Possumblog

Pictures!

What better way to not blog than by posting pictures! (Aside from not posting pictures.)

A few shots from this year:

First off, PETS!!

Playing the part of Rafiki, Catherine. Playing the part of infant Simba being held up for approval of all the animals of the savannah, a very perturbed Lightning.

Brilliant.

Enjoying the sunshine and dreams of chasing rabbits or rawhide bones, it's Patches.

AWwwwwww!

Next up, some of you might be aware that the South was covered in a huge thick blanket of snow a couple of weekends ago. The teevee stations breathlessly dubbed this dangerous band of weather "WINTER STORM '08!" and gave it round-the-clock coverage.

It started about 11 a.m., was over by about 1:30, and left a killing choking layer of frozen precipitation nearly half an inch thick. It all melted by 5:00.

But dangitall, it was SNOW, and the kids have been irritated for several years now that the evil McBushitlerburton weather machine had not produced anything appropriately wintertime-frosty, so they were ecstatic. While it lasted. (Oh, ignore the date stamp--this actually happened on the 19th.)

Anyway, the first snowball:

Boy holds up two rather pitiful competitors in the snowball arms race:

Next, a tiny snowman, his tinier snow-progeny, a tiny snow-dog, and a giant ball of snow, all perched upon the gas grill to represent the growing danger of global warming:

Global warming, though, is trumped by the threat posed by giant extraterrestrial canines transported to earth by a race of earmuff-wearing Amazons:

The front of Casa de Possum, looking almost New England wintry. This was taken about an hour past the height of the blizzard.

The Volvo looks right at home--

I sorta wish it had that layer of snow on it all the time. Helps cover up the faded paint on the upper side. Also, if it had snow on it all the time, I would ride around with this on my back window all the time:

I live for constant positive reinforcement, you know.

In other family news, Miss Reba had herself a birthday! As you can see from the candles on the cake, she's three.

She's actually 48, and danged hot, if I do say so myself.

So, that's it for the family, although there is a dearth of pictures of Oldest, who does not take well to being candidly snapped.

And me? Oh, well, yeah, I guess there's a few shots of your host as well. Acting silly, as usual.

Hey, do you like those little butter mints like they have at baby showers and junk like that? Me too!

What a moron.

Here I am all dressed up acting like a moron:

AND FINALLY, this past Sunday we appointments to have our pictures made at church for the directory. This is what it looks like when I have to wait for something:

Well, there you go.

Back to work now.

KITTY!

A blast from the past for you today!

From one year ago:

Awwwww! im in ur armzz!!1! Teh kuteness!

KITTY!

Okay, not really. But you have to admit, Catblogging Fridays have gotten pretty much played out, even amongst the top-quality A-list bloggers. Therefore, I have decided to do something completely different:

Foreignconstructionworkerblogging!

My Friend Jeff™ sent me these yesterday, and they are quite instructive in illuminating the handy building practices practiced in those parts of the world where there is no such thing as OSHA.

First up, we all know that welding can produce showers of white hot embers, and they hurt when they pop you. I myself have had the displeasure of having one of these tiny molten meteors of metal land inside my shirt, and it's not at all fun. Even worse is when your face is exposed, and to protect welders, there is a huge market for protective gear devoted just to the head and neck. But let's face it (so to speak)--all this equipment can be expensive, with all the custom Kevlar doodads and such. And now we find out completely unnecessary, given that you can get equivalent protection with a discarded piece of cardboard:

Inexpensive, infinitely configurable, easily modified to accomodate a wide variety of eyewear, and offers protection up to 451 degrees Fahrenheit!

Next up, I know you've all seen those warning notices on dry cleaner's bags--"PLASTIC BAG IS NOT A TOY!" Of course they're not toys--they're highly effective respirators!

Highly effective, and working on the principal that lung contamination can be best avoided by not breathing.

Finally, this clever fellow recognizes the dangers posed by head injuries. Falls, dropped objects, bumps, scrapes--all these things are very real hazards on the construction site, and you've probably seen all the wide variety of hardhats available. But when you get to thinking about it, wouldn't it be better to have something nice and cushiony to protect you?

Sure it would:

Safety and style all in one!

Thanks to all of our participants. If they're still alive.

UPDATE: Nate McCord of exotic Utah sends us this sign board from the much more safety-conscious continent of Australia. (Sanitized for your protection!)

I bet Todd gets a lot of calls.

KITTY!

Well, at least in the nickname sense. But in lieu of a Catblogging Friday photo of Lightning, here's one of Cat(herine) for you to enjoy. This is one that Reba took earlier in the spring before the last of Cat's wrecks and before the trip to the store to get new tires for her bike.

Oh, who am I trying to fool--this is just a way to post a photo of my car.

I tell you, it's really difficult to come up with cat photos of Lightning that are unique. Maybe if I taught HIM to ride a bicycle...

KITTY!

