have largely de-cluttered my 10’x 12′ bedroom, except the exercise horse and the card table, I decided to send kittehs back to the kitchen. They get a pre-bed snack in their respective owner’s bedrooms, but no more breakfast at CJ’s.
They are not happy with this: they had their post-constitutional-in-the-garden breakfast in the kitchen, then showed up in my room complaining that the bowls in my room were empty. There were worse looks as I put said bowls away.
Both are sleeping off breakfast now, but I’m sure I’ll hear from them.
Oh dear! They don’t forget you know, and memory is strongest when it is least convenient.
I hear you. I moved three of them. Twice. From apartment to duplex, and from duplex to apartment. I lived in the duplex long enough to lose two of the three that moved there with me and pick up two more. The only one who made both moves was a very entitled half siamese that I could only get into a carrier by throwing a towel over him and then stuffing him into it towel and all. I had him nearly 16 years. I lost two of the three in the apartment, including my baby girl (aged 11 and in renal failure) and that obnoxious little white boy I’d had for nearly 16 years and two moves. The fat boy, the only one I have left now, went to the pet hotel for the duration of the move from the apartment to the current duplex, and had to do it by himself. Bless his little kitty heart. It’s been just me and him for the past two years now, and I think part of the stress he feels going to the pet hotel is that the first time he went there, he came home to a whole new house and each time he’s gone there since, he never knows what he will be coming back to.
When you look at it from the kitty point of view, where you sleep is your den. Their getting to sleep there with you is a big prestige point. Being fed in the den by the owner of the den is an even bigger prestige point. To have to eat in the kitchen again is like a demotion.
Also, change is very stressful to kitties. Eating in your room was an anchor point in a swirling mass of disruption where things were moved about and places they had once been allowed to go were suddenly forbidden to them — yes, the reasons were valid, but you have no way of communicating that to them. All they know is that things changed and kept changing and everything was all at sixes and sevens, and there was suddenly a lot of stress in their life — and it is not the first time, although it appears to have been the most extensive and extended of your remodels. Fix on a routine and adhere to it religiously. Give them time to adjust to the “new normal.” Expect some clingyness and some “prove you really do love me by forgiving me for being bad” acting out. Once things have well and truly settled down, so will they.
It’s Zorro’s turn to go to the vet tomorrow. She’s never had great dental health, and since Christmas, she’s been drooling and had more stinky breath (not just catfood), so there’s something up with her teeth again. 2 days ago, one of her canines fell out, although it doesn’t seem to have slowed down her eating any!
Good luck at the vet’s!
Luck to Zorro. If it helps, I narrowly avoided scorching some rice this morning. (Left it too long; my own dang fault.) And this will go with some (wait for it) Hawaiian slow cooker sauce left from fixing pork chops. Heh. (Minus a slow cooker, just used the oven.) Enough sauce to use with something, so rice it is, and that’ll make a nice side dish.
I ordered a pack of fantasy coins, thinking I’d try a little RPG’ing. (I never really have before, and will start on my own once I get an instruction set.) Either they were listed wrong or they were out or the clerk misread the order number. So I got (wait for it) the “Cthulu” set instead of the “Forge Master” set. Sort of understandable, maybe; there are triangular coins in both sets. Well, I’ve reordered. I’m not particularly into Cthulu, and like the Forge Master set better. The Dwarven set is also nice, polygonal coins. — And after going overboard on items needed or not so needed, but not budgeted as much as I spent, I have told myself to behave and watch myself from now on.
The yarn I ordered has arrived, very nice, and the starting book and pattern book, so, hmm, now to get one of those “Round To-Its.”
Today’s weather — Surprising for here. We’ve got a freeze warning with ice or snow possible, black ice warnings for the roads, and places are closed for the day. Other, normal towns used to ice and snow would very likely laugh at this. I don’t think it’ll be as bad as the 80’s and 90’s, when a trip to and from junior college was a true adventure, more so for the other crazy drivers than for my mom, who knew how to drive in icy weather. My mom said it was nerve-wracking, though, and we were both very glad to be home, once we got back. This may or may not be serious today, but given how people here have zero idea how to behave in ice and snow and freezing rain, or hail, well, yeah, it’s a good thing I’m home in the apartment! BTW, it’s nice and cozy and I turned the heat down, too warm, the other day. Getting a little patter of ice / snow / hail (?) against the windows now. It’s supposed to turn bad after noon; i.e., any time now.
The two cats are, as usual, quite pleased with the quality of accommodations here. Heheh. They’ve got me for attention and plenty of food, fresh water, and hmm, a litter box that will be emptied tomorrow, not today, thanks. They are both snug on the bed, the lazy pair. Hahah.
I, however, plan to work some on fonts and then read Emergence.
I have been in a mood for something medieval or piratical or early 19th century lately. My pb copies of the Merovingian Nights books are (maybe) still in storage, but it looks like I can pick up the first and subsequent volumes used. They’re backlist, so no ebook copies, which is unfortunate. I’ve just ordered the first book, used, for an embarrassingly low price by current standards, so I’ll get to read it in a couple of weeks or sooner. I do wish they could be in ebook form.
I also wish there was a good how-to book on EPUB 3 or later, based on HTML5 instead of HTML4. This reminds me to get back to that and really pursue it, so I know how to format ebooks and can DIY. — And I would love to figure out if there are ways to bypass Amazon’s insistence on reformatting, in order to include fonts, color schemes, and the other features of a professional layout in an ebook that would display on color-capable Kindle apps, or in EPUB3 on other platforms.
