Mad Times

Blissing

That thing Alice is licking on is called a "Hot Cats", it's a fabric tube filled with cat nip. We've had that particular one for almost four years and they still seem to like it. Amazing.

Parked

I wasn't feeling well when I got home from work last night so I laid down for a while and soon had this furball planted on my chest. Feline therapy.

Hello down there

Curled

Surrounded

Sleeper with watcher

Holding down the fort

This is from back in the spring. We'd locked the cats in our bedroom for the day when we had our big birthday party. When we let them out they tore around the house to make sure all their stuff was still where it was supposed to be and then Theo planted himself here like an immovable object.

Jungle Gym

When we were looking at this house to buy, we saw this original 1950s mahogany screen in the dining room and immediately thought "cat toy!" and we were right.

They play vigorously until we dig the camera out.

Condo living

I haven't been organized enough to get some cat pictures up in advance for while we're gone so this little scene of domestic bliss (from a couple of weeks ago when it was much cooler) will have to hold Alice and Theo's fans until we get home. See you all in August!

No room for dad

Not sure where they expect me to sleep...

Cooling through cuteness

If this were an action shot it wouldn't be noteworthy, but Alice held this pose long enough for us to notice, find a camera, and take several pictures. Goof.

Sleeping beauties

What's that?

Alice charged the lens of our new camera (Kodak Z730) while I was snapping this picture. It's not quite up to sub-inch macro distances.

Shove off

It looks like she's giving him a neck rub, but no, he's just in the way of her stretching. Those are Becky's legs under that blanket, of course.

Arm rest

Becky and I were looking at something on the computer. Theo was in Beck's lap and crawled over her arm and plunked his chin on my arm. Sat there long enough for me to fish the camera out of my pocket and take several pictures.

Foot rest

I missed getting a picture of her doing this thing she does in these shoes where she's digging digging digging (claws in, fortunately) rubbing her feet across the insoles. Here she is resting. Goofball.

Common ground

Theo and Rhiannon were each delighted to discover common ground in the intersection of Rhiannon's desperate desire to pet the kitty and Theo's boundless love of being brushed.

I can make it

We moved the cats' tree to the front of the house and within minutes Alice was thinking about whether she could make the jump to the top of the bookcases (covered with burlap for the art sale). She must have either decided she couldn't do it or it wasn't worth it cause we haven't seen her up there yet.

Ode to an Outstanding Ottoman

This was one of the babies' favorite spots, but all good things must come to an end and the chair and this, its ottoman, have moved on to their new owner via Freecycle. That was two weeks ago, and strangely the kitties seem not to miss it particularly. This might have something to do with the new location of their tree which I'm sure will be featured some Friday soon.

Guest Cat Blogging: Kitten Bug Crunch

My friend Dan L contributes this week's picture about which he says:

This is one of the five barn kittens that we eventually placed with neighbors. We went out at least twice a day to socialize them, which meant sitting around and tempting them with food and fun. They were resistant to our charms until their mom disappeared one day.

If you missed the call for submissions and would be interested in having your kitty featured here on Mad Times, you'll find the guidelines here.

Suckers for sunshine

The babies do not object to the warm sunny weather we've been having. Not even a little bit.

Whiskers

I'm running out of interesting cat pictures. Need to dress them up or something. We had to do a last minute photo shoot for this one. Theo is trying to figure out why I'm shining a flashlight at him (so the camera can get a focus lock) and then setting off bright flashes in his face.

Watering hole

Alice much prefers fresh water from the tap to her boring old bowl. Often when we walk in to the bathroom she's already sitting on the counter waiting for us to turn the water on for her. Sometimes she drinks like this directly from the faucet, others she sticks her paw under the stream and licks the water off (you can see water drops on her paw in this picture even) Sometimes if she feels she's been waiting on the counter too long she will shout at anyone in earshot to stop whatever pointless activity they're involved in and give the cat her water. Usually the pointless activity in question is sleep. Good thing she's so cute.

Enfolded feline

I'm not sure if Theo knocked this blanket from the chair onto the floor before or after he climbed inside.

Special birthday edition of cat blogging

I made them these lovely hats (snerk) for their birthday. They are nine today.

I couldn't get them to both keep their hats on at the same time. Alice was surprisingly willing to keep hers on for a while, but Theo just couldn't stand it.