Okay, once more, I am falling down on my stated goal of being an A-list blogger by doing the Catblogging Friday schtick. I don't have photos of Lightning today AGAIN, but hopefully I can add a new, BOLD, and EDGY! twist to the usual fare by substituting something even BETTER than a photograph! Something that captures the evocative, contemplative nature of the feline species!

As you all know, Jimmy (from next door), who has a condition, is quite the artist, and has over the years has created many fine artworks for new members of the Axis of Weevil as welcoming gifts. Unbeknownst to most of you, Jimmy is currently enrolled in a class at Hazel's Academy of Courtroom Art, and has agreed to do a computer drawing of Lightning, the World's Most Expensive Free Former Kitten, as part of his assignment on electronic drawing media!

I think it captures his essence quite well. (Lightning's, not Jimmy's.)

KITTY!

It's been simply AGES since we've felt compelled to participate in Catblogging Friday, mainly because we've had nothing to show. Which is probably at least a partial explanation for the recent nosedive in traffic.

SO, LET'S NOT DENY THE PUBLIC the intense joy that can only be felt by viewing random photos of Lightning, the World's Most Expensive Free Former-Kitten! (Having now passed his first birthday, we can't quite call him a kitten anymore. ::sniff:: They grow up so fast.)

Anyway, as is his usual routine of late, upon release from his playpen, he first stretches--

--displaying his well-known lightning stripe coloration. He then must stretch and sharpen his claws on the pear tree:

Finally, he sprints to the new garden bed to attempt to wallow in filth.

Silly cat.

THUS ENDS ANOTHER STELLAR EPISODE OF CATBLOGGING FRIDAY!

KITTY!

It's Catblogging Friday!

Sorta.

I finally found a cat that would pose for me and wouldn't R-U-N-N O-F-T.

And she even comes with a unicorn!

Yes, there is one clock in the house that I forgot to change to Daylight Saving Time. But she was up quite early this morning nonetheless because she wanted to finish watching her Special 25th Anniversary Collector's Edition of The Last Unicorn.

I will tell you all you need to know:

Rankin.

Bass.

Although she seemed to enjoy it, personally I can't see how anyone other than a dung beetle would like it. The animation is horrible, the colors are both muddy AND washed out, and the voice work sounds like they gave everyone tranquilizers and a mouthful of sand. And this had big(gish) names in it--Mia Farrow, Robert Klein, Keenan Wynn, Jeff Bridges, Angela Landsbury--and every single one of them sounded as though they were recorded while doing the first read-through of the script. And then there's Alan Arkin, who does the voice of the wizard guy, and somehow manages to make him sound like a Brooklyn dishwasher with a lobotomy.

It's that bad.

But then again, there wasn't much competition in animation, thus (partially) explaining how it actually managed to get nominated for an award as Best Animated Film. It's TRUE!

As if it could compete with The Secret of NIMH or Tron! Please. But it HAS been digitally remastered, meaning that the dreck is 32% more crisp!

Looking over that award nomination list is interesting, though--some good stuff in '82: Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Mad Max 2, The Sword and the Sorcerer, Conan the Barbarian, Eating Raoul, Blade Runner, The Dark Crystal, Pink Floyd--The Wall, and even more impressive stuff when you look over at the Oscar list for '83.

Hard to believe some of those movies are that old. Blade Runner especially still manages to look stylish even today.

ANYWAY, that's your Cat photo for the day.

KITTY!

It's Catblogging Friday, and you know what THAT means...

Once more I have neglected to take kitty pictures and have to make a last-minute substitution!!

KITTY!

And I don't mean fake kitty pictures, either! Catblogging Friday--that staple of A-List bloggers everywhere, returns to Possumblog with actual pictures of my actual cat, known to you all as Lightning, the World's Most Expensive Free Kitten!

We've had his swanky cat condo moved into the garage for the past week due to the frigid temperatures, so these look a bit different from past shots due to the lack of outside scenery. However, as usual, he's nearly impossible to get to sit still, so many of the photos are of his butt as he runs from the camera.

TO BEGIN...

The south end of a northbound cat--

And another.

About the only way to get him to be relatively still is to torment him with one of those feather-and-bell things on an elastic string. He likes that a lot. Maybe a little too much.

Here he sizes up his prey--

and then viciously pounces--

After grabbing the string, he proceeded to start gnawing on it. Little did I know he was actually EATING the string. Elastic is probably not supposed to be inside of a kitty's intestinal tract.

Then again, he does look like a plump Christmas turkey, so I don't guess it'll be too bad for him.

AND THUS ENDS THIS WEEK'S EDITION OF CATBLOGGING!

Kitty.

Okay, OKAY!

No, no kitty pictures today. I'm SORRY! I did go out and give him clean water and food this morning, and sieved his poop out of his litter box--doesn't that count for something!?

KITTY!

Okay, this Friday Catblogging has apparently gotten to be too much for my poor tiny walnut-sized stupid brain to handle. STILL no new pictures, because I forgot to take new pictures.

