Proof that Andy isn’t always the “nice” kitty boy…!
Clockwise from left: Andy tends to his “precious”; Andy is a pretty kitty; Andy finds the catnip.
Dougy poses nicely; Dougy enjoys the sun while lounging in his – well, Andy’s – grey plastic tub. Yeah, Dougy took the first one for himself. I bought a second one for Andy, and Dougy claimed that one, too!
Taking photos of black cats in low light is difficult, yet it is possible to make purses out of those sow’s ears. Here is an impressionistic portrait of Andy with the framed Captain Me-Ow (the late Louie the ginger cat) picture behind him.
Yet another fake poster! This time, it’s Andy. Yes, he is very adamant and inflexible about his kitty treat time~!
Dougy in a box, of course. No box too small, tall, thin, large for this kitty boy! This is the box my laptop came in.
RAWR! People might try to rub his tummy to get their way in Congress, but he’d kill their hand! Feed him kitty treats, though, he might cave in. Catnip? Forget about it! He’d sell his own brother for it!
Not a kitty photo, but one of the coolest postage stamps I’ve ever seen.
Of course, this Dutch postage stamp with the leaping cow with outlines of EU countries for spots, flying wooden shoes, tulips, and ribbons in the Dutch national colors is pretty cool, too!
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Waiting for Craig, Andy amused me by sneaking a peek at Dougy’s box. At least, Doug thinks it’s his.
Andy thought he heard Dougy, and scooted away to safety!
Then Andy heard Craig arriving, but was too much a scaredy cat to wait at the door till Craig came in. Onto the box he hopped! Safety at last!
I scritched the kitty boys and told them to be good while I was gone, then Craig and I gassed up his buggy and took off for Rapid City to fetch my car.
I had a short wait at the service department, but I saw Black Beauty parked in the lot when I arrived at the dealership. That was sufficient to settle any anxieties I had about picking up my car. It spent from September 14th to October 25th in Rapid City, long enough for me to forget how to adjust the seat, for example. (It came back to me before I drove off, but it was iffy!)
The kitty boys greeted me at the door when I arrived from Rapid City. Their multi-colored fabric toy was at the door, which was different from when I left this morning. The kitty boys played their little game to spend the hours I was gone! (There was no blood, fur, or tipped over objects, so they were – apparently – good kitties all day.)
Best of all, Black Beauty is back in its special spot, ready to be of service when I need to go places! It was a delight driving my car again.
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I’m a bit wound up today. My car is supposed to be ready for me to pick up after weeks in the shop for repairs of damage from my accident in Hot Springs, South Dakota, on September 15th.
My friend Craig’s driving down from Rapid City to take me back to Rapid City, where my car is being held hostage till I pay the bill.
There have been so many (upsetting) reversals in the process – wrong part ordered, knot head who didn’t make an estimate in a timely manner adding a week to my wait, and more – that I, frankly, hope I can be civil when I pay my bill.
Black Beauty in happier times…
[G-Day = Golf Day, as in VW Golf Sportwagen]
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Andy guessed right. I was getting ready to leave for the best part of the day, so he acted up…up on the table, specifically!
The little rascal got into the crackers. Not for the crackers, mind you, but for the crinkly packaging. I watched to see what he would do, and he started to pull the tube of crackers out of the box, intending to take it somewhere he could work on the crinkly packaging. I put a stop to that! Dougy watched from the dining room cat tree. (Good kitty!)
The main concern when I plan a day away is that the kitty boys have plenty of food and water. Their main concern is that the human be home in time to set out wet food for the kitties.
My friend Craig and I left the kitty boys and took to the road. Thanks to July and August rain storms, this is a sunflower year! The crowds visiting Alliance for the total eclipse were spared the normal dried out look this time of year and treated to this beautiful carpet of sunflowers everywhere! Craig and I enjoyed the ride down to our friend’s lovely lakeside home.
We classmates of the AHS class of ’66 had a salad lunch, a pleasant relaxed fellowship sharing thoughts, time, and laughs together. We’ve lost four classmates in the past year, and have resolved to keep in touch better, get together regularly because – and while – we can.
Craig left early since he had a three hour or so drive back home, but the rest of us went out to the patio and enjoyed the cool breeze, the pleasant lakeside setting, and snacks. Carol and I terrorized each other and our classmates taking photos. (The four below are her contribution to the record.)
