Silicon Valley Redneck

I awakened from my morning nap...

Southmoon:  "Ohboyohboyohboy!"  (When she's not being a fun-size mountain lion, she sometimes acts like a Labrador retriever.)

My father:  "Huckleberry's hiding in my bedroom."

Southmoon:  "Yeah!  That's what I was trying to tell you!  Grandpa's bedroom!  Huckleberry!"

Me:  "C'mon, Huckleberry.  Time to come out of there."

Top Hat:  "When you bring Huckleberry out of there, do we all get treats?"

Me:  "Oh, all right."  (Heads for pantry.)

Sumatra:  "Are you going to fetch the treat jar?"

Duchess:  (Ignores the proceedings; she doesn't like those nasty dry crunchy treats anyway.)

Kitty filter is operational

The semi-permeable barrier is in place.

Permeability to Kitty / Paws / Shadow / Мало, or whatever her actual name might be, is confirmed:

It seems to be a snuggish fit for the little critter, so it should probably provide some fair bit of discouragement for the three monsters.  Hm.  Probably merging households next week, so I ought to figure out what to do about extending the height of the kitty filter, so's Huckleberry won't just jump over it.

Cuteness

From a few days ago.  I cleared out a big pile of optical media and whatnot, and Top Hat saw an opportunity.

Upcoming project

Integrating households is going to involve merging the respective cat populations: our three monsters, and my father's little-bitty part-time cat (she apparently belongs with a family around the corner, but doesn't get along with their full-grown cats).

Well... our three are supposed to be indoor cats, and his likes to hang around outdoors and isn't too sure about being inside the house (especially with a large cat present), so, hm.  We'll be needing some way of keeping three cats in while allowing the fourth to come and go.

This calls for a semi-permeable membrane, permeable to small cats but not to large ones.

So a project for possibly tomorrow is: construct a wooden barrier that can be wedged in the partially-open sliding patio door, and cut a hole it it that's just a little too narrow for Southmoon's head to fit through.  Maybe a bit elongated vertically, to make it more convenient for the small critter.  Now let's see if Southmoon will hold still while I apply calipers to her head.

(This, at least, seems more practical than the early-2013 requirement for something that would pass a feeble, arthritic full-grown cat while excluding frisky little kittens.)

Update:  Life's made easier by the fact that I have a 3" hole saw lurking in the main toolbox, left over from some long-ago project.  That, some drill-step-drill-step-drill on the Bridgeport (yes, I defile it with woodworking projects), and a bit of sandpaper, and there's a tidy round-ended slot that's uncomfortably narrow (if not impossible) for Southmoon, but plenty big enough - I think - for the little kitty.

Does anyone make stupid pills for cats?

Huckleberry has now figured out how to open the door of the cabinet where the treat box is stored, pull down the treat box, and pry open the lid.  (Consumption of the treats thereby liberated is left as an exercise for the student.)

Growf.  Guess it's back to screw-top jars for treat storage.

Or maybe I can make him watch the television.  It'll stupid him up good.

Side effect?

I think this started, at a low level, Tuesday morning: Southmoon has been behaving very aggressively toward Huckleberry.  Hissing, growling, chasing him around the house, that sort of thing.  This is entirely out of character; Huckleberry has occasionally been aggressive toward Southmoon in the past, but this week he hasn't been doing anything to provoke her.

Last night, it got intense.  This morning, she seemed perfectly normal, right up until Huckleberry jumped down from my desk and landed sort of near her - and then she went into evil mode.

I just checked the package insert for the Revolution, and I see nothing about causing hallucinations in cats.  And yet, she's acting like she found the special glasses and can now see that her brother is actually a pod creature from Neptune.

I'd suspect that the flea treatment made him smell different, except that she's also been doing the "who are you and what have you done with my brother" thing from the far end of the hallway.

May have to call the vet this morning.

Update: I'm guessing it's psychological, not pharmacological, and that it's a side effect of Sunday afternoon's flea bombing - or, rather, of the frightful two and a half hours spent in the back yard.