As far as I know, we DO still have a cat, because I do keep telling various random children in the house to either go feed him or go scoop his leavings out of the litterbox, but they could just be going outside to humor me.

Anyway, no pictures of Lightning, The World's Most Expensive (and Invisible) Free Kitten.

But we do have a publicity photo of Buttermilk. Buttermilk belongs to Reba, whom I have noted in the past has a fondness for winsome stuffed animals. I've also been known to use Buttermilk as a puppet to entertain the children. And I hate to say this, but sometimes I entertain myself with him even when they aren't around, since he's good to chat with and he rarely interrupts me. And he requires no feed or cleaning up after.

KITTY!

Boy aren't YOU people lucky! It's the return of Catblogging Friday here at Possumblog, and not only THAT, we actually have cat pictures!

Yes, I know--fascinating!

These are all from Rebecca's new Kodak camera, so first, discount the date stamp on every one of them. She got it for her birthday in September, but she didn't figure out how to set the date until after Christmas. And none of these are more recent than Christmas, but they ARE the most recent stuff we have.

Second, something's wrong with the Movable Type widget function on the mu.nu blogs that allows the creation of little thumbnails of each photo, so I'm going to put them all in full size (ish) format down below in the extended entry.

Third, I told you earlier that she has several movies on her SD card that I'd try to get posted for your enjoyment, but I can't seem to get my work computer to play nicely with the camera, so let's forget I ever mentioned anything about video.

Fourth, as a special surprise, there's MORE than just kitty pictures!

Now, let's see what we have!

Okay, let's do kitty pictures first. Again, disregard the dates.

You might recall that my lovely wife decided the cutest thing this Christmas season would be to take pictures of the kitten after putting a lovely fluffy plaid elastic collar around Lightning's neck and a tiny Santa hat on his head, also held in place by an elastic band under his chin.

Theoretically.

Being that I am a loving husband, I agreed to try to help her with this project. Lighting, although I call him a kitten, is a full grown cat now, and weighs approximately five hundred pounds, 98% of which is meanness and muscle.

Thus, an explanation for his rather perturbed demeanor in this photo:

Despite knowing better, I actually managed to get his pretty little collar on!

Alas, the tiny Santa hat was a no-go, due to the fact that exactly one second after the last photo was taken, Lightning attacked my right arm and hand with tooth and claw, opening up several arteries, veins, and capillaries.

Next time someone else gets to hold him.

Now, moving forward a couple of weeks, some outdoor shots that are much less angrified.

Here we see a stunning recreation of the famed 1950s thriller, Attack of the Fifty Foot Woman and her Nine Foot Cat.

The next two shots show Lightning at his most adorable kitteny best, rolling and posing like an actual sweet kitty.

SO there's your kitten fix for this week! BUT, as promised, a few more shots of other stuff.

Here is a startling shot that I found on the camera. I don't remember her taking it, and I can't remember her ever showing it to me, and best I can tell it was right around Thanksgiving, but no matter, it's really quite a colorful sunset, even with the utility poles in the foreground.

Next is the Christmas tree before all the gifts got ripped open on Christmas Day--

AND THUS ENDS this edition of Catblogging Friday, and we hope you've enjoyed it.

'BYE, Y'ALL!

(This was me on Christmas morning, grinning and waving like an idiot.)

KITTY!?

No WAY, dude! That whole Friday Catblogging thing is so played out now--things move QUICK here in the blogosphere and what was NEW BOLD and EDGY last Friday just won't cut it THIS Friday!

Of course, some might say that this change in course is due only to the fact that I once again neglected to take any pictures of Lightning, The World's Most Expensive Free Kitten.

That has nothing to do with it.

I'm just trying to stay out there on the leading edge of what's hot! And there is never anything hotter than HOT SWIMSUIT MODELS!!

CAUTION--May not be safe for work!!

Thanks to the New York Public Library Digital Gallery for this beguiling photo!

KITTY!

A retrospective of sorts today, since I forgot to take a picture of him for today. So, let's see how far Lightning, the World's Most Expensive Free Kitten has progressed.

Here is the earliest picture I have of the little squirt. Awww.

This is the latest picture I have of him in which you can actually see what he looks like. We've got some from this month, but he's usually nothing more than a blur in them, or you can only see part of him.

He sure has gotten big.

KITTY!

Friday Catblogging?

OF COURSE!

It's what all the popular kids do, so in a bid to expand my already massive popularity, here is a nice photo of Lightning, the World's Most Expensive Free Kitten, in all of his wooly winter wonder, helping me demonstrate how difficult it can be to photograph yourself holding a squirming cat.

The second shot is only slightly better, and after this he was returned to his natural habitat in order to keep him from clawing my eyes out and biting through my jugular.

And there's your Kitty Fix!

KITTY!

Well, he seems to have recovered from his recent trip to the doctor that left him a few grams less heavy in his hinder portions, and is back to ripping around and doing the things cats do.