I didn’t get home till hours after the kitty boys are used to getting their wet food. Were they waiting at the door? And how! Andy (I think) let out a howl of protest as I walked in the door: “How dare you make us wait for our kitty food!!”
I fixed the kitty food, two kitty boys trailing me each step of the way. I gave them half a can instead of a third to make up for the breach of “The Standard Expected Time The Human Must Be Available To Feed The Kitties”. We (the kitties) were not amused!
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It happens once in a lifetime. Today is Nebraska’s sesquicentennial! Admitted to the Union on March 1, 1867, Nebraska was the 37th state in the United States of America.
Today, Andy and Dougy take a break from kittycattery and mayhem to salute and celebrate the state where they were born on July 1, 2011, Nebraska. Most Nebraskans don’t know there is an official state song, but Andy and Dougy do, and they will meow along with you while we sing “Beautiful Nebraska”:
The vast majority of our readers won’t know that the Western Meadowlark is our state bird, and the prairie is alive during their breeding season with their lusty, lilting song, often sung from a fence post for best projection to any Western Meadowlark hens that might be around to hear. (This one sang in Wyoming, but sounds to my ear like in a dialect closest to what I hear next door in Western Nebraska. Just saying…~!)
Wow! That song got Andy and Dougy wound up! But they are dyed in the wool Nebraskans. They even stand at attention and meow along when they hear the unofficial state song, the University of Nebraska Fight Song:
Geez! They’re bouncing off the ceiling after that rousing tune! “There is no place like Nebraska…meow-meooow!”
There is historic Nebraska, a prairie state populated by people from Germany, Bohemia, Czarist Russia, Italy, England, and people like mine, from Scotland and states east like Missouri, Ohio, and Virginia, among other places. They came to build railroads to the West Coast, then to populate fertile farmland along the line that was free under terms of the Homestead Act, then the Kincaid Act, which helped turn the Nebraska Sandhills into a prime cattle-producing region of the United States.
But Nebraska is much more than that. There are two videos below. One is short, and the second one lasts over 45 minutes, in case you are really, really, really curious about where the kitty boys and I live.
Yes, the kitty boys and I are very proud to call ourselves Nebraskans on this, her 150th Birthday!
Nebraska’s flag: Long may she wave, at least until someone finally designs one that doesn’t get rated 2nd worst of all state flags by vexillogists:
As Andy and Dougy put it, “Meow!”
“Meow up for Nebraska, Dougy!”
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This blog has grown faster than I can keep up with in one important regard: I’ve gotten way, way behind in thanking new people who follow it. When new follows were rare, I sent a personal thank you to each new follow. It was the polite thing to do.
If you haven’t received a personal thank you from me when you signed up, please accept my apologies for being negligent. I do appreciate each and every one of you! Please accept this less personal but heartfelt “thank you” now. Thanks! Heck, have a hug on me, too, because you are special!
This blog nearly doubled in followers in the past ten months, something that amazes me, frankly, since it is a simple blog about kitties, mostly, and an occasional aside about me. Now that this aside is over, here’s what you come for: Kitty cats! In this instance, Dougy and his new ear style.
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Traditional style ears.
Styling it! Dougy’s new fashion.
As Dougy’s guardian, I told him he wasn’t going anywhere wearing his ear that way! Scandalous! So I folded it back into traditional style before he polluted Andy with his silly ear style. What’s next? A catnip leaf tattoo? You have to nip these things in the bud.
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Yesterday was a day to “find” misplaced things, you know, right in plain view but forgotten things!
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Dougy was pleased I “found” his tub under the TV stand. I need to clean up some other things he likes that are still there.
I was pleased I found this old photo of me hand feeding a pine siskin. I took it sometime back in the 1980s on a bitterly cold February day (-14°F / -26°C). Yes, I remember that temperature! Curiously, yesterday, another February day years later, it got up to 63°F / 17°C!
I learned how to hand feed birds by watching Woody the grey tabby cat, my neighbors kitty, stalk birds at the feeders. You stop a safe distance away from the birds, wait without moving. Then you move forward a step or two and wait without moving till the spooked birds return. You repeat this till you are right up on the birds on the feeder.
(Keep in mind, my hand was filled with shelled sunflower seeds, and was extended just like in the photo. The camera is in the other hand, pre-focused, at the right aperture, and ready to shoot.)