Top Hat (who spent most of that afternoon cowering between shed and fence) remains happy to bound out the door and explore the yard.  Huckleberry, normally the bold one, takes a while to venture beyond the patio, and (uncharacteristically) comes scampering back in at the first suggestion that the door might be about to close.  Southmoon, who's always been quick to dart through an open door, now seems afraid to get near the door when it's open.

So, maybe she's getting territorial because she was dispossessed (along with the rest of us) for an afternoon?

Update 2: ... Or maybe it was the Revolution?  Thursday night, Southmoon slept in the bedrooms-guarding spot on the hallway floor, the better to keep the back of the house safe from the forces of Huckleberry.  In the morning, I found on that spot a slightly-chewed cardboard box - I don't know where she found it - which had once contained 6.5x55mm ammunition.  Well, at least she didn't have live ammunition, nor a Swedish Mauser to use it in.

Twelve and a half pounds of unpredictable cat with PTSD.  Great.  But she seemed fine this (Friday) morning (beginning sometime in the middle of the night, when she came bounding into the bedroom), up until she caught sight of Huckleberry, and the growling and aggressive behavior started up again.

Update 3: Later Friday morning.  Got home from walkies and errands; Southmoon came bounding up to greet me like a little golden retriever (and not armed for moose).  I unpacked a new toy from the shopping bag and commenced waving it around; Southmoon and Huckleberry seemed to be OK in close proximity, even when he waved a paw in her face while swatting at the toy.  But then she started sniffing his neck, and the growling started up again.  Hm?

O-kay, then.  Moisten a paper towel, and give Huckleberry's neck a good scrub (after consulting the Revolution instructions and confirming that it's fine to give the critter a bath after a couple of hours).  Southmoon seems calmer now.  Interesting.

Flea update

The Revolution does seem to be working; the critters are scratching a lot less now, and by yesterday afternoon I was finding dead fleas on Southmoon.

Now they need to stay flealess long enough for their skin to return to normal.

My powers of illustration are weak, or I'd create an image for this thought: Revolution for Cats sounds like it ought to be a book, like Electronics for Dogs.

The cats are revolting!

Yeah, picked up the Cat Revolution today, and applied it to all three cats.

Now I'm keeping a close watch on the armaments.  Any sign of felines taking up swords, playing with mixed acid, or trying to load the cannon will be officially considered an adverse side effect.  Funny how the product literature doesn't warn of that sort of thing.

Flea bombin'

So today was the day to kill the household fleas (the cats' onboard fleas get poisoned tomorrow afternoon).

Cover food and utensils; close windows; don't worry about pilot burners with this particular type of fogger.  Set up chairs on the patio.  Move the cats' food and water bowls out.  Move Tinga out.  Coax the cats out (they're starting to suspect that Something Is Up).  Set the flea bombs: garage, hallway among bedrooms, dining area.  Exit via the front door, and return to the patio.

The cats are worried, and make it abundantly clear that they know where home is, and that indoors is where safety is.  At one point, Huckleberry and Southmoon manage to get into the front yard - and make a beeline for the front door, hoping to get in that way.

Then, just as we seem to have everyone settled, Autumn Weather Event Adrienne arrives, bringing sprinkles and a slight breeze.  Hmmm.  Put a little rain shelter atop Tinga's cage.  For everyone else?  I think I saw a beach umbrella in the shed.

Yup, beach umbrella.  At one point I had a stand for it, but I may have discarded that.  Oh, well: hammer it into the dirt, using a field-expedient hammer.  Now the cats are worried about the umbrella: is it a jellyfish?  Is it going to sting us?  Southmoon and Huckleberry eventually decide it's kinda-sorta-almost safe, but Top Hat runs off to the side yard to hide, eventually ending up wedged between the shed and the fence for the remainder of the adventure.

It doesn't help that Joy is sheltering from the cold with a weird shirt with a sort of hood thing.  The cats seem even more worried about that than about the beach umbrella.

On various occasions, Southmoon starts crying and scratching at the garage door.  She knows where home is!

