PLEASE BEWARE: Loads of fake charities are popping up trying to get you to donate to Hurricanes Milton and Helene relief efforts. Before donating anything anywhere, I implore you to check CharityNavigator.org and be sure that 1) The charity actually exists... and 2) The charity has a ranking which puts maximum dollars into the relief efforts.

If you want an easy way to help out, GlobalGiving.org has vetted charities for all kinds of causes. Their Hurricane Milton Relief page is right here (and they have a 97% rating from Charity Navigator).

If you want to donate to help animals in crisis situations, The Human Society of The United States is a great choice (and they have a 98% rating from Charity Navigator).

Meanwhile Jake and I are taking a break before I get back to my long, long list of weekend chores. This morning I started with taking apart the cat shelters and testing the warming pads so Fake Jake won't freeze if he's outside this winter... then taking apart the Litter Robots to give them one last deep cleaning before winter... then start in on the 20 loads of clothes I need to wash... then painted a wall I repaired last night... and here we are at 3:30 already.

And I'm exhausted. Might have something to do with only getting four hours of sleep last night because I was aurora-watching (or rather not getting to see any aurora to watch). This weekend is going to fly by.

Which is unfortunate. I could really use some sleep.

Indoor cats have serious FOMO when it comes to the Great Outdoors.

Which is why I built Jake and Jenny a catio, so they can have the illusion of enjoying the Great Outdoors while still being safe. But it's not just the catio... they have windows too. And they really, really love being distracted by the world outside the windows. Many times they've been sitting next to me on the couch or in bed and will go running to a window to investigate a bird that flew by or some rival cat moving in on their territory.

Yesterday morning Jake was next to me while I was in bed working. He was washing his face after breakfast when he suddenly bolted over my laptop to the window...

Then he bolted to the other window. Then he bolted to the window in my office next door. And then I heard him run downstairs into the catio.

Jeny, of course heard the disruption and bolted downstairs to see what was happening. She didn't want to miss out.

No idea what it was. My guess is a new cat they haven't seen before.

But it could have been aliens, in which case I'm the one who was missing out.

Jenny is skittish. She is always on high alert... even when it comes to me.

And who can blame her? I'm a giant by comparison! So when she's sitting somewhere, I will walk as slow as I can or take a route where I'm not so close that I spook her. I'd rather let her come to me when she wants attention than scare her. Then she can pretend to be disinterested, but I know better...

Meanwhile in Jake news...

I have never trimmed my cats' claws. Both of them maintain their own claws, they're not growing back into their toe pads, and they don't scratch where they're not supposed to. Jake is very serious about keeping his claws groomed, but makes clicky noises when he walks on the hardwood floors.

Except this week when he's gone totally silent somehow. Very disturbing to have him be able to sneak up on me when I can usually hear him coming!

One minute he's not there. Then the next thing I know he's popped up wanting to be petted...

Though there are certainly worse surprises to be had.

The luxurious Summer heat has started to dissipate, which means that my cats are less likely to want to spend time outside in the catio.

Which means they're hanging around the house being all bored. And it goes something like this...

Me: "JAKE! HEY JAKE! YO, JAKE! WHAT'S HAPPENING JAKE?!?"

Jake:

Yeah, Spring can't come soon enough for them.

Today I had to run out for a quick errand. When I got back, Jake was running up to me crying like I had been gone fifteen days instead of fifteen minutes. So I started petting him like I always do when I come home from work. Except any time I went to leave, he'd start crying again. So I ended up hanging with Jake for more time than I was actually gone.

Jenny, on the other hand, is crying more often because she doesn't like what she's being fed for her meals. Even if it's something she's yummed up many, many times before... all of a sudden it's unacceptable and so she comes into the kitchen crying at me to complain. I used to rush to find something else, but the more I did that the more often she complained. So I started ignoring her, and she'd go eat the stuff she didn't want two seconds prior. But this week when I tried that, she was not having it. She followed me out of the kitchen and hounded me until I was all "ALRIGHT! ALRIGHT! I'LL GET YOU SOMETHING ELSE!"

Which is exactly what she wanted, and she got her way. Again.

My girl is getting so cranky as she gets older. Just look at this face she made when her peace was interrupted by Jake who hopped on the bed, flopped over, then passed out...

She gave me this look for a while. And look at the judgey look she gave me when I dared to cough while she was sleeping. She woke up, twisted herself around, then glared at me...

Poor Jenny. She really is the sweetest cat you'll ever find. She just enjoys letting you know when she's annoyed.

Facebook is the craziest fucking platform. They are constantly slapping down people for stupid reason, giving them time-outs for even stupider reason, and outright banning them for the stupidest reasons you've heard... all while not doing a fucking thing to protect people who are actually being attacked or stopping advertisers who are scammers.

One of the posts I made years ago was flagged as "False Information"...

And I was like... huh. I wonder what it was that I shared? I click through and they don't tell me yet, I'm just told that independent fact checkers have flagged the post...

I click through on that and find out that it's a fucking joke as to why cats purr...