I managed to get them both to have the hats on their sides for long enough to snap a picture.

But that's just silly.

Tunnel standoff

This tunnel became suddenly interesting again when it got stuck here after the party. The toy in the foreground is from a party guest who took advantage of the loophole that while we did specify "no gifts" we didn't say "for the kitties".

Sticking together

When mom and dad are running around the house like crazy people, the kids have got to stick together. Early picture this week cause we're in party-prep insanity mode (which would be a thousand times worse if our amazing friend Marilyn weren't doing most of the work!)

Looking down

Choose your toy

More from the wayback machine.

Sleepy babies

Been playing with the scanner so here's one from the archives. This was within a day or two of our bringing Alice and Theo home in May of 1997. Oh, the cuteness!

Comfy cardboard

Becky and Rachel absconded with the iBook where all the backlog of cat pictures lives, so unlike usually you get a freshly shot picture today. I took a couple dozen shots in the crappy dim light in here to get one I could massage into acceptability. It didn't help that Theo kept twitching every time the timer went off to click the shot (even without the fake shutter sounds enabled, the optio makes a tiny tick when it shoots) resulting in blur and startled expressions. I finally settled for this one's mild annoyance.

Where's Alice?

We ask this question frequently around here (much to Rachel's annoyance). The other morning the answer turned out to be: completely wrapped in the bath robe I'd tossed on the floor. Not much of a picture opportunity there so this one from the archives will have to do.

Clement weather

We're having our annual February sun break. This morning it was just warm enough (50+ F) to open up all the doors and windows to exchange a houseful of musty air for a fresh batch. The kitties approved of this measure.

Feline human departure avoidance tactics

As soon as I'd unpacked my backpack from our recent trip to CA, Theo parked himself on it presumably to prevent its being used again.

His master's voice

This is Cosmo. He's looking at my brother-in-law, his human. We're visiting Cosmo's house in California so he gets to be this week's feline. His sister Angie looks pretty much just like him only smaller. Angie is also more shy so she doesn't get her moment of fame this time.

Boxed set

These boxes have been sitting here for more than a month and there's almost always a cat in one or the other of them.

Memorial cat blogging: Oliver 1998-2006

This is Oliver, one of Becky's sister Jennifer's cats. They had to have him put to sleep last Friday. Kidney failure. He was a big gentle galoot of a cat. We'll miss him.

Looking over your shoulder

Catching up with Alice

My apologies to all my cat-junkie readers for the silence of the last few weeks. Here are a few pictures of Alice to make up for the dearth.

Usually Alice covers the vent up completely, but on this day she was feeling generous and let a little warm air out for the rest of us.

In some households all this stuff might go right into the recycle bin, but then where would the kitties sleep?

With all the uncertainty surrounding the water-tightness of our roof we never got around to getting a Christmas tree this year. So I put lights on the cat tree. I don't know if you'll be able to see her, but Alice is peeking out of there.

Oh yeah, comments are back on. I still don't know what went wrong, so it may break again, but for the moment it seems to be working okay.

Happy new year, everyone!

Rorschach cat

I see Thelonious Monk. What do you see?

Sounds like chicken

You really need video to get the full effect here. Alice was rubbing her head back and forth and back and forth and back and forth on this egg carton.

I must apologize to all the cat blogging fans for this late posting. We got back on Saturday from a week in Ocean Shores, WA. If I sat in just the right spot in one room of our suite I could get a sketchy network connection, but it wasn't a very comfortable spot (and I'd already had to spend too much time in it getting all the comment spam deleted).

It was nice to get away for a bit. I spent more time reading books (as you'll see from the minor flood of reviews that will appear over the next few days) than I have in months. We watched some movies both on DVD (Blast From the Past (cute), Closer (completely unrelated form of cute)) and on the big screen (Zathura (don't bother!), Goblet of Fire (midnight show on Thursday) (quite good!)) (the local theatre was about 100 feet from our door). We walked on the beach (dodging cars since this is Washington), ate some good food, and slept. A good time, and I seem to have recharged my supply of parentheses.

Have at you!

Why isn't it moving?

Sometimes Alice just can't get enough of the mouse cursor.

And yes, that perl script does generate an awful lot of warnings. Works, though.

