Tag: pets

Happy Thanksgiving

On By Luther M. SilerIn Photography, Politics4 Comments

So it turns out that the iPhone’s Portrait mode works really well on cats, too, to the point where I’m figuring the people who coded it set it up that way on purpose. Dude still doesn’t have a name. Ten minutes ago I thought he had a name, and was ready to announce it, but he does not. Soon, though! He’s ours legally now, and we’ve got an appointment to get him fixed on Monday, so he really ought to have a name by then. Yesterday was the day the fifteen-day hold officially expired, though, so he’s ours.

Maybe that’ll be his name. We’ll just call him Ours. Sure.

I do not typically have Difficult Family Holidays, and do not actually have the crazy racist uncle that so many of us seem to have to tiptoe around on the holidays– or, if I do, he’s made certain to never be such in my presence or at my house. I wanted to make a joke here, the first was about my mother-in-law and the second was about my sister-in-law’s husband’s vague resemblance to Saddam Hussein, but both of them are landing rather poorly so just pretend I said something funny here.

So while we’re splitting Thanksgiving over two days this year– the Electric Boogaloo version is tomorrow– neither should be especially stressful, especially since I seem to be using my lingering illness as an excuse to go Full Metal Masculine and not be helpful in any real way at all.

I’m going to have to cook the whole goddamn meal next year to make up for this year, is what I’m saying.

But: while still ailing, I remain at least nominally alive, which is still an improvement over earlier this week, and I had mashed potatoes today and did not deliberately eat myself into a food coma, which may be a sign that I’m getting smarter as I get older but is probably just a sign that I remember I get two of them this year. So now I get to spend two days stressing about grading and a day actually grading, and then there’s a two-and-a-half week run to Winter Break, and then I can fall into a damn coma for all anyone cares.

Which, y’know. That’s the dream.

More– possibly lots more– tomorrow.

In which I approach milestones

On By Luther M. SilerIn Blogwanking1 Comment

This is my 2996th post, and I am just over 1500 words away from writing my millionth word on this blog. I’ve been keeping track pretty carefully over the last several weeks because I want them both to happen on the same post.

…I, uh, probably ought to start figuring out what I’m doing with that post, shouldn’t I? 🙂

The cat remains unnamed; current frontrunners include Gordon, Hup, Tyrion, Hodor, and I just suggested Hercules. I don’t understand why this is so difficult.

Name this cat

On By Luther M. SilerIn life9 Comments

So New Cat has been living in our master bathroom for a few days now. At the vet’s suggestion, we have expanded his range to the laundry room as of yesterday. He is about three years old, which is about what I figured, an unfixed male, which was obvious, and unchipped. As of yesterday he is flea, worm and ear mite free and we’ve confirmed that he does not have FIV or whatever the other disease they make sure to check cats for is.

He is a friendly soft cuddly boi. Technically we can’t call him our cat or get him fixed until fifteen days have passed since reporting that we found him, so we’ve got a bit more time on that. I suspect an unchipped and unfixed male that was wandering the neighborhood is almost certainly not someone’s cat, however, and he’ll be ours soon enough. He knows what a litterbox is, so he probably got dumped by somebody.

We are having a hell of a time picking out a name. On one hand, this maybe isn’t a bad thing, as he’s not our cat yet and it’s always possible his owners might claim him, and renaming him before he’s official is putting the cart before the horse just a bit. On the other hand … it’s just not that damn likely. We may as well.

Possible options include:

