Category: The Cats

Details about the real rulers of our household.

A Comedy of Errors

Rochelle and I have great fun with each other while on vacations, but we don’t always travel well together. Our trip to Costa Rica was a textbook example. The passport problem was just the beginning of our troubles.

Rochelle and I have great fun with each other while on vacations, but we don’t always travel well together. Our trip to Costa Rica was a textbook example. The passport problem was just the beginning of our troubles.

We actually, for the first time ever, were completely packed well before our departure time. This was critical, because we’d made dinner plans with friends, to go visit RNM across the street (great food, spotty service). We’d intended to send them off with an hour of time left before leaving, but we were having a such a good time that we suddenly freaked out when we realized we had only 20 minutes to get ready and leave.

Among the many things we accidently left behind were Rochelle’s new flip-flops, really nice ones with loofa-style surface for massaging your feet as you walk. And we left some critical travel supplies (booze and sleeping pills), which meant our plane time was torture. Like democracy, air travel sucks, but it’s better than all the alternatives — especially if you can consistently knock yourself out.

I also didn’t get to pet all of my kitties before leaving, at least not the way I like to before taking off for a week. The taxi out to the airport is where I always think, maybe I should just stay home.

There aren’t very many direct flights to Costa Rica, so we were flying by way of Houston, where we had hoped to hook up with Rochelle’s brother for breakfast. But Code Orange got in the way of him being able to meet us, and we weren’t able to make contact by mobile phone to make alternate plans, so we just headed to our gate. Fortunately there was a bar literally right next to our gate, and the biscuits and gravy from the Popeye’s 100 yards away was astonishingly good. I think that says oceans about the food they serve on planes.

Two things did work out well for us. Our friend David was able to connect with us in Houston, and continue with us to Costa Rica (he was with us the entire trip, except the SF<–>Houston legs). And our flight timing, starting at 1am on Friday and getting us into Costa Rica at noon, was brilliant, because we were able to grab our rental car, race out to the hotel, throw our stuff in our room, and proceed directly to the pool and chill out. Once the waiter brought us drinks, we were almost completely recovered from our travel traumas.

Channel-Specific RSS Feeds

For those of you who may not be interested in everything I write (hi Mom, sorry about all the technology stuff), here are some channel-specific RSS feeds.

For those of you who may not be interested in everything I write (hi Mom, sorry about all the technology stuff), here are some channel-specific RSS feeds:

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DHI 81-84

Daily Home Improvements: commercial transactions, general stuff, sweeping up, and a new cat pan plan.

DHI 81: I actually sold both the monitor I listed, and a second one I was going to list in a couple days. So they’re both out of our parlor, and I’m $225 closer to being able to buy an LCD display of my own.

DHI 82: A fair amount of cleaning and reorganizing stuff that we’re either moving around or getting rid of.

DHI 83: Swept up the debris under our deck, and hosed down the area. It’s cleaner than it’s been in months…or years.

DHI 84: Planned and executed a new arrangement of litter boxes for the cats. Yuck!

Note that with the earlier posting for this week, I actually managed a full week of DHIs, in spite of the basketball tournament!

DHI 72-77

Daily Home Improvements: ransom notes?, basement dumping, general cleanup, mite shit removal, and a new jungle gym for the cats.

DHI 72: I started the list and instructions that we need to give to our house cleaner, because she’s been doing a pretty sucky job lately, and I don’t want to have to fire her…

DHI 73: I finished the list, incorporating input from Rochelle, and formatted it and printed it for our house cleaner. These instructions apparently caused much anxiety due to not completely understanding it, as our cleaner’s native language is Spanish. Perhaps a translation will be a future DHI…

DHI 74: I moved a few things to the basement, and generally rearranged the parlor, so that it would be easier to vacuum.

DHI 75: A (very) little help to Rochelle, who was on a roll Saturday night, under the influence of our decorator, some booze, and Disco Saturday Night on the radio station she listens to sometimes. Our parlor is nearly completely cleared out, and will be available for use by company and other civilized folks, instead of just me and Basta.

DHI 76: This one’s a little gross. While watching basketball I cleaned out Luigi’s ears using some Q-Tips. He had ear mites when we got him, and while those are gone, their crud remains in his ears. He doesn’t like having things stuck in his ears, though, so I only got a little way through the job. I’ll do more next weekend, while watching more basketball.

DHI 77: Rochelle and I went out to B & B Pet Supplies, a pet store on Geary, and picked out a groovy new cat climbing tree for Billie. It’s five (cat) stories tall, and Billie has already learned that she can defend the top story from all attackers, which makes her very, very happy.

So another week without a full list of achievements, but considering I took Thursday and Friday off to watch basketball in a sports bar, and sat in bed all day Saturday and Sunday, again to watch basketball, this is an amazing level of productivity.

DHI 64-69

Daily Home Improvements: power upgrades, pillow talk, the framers, sticking my battery where it belongs, peace talks, and the inevitable blog tweakage.

DHI 64: I cleaned a bunch of crap out of my car, replaced the batteries in my car flashlight, and fixed the terminal clip for my portable jump-start unit.

DHI 65: I’m gonna count this, because we really did try. We wanted to try a more stable frame for the bed, and bought a really heavy-duty frame at the Salvation Army the other weekend. Tonight we tried to put it together and move the bed to it. Unfortunately, the frame is a king size, and we have a queen mattress. Ah, well…

DHI 66: Carried a bunch of stuff down to the basement, including the heavy-duty bed frame that didn’t fit our bed, above.

DHI 67: Charged the portable jump-start unit, and put velcro strips on it so it can be mounted in my trunk, and mounted it.

DHI 68: Met with two cat behaviorists, who are helping us achieve peace in our own time. Amongst the cats, anyway.

DHI 69: Tweaked my blog a bit more, and fixed a problem with my RSS syndication feed.

Another week of only six DHIs, but this is actually amazing given that I watched nearly 10 basketball games over the week and weekend. What will be really interesting is to see how many I achieve this coming week, since I will be watching basketball nearly continuously from Thursday morning until Sunday night.

The Last Burger

I just ate the last burger. The last burger sold by Rosamunde Sausage Grill. I took it next door to Toronado, ordered a Big Daddy IPA, and ate it. It was the last one. Because today is the last Burger-Day.

I just ate the last burger. The last hamburger sold by Rosamunde Sausage Grill.

Rosamunde’s is a sausage place (hence the name), but on Tuesdays — and only on Tuesdays — they served SF’s best hamburger. A large 1/2 pound patty of incredibly good beef, grilled perfectly, with lettuce, tomato, grilled onions, melted cheddar, and your selection of Rosamunde’s fabulous mustards. For $4. If you never had one, you missed out. Because I had the last one.

I ordered it about 2:30pm. I had gone by earlier, and it was too crowded for me to wait in line, order, and wait for a burger. I mean, it’s just a burger, right? Except it’s not. But they’ll just make more, right? Except they won’t.

So at 2:30pm, I decided the crowd wouldn’t go away any time soon, and I should get one. (Actually, I planned to get two, one for Rochelle.) There was only one person ahead of me in line, although Rosamunde’s itself was packed with people eating their burgers.

Rosamunde's is packed

We both waited patiently, as the four men behind the counter worked their way through the 10 or so burgers that had come up and needed to be distributed. One guy on the grill, two setting up buns and fixin’s and doing assembly, and one guy running the register and The List.

The List turned out to be important. It’s the only way the chaos of a Burger-Day could be managed. At any given time during lunch, there are 20-30 entries on The List, with different levels of doneness, different condiments, special requests, and above all, a name for the person who gets to pay for and eat it. There’s a fixed number of burgers on a Burger-Day, 120, and when they’re gone, it’s over. Wait until next week. Except there won’t be a next week.

After the latest burgers got distributed, a quick count of The List showed that there were two burgers left. Two. The woman in front of me, one of the neighborhood’s crack whores, got one. And I got the other. A few minutes later, a gang of seven slackers turned away en mass when they were informed there were no more. Not “OK, I’ll have a sausage instead.” They just turned and left, all seven. Good riddance.

So I left and bought batteries, and took a now-working flashlight out to my car, and pet the cats. And went back for my burger. It was the second-to-last burger off the grill, but the last went to the guy running The List. Mine was the last one sold.

I took it next door to Toronado, ordered a Big Daddy IPA, and ate it.

It was good. It was the last one. Because today is the last Burger-Day.

The last burger-day

How to Chase Cats

My buddy at work was laughing, and when I asked what at, he sent me the URL to a funny article, The Horror of Blimps. You’ll probably be disappointed after the build-up, but when she read it Rochelle laughed so hard she cried.

My buddy at work was laughing, and when I asked what at, he sent me the URL to a funny article, The Horror of Blimps. You’ll probably be disappointed after the build-up, but when she read it Rochelle laughed so hard she cried.

I first saw these things on a UK gadget web site, and I have to confess, my immediate thought was that it would be fun to chase the cats with one.

BeBox Extension Top 10

Rochelle suggested that I should write up a Top 10 list of reasons why I should get an extension on my BeBox project, instead of her throwing them on the street.

Rochelle suggested that I should write up a Top 10 list of reasons why I should get an extension on my BeBox project, instead of her throwing them on the street. So here goes:

  1. Technology’s complicated.
  2. Fun with Gas #1
  3. It’s the NFL playoffs, goddammit!
  4. What BeBoxes? That’s a permanent art installation.
  5. The cats distracted me with shiny things.
  6. I’ve been drunk or hung over every weekend since I got them.
  7. Hey! You tricked me!
  8. Oh, yeah, right, I guess I need to work on those.
  9. Because I wear the pants around here!
  10. What about your projects?

The Cat Who Barfed Copper Pennies

I just ran into Cecil, our oldest cat, in the hallway. He was standing, staring at a penny right in front of him on the floor. There was a second penny just to the side. I asked him, “Are you eating those, or barfing them up?” He just looked at me.

I just ran into Cecil, our oldest cat, in the hallway. He was standing, staring at a penny right in front of him on the floor. There was a second penny just to the side.

I asked him, “Are you eating those, or barfing them up?”

He just looked at me.

He’s lucky they weren’t golden eggs. Or even quarters.

Too Soon

I spoke too soon. Cecil has the same thing that Meebee had before Rochelle and I got married. We caught it much earlier, so he’ll get more benefit from the chemotherapy, but he does have intestinal cancer.

I spoke too soon. Cecil has the same thing that Meebee had before Rochelle and I got married. We caught it much earlier, so he’ll get more benefit from the chemotherapy, but he does have intestinal cancer.

By the Pound

In related news, we spent $800 on tests for our 16-year old cat, Cecil, to learn that nothing is really wrong with him, except he’s old. A recent “Rhymes with Orange” comic strip explains that you should not think about these things by weight.

In related news, we spent $800 on tests for our 16-year old cat, Cecil, to learn that nothing is really wrong with him, except he’s old.

A recent “Rhymes with Orange” comic strip explains that you should not think about these things by weight. He’s lost almost three pounds over the last year, making this appointment only slightly less expensive than good caviar…