Such as--

Drinking out of the frog:

--and looking bored and distant:

Thankfully, he seems not to care too much about chasing mice. There was a big one in the kitchen last night:

Catherine had a play at school yesterday morning, and filled the role of Squeaky, a mouse who helps this big lion with some sort of podiatric distress caused by an imbedded thorn. (Her mouse-ear-like hair styling is by Terry of Trussville.)

Speaking of Miss Kitty

SOMEone just got an appointment made for tomorrow at the vet's office for a little surgery.

Sorry, little dude. At least you will still have your claws.

KITTY!

Now then! Sorry for the delay, but we bloggers who pretend to be A-listers have to make sure our Friday Catblogging photos are of the highest quality and composition.

SO, what has Lightning, the World's Most Expensive Free Kitten, been up to?

Growing.

He's a big ol' cat now, and looks even bigger with his puffy coat of fur. He's still very unwilling to stand still for long, though, so these pictures of him are about all I could get before he started whirling around all dervish-like.

First, a regal pose with his favorite article, the big bucket of food.

I promise I'm not pressing down on him with my hand. Much.

Second, he decides to scoot around and let his giant paws hang off the top of his kitty kondo.

I promise I'm not pressing down on him with my hand. Much.

Finally, before he got so fidgety, a shot of him looking for prey. Which might or might not include my hand.

SO, there you are, America! Yet another wannabe A-list blogger gives YOU pictures of a cat!! Thank you for your patronage!

KITTY?

KITTY!! Except I have to do a bit of formatting first so he'll fit on the page.

Your patience, please.

KITTY!

Sorry--the Friday Catblogging picture feature of Lightning, The World's Most Expensive Free Kitten, has been called on account of rain. However, in order to maintain my catblogging credentials, we offer the following alternative cat-related photo--

We present to you Honor Blackman, of Goldfinger fame.

Rrrowwl.

KITTY!

(See? I told you so.)

ANYWAY, as a further attempt to emulate the popular blogging kids through the avenue of catblogging, it's once again time to present to you LIGHTNING, the World's Most Expensive Free Kitten!

(Once more, Munu seems to be having problems with the photo file formating, so I'm having to use Photobucket, which may or may not have a way to make thumbnails, but if it does, I don't know how to use that feature, meaning that I'm going to put the pictures below the jump so the page will load faster. GRR!)

He was in rare form this morning--the chill in the air seems to have brought out the wildness in him. Although domestication does have its benefits, such as regular meals.

While I was bothering him while eating, he decided to pounce on the camera--

--then run wildly around the patio before pausing to see what was out in the darkness. It's about impossible to get a shot of him that looks aloof and regal like a cat should look--he's too busy running around as fast as possible.

Silly cat.

KITTY! UPDATED!

Time once again for Friday Catblogging, and this time it's a special LOST EPISODE!! I remembered to bring my camera today that has the shots from last week. One thing different today is that there are some kind of Munuvian server issues, and I can't generate the thumbnails I usually can do, so in order to keep from making the page load too slowly, the photos today will be down below the jump. Or at least I hope so--let's see what happens.

CURSES!!

Looks like we'll have to wait until the server is fixed.

Drat.

UPDATE, 10:00 a.m--Well, the server must still be fuzzed up, so I've uploaded the couple of photos for today to my old Photobucket account. Jim Smith says my excuses are lame, but I'm not sure why that's a surprise.

AND AS BEFORE, I'm going to put these below the jump so the page will load a bit quicker.

IN ANY EVENT, this was Lightning last week after I got him out of his house. He wasn't particularly happy about it.

As always, he won't stay still long enough to take a really good photo of, but I did manage to get one of him munching on a tender succulent dead potted plant.

AND AS FOR THE OTHER CAT, she wanted me to take a picture of her boo-boo. This one on her paw is one of the smaller of her injuries from when she had her close encounter of the pavement kind. (By the way, she's reclining on her new video chair, and she looks very serious because that's what injured people are supposed to look like. After the photo was taken, she switched back to happy.)

KITTY!

NOT!

::sigh:: I even went out and took pictures this morning, and went off and left the camera sitting on the kitchen table. And then, when I got here this morning, there was yet another side-effect of the weird thing that's happening with my e-mail notifications. If I can catch a spammer early enough, I can use the MT Blacklist tool that has a handy link in the e-mail. But when you don't get your notification until this morning, you find that a vast grotesque horde of comment spammers has found a home, and even after you blacklist the ones you're finally notified about, you look on your list of comments and see that there are about 40 more that HAVEN'T been caught yet, and you have to go through and manually delete them, and that takes up time, and makes me very angry. [UPDATE 2:29 p.m.--Well, at least there is a reasonable explanation of the e-mail troubles.]

And I can't relax and look at a picture of a kitty, because I left the camera at home! GRR!

::sigh::

KITTY!