It’s *snowing*. Yes, *snowing*. This is rare here. Very. So far, it’s a dusting a bit more than frost. If we get enough to truly cover much, I’ll be surprised, but I do remember a couple of good snows when I was a little guy, and maybe twice with something appreciable from college age on. It looks impressive out there, and pretty.
I’m just assuming this is ice or snow, and “wet” snow at that.
I have seen real snow, when I was at college (full university in my first run through). This was exceedingly cold to walk through on campus, with a damp and icy wind, but man, was it beautiful, a real blanket on the ground. (A few hundred miles north makes a big difference. They get snow. We hardly ever do.)
I have also seen, been in, real snow in Virginia and Oklahoma as a little boy in the late 60’s / early 70’s. They get the real thing there, not just a blanket but feet of it.
That’s not what’s happening outside right now, but hey, what we’re getting here, now, is impressive and pretty and will likely be short-lived. Hmm, after 2:00pm now. If we don’t warm up too much before sundown, there’s some chance this might stay overnight. Naw, that’s probably just wishful thinking. But maybe.
I have cocoa mix and some mint chocolate. This is the perfect time to celebrate!
A happy, pleasant winter’s day to all of you. I am sure if I had to walk through this, or work out in it, I would not be quite so cheerful. But this rare event is worth a little good cheer. Have a great day and a great evening and night, everyone. Be well and be loved.
A home-like place, warm in winter, cool in summer, dry in storms, secure and some comfort to it.
A family or something like it, friends, a crew, people one cares about and who care about oneself.
Good food to eat and enough so as not to worry for the weeks ahead. The chance to make good food for everyone to enjoy, not just filling and nutritious, but varied and flavorful and cheering to the spirit, wholesome.
Safety in one’s person and home and belongings. Work that is fulfilling and useful and rewarding, to provide for one’s needs, one’s family and friends, to benefit the community, to build something lasting and worthwhile.
I am not sure what else I would add to the list, but those, chiefly, are what I think would satisfy most people. They’re fairly simple, and yet most of us scrabble most of our lives to make sure we have enough to cover hard times and emergencies, illnesses and accidents, taxes and expenses, all those things of human life.
Be it noted, some societies avoid some of the traps of our modern material culture. Some of them also value material things, creature comforts, technical knowledge, knowledge and craftsmanship in general, and artistic things. And yet, they avoid some of the pitfalls our Western (and Eastern, and several other world cultures) are prone to, the pursuit of money and material things, the falsehoods of individual ownership or responsibility for some things which could just as easily, and maybe more beneficially, be considered as belonging to no one, entrusted to the whole group to maintain, like water, cropland, grazing lands for livestock, natural resources, or the needs of all people for health and wellness and food to eat.
I don’t know what’s the answer, but so much lately has been about the disparity between the 1% who have and the 99% who do not, and that only points out, in my opinion, how wrong-headed we have become, or some flaw in our society, our culture and values, that it can so often be this way, or that it has become so blatantly lopsided.
So at times like this, with the chance to think, I’m pensive, and I’m cheered by the snowy wonder outside, but glad because right now, what I have isn’t perfect, but it’s far better than what I did have for a while, and it’s better than what too many others in my city, right this very minute, have, or can hope to get in the near future.
There must be some good answer to all of this. I want to see a better life for myself, where I don’t worry for my future. I want to see that for those around me, or for the people I don’t know, who need it desperately and have little hope of getting it, for reasons that have nothing to do with how good or bad they are in character or work.
But right now, there’s a bit of snow outside, and it’s beautiful, and natural, and not subject to human notions like greed, and that’s good.
And…it’s dang pretty.
So I’m going to have some hot chocolate with a little mint, and spend a bit of time writing and then some time cozied up with the cats, reading a good book. Books are most excellent things, filled with stories and illustrations and knowledge of what is and what was and what could be. This is a worthwhile thing.
(And by the way, thanks to CJ, Jane, and Lynn, because what they do is art and it matters. It’s that extra little bit beyond the necessities, that fills the need for thought and feeling, and that counts a great deal besides companionship too. So thank you all.)
Yeah, Zorro’s other canine had to go too and a couple more; as few teeth as she has left, I’m hoping this will be the last time she needs to have oral surgery. She was fairly out of it when I brought her home (outside of the usual coming-and-going complaints about staff), but woke up substantially when I opened the can of Fancy Feast. Cat dentures, anyone?
For the recipe subsection: porcupine balls. One pound ground turkey, assorted spices to taste, and half a cup of uncooked white rice smooshed together. Roll into meatballs and brown in skillet, then add to tomato sauce + water (you could do equally well with tomato juice and let it cook down) and let simmer for 45 minutes, occasionally stirring so the meatballs don’t stick; the rice will absorb much of the moisture and cook inside the meatballs. Some of the meatballs may come apart, but overall they hold together fairly well. Dust with Parmesan, if desired.
Aha, thank you. I’d had porcupine balls before; don’t recall who fixed ’em; and they were beef, I think, or a beef and pork mix or just ground pork. Hmm, I don’t know the spice mix that was used, but I can come up with something. Tomato paste could work too; the object is a tomato sauce that cooks down and gets absorbed, incorporated into the rice-meatballs. Sounds easy, too. It’s funny, I’ve never gotten ground pork or ground turkey, just ground beef, but I think I’ll try, for these. Should be enough to fix for one that I could freeze some for later. Hmm, something like a sweet and sour sauce and veggies might go really nicely with that. (I must be in the mood for sweet and sour.)