Jesus. Meanwhile politicians are posting some shit that's so fucking outrageous that it defies any kind of logic, but since Facebook isn't flagging that, their followers are thinking "Well, it must be 100% true or else Facebook would be flagging it like they do that misinformation about why cats purr!" But of course it's just because Facebook doesn't give a single fuck about truth... it's all about money. Advertisers lie? Who cares, they are paying Facebook for their ads! Politicians lie? Who cares, their followers are driving engagement which means more eyeballs on ads which means more money! It's only the random people who have almost zero monetary value to Facebook that get blocked or banned because it's not affecting the money that's rolling in.

I say this as Jake is purring next to me on the couch.

Continuing on with my recent trip to Walt Disney World... Well today's entry didn't go as planned.

What I wanted to do, just for fun, was have Adobe Photoshop's "Generative Fill" tool put Mickey Mouse ears on my cats as I continue writing about my trip to Walt Disney World. And that was going to be the entire post today. Two photos and done. What can I say, it struck me as funny.

So I drew a lasso around Jake's head and opened up the Generative AI Fill dialogue so I could ask for "Mickey Mouse ears hat...

But Adobe wasn't having it, and I got an error telling me that there was something wrong with my prompt...

No matter how I tried to get around it by using other words, Adobe AI would refuse to give me what I want and instead gave me crazy stuff like this...

I'm assuming, there was a copyright issue, because what else could it be? This is hilarious when you consider Adobe was happy to train their AI tool by stealing from a bajillion people's work. But big companies like Disney have lawsuit money, so I guess Adobe has gotta do what they gotta do.

Eventually I gave up and just did the Photoshop job myself...

I picked photos which I thought represented my cats and their reaction to having Mickey Ears on their heads. Pretty much perfect.

No thanks to Adobe Photoshop Generative Fill.

Just one more reason to loathe AI, I guess.

>Continuing on with my recent trip to Walt Disney World... I usually buy something for my cats to play with when I go on vacation.

After I got back from my trip to Disney World, I had to order a replacement Orange Bird MagicBand+, so I ordered a small plush for my cats so they had a souvenir as well. Except when I got it, the thing wasn't "small" at all. Orange Bird was as tall as my cats and maybe even a little taller! So there goes my plan where they (but mostly Jake) would be dragging him all over the house as they do with their other plushie toys.

Jenny ran back upstairs the minute she saw it. Jake, on the other hand, was curious...

He gave Orange Bird a couple sniffs. Batted at it once or twice. Then walked away...

Jake and Jenny both has been ignoring Orange Bird ever since.

Oh well. I tried.

As for myself? The souvenir I bought for me was a Grinning Loth Cat collectible tiki mug from Oga's Cantina at Galaxy's Edge...

The matte grey one from Walt Disney World Florida is not as cool as the glossy shaded brown one from Disneyland California, but I still love it.

And, as much as I'd love to set it out, I worry that it would then become another souvenir for my cats once one of them knocks it off a table or something. So it gets to be put in my glassware cabinet.

As I've mentioned, my cats have a serious case of FOMO when it comes to anything new and exciting. If one cat seems to be doing something interesting, the other will immediately come running to see what's happening.

This morning Jake was out in the catio when Fake Jake wandered by. He was beside himself. And when Fake Jake walked outside of his view, Jake came bombing into the living room and high-tailed it into the bedroom so he could keep watching him.

Jenny was sitting next to me when all this went down. She LAUNCHED off of me to run after her brother.

And scraped up my arm with her back feet while I was scratching her.

So that was fun.

Fortunately she decided to use her brother as a foot-rest instead of me tonight. And he was thrilled...

I don't know why Jenny loves sleeping with her feet up against something. Maybe she just likes to know she's not alone?

And who could blame her. It's been thundering like crazy.

Poor Jake.

He's been getting more and more agitated lately, and I'm not sure what's up. I'm going to try to get him into the vet sometime soon to see if it's anything physical. I hope that his urinary problems haven't returned after all these years. He doesn't seem to have any trouble at the litter box. Though he has started announcing when he poops.

In the meanwhile, he's got this kind of ennui thing going on at random times where he seems depressed. Or bored. Or something. Trying to engage with him is tough because all he wants to do is get petted and fall asleep...

Maybe it's because it's been too hot out for him to go out to the catio? He has been going out at night when it's cooler, but he does spend a lot of time looking out the window during the day. If he goes outside, it's just for a few minutes.

Or maybe he's just getting old and cranky like his sister.

And me.

A month ago I came home from floating on the rive in absurd heat to find Jenny wouldn't come near me after I applied lotion on my sunburn. Apparently she didn't like my new smell, and would rather run away than get her nightly pets before I fall asleep.

Jake on the other hand?

Oh of course he as all over me, because no amount of smells or burning flesh was going to deter him...

last night when I got home, one of the little monsters had knocked the bottle of moisturizer on the floor of the bathroom, and I remembered thinking that it was either Jake (by accident) or Jenny (on purpose), and that I will probably have to stop leaving stuff out on the bathroom vanity.

Or leave anything out anywhere, because although my cats are really good about not pushing things onto the floor, apparently their cat nature takes over sometimes.

Or Jenny really, really hates my moisturizer.