Jenny has to become the most impatient cat I know. It USED to be that she would jump up on the bed or the couch and wait for me to finish a sentence I am typing or whatever... then allow me to pet her. But NOW? She is meowing for attention as she is jumping up. Sometimes she meows before I even see her.

Jake can't really meow, so he just climbs up on me when he wants attention. But he at least has the decency to give me a minute if I'm in the middle of something.

And speaking of decency...

Lately I am lucky if I get 1/4 to 1/3 of the bed. Just look at this shit!

And that there is where they are feeling generous! Friday night I woke up because JENNY WAS KICKING ME OVER!! I was dazed and sleepy and very nearly fell off the bed! I think I had a grand total of 12 inches of bed to sleep in. And then she hopped off the bed and went downstairs. So... essentially she kicked me awake just to let me know she was leaving?

Monsters.

My cats are monsters.

As I mentioned on Saturday, driving over the mountains is always a crapshoot in my neck of the woods. My drive Seattle-side was a piece of cake. A beautiful drive, actually. No complaints.

The drive home, however?

Kinda maybe I guess?

The most direct path that I drove on Saturday was now "Traction Tires Required" with chains required only for trucks. I have very good tires, so that didn't bother me. The idea that people who have zero clue how to drive on snow, slush, and patches of ice would likely bother me very much, however... so I took a less direct route over two mountain passes which were both listed as being "bare and wet". Sure it takes 30 minutes longer to drive that... but it would likely be a lot less aggravating, and possible safer as well.

The first pass was great because there are multiple lanes. Very easy to pass those wanting to go 20 miles under the speed limit for some reason (as seen by my dashcam)...

But the second pass has a single lane most of the time. You get an extra lane going up the pass in either direction, but if you're coming down the pass and the person ahead of you is going 20 miles under the speed limit... then you're going 20 miles under the speed limit as well...

This wouldn't have aggravated me much... if not for the fact that I had to pee really, really bad the last hour of my trip behind somebody who was behind somebody driving painfully slow for no reason.

Oh well.

I made it home without peeing my pants, although my cats were pretty upset that I waddled past them to the bathroom without giving them pets.

Welcome to Caturday, which is on Friday because I will be away from my cats tomorrow as I make a Christmas pilgrimage to the coast.

And believe you me... my cats know what's going on.

Don't ask me how, because even if I pack my suitcase in secret, they somehow figure it out anyway. My solution now-a-days is to pack days before I leave so that they have time to calm down before I go. Because leaving while they're keyed up is not a pleasant situation for any of us.

As it was, they were mostly normal tonight...

Tomorrow I will try and slip out as quietly as possible. Just like I do when I go to work.

My cats are feral rescues.

Despite all my best efforts and all the visitors that have been to my home, they still cower from strangers. And everybody but me are considered strangers. Sometimes, if there's not a lot of noise, they will venture downstairs and eventually say hello to an unknown person. But that's rare. Most times it will never happen.

And you can just forget about holding them, carrying them, or trying to get them to actually do just about anything at all.

Which is why I see videos like this and am just dumbfounded...

That would never, ever happen with Jake and Jenny.

First of all, you couldn't pick them up to put them in those chairs. Second of all, they would bail out of those chairs immediately if you were to actually get them in them. Third of all, the idea that they would in any way look like they are paying attention to anything happening that's being done by humans.

Sooooo... sorry. No funny cat videos from me.

Jenny is a very smart cat. Very.

This poast week Jenny met me in the kitchen and was complaining about something. I didn't know what until I went to sit down in the living room. Jake was in her spot. She likes the warming pad that's next to me, and Jake usually takes the heating pad on the loveseat across from that.

And I was like "Well, he beat you to it, so you can sit on his spot." BUT DO YOU KNOW WHAT SHE DID? Something she's done many times, but I never realized it until now. She scratches on the scratching post behind the loveseat knowing that as soon as she starts, Jake will come running to investigate and start scratching himself. And as soon as he did, she came running around the corner so she can get petted and take her spot back.

I know this is unbelievable, but heeeeere's the video...

Note how Jake wanders off, not even knowing that he's been played.

Speaking of Jake. He's finally started going outside to see the snow, though he doesn't seem to know what to make of it...

Sometime soon, I need to shovel some snow into the catio so they can play in it.

Jake and Jenny turn 8 years old today. Well, probably today. They were found in the wild, so their birthday has always been estimated.

Last year was more than a little upsetting for me, because most cats only live 13 to 14 years old, which means December 2022 was the half-way point of their expected lifetime. Sure there are cats that live to be 18 years old, but this is not common. Which is to say that if they weren't at their half-life last year, they most certainly are this year.

It's tough to wrap my head around, because it seems like they only arrived yesterday...

So, yeah, celebrating Jake and Jenny's birthday from here on out is just going to be a celebration of them being around for another year. Because that's pretty much what it has to be, doesn't it?

Happy 8th birthday to my two knuckleheads. My life is better because you're both in it.

It's snowed a little bit this week, but yesterday is when it really hammered us. This is a confusing time for my cats, as they don't have very good long-term memories. To them, they've never seen snow before, so this is something wild and new.