Well, it's Friday, and I have a cat, and popular A-list bloggers who have cats on Fridays have decided that this is the day that they will put their pets on display for everyone to gawk at.

Why?

I'm not sure.

BUT IN ORDER TO BE JUST LIKE EVERYONE ELSE, we now take a moment or two to gaze upon the wonders of Lightning, The World's Most Expensive Free Kitten!

He was in rare form this morning--I blame the chill in the air and the fact that he's maturing into his full-growed tomcat persona--but no matter what, he was raring to go. First stop, the frog fountain to drink nasty water:

Silly cat. I have no idea why he's so enamored of drinking stagnant frog spouted water. Next he ran over to the other side of the patio, and posed in a most regal and catlike pose. I tried to take his picture, and he lunged at me, leading to a less than artistic result.

Silly cat. Next he ran off to see what all was in the shrubbery and yard tools. Here he inspects the hose reel, which apparently had the scent of some sort of injured prey, possibly a gazelle or springbok or mouse.

Then he bolted from there and ran around the side of the house, then the front and into the shrubbery. Silly cat. Finally caught him and while he was still snapped a shot of him as he schemed his next escape.

Silly cat.

KITTY!

Well, this is surely going to be a first for ANYone who closely follows the goings on about Catblogging Fridays. I'm almost certain it will boost me into that tiny cadre of luminaries of the blogging world.

IN a provocative and boldly transgressive move intended to break the cruel specieist feline hegemony, I give you...

PUPPIES!!

As promised, my sister sent along a photo of the new puppy she's going to be bringing home in a few weeks.

This is him, on the right, with his brother on the left:

Just to amp up the cuteness factor even more, here's a photo of his sisters:

According to my sister, the thumbnail photos above are much closer to the actual size of the pups. With TWO pictures of fuzzy roly-poly puppies, Catblogging Friday supremacy will be ALL MINE!!

But lest there be any doubt, the final weapon--a picture of their MAMA!!

Yes, I was weirded out by the idea that the puppies--stubby, fat, short-furred, lop-eared--could ever turn out to look like the wispy, spindly mother dog.

Eh, go figure.

ANYWAY, The World's Most Expensive Kitten returns next week.

KITTY!

Since it's Friday, it's also time for all of the really popular A-list sorts of bloggers to take a break from punditacation and world-saving and show you fluffy kitties!

Luckily, I do have a cat, a relief from not being a really popular A-list sort of blogger.

UNFORTUNATELY, I didn't realize it but my 1GB SD card in the camera took it upon itself this morning to be filled up, and I didn't have time to delete some of the old ones, so the selection of pictures today is noticeably scanty. Apologies to fans of The World's Most Expensive Free Kitten.

ANYway, first up, what Lightning looks like VERY close up--

Not a very good picture, but he keeps moving. Time for some kitty tranquilizers.

Witnessed by the fact that after he attacked the camera, he immediately flipped around and attacked the downspout.

Then he ran away and had to be snagged out of our neighbor's shrubbery by Catherine. AND THAT'S IT--time to load up another memory card.

KITTY!

In order to maintain my status as the World's Most Popular Blogger, once more I participate in the thing all the really cool kids like us participate in, Cat Blogging Friday, with Lightning, the World's Most Expensive Free Kitten!

Oh, this morning he was on a tear--I managed to get one picture of him before he ran himself up the water oak. Here he is not eating the food provided for him in his snazzy dish, but rather scrounging for the bits that I washed out of his cage last night that stuck to the patio.

Silly kitten. Anyway, after this shot he scooted out to the back and went straight up the tree, and resisted all attempts to get him down. More about that later. IN THE INTERIM, I figured I'd show you the rest of the back yard, specifically the hateful volleyball net.

Ta-dah.

"Details!" you say?

Well, here is the most robust string peg you're likely to see--

--and here is the mess of confusion up at the top of the pole that caused such consternation on my part. Doesn't really look like that much now.

Anyway, I got through taking pictures and the cat was STILL up the tree, happy as a clam. Except clams don't usually climb trees, so I guess he was happy as a lark. But a lark with four legs and fur.

SO, I called to him in my special cat language which did not work, so I tried the universal language of food. I got his bucket of chow from in the house and took it over to the tree and shook it a bit with an enticing and delicious shake.

He then climbed higher and meowed.

Stupid kitten.

I tried several other things, briefly considered breaking out the 12-gauge, and then decided one more time to try the shaken food route. Filled up his little feeder dish this time and took it out to the base of the tree and gently shook it. By this time, he'd climbed down a couple of branches lower, but suddenly his attention was caught by an unwary bird that alighted over on another branch.

::sigh::

Well, it's time to go to work. My solution? Leave the stinking thing up the tree and go to work, because he's smart enough to find his cage and stick around, because he's a cat.

I walked back inside and told Catherine that I had to leave and that Lightning was still outside and if he came back to the house before she and Mommy left to please put him back in his cage.