Cozy just doesn't quite cover it

Guest cat

This week we have a guest kitty in the person of Peaches, my sister's cat more recently inherited by my parents. This shot is from back in the hot days of August and out of frame above her there is a ceiling fan. Peaches looks like a sweetheart here, but in point of fact she's kind of a psycho. You don't want to rub her the wrong way or she'll take your arm off.

Picture credit goes to Jerry Youngstrom. Thanks for sharing!

Looking up

Cat in the box

Late again. On Friday we went to see Don Quixote at Book-It! with friends (don't bother. It's way too long a book to survive the Book-It! treatment intact.) and got back late enought that I didn't feel like hunting down a picture to post, then yesterday I had a little computer fast. I'll try to plan ahead for next week and get back to Fridays.

Balance is everything

I was working late last night so we've got Saturday cat blogging. One advantage to having enormous feet (and it's good that there's at least one) is that Theo can comfortably fit in the boxes my shoes come in.

Cozy boy

Sunshine hog

Golden-eyed girl

After Theo got a close-up, Alice wouldn't leave me alone until she got one too.

Waiting for dinner

Flashback

This is a picture of our kitties and their siblings with their mother a couple weeks after they were born eight years ago. Based on this snapshot of their early life, we think their personalities were already pretty well formed since they're both very much in character. See if you can find Alice and Theo in this pile of felinity (though their names were Wilbur and Mikey then.) Click the picture and read the notes to see if you got it right.

Fur circle

For more cat-bloggy goodness, check out Junku's flickr set of airborne cats. One of them is the spitting image of our Alice, and if I had a better camera I could take such pictures of Alice. Though Theo tends to do more flying.

If you're bandwidth challenged, just look at this one.

Too darn hot

It's been sooo hot that the cats have been thiiiisssss long.

That's not a bright orange fez on Alice's tummy, it's a (underexposed, off-white) lampshade in the background.

Sunny side up

I must confess that I did place that egg carton in that patch of sunshine fully expecting that a certain cat would not be able to resist its charms. And, hey look, cuteness!

And if that isn't enough cuteness, Lance Arthur has written some very funny (and extremely profane) songs for his cat, Paris: Paris Songs and Songs for Paris

Double decker

Cat carton

Yes, he's staring at a blank wall.

Sun sponge

Green-eyed boy

Sun worship

I've started using flickr more lately so if you want to see some of my recent pictures, visit my flickr page.

Personal grooming

Sometimes, when Alice has absorbed enough lappy goodness, she forgets to be aloof with her brother long enough to clean his ears for him.

Nap time

*Kill* the monster!

This was taken a couple years ago, moments after Alice unwrapped a new toy from her grandma. You can't really tell from this picture, but it's a little plush green froggy sort of thing with a compartment in its belly for a little teabag-like pouch full of catnip. Alice claimed it immediately (as you can see) and still plays with it quite often. We know this because when we put their toys away her monster (as we call it) is always one of the first things to begin mysteriously moving from place to place in the house when we're not looking.

Bad day for a fur coat

The record high temperatures we've been subjected to these last few days are not welcomed by the kitties. At all. Theo keeps yelling at us and we can tell he just wants us to turn down the heat. The flash makes the fan look stopped. It really is blowing on him. Even as I type this.

Bag boy

Theo likes to ride around in bags. Or just hang around.

Tome cat

Another of Alice's standard poses. Not very conducive to Becky's reading.

Synchronized siblings

Blanket burrow boy

No human intervention is required to get Theo into this sort of pose.

Spinny kitty

One of Alice's favorite games is to get on the office chair and then be cute until someone comes along and spins the chair for her. Usually when you get her spinning pretty good she takes a bath. This girl loves the trippy stuff.

While our kitties are pretty cute it's still hard to imagine a kitty cuter than this one.

Oblivious to spring

Defending the homefront

I need to try to take some more active pictures. Our kids are pretty sedentary, but not quite as much as the last few weeks' pictures make them seem. Here they are in a standoff with the neighbor cat who loves to sit in our carport and stare at them (our kitties are strictly indoor (well, except that Theo gets to go out on a leash once in a while)).