Eventually, the appointed time comes around, and I go around via the front door (cats carefully kept on the patio, except for Top Hat, who's still hiding) and go around opening windows, turning on the blower over the stove, and so on.

After a bit of airing-out time, I open the door from patio to garage.  Zoom!  Southmoon, who had been out of sight for a while and presumed hiding in the side yard with the others, dashes in.  Huckleberry follows.

With two cats, their bowls, and Tinga all indoors, I take the treat jar to the side yard and eventually coax Top Hat out of her hiding place.  Meanwhile, Huckleberry has gotten bored with all this, and has gone back out to patrol the blackberry thicket, so now he needs coaxing.

The day did get to be quite an adventure.  And now my ankles itch (probably minor scratches from blackberries and such).

TFIL

The cats have been playing The Floor Is Lava lately, especially with regard to the carpet.

Methinks flea-bombing had better be a priority for Saturday.  And maybe I should dust the carpet with flea powder in the meantime.

Funny thing: the fleas have been leaving me alone, even as they make the critters miserable.

Kitty update

Took Huckleberry and Southmoon to the vet today, for checkups, catching up on vaccinations, and doing something about the flea situation.

They were amazingly well behaved.  In the exam room, Southmoon (generally the timid one) was wandering around exploring, while Huckleberry stayed in his carrier most of the time.

Official weights!  Huckleberry comes in at a bit over 13 pounds - somehow, he seems a lot heavier than that - and Southmoon at 12½.

Now they have a prescription for Revolution for the fleas, but it was out of stock - have to pick it up Monday.  Seems a lot of people have been reporting that Advantage isn't working this year.  Fleas have evolved resistance to it?  The product was reformulated and is now homeopathic or something?  Anyway, Revolution supposedly still works.

Flea-bombing of the house is probably a Saturday-afternoon thing, assuming the weather is decent.

Update:  The vet said the critters might be lethargic after their vaccinations.  Well, about 9 hours later Huckleberry made a mighty leap from the bed up to the top of one of the tall bookcases.  That's some lethargy.  (I don't think he's lithargic, either; he's not that heavy.)

If only to prove she's not a terrorist

Southmoon just ate some bacon.

Just so she doesn't start eating lasagna.  Real cats don't eat lasagna.

How my day started

A huge gray fierce bumblekitty jumps on your nightstand!

> ignore bumblekitty

The bumblekitty hits!

The back of your neck tickles.

> ignore bumblekitty

The bumblekitty hits!

Your ear tickles.

> pat bumblekitty

The bumblekitty hits!

Your ear tickles.

> get up

OK

> check internet

They're rioting in Africa

(You know the rest)

> write blog post

A little gray mouse-loving doggy jumps on your desk!

The doggy hits!

You can't reach your mouse.

 

Yeah, that's pretty much how things are starting out.  Now that Huckleberry is off the mousepad, Top Hat is back and pawing at me, when she's not at the recycle bin playing paper-shredder.  And here's a pygmy mountain lion (Southmoon) to squeak mournfully and give me reproachful looks unless I turn around, reach down, and give her a belly rub.

0225. Mnfxt.

Sometime around 0130, Huckleberry declared Playtime.

He was very persistent about it.

After half an hour of that, I decided I might as well crawl out of bed for a while.  Not sure that was a good idea, really.

Oh, well.  Looks like global financial markets are perking back up a bit.  Speaking of which:

I noticed a headline yesterday to the effect that Soros hadn't shorted the Pound this time.  Really?  So he was so wrapped up in the globalist ruling-class bubble that he truly believed that Brexit was inconceivable?

Funny how the overlords in their shiny palaces never quite get the message that the undifferentiated plebs resent having their lives micromanaged from afar by people they don't know and didn't vote for.

And, closer to home, that (and of course Identity Politics) is how you get things like the Traditionalist Worker Party.  Look at the front page of their web site, and their platform seems almost reasonable in the current political context.  (Mostly wrong, but reasonable.)  Dig a little deeper, and you get to the part where America is for White People, and I'm not White, and they want me to wear these parentheses, just so they know who We are, mind; there's no mention of putting me on the train to Happy Fun Camp.  Yet.