  • Gus, which was my brother’s initial choice and seems to fit him. However, my wife has bad associations with a cat named Gus in the past (don’t ask) and so this is highly unlikely to be the final name.
  • Walter. He is a dignified-looking cat, and I feel like Walter sort of fits him.
  • Chewie. If I had been able to create a new cat out of thin air he would have been an orange boycat and we would have named him Goose; I feel like Chewie is too Captain Marvel-adjacent (Chewie is the name of the flerken in the comics that became Goose in the movie) to name this cat when the appearance of a Goose in the future is still possible.
  • Mochi. The Great Old One is literally from Japan and is named Mizu, which I have always suspected was supposed to be Miso but spelled wrong by the people at the shelter I got her from. I had a cat named Moro who passed away several years ago who was named after a character in Princess Mononoke, and our current kitten is named Sushi, which was my son’s decision. So we have a previously-established pattern of naming cats with 1) Japanese names starting with M and 2) Japanese foods. Which is a weird accident, because otherwise I display no weeaboo tendencies. Mochi fits both.
  • I have mostly been calling him “Big boy” or “Buddy,” and honestly I think “Buddy” works pretty well as a name for him but my wife calls our son that all the time and I’d rather not get that mixed up. I don’t like “Big boy” as an actual name but as a temporary nickname it works.

So far, I think Mochi is probably my favorite choice, but nothing has stuck yet. Suggestions?

In which I don’t know the rules

On By Luther M. SilerIn life2 Comments

How long do you have to feed the local stray before it’s your cat?

In which I am old, incompetent, aggravated, and also blind

On By Luther M. SilerIn idiocy1 Comment

Today was stupid.

I couldn’t sleep for crap last night, so when I finally dragged myself out of bed it was less because I was done sleeping and more because I was done trying. That’s kind of a basic body function; you’d think I would be okay at it by now. I spent the next four hours getting myself set up to take my Google Level 2 Certification test tomorrow and writing twenty-nine blog posts that will pop one per day over the next twenty-nine days. Only once during that process did I accidentally set the post to display immediately, so some of y’all got a little sneak peek of what day 28 is gonna be.

I then decided to shave and did something I’ve never managed to do before: I cut my upper lip while trimming my mustache with my electric razor. I have had facial hair since starting college at 18; I am now 42 and some change and I was today years old when I made my freaking lips bleed while shaving for the first time. Protip: don’t do this! It hurts quite a lot more than you think it’s going to!

It is now supposedly about six hours later. The clock tells me it’s just barely after 8 PM but I’m pretty convinced it has to be at least twenty-seven o’clock; it has been rainy and gross outside all day and our internet inexplicably shit the bed again about two hours ago and reporting the outage was much more complicated than it should have been– Comcast appears to have “improved” their website again, and I spent far more time than I should have just staring at the goddamn computer screen (tethered through my phone, using mobile data, which is how I’m posting right now as well) trying to figure out how the hell I was supposed to report the outage. This is either a sign that Comcast’s website has genuinely crappy UI or that I’m slowly becoming completely stupid; I’d blame Comcast but not being able to figure simple shit out is becoming a fuckin’ theme with me lately and it’s starting to become a little worrying.

Also, I’ve spent all day staring at screens or text and my eyes are blurry as fuck and the cat is getting spayed tomorrow and there’s gonna be a Comcast technician out between 10 and noon as well, and hopefully they’ll get the internet fixed because I kinda wanted to take this certification test in the morning and it’s three hours long so the earlier I can get started the better. There’s crap going on tomorrow, is what I’m saying, and I don’t have time to be non-internetted and blind.

So. Yeah. If you were wondering how long I’d continue to feel the Christmas spirit, it’s good and gone by now. So less than 48 hours.

Blech.

How to Christmas with a kitten

On By Luther M. SilerIn life4 Comments

The tree has lights but no real ornaments (the boy hung some toys on it) and the vacuum is right next to it, plugged in. If the kitten touches the tree, we turn on the vacuum.

Works really well.

Have I mentioned we got a kitten?

On By Luther M. SilerIn Photography1 Comment

Her name might be Fizzgig and not Sushi.  I think it’s still Sushi, but stand by.

Post with words still coming later tonight.  🙂

Meet Sushi

On By Luther M. SilerIn Photography2 Comments

Sushi Princesswhiskers Hazel, if you’re listening to my son. Nothing has happened to the Great Old One, but a friend of my wife needed to get her a home and Bek saw it on Facebook and now we’re a two-cat household again, pending any issues with integrating her with the existing cat or anyone’s allergies being aggravated or anything like that.

Expect a surge in cat pictures around here, assuming she ever sits still long enough to photograph again.