She had a look of terror on her face--"Don't worry--I'm going to go upstairs and tell Mom so she won't be mad at you for it."

Seems that last week Catherine was playing with him one morning and he went up the pine tree and Reba and she were alone there trying to get him to come down and it took forever and Catherine was almost late for school and Mom issued an edict that the cat was not to be gotten out in the mornings before school to keep such an event from happening again.

So she was scared that Mommy was going to be mad at her. No, don't worry.

And Mommy certainly can't get mad at Daddy, because let's face it, it's just a cat, and it will come down, and in all likelihood, it will go right back to the patio since that's where he lives. He's a cat.

ANYway, up the stairs I go, looking at my watch and seeing that it is TIME TO LEAVE and I got to the bedroom and saw Rebecca was still sprawled all over our floor, completing her social studies project on the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and the companion volume, The Seven Wonders of the United States. Reba was getting a blouse out of the closet, and I told her, "Hey, I'm fixing to leave. I'll take Jonathan on, but Lightning is up a tree back there, but he'll come down, and even if he doesn't, I figure--"

"You can NOT leave him outside all day."

"Look, I can do whatever I want to! He's a CAT, he WILL come down when he gets hungry, and he WILL come back up to the house and hang around here because that's where the FOOD is. He'll be FINE--he's got claws and stuff, and hey, even if he DOES run away, how stinkin' far can he go!?"

Okay, see--that's what we call my Internal Monologue. It is very valuable to have, because it keeps me from waking up dead in a pool of my own blood as my lovely wife stands over me with a .45.

External monologue?

"--I figure I would go get him down before I leave."

::sigh::

Stupid expensive kitten. I'm gonna be SO late today. Well, that'll teach me to let him out in the mornings without a rope and anchor around him. Stupid moron cat owner. I got to the back door, opened it, and HEY! KITTY!! He'd climbed down and decided to come investigate all this food I'd been rattling around. I scooped him up and put him in his cage and came back inside and smugly walked back inside and called upstairs that he was safe in his cage and I was taking Boy on to school, as if it was no big deal to get him in his cage by just walking out the door.

Whew.

That was a close one.

Running late, cat up a tree, and an internal monologue bursting to get out and get me hurt.

But hey, things work out.

KITTY!

As promised, today's edition of Friday Catblogging is gonna be kicked up to a whole 'nother level, with not only photographs of Lightning, The World's Most Expensive Free Kitten, but all kinds of other things around the house as well!

But first, the star of the show--KITTY!

He was in a more accomodating mood this morning, so I was able to get many more photos than usual, and this time they weren't all of his backside as he runs away.

First, here he contemplates the world from atop his condominium, trying to decide what to bite and scratch first.

Hopping down from his perch, he sharpened his claws on the bike tires and displayed his lightning stripe to frighten predators.

Cooly surveying his realm--

He determined there was prey in the form of wildebeests in the yard, and took up a hiding place between the smoker and the derelict planter so he could fuzz up his tail at them.

Feeling parched from his hunt, he then decided to go drink some filthy algae- and silt-laden water out of the frog--

AHhhh.

Put him in the mood for tree climbing, it did.

First victim was Ashley's maple tree. Take THAT!

After subduing that species, he scrambled down and dashed over to the tall pine in the corner of the yard.

One second he's poised on the ground--

--the next he's fifteen feet up. I've never seen a cat so adept at climbing, and he's even gotten relatively good at getting himself down.

INTERLUDE!

Flowers! This is one of the roses growing around the wooden platform next to the pine tree. It looks remarkably good, considering it gets absolutely NO tending.

Back to the show.

After extricating himself from the tree, it was time to recapture him and confine him again to his lair. Here he looks half drunk. (I think he's been hanging around Kit, the Wonder Cat too much.)

EPILOGUE

Cars! After securing him securely with much security, it was time to drag the garbage can and the recycle bin around to the front sidewalk, and since I had my trusty HP Photosmart M407 with me, I figured I'd show you exactly what it was I did to the back bumper of the van.

Behold!

A set of holes, with a mirror set of indented pre-holes above and below the entrance wounds. Impossible to push the hanging chads back in place from behind, too much trouble to fix correctly. Yep, time for a bumper sticker.

As for the cause, look no further than the sturdy Swedish acorn nuts on this baby--

You can see it made a couple of whitish places in the tag where it got bent, but that was the only damage, such as it was.

Since it was nice outside, and the car was relatively clean, I took a couple of shots of it, too--this one turned out pretty good, in that it disguises the horrible condition of the paint on the hood and roof.

Of course, taking a picture of your car on the driveway in the early morning hours is a pretty odd thing to be doing, so what should occur but getting

BUSTED!

One of my many neighbors of the female variety was out on her morning constitutional. To make matters worse she was wearing Those Things.

You know.

White shorts. With white socks and sneakers.

Obviously since I had been espied doing something completely goofy, I had to wait until she was out of earshot of the camera click to complete my morning's artistic endeavors.