Enough randomness.  Back to sleep.  Maybe.  (Playful fuzzballs aside, I think my metabolism has shifted recently, and maybe I'm burning some fat and liberating stored caffeine.  Yes, I know caffeine isn't traditionally considered fat-soluble, so it's probably something else.  It's 0248, you expect me to make sense?)

Fee, fie, foe, fum!

Someone's been sleeping in my chair.

And sneaking up on her and rubbing her belly just made her open her eyes partway and stretch.

0dark15

Awaken to the sound of papers being vigorously shuffled.

Look around.

Huckleberry (it couldn't have been anyone else) is standing in my top desk drawer, playing with all the things (checkbook, stamps, long-term financial records, that sort of thing).

Remove critter.  Close drawer.  Return to bed.

Hear papers being shuffled.  Repeat process.

No good.  He's learned to open the drawer, and, by Cloister*, he's going to play with the things!

Out to the garage.  Fetch a yardstick.  Poke it through the drawer handles.  Confirm that it's now hard to open.  Resume sleeping until awakened again by purring and prodding at a more suitable time.

Later: Huckleberry paws at the yardstick, looking sad and wondering how he's going to get the drawer open now.

 

* Cloister the Student, the god of the cat people.

Fleas again

Yeah, they're back.

Not so much that the cats are acting itchy, as that I keep finding spots of flea poop on various smooth horizontal surfaces where the cats have been.

So, off to the store for a box of Advantage II for large cats (over 9 pounds), this being what I'd bought a few months ago - not cheap, but it works and has a much better reputation than the cheap products with regard to, e.g., not killing pets.  Then...

Well, I figure I can keep the mess to a minimum by applying the stuff outdoors.  So I open a path to the patio, and Huckleberry and Southmoon scamper out, with Top Hat ambling along later.

Open the first tube.  Huckleberry is handy.  Left hand under the chin, tube applied to back of neck, squeeze, squeeze (the tube, not the neck).  Suddenly he notices that I've Put Something On Him, and runs to the garage.

Southmoon, meanwhile, has wandered into the sideyard.  Chase her out of there, as far as the back of the house.  Fetch the second tube.  She figures Something Is Up, and Why Is Huckleberry Acting Like That?  She goes into frightened wild animal mode, becomes very elusive, and runs into the garage, with its many places of concealment.

Top Hat is just inside the garage, and not particularly on alert, so I grab her (a bit awkward, regardless, since she's generally averse to being restrained in any way) and apply the poison.

Southmoon is still being evasive, so I go find Piggy and give her a half dose.

A couple of hours later, Southmoon has calmed down enough to be relaxing (more or less) up top of the cat tree, so I sneakily apply her dose; when she notices that I've put something on her neck, she freaks out again.

Now it's getting to be evening, and it seems they've all forgiven me, despite having oddly-styled hackles for the moment.

And they should be less bothered by fleas the next month or so.

Guardians

Southmoon and Huckleberry look down from the highest vantage point they can reach.

Just doing their part to keep the household safe from things that go squeak in the night.

The youngsters are Ready.

Jumping in and out of boxes, playing with the wrapping paper, and generally being in the way: that's overgrown kittens for ya.

Huckleberry doesn't want to wait until tomorrow to open his presents.  He thinks they look like cat toys and smell like catnip, and he wants to get at them now.

Hey, Petco actually had a catnip rat, and a few other somewhat size-appropriate toys, so I didn't have to look for cat toys in the dog department!  (The label proclaimed it to be a "giant" rat, but it's really only the size of a small rat.)

Next year, I gotta start the cat-gift shopping on line, to see what toys for big fuzzy critters might be found.  Breed-specific toys for Maine Coons?  For bobcats?  Pygmy mountain lions?

I'm still toying with the idea of getting some quail retriever training dummies and a launcher.

Uