Category: Critters

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...And Little E Makes 3 Critters Serious Stuff

You could change your life, and never be the same

Oberon on the day we adopted himIt’s two years today since a lot of stuff happened around here, but perhaps the best way to mark the occasion would be to celebrate Obi Day. Two years ago today, we adopted a fluffy little kitty guy who had been hanging out in our yard for about 48 hours or so. Unlike a lot of other stray kitties who had come and gone over the years, Oberon was laid back enough to pass muster with Othello…and of course, it didn’t take much for Olivia to decide he was a new friend. I’m going to hazard a guess that there are probably all of two months’ difference in Oberon and Olivia’s age. The rest litmus test, though, was always getting Othello’s approval. That was a rare and precious thing. Othello had readily accepted Olivia earlier that year, but she was a tiny kitten and it was pretty easy for him to establish dominance there; Oberon was bigger than Olivia and – more importantly – male, but Oberon never made an attempt to be the alpha male of the house. Even when challenged, he was laid back – he’d give ground. I’m sure that appealed to Othello in his old age. Obi had permission to stay. … Read more

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Critters Music

Show us where the bad cat touched you…

frisky CatNow I remember the other stuff that was eluding me in the wee hours of the morning.

For the past several weeks, Oberon has developed a really peculiar routine whenever I lay down to sleep, and this routine is apparently reserved just for me: after I’ve been laying down for a while, wherever that happens to be, he jumps on one of my legs and starts kneading it relentlessly. If I try to shake him off, he tries to bite down (and doesn’t particularly care if he’s biting a big wad of blanket or my leg) and hold on. It would seem that somebody thinks I’ve got awfully sexy legs, because he certainly seems to be trying to mate with them. Sometimes I get annoyed enough to sit up and remove him, other times he disengages and leaves me alone. When I remove him, there’s a pretty good chance he’ll come back and start again. Before anyone asks, yes, he was neutered when we first took him in (almost exactly two years ago), and no, he doesn’t try to get fresh with Olivia. He harrasses her, sure, but in a nosy brother kind of way. And he doesn’t do this with Evan or my wife.

Face it, I’m irresistible.

In other news, the end-of-the-year favorite-music-podcast-thingie I keep talking about doing is probably going to wind up being a beginning-of-the-year favorite-music-podcast-thingie. I recorded some of my intro pieces a couple of weeks ago before I wound up feeling like chicken fried crap on a full time basis, but I hated how they turned out (iwastalkingwaytoodamnfast), and I haven’t had any kind of voice with which to redo them since I’ve gotten sick. So…probably after the first of the year, I’m afraid.

OK, that’s all. I’m gonna go sit and get molested by my cat again. Bye bye.… Read more

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...And Little E Makes 3 Critters Gadgetology Home Base

Ah great

Once again, Obi’s decided to run out the door full tilt and inspect the property. It upsets me when he does this, on behalf of Evan – he’s supposed to be my little boy’s cat, and ya know, it’s gotta do a real number on your self-esteem when your bestest furry buddy routinely runs away from you.

It’s just as well then that Evan’s spending tomorrow with other members of the family, mainly because his daddy’s sicker than a dog. I’ve taken so much Benadryl in the past 24 hours that I feel like I’ve been smothered with a blanket. Several times. I’m switching to a less ….debilitating antihistamine tonight, to deal with the chills, the fever, the aches and pains, and the fact that the hills are alive with the sound of mucus. And yeah, I know, I’m a real pansy if Benadryl knocks me out. Hey, I’m a square. I don’t drink or do drugs recreationally. It doesn’t take much. I didn’t go to the farm today – which is okay by me. I’m not sure I can handle a farm routine that Hannah isn’t a part of. I’d prefer feeling better to feeling like crap with a crapital crap, but I was relieved to not be at the farm today, as much as it might’ve inconvenienced everyone.