Once the birds are comfortable you are just a strange harmless feeder, they hop onto your hand and defend the seeds from each other. I’ve had up to five pine siskins on my hand at a time, with another hanging on the frame of my glasses, and another perched on my head. It’s hard not to laugh!
My thumb is approximately the same size as a pine siskin. I’ve wiggled it at a pine siskin and the bird attacked it, extending its wings to expose the yellow stripe and under wing feathers and making squawky sounds to drive off the interloper! Quite brave!
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This has opinions related to the presidency of Barack Obama and the impeding presidency of Donald Trump. You may not agree with this, and I will not discuss the merits of one over the other beyond those opinions expressed here.
The blog title hints at where I stand, and those with a different opinion may skip to the kitty content and spare themselves an upset. That’s the least I can do for those who come here for a some light kitty fun to lighten their day.
Dougy’s ready to pounce!
A bit of context, now. Those of you who’ve read the “who I am” page realize “weggieboy” (wegg-ee-boy) is no joke. I don’t yank the waistbands of others or I’d be “wedgieboy” (wedge-ee-boy). I remind you of this because I want you to realize I am serious today, not some juvenile pranking his buddies. I have a disease that didn’t kill me at least three times when it flared, a disease that most recently sent me to the hospital with end term kidney failure. That’s pretty serious.
Further, I was an English/Journalism/Advertising sequence major when I attended the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Specificity, accuracy, correct spelling, word meanings, and other arcane business are important to me, though I sometimes post errors in my blog. I have, however, found errors in years old posts, corrected them, and reposted those posts. I am anal that way!
Among the people I respect and count as inspirational is my cousin Sharon, the publisher of a weekly newspaper in Hyannis, Nebraska, a village in the beautiful Nebraska Sandhills. She shares my compulsions, of course. She’s a journalist! We also have one of those cousin things. Though we are 10 years apart in age, our bond is our mutual interests, family (of course), and values that go back a lifetime. She is one of my favorite people, someone I respect very much. Yeah, I love my cousin, too. She’s great!
Her newspaper, the co-star of the video (above) with Dougy, has the usual things you find in a newspaper and more – sports news, news about town, special editions for Christmas, Sharon’s incredible “Cattle Edition” which features histories of Sandhills families involved in ranching in the county, and a lively editorial page.
Her newspaper came in the mail yesterday. I read it this morning. I found this editorial, in which she expresses trepidation about the next president of the USA. As a person with a serious health issue, I share her trepidation. Yeah, that concern specifically, but many more about existential threats to American sovereignty and our variety of representative republicanism.
Sharon wrote an editorial about her trepidation. Toward the end, she mentioned my father, a life long Republican who voted the last time before he died for the Democrat Barack Obama. If Sharon hadn’t told me what she relates in her editorial, I would never have known that about him. His reasons had a lot to do with his policeman’s ability to judge character. The question my cousin poses is what would he have thought about the candidates eight years later, especially the character Donald Trump? And he is a character. As for his character, I have trepidations.
Sharon’s editorial…
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It was time for Andy’s medicine. That is to say, I managed to snag him when he had his guard down, and I hadn’t given him his medicine yet. Yeah, “medicine time”!
I thought it would be a good time to get some photos for today’s blog, too. What I hadn’t counted on was Dougy. Dougy! I’m wrestling his unhappy brother, and Dougy got up on the counter, not an approved kitty activity!
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Gad! Andy got his medicine, but Dougy made it a challenge beyond the usual challenge. Bad kitty! He knows he’s not supposed to hop on the counter!
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I am sick of the problems that come with computers. Now I can’t use my wireless connection to the internet because of a messed up router (I think it’s called).
Dougy is mad!
In the good old days when I worked, I’d just call my company IT guru and he or she would struggle through the mindless, soul-sucking task of getting things to work again. And they got paid good money to do it!
Now, the mindless, soul-sucking business falls on me, probably the least patient person on earth! I’m amazed, frankly, that I managed to get a direct connection to the Internet through my modem. That was too easy, though I have to sit on a folding chair because the cable doesn’t reach to a comfortable chair or desk.
Further, I had to disconnect the power line to my laptop because there aren’t enough power outlets by the modem, etc. for just one more electronic gizmo.
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