Post 836: kitty nap time…

Both boys take their daytime naps. Well, all three of us do, to be honest! Yet I never know where the cat brothers will chose to nap on any given day. They are as secretive as Saddam Hussein was, moving from “palace” to ‘palace” each nap time to avoid whatever inside kitties fear most, each other most likely since they are siblings and fight and play like brothers do!

I located Andy's secret lair today. It's an old one he's not used for some time.

I located sleepy Andy’s secret lair today.
It’s an old one he’s not used for some time.

Yes, once again Andy’s nap times are in the clothes drier.

Post 772: “Is it time for kitty food yet?”

Andy's tum my tells him it's time for kitty food. Andy tells his stomach it's still time to snooze....!

Andy’s tummy tells him it’s time for kitty food. Andy tells his tummy it’s still time to snooze….!

Andy’s tummy seems to be winning the argument! Andy yawns and prepares to wake up.

“Well, maybe my tummy can wait a little longer!”

Post 751: out of steam…

Sometimes the boys and I just run out of steam. Today was such a time, and we all spent most of the morning sleeping…!

Andy woke up long enough to see I was taking his photo, then he went back to sleep. Good move!

He scrunched the towel on the floor in front of the shower into a cat-perfect nest.

In news, we got a new neighbor across the lane. They are old neighbors, actually, who moved back to town. Though we are happy to see them again, they replace the neighbor who put out birdseed That neighbor’s largesse provided the boys hours of bird watching fun out the dining room window.

Oh, and the new neighbors have a car, so the old problem of too many cars, not enough parking spaces raises its nasty head again. I wouldn’t have moved here almost 11 years ago if I’d guessed how often parking would become an issue. The old neighbor didn’t drive.

My mail carrier may have scared off Dougy. I didn't hear her coming, but Dougy surely did, and I gratefully accepted the mail from this poor, frozen servant of the people. That';s her trudging up an incline covered in another drift across the lane. My neighbor gets a big drift the length of the ramp up to her front door.

The manager of the apartments thinks there’s room for one more car in this parking space. A cold day in hell, I say: I need to be able to open my door all the way to get out because of mobility issues. My body just doesn’t allow tight parking spaces, so I’d have to park in the drift on the far left and the other two cars’d have to crunch closer together. (That’s my Chevrolet next to the person in the photo, so you can see I’d go from the most favorable spot to the least favorable spot to accommodate the new neighbors’ car. The sidewalk to my apartment is to the right of that yellow pole , so the distance I’d have to walk is doubled parking in the “new” spot.)

I’ve toyed with putting in my application for a handicapped parking permit for some time, but haven’t gone ahead with it for two reasons: 1. I’m too proud to admit I am in shape bad enough to qualify, and, 2. many of the handicapped parking spots actually are farther from the main doors of the businesses featuring them than other parking spots for the general population, so there’s no advantage to someone who has problems walking distances.

On the other hand, if I apply for one and get it — I’m in worse shape than many of those I see using them! — the parking issue at my apartment becomes one with some interesting legal ramifications if my needs can’t be accommodated. An interesting conundrum.

Post 724: “Whatchew lookin’ at…?”

Not that warm today, but it’s nice inside in the sun. Ask Dougy!

Enjoying the morning sun!

Of course, when you aren’t doing anything and others around you are doing something, there is tension. “Why aren’t you doing something?”

“Whatchew lookin’ at…?”
Dougy’s horns are up. Guess it’s best to let sun-dozing cats lie!

Post 646: snug Dougy

Some days — icey cold days! — the best plan is to snug up to the closest warm body and take a snooze. Dougy chose me for his snuggles. I appreciate the arm warmer! d sleep

Post 576: sleeping in

How best to celebrate the return to standard time! We all slept in today.

~zzzzzz

Oops! I woke my sleepy boy with the flash. Sorry, Andy!

Post 569: sleepy boy

My cats like to lounge with me, and Dougy has a long history of making himself comfortable on my computer desk when I’m on my computer. For example, here’s my sleepy boy on the top shelf:

dougy_edited-1

Makes me feel good to have a little fuzzy company while I play, even if he’s sleeping!

Dougy still thinks he fits where he did as a kitten.

Dougy’s computer desk snoozes go back to his earliest time. He was around three months old in this cutey pie photo. He still likes to put his paw on my arm this way.