Birthday present

Our babies turned 8 today, and what could be a better present than a pair of black jeans fresh from the dryer? Not only do they get to be all cozy and warm, they also get the added pleasure of coating my outfit with cat hair before I've even had a chance to put it on!

love of tunnel

I was going to try to explain why this little cat tunnel is upside down and situated where it is, but it's a long story and it's not that interesting. I would try to explain why Alice decided to curl herself into a tiny tunnel-filling ball, but I'm afraid it surpasses understanding.

Boy beholds bees

Our baby boy was bemused by this bottle brimming with buzzing bees.

Packing it in

Some call it trash, others recycling, but in the spirit of reuse, you can't beat Alice's repurposing of this packing material.

Siamese couch

Some days it seems like Theo and this couch cushion are joined at the hip.

Watching the British come ashore at Normandy

Undercover cat blogging

Yes, that rug is there to keep the ottoman free of cat hair. Theo didn't get the memo.

Friday Copy Cats

Alice is a tiny little cat, but she is still significantly bigger than a DDD box.

Theo is a big strapping lad so there's just no hope at all. Not that that stops him trying.

In case you hadn't guessed from the rash of picture postings, our wireless is working again. Once you've been able to post from any old flopping spot in the house, having to sit at the pc in the office is just no fun anymore.

<rant>
I ended up just upgrading to the newer qwest router which has integral wireless since they insisted there was nothing wrong with the old router despite the fact that it clearly didn't work the way it once did. Lo, the new one allowed me to undo all the kluged settings they made me do to get connected through the old one. Nothing wrong with it, not a thing.
</rant>

More book reviews this weekend, I promise, Dan. I have a few other things in the works too.

Another week, another cat picture

This one's a rerun for anyone who got our Christmas letter this year. Sorry.

I have a few book reviews queued up. Maybe I'll get around to writing one or two before next Friday rolls around. Time has been absorbed by some other stuff I'll write about one of these days.

All cat blogging, all the time

Another from the archives (I've got a million of em, you'll see). Egg cartons are irresistible, especially when they're precariously balanced atop the recycle bin. I've got another picture from 10 minutes later with Alice in the same pose. Ah heck, here it is:

I assure you that no human intervention was involved in these poses.

Network is still limited to one hardwired windows box hence I can't bring myself to do much blogging (input or output). Next week doesn't look good for working on it either, alas.

Got it!

Second in the occasional Friday Cat Blogging series. That's Alice playing her favorite game: Catch the Tail. The picture is old, from November of 2000, but she still does this any time she comes across a precarious perch, the higher off the floor the better.

BTW, I don't have a good reference monitor at the moment. Leave me a comment or send me email and let me know whether that picture is too light or too dark or just right in your preferred viewing environment.

Wow, it's been quiet around here, hasn't it? We drove to CA the Monday after Xmas to see family and returned this last Monday. With Rachel and Becky and me all taking turns behind the wheel, the 14-hour drive is almost (but not quite) tolerable. At least we were blessed with decent weather in both directions.

Read on for more tales of woe...

When we got back our phone was out. I did the usual troubleshooting and discovered that there is no phone box on the outside of our house. It might be in the crawl space, I'll have to check the next time I'm down there (not soon, please!) Anyway, Qwest came out and found that the problem was at their box where one of our wires had corroded away and broken.

Unfortunately while the phone service came back, the DSL didn't. I got on the phone to their support line and we were able to get the windows box to talk to the network by changing the TCP/IP settings to use 10BaseT instead of the default. Qwest is not interested in determining why this was necessary, nor in determining how to get my wireless access point to talk to their router again. The only way they could get the iBook to talk to it was to hard-wire to the router and use a fixed IP address. The support weenies contend that the fact that these kluges will let my computes talk to the internet proves that there is no problem with their systems and that I should leave them alone and surf the net over a cable like a good little luser. I don't think so!

Anyway, that's all by way of pointing out (unnecessarily, I'm sure) that I've been spending way too much time playing amateur network engineer and way too little playing at being a blogger. Hopefully I can get this junk sorted this weekend and maybe be able to post a couple book reviews and a glove or two in the near future. And catch up on the hundreds of posts in my aggregators.

Cat blogging

Some blogs have a custom of taking a break from their usual content to post pictures of their cats on Fridays. I like the idea (though in my case it will be a break from my usual lack of content. And gloves.), so here's the first in a possibly regular occurrence of Friday Cat Blogging. Those are Theo's toes, BTW.

Oh yeah. Merry Christmas, everyone.