I did make the mistake today of watching some Sarah Jane Adventures; don’t get me wrong, it’s a great little show, and almost more like classic Doctor Who than the current Doctor Who is. It’s gotten a big boost this season from getting to cherry-pick from Who mythology as background info, as well as developing its own ongoing stories. But the two-parter I watched today was a slightly more convoluted take on the Doctor Who episode Father’s Day, with a nearly identical paradox. Benadryl-addled brain + temporal paradox = not my friend. But I kid SJA – it’s a great show, and so amazingly unlike anything that’d be rolled out for the early teen age group over here. In some respects it’s almost Buffy-esque in how it deals with “real life problems.” I’m glad it’s back for a full season in ’09, because with “light duty” for both Doctor Who and Torchwood, it’s gonna be a painful year.

Finally, a big shout-out to Jess Ragan for selling me a shiny new Mobilepro – well, okay, not new, and he keeps trying to warn me that it’s not especially shiny – but it’ll be a huge help to be able to stay connected while on the move. Evan’s entering the “stick everything in his mouth” stage, and as much as I’ve tried to keep hazardous objects out of reach, it stuns me what the little guy comes up with – he finds hazards that I didn’t know were there – and as such, sitting at the computer and merely listening isn’t an option. I either need to be close at hand, actively engaging him, or at least close at hand keeping an eye on him. Not having the means to walk around and do the wi-fi thing has been aggravating for the past month; I look forward to being “on the air” again.

Hopefully there’ll be an Obi cat at my feet while I’m doing it, too.… Read more

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Critters

R.I.P. Hannah, 2001-2008

HannahOkay, this one hurts like hell. Tonight we had to put our seven year old Arabian mare Hannah down. She somehow managed to break her left front leg badly enough that there was bone portruding through the skin; the bone itself was shattered. We got there, with Evan in tow, just before the vet arrived to send Hannah on her way as humanely as possible, and she was still standing up as best she could, still trying to graze, like nothing happened. Evan patted her on the nose, and she gave a contented snort, even though she had to be in a fantastic amount of pain.

My wife hand-picked a stallion to breed Shel Hannah (Hannah’s mom) to in 2000, and Hannah herself arrived in 2001. From the moment her hooves hit the ground, Hannah was the sweetest, calmest horse who ever lived on the family farm. She had a brief bout with a respiratory problem when she was only a week or two old, which nearly killed her. In the week leading up to her birth, and for the week or so that she was sick, my wife was practically living in the barn with Hannah and Shel. It’s no lie to say that we invested everything in that breeding (as well as a Sultry breeding that wasn’t carried to term), but Hannah’s sweet disposition made spending all that time with her easy. (Here’s some video of Hannah and Shel showing off in June 2001.) When Hannah herself was expecting a foal in 2006, my wife camped out in the barn then too; the little guy who emerged was every bit as sweet as Hannah was, but he had cracked a rib just trying to come into the world and died a week later. (I camped out for the week that he was with us, caring for him almost around the clock.)

We hadn’t bred Hannah again, and her bloodline was fairly unique; we always planned to, but the money just wasn’t there, and obviously when Evan came along, priorities changed. I’m ashamed to admit that I can’t even find a photo of her that’s more recent than 2006. I’ve seen her every weekend that I’ve gone up to feed horses (read that as simply “every weekend”), but just haven’t taken any recent pictures.

For anyone who knows anything about horses, and especially Arabians, Hannah was just about perfect. Her carriage was just off-the-scale perfect, and it came naturally to her – she wasn’t showing off, she actually ran like that. We never put her in a show, and I wish now that we had. We came close to selling her a few times, but it never quite panned out, but I never once imagined that we’d have her for so short a time, or that she’d live her entire life on this farm. I never thought it would end like this and I’m having some trouble with that. Deja vu – I’m really getting to hate December: Iago, Sultry, and now Hannah.

Hannah was our own little miracle. She wasn’t a horse that we bought from someone else; she was custom-made just for us. And I doubt I’ll ever meet a horse as gentle as her again. Good night, sweet girl…you’ll always be our little Hannah.

Some pictures follow for anyone who wants to see ’em. … Read more

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...And Little E Makes 3 Critters Music

The opposite of cold dog

We have our first freeze warning of the season tonight, and the wind is positively fierce into the bargain, so Xena’s spending a rare night inside with us. Too bad Evan was already in bed – he’d be delighted to see her. As much as he loves kitties (and he even says “kit-ty!” when he sees one of the cats), he gets so excited and forgets to be gentle. Olivia bears it up to a certain point and runs away; Oberon takes a lot more abuse, probably because he’s bigger and obviously not as “fragile” as Olivia, and will make a token “I’m gonna bite you” gesture before taking off and hiding. (He never actually bites. He just tries to psych the kid out.) With Xena, Evan’s not-so-gentle pats are par for the course. And since he’s learned to say “dog-gie” too, she’s perfectly happy. If he gets too overbearing, she just asks to be let outside – problem solved.

Doctor Who: Series 4I gave the 30-second track-by-track previews for the Doctor Who series 4 soundtrack a listen today, and I’m much more excited about it than I already was – it’ll certainly be better than the series 3 soundtrack, which was heavy on stuff from Human Nature, which, while it was based on my all-time favorite Doctor Who novel, turned out to be far from my favorite episode. Now, the flipside of that is that there seems to be a notable lack of action music from the Sontaran 2-parter on the series 4 CD – at least if the track samples are anything to go by – including the repeated build-up to (and avoidance of) the nuclear launch, but I’m waiting for the CD itself to see if any of that stuff is tucked away somewhere. You can pretty much bet on a couple of selections from this working their way into what’s looking like it’ll be an epic-length year-end favorite-music podcast. With my recent lucky find of a very, very cheap (i.e. less than $3 – yay eBay) copy of Levinhurst’s House By The Sea album, as well as the final trio of Alan Parsons Project remasters, the Doctor Who CD is the last thing on my music want list for this year. At least soundtrack-wise, this has been a dandy year for music (Lost Season 3, Torchwood, Prince Caspian, Wargames, the Stargate direct-to-DVD movies, and new Indiana Jones and Batman music); I’m not complaining too much on the non-soundtrack front either.

How I made the leap from Evan and the dog to soundtrack music, I have no idea. Which probably means I need sleep.… Read more

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...And Little E Makes 3 Critters

Welcome to Evan’s Man Cave (formerly Daddy’s Man Cave)

Evan has figured out how to open and close the door to my game room; the only thing he hasn’t quite gotten his head (or his height) around is the operation of the doorknob (or, for that matter, the lock – daddy senses a bit of doorknob surgery in the near future before that happens…), but other than that, he’s likely to open the door, greet you and welcome you in. I don’t even think this is my game room anymore. :shocked:

He’s also taken on another bizarre habit. He has a blankie horse, you see, and it’s become clear over time that this is his “comfort animal” – his security blanket with a horsie head, if you like. But lately, he’s taken to walking through the house with blankie horse’s head clamped in his teeth, “hands-free.” It took me a moment, and then I realize where he had seen this behavior, and it wasn’t from either of his parents.

PUFFBALL!

My son’s being raised by cats.… Read more

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...And Little E Makes 3 Critters

Catching up (without Depeche Mode)

No real significance to the subject line, just a play on the album title Catching Up With…

Evan and his daddyNothing much to report – here’s Evan all dressed up on Sunday (much more so than his daddy, at any rate), complete with a little tie with a velcro dealie at the back. And I wonder…why aren’t all ties like that? What’s the great stigma of the clip-on tie? I could go further and ask why the hell we’re still bothering with this piece of cloth around our necks anyway, but staying for the moment within the bounds of the idea that the necktie just isn’t going to go anywhere anytime soon…why is there this unspoken demand that it has to be a real tie, tied in a real knot? Is this some arcane test of skill whose use has far outlived its shelf life? Dammit, I want ties that close at the back of the neck with velcro. Then again, I also love ties that look like a big multicolored fish. Formal menswear and I do not play nice together – just be glad I’m clothed at all, society. That’s all I gotta say. … Read more