But first... I've been playing with macro photography on my iPhone, so here's a macro photo of Jake...

And now back to the snow.

Jenny was a brave little girl and charged outside right after breakfast. She shook her little feet with each step because she did not like them getting wet. But then she decided to dig a hole in it to see what it was all about...

Jake, on the other hand, prefered to view the madness from the safety (and warmth) from inside...

Maybe later this week I'll shovel more snow into the catio so they have enough to play in. That's always good for big fun.

And speaking of big fun... it's almost their dinnertime.

Well. This day could have gone better.

On the bright side, it could have gone much, much worse.

Anyway, happy Monday...

Cats are the best.

My cats have been fending for themselves while I've been over the mountains for the holiday Weekend. Fortunately their food, water, and litter-box are all automated, so all I have to do is check in on them with the security cameras and make sure they aren't eating each other's food.

Although automation isn't always guaranteed.

Earlier this week I came down to feed them breakfast when I noticed that there was a pile of poo outside the litter-box on the litter-shield shelf. I didn't have to watch the security cameras to know what happened. Jake used it, then it didn't self-clean for some reason. Jenny, who refuses to use a dirty litter-box, schooched as far back as she could, so her little butt was hanging out the opening. Poo poo for you.

Then I checked the playback and, sure enough...

Guess I officially know my cats too well.

Snow is inching closer, but I'm not pulling the shovel out just yet... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• Holiday Trooper! I've been sending care packages to the troops through AnySoldier.com for years. This is another program that's very cool because it doesn't cost you a dime! Just choose the four treats you want to send overseas, write a message of support, and Crown Royal will send it!

I wish more organizations would do something like this.

   
• Catventure! Mr. Kitters has many adventures (here's a link in case TikTok is being a dick)...

Surprisinly, I haven't seen Mr. Kitters ripping apart some poor bird. Thank heavens.

   
• Murder! There I was, just starting A Murder at the End of the World on Hulu. The main character is driving in a car with her boyfriend and they are singing along to No More I Love You's by Annie Lennox... and I know this will be a show that's something truly special. Honestly, they could have just released this scene as a commercial for the series and I would be all in. But there's so much more to it, and I can't wait for the remaining five episodes to drop...

The cast is amazing on top of it all. I just hope they stick the landing.

   
• Killer! Every time I see yet another brilliant film by David Fincher, I am mad all over again that he never got to make the sequels to The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, which remains one of my favorite films of all time. Though, while we're on the subject, a sequel to The Killer on Netflix would be fantastic, because this was a darn enjoyable flick...

ALTHOUGH... a better use of the money would be for Netflix (who has an existing relationship with Fincher AND Daniel Craig) to get the rights to The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest. Just sayin'.

   
• What Was I Made For? People saying that Billy Eilish is untalented makes me laugh and laugh and laugh. She's not entirely my thing... but I love this song... and listening to her brother explain how they created it should put the nail in the coffin of the idea that anybody could crap out the music they make. A song so multifaceted and lovely doesn't happen by accident. This is art...

Brilliant.

   
• Unmortricken! Rick and Morty has always been borderline genius with momentary lapses into episodes I'm completely indifferent about. But this latest episode? Unmortricken? I honestly don't know where the show goes from here. It's like every episode up until this point has been building to this point... and now it's over. Or mostly over. Which means that they either A) Have a plan to move in an entirely different direction along the same bizarre themes. B) Have ruined the show and it's going to devolve into a suck spiral before dying out. C) Will eventually realize that this was a big mistake and find a way to reverse it. I really hope it's Option A, because wow this episode was this a fantastic example of how *good* the show is when it's not getting in its own way.

No, I didn't like Unmortricken better than ten other episodes (including The Rickshank Rickdemption which is one of the best episodes of television ever made), but it just goes to show that Rick and Morty is far from over if they can keep defying expectations like this.

   
• Blarf! I was excited that a Jaime Reyes "Blue Beetle" movie was in development. He's a fun character in the comics, and the fact that we'd finally get a Latino-centric super-hero movie meant it might be *different* from the same old thing. — Until I saw the trailers. They made it very clear that this was a "power of family" movie instead of a Blue Beetle movie. And who gives a shit about that? — Turns out the movie (now on HBO Max) is even worse than that. It is boring as fuck. It takes a half-hour... A HALF-HOUR... before you even see the Blue Beetle, for crying out loud...

This is the most boring, uneventful, slog of an origin story that's ultimately just a frickin' Iron Man/Spider-Man hybrid clone, and not in a good way. I hope to God that James Gunn gets the DCU turned around so we avoid more of this idiotic crap. HA HA HA! GRANDMA WITH A GATLING GUN! HILARIOUS! and, even worse, HA HA HA! HOW FUNNY! HE CAN'T CONTROL THE SUIT AND HE'S RUNNING INTO EVERYTHING FOR TEN MINUTES! Jesus. I know Greatest American Hero was a while ago, but this has been done to death. From there on it's just talk talk talk talk talk with action beats that are equally boring. What a frickin' waste.

   
Hope your Turkey Day is a good one.