Even halfway down the block, moving away fast, and partially obscured by a tree, "Yow."

AND THUS ENDS YET ANOTHER EPISODE OF FRIDAY CATBLOGGING!

KITTY!

This morning's version of Friday catblogging is very slim, because The World's Most Expensive Free Kitten was in a rip-roaring mood this morning and ran around like a wildcat.

Catherine managed to grab him as he was eating and present him to the camera in her usual way.

Although it looks like he's yowling for help, he's really only licking the crumbs off his mouth. The rest of the photos are pretty much of his backside as he ran hither and yon. And up.

Speaking of backsides, Rebecca is on the yearbook staff at middle school this year, and they have a local photographer they are going to be assisting when it comes time for school picture day. His name is Mr. Buttram. However, when she pronounced it for me, you can guess how it came out--accented heavily on the first syllable.

::sigh::

"Sugar, his name is pronounced but'trum, not BUTT' ram."

"Ooooh."

KITTY!

So that I can proclaim myself to be just like all the A-list members of the blogosphere, I take this opportunity to participate in the well-established citizen-journalist tradition of Catblogging Friday, with the able assistance of Lightning, the World's Most Expensive Free Kitten!

Whew. That sure was a long sentence. I need to learn to use more periods.

ANYway, this morning he was in quite a mood. Although he looks all sweet in this picture--

--he was twisting and squirming for all he was worth to get loose.

After letting him down, he did his usual full speed lap around the yard, then came back and began the obstacle course around all the stuff on the patio. Hard to get him to sit still, although this one does give that appearance.

He lunged at the camera immediately after it was taken. After taking out his aggression on the camera (and my hand) he decided to take on the house. I'm sure he thought it must have moved or squeeked or something, which would explain why he felt it necessary to pounce on it and give it a good bite.

Silly kitty.

AND THUS ENDS yet another episode of Pretending to be a Big Time Catblogger!

KITTY!

Good grief, this thing packs away the vittles like a starving tiger. It's difficult to believe how tiny and meek he was when he first came to live with us. He's filling out nicely and is frankly the most athletic cat I've ever had. We can let him out of his pen and after a few skips and hops to loosen up, he lays his ears back, fuzzes himself up, and streaks around the yard at top speed, and climbs up every tree at an equal speed. And not just to the first branch--he goes WAY up in the trees, and then as far out on various limbs as he can. The kids freak out and think he'll be stuck up there forever, but they're finally realizing I was right when I said not to worry about it, using that time-tested platitude--"How many cat skeletons have you ever seen in a tree?"

TODAY'S first photo has Cat trying vainly to subdue The Cat for his closeup.

And the second is Cat in her Birmingham-Southern Panther-Cat shirt, after wrestling The Cat into submission. He got loose after this was taken and climbed a tree.

Silly Cats.

KITTY!

I just now occurred to me that I forgot today was Friday, when I attempt to ape all the heavy hitters in the blogworld by participating in Catblogging Friday and posting photos of Lightning, the World's Most Expensive Free Kitten.

AND I HAVE NO NEW PHOTOS!

Therefore, I shall post the closest substitute I have.

KITTY!

What better way to forget the woes of the world than by looking at a fluffy kitten!

Of course, it would help if the stinkin' thing would HOLD STILL. I had the camera out yesterday evening and succeeded in getting only two shots where you could actually even tell there was a cat in the photo.

This one is from up under the rose bushes--

--and this is one from later where we caught him after he'd been running full tilt all over the place; so hard, in fact, that he was panting like a dog from the exertion--

Now then, having dispensed with all the cuteness I was able to capture, it's time for something REALLY GROSS!

Just remember, you were warned.

As I was sitting there on the stone bench in my shorts, I thought you whippersnappers might like to see what the world was like before arthroscopic surgery.

SO, in the spirit of LBJ showing off his gall bladder scar, here is my left knee--

It's not quite as prominent as it used to be, but then again, it has been 28 years.

KITTY!

Well, now that Lightning has a reputation as a vicious attack cat, let's perpetuate that image, shall we?

First, a photo of him as he sits in his solitary confinement cell, where he spends his days working out with weights and plotting the destruction of those who incarcerated him--

In the next shot, he has been released into the exercise yard, where he brazenly displays a zip gun he has been constructing from contraband.

Finally, a frightening image of him flexing his muscles and staring at an imaginary object as he screams "ARE YOU LOOKING AT ME!?"

Shocking, simply shocking.

KITTY!

Well, he's only about 10 weeks old, but seems like he's already picked up all my bad habits.

Yes, that's actually Kit, The Wonder Cat, not little Lightning. But see, I forgot to take some pictures of him for Friday Kittyblogging, so I had to make do with what I had.

KITTY!

Yes, I know I have a lot of catching up to do, but since Fridays in Greater Blogistan are devoted to catblogging, what better way to catch up than with BRAND NEW KITTY PICTURES!

