Andy approves!

Now to sleep!

~ Zzz-mrow-zz… ~

A brief awakening….

Hee! Hee! How he stays on the end table I don’t know! My wee kitty boy needed a bit more rest.

I upset Andy by laughing at his sleep positions. Or was it because he woke up when I laughed?

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Yesterday was the primary election day in my state. I voted weeks ago by mail. 

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It’s been a time since I had a bleed-out after dialysis. When I headed out from the dialysis room, I joked about having a bleed-out since the new shirt I was wearing hadn’t been soaked in my blood yet. I felt stupid coming back to the dialysis room, having started to bleed while sitting in the lobby sorting things into my jacket or walker before going out to the parking lot to my car. 

The bleed-out dealt with, my arm and hand wiped down, I finally got to leave! 

Take this, Microsoft! Take This WordPress!

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A photo a friend “messaged” me of Ralph in about 1972. It matches the comments below.

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Whenever Microsoft updates, I go through a period where it takes forever for my laptop to load. The frustration of learning a new reason I have to change how I go about it drives me crazy.

The worst frustration is when I go through the start-up, get frustrated after 15 or 20 minutes, go to “Restart”, then, after the screen goes blank for a long time, a little message pops up: “Don’t turn off your computer,” noting it’s downloading a new version of Microsoft. Isn’t that supposed to be done automatically when you select that option? The download only happens when you are in a rush to get onto your laptop. Or is it just me?!

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I’m having WordPress issues, too, where I set a posting time, but it doesn’t post.

Andy says, “I AM IN NO MOOD!!!”

The late [naughty] Dougy enjoying a scratch on the settee.

Nothing of interest on the television.

Andy had some ‘nip, then crashed on the recliner footrest.

A little personal grooming makes a pretty boy!

Andy has to decide what to do next.

Of course! Beg for some Greenies!

Andy sometimes blows me off. It’s all about him!

“You know you like this, Andrew. Give me a break!”

“No, I don’t!”

Except when he does.

~ Purr! Purr! ~

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I found nine biscuits in a Zip-Loc bag between the screen and storm doors when I came home from dialysis Thursday. I have no idea who left them, but I’ve enjoyed them with butter and strawberry jam for the past few days! Thank you, Mystery Baker! I love biscuits for breakfast or a light supper, but they are messy to make. I’d show you a picture of these delicious treats but I ate them all up!

Andy hit the ‘nip. I know that because it’s on his face and chest.

He stepped briefly by the new kitty lounger, stuck his head in, then ran into the next room.

Andy thinks there aren’t any Greenies there. Persian kitties have a hard time eating things close to the surface, and, from his perspective, there may as well not be any Greenies there. I save the Greenies he can’t eat and toss them outside for the birds or outside cats.

I clear the Greenies Andy can’t eat off the lapboard and…

… put out new Greenies for him!

Andy has urgent kitty business involving me. “Come with me, Doug!” It turned out to be something, maybe he wanted wet kitty food, which, when I put some out, he ignored.

Andy takes a short nap, then enjoys a bit of attention from me.

Off he goes again. It’s been like that all day! He wanted to look in the kitchen cabinets for “mousies” again. Oh yeah, we played “Look for Mousies in the Kitchen Cabinets” three, then four times. Sometimes it means he’s ready for wet kitty food; other times, it’s just something to do to get praise and face and back “scritches.”

Great! He doesn’t want Greenies now, so makes a mess knocking them off the lapboard when he takes a rest on top of those he didn’t at earlier. 

Off on more important kitty business, Andy stops by for a little face and head rubbing.

~ Nom! Nom! Nom! ~

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Andy’s happy I’m home again because he can have Greenies on demand.

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After yesterday’s packed post, I decided to give you something more minimal today.

Here comes Andy!

He came from behind this cat tree, the one where we start the morning with Andy’s back and head massages. (He’s a good boy – all that shredded rope is his doings!)

He stopped by the kitchen cabinets. Doug massaged his back and “scritched” his chin and ears, even opened cabinets to encourage him, but he wasn’t having it! 

Andy walked over to the open door, sniffed around, and then went to my bedroom to pout. He wasn’t happy I left him alone most of the day when I drove to Rapid City for my car appointment. He forgave me, yet I could tell that his feelings were hurt!

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I hate to see my little buddy upset but I have an annual trip to Rapid City for routine maintenance and incremental 10K VW-recommended maintenance on my VW. I just hit 40,000 miles/ 64,374 km on the odometer, so the 40K extras came due this year. 

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Next, a few landscape photos from my trip:

It’s the Ponderosa pine forest that covers the Black Hills that has a blackish appearance from afar that gives this area of South Dakota the name.

South again in Northwest Nebraska, the lowering clouds over the tableland and the lone tree in the foreground define this part of the state. (Yeah! Yeah! There are flat places in Nebraska, but most of the Panhandle, the western end, is hilly.)

The clump of trees on the far left is a shelterbelt. After the Dust Bowl years in the 1930s, this became a way people saved the soil from the wind. Often you’ll find a farmstead and outbuildings nestled in these trees. Aside from stabilizing the farmland, shelter belts serve wildlife from great horned owls and pheasants to white-tailed deer and songbirds, among many other species, as habitat. 

What the heck! This is my town’s big attraction, Carhenge. About three miles from where I live, I was happy to see it after a tiring day of making a 310 mile/ 499 km round trip. Home at last!

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I love my end of Nebraska! I came back after my US Army days in Germany and never considered living anywhere else. All these videos will take you a lot of time to view. I post them mostly for hardcore geography, geology, and history readers who are interested in new places, especially this one which is Andy and my birthplace.  

These are just the highlights! 

Geology of Nebraska – Wikipedia

Sometimes, this is about as good as I can edit the color. In this photo, Andy was very, very, very interested in several scenes with meowing cats. Hey! He didn’t need Closed Captions for that program!

I like the black & white version better. 

Same problem here. The black & white version is more likable. The color version burns your retinas out. LOL!

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Off to Rapid City now! Andy is an orphan for the day so I’ll leave the radio on. “All Things Considered”, “Morning Concert”, and “Afternoon Concert” should help. He likes a bit of news and music to deal with my absences. At least, when I return home he acts less anxious and needy than when I leave the radio on.

I’ll set extra wet and dry kitty food for when I am gone, otherwise, he’ll miss at least one, maybe two wet kitty food servings that the dry will help hold him. Kitty tummies are happier knowing there’s kitty food available on demand!

Television does this!

Andy conks out after watching endless commercials. (Umm. No, that was me! LOL!)

Or did he? Check out how he’s looking backward now, watching me.)

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Andy changed the venue to the recliner footrest, but he’s still watching me.

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Yesterday, I mailed in my car registration fees and a check to the local hospital for some charge I will talk with the person there who deals with collections. I suspect it is for a medication that I get through the pharmacy there, one that can’t be sold through my regular pharmacy for mysterious reasons I don’t get.

The United States Postmaster General is attempting to close some distribution centers.

Currently, if I mail a letter to the Box Butte Courthouse, for example, my election ballots and car registration fees, the physical distance from the mail box where I put my outgoing mail is under 200 feet/ roughly 600 meters from the courthouse, which is in the next block. The mail, though, goes to a post office box inside the post office, a short distance of a few feet.

By some thought process, the US Postal Service sends my mail first to North Platte, Nebraska. North Platte is 167 miles/269 kilometers away to be sorted, then returned to Alliance to be put in the Box Butte  County Treasurer’s (taxes, fees) or Box Butte County Clerk’s (ballots) post office boxes.

If the US Postmaster General gets his way, North Platte wouldn’t be the distribution center for this area, it would be Denver, Colorado, which is 248 miles/ 399 kilometers from Alliance, Nebraska, where I live.

A recap: my mail now goes a round trip of  344 miles/ 538 kilometers to get a few feet into the post office box a few feet away from the box where I put my letters. If the US Postmaster General gets his way, that would change to 496 miles/ 698 kilometers!