Post 376: Supper better be delicious!

I decided to slow cook a stew today. Preparations began a good eight hours before I thought I might want to eat.

The cabbage, broccoli, and carrots presented no problem: slice’em up, and add them to the pot. I sautéed the yellow pepper, added the stew meat to brown it and get some of those great juices to add to the stew.

Pepper. I needed pepper. Then all hell began!

The cap on the pepper mill came off, and dumped enough peppercorns onto the frying pan of yellow peppers and stew meat to burn down California!

The photo is an “after” shot. Most of the peppercorns on the cutting board were on the yellow pepper and stew meat in the frying pan moments before. I tried to remove as many as I could, but ended up picking up yellow pepper and meat in tiny amounts in the tongs, knocking the peppercorns and excess pepper off before putting them in the stew pot.

A big &$^#^-ing mess!

Tedious! (Note the coffee mug with Louie the ginger cat on it at the top center of the photo: That was me, waving my arms and saying very naughty things when the cap came off the pepper mill. It was not a happy moment!)

If it didn’t take too long to clean off the excess pepper from the meat and yellow peppers, the stove and everything else took much more time to sort out. That’s what I faced in the photo above, the whole mess.

The cutting board mess was contained and easy to clean up.

I dumped the meat and peppers into a serving dish to sort what I wanted to save from the excess pepper…one or two pieces at a time.

Did I mention the fire alarm went off while I tried to straighten out the mess? Peppercorns fell under the hot burner and sent up a smoke screen. I opened a window and the back door to clear out the smoke. The vent fan couldn’t keep up with it. Though I reset the fire alarm to shut it off, that is to say, yelled several blasphemies and poked the reset button, enough smoke remained to set it off again and again.

“What the %^$#*,” I said to myself, “As long as I’m dealing with the fire alarm and the clean up, I may as well roast coffee beans, too. That always triggers the fire alarm. The window and door are already wide open. I already ready with the broom to poke the reset button, and…” The fire alarm blared again. That’s five times total for both causes.

Little by little, I disassembled the stove top to clean it out and off, vacuumed the floor of its liberal dusting of peppercorns, and ended up with a yummy looking pot of what will be stew this afternoon.

Cabbage, carrot, broccoli, diced tomatoes, yellow pepper, and cubed beef. I decided against potatoes in case I end up freezing some of it — very likely! Potatoes get a strange texture when frozen, one I dislike.

Supper better be delicious!

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I keep referring to the pepper as a “yellow pepper”, which it was when I bought it. In the day or two after I bought it before I used it, it became an orange pepper! (No, I’m not color blind. I just hadn’t noticed the ripening that took place in all the hubbub that came about in making this stew. Orange pepper. Yeah. That’s what it is!

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If adversity doesn’t bring knowledge, then you better take a look at yourself! What did I learn from this episode? Simple: measure your herbs and spices into separate containers, then add them when you are ready to add them to the food you’re preparing! They do it on cooking shows, but it didn’t register as good practice to me until I learned from personal experience why you should do it!

Shortly after I reset the fire alarm for the fifth time, second time while roasting coffee beans, I realized I hadn’t added salt to the stew…! Did I truly learn my lesson or am I just blowing air?

Happy day! I did learn my lesson! I measured out the amount of salt I needed with a measuring spoon, then added it to the stew. Any other time, I’d use either the salt mill (which is the same style as the pepper mill that emptied on my stew) or shake some out of a salt shaker on the stove. Not today, folks! Not today!

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I’ve mentioned before how hard it is to take photos of my cats. They have tricky hair that photographs differently in different light. I present two examples. One where I couldn’t get the color to look right because of how it interacted with artificial light, and another that I converted to black and white for the same reason. (Oddly, the black and white one is the more realistic of the two.)

Orangish Andy takes a sly upside down look at me while I work on my computer.

Here’s the same photo in black and white, a much nicer result!

What the heck. Here’s a second photo of Andy sleeping on my computer desk shelf. He may be scarce, very scarce when I need to catch him to give him his medicine, but he likes to hang out with me otherwise!

andy schlaft 4-13-14

Post 323: Dougy sneaks a snooze…in ANDY’s tub!

I mentioned in Post 322 how Dougy sneaked a snooze in Andy’s tub, but Andy spotted him and got him to move out with “The Staredown”. It seems Dougy learned nothing from that encounter.