After we got back from vacation, we took the World's Most Expensive Free Kitten to the vet for his first round of vaccinations and worming. Which, of course, required the purchase of a cat carrier to get him there with as little drama as possible. Thankfully, there is a vet down at the foot of the hill (across the highway from my dentist's office), so there wasn't much time for him to get all wound up.

The vet is a very tiny girl who seems to have a pretty good tableside manner, although I don't think I would want to make a habit of putting cat noses up to my mouth if I were her. He seemed perfectly content throughout the exam, and found time to get down in the floor and repeatedly, viciously, attack the floor-mounted stainless steel door stop. Silly cat.

Anyway, he weighs all of three pounds.

Obviously, when he fuzzes up his tail, he looks MUCH bigger--

And he's now climbed every tree in the yard, just because he can. He likes this stump, though--I think mainly because it's close to the bird feeder, but also because he seems to like to gnaw on it and reach his paw down into the hole in the top of it.

SO, there's your Lightning Update!

KITTY!

Although they tend to look no different from last week's photos, this will NOT stop me from posting yet more kitteny soft pictures!

In taking these photographs, it has become increasingly, and frustratingly, apparent that this kitten has absolutely no desire to be photographed, at least in the face. Add to this a very slow-to-react digital camera, and most of the shots wind up being either of his little pink emergency exit as he runs away, or even worse, nothing at all--an empty chair, an empty flower pot, an empty spot on the ground. I'm thinking I should probably get some plastic zip ties and attach him to various places until I get a good shot of him.

UNTIL THEN, here is your weekly ration of toocuteness:

Okay, well, there is ONE way to get a shot of his mug--have the other Cat hold him still. Yes, I know how to hold a cat, and YES, Catherine has been instructed numerous times about how to hold a cat, but he was fidgeting and squirming and rolling and desperately trying to get down in order to chase an imaginary leaf, so please excuse her technique. And you have to admit, it IS better than zip-tieing him to a log.

Once down, he goes into full stalk and pounce mode. Here he is checking out an imaginary something or other--

And here he is after he found an imaginary something that scared him witless. (He spends most of his time bowing up at things, hopping around, and running away at top speed, then coming back and bowing up again.)

Sometimes, he will be still--usually when he's into something he doesn't quite understand, such as this stack of flower tray bottoms. He couldn't quite figure out why they moved around so much. But it has the effect of making him be more still than usual

Okay, now--this will have to do you for two weeks!

Oh, all right--here's an extra one to help you make it through:

All together now--"Awwwwwww!"

KITTY!

It's Friday, and just like all the rich and powerful players in the blogosphere, I went and stole a kitten to take pictures of so people would know I have a softer side.

First up, someone being sad because kitty ran to the back of the yard without her--

Awwww.

Here is one with Lightning taking time to stop and smell the roses, or something.

...which, of course, leads directly to stalking and bringing down big game such as sticks.

This stick was especially deserving of being chewed upon, and it needed a good fright, thus requiring Lightning to fuzz his tail up in response.

This morning he was once again in fine fettle, and only slowed down long enough for this shot of him using the watering can as a stalking blind.

Awwwwwww!

AND THUS ENDS ANOTHER FRIDAY EPISODE OF KITTY!!

But wait, there's MORE!

I have on occasion commented about some of the squirrelier people I work with. I stopped by the second floor restroom this morning (the one the engineering guys use) on the way up to my office, and there was something new on the countertop. Sitting atop the built in soap dispensers was this:

Why?

Well, because, I work with some real squirrels.

Well, now that we have a kitty...

...I CAN BE LIKE ALL THE BIG POPULAR BLOGGERS AND HAVE "CAT BLOGGING FRIDAY"!

Hooray.

So, from this morning we have the following photos of our newest family member--

But first, an apology. The stinking thing won't stay still for more than half a second, so it's very difficult to get ANY sort of picture of his face unless he is placed in restraints.

Be that as it may, here he is playing his favorite "just been let out of the playpen" game of kill-the-stick.

FEAR HIM, YE STICKS!

After much trepidation, Lightning has figured out how to play with the frog fountain and get some of that refreshing silt- and chemical-infused water from out of the spitter end. Somehow, he manages to look cuter drinking out of the frog than I'm sure I did when I was trying to unstop it by blowing on the back end of it.

And of course, after we're through getting juice from the frog, we have to clean up.

As I said, the only way to get a good mug shot is for a small child to forcibly restrain him. Like this--

Don't like cats, you say?

Well, the hosta is in full bloom now, so here's you a picture of that--

And for hiatusing Dave Helton (and other tractor lovers out there, as well as people who enjoy peyote), this odd photo of a John Deere 1010 Special that is on the small used car consignment lot at the bottom of the hill from where I live. I have no idea why the picture came out looking like some sort of Peter Max hallucination, but here you go. ($3,700, in case you're wondering.)

And thus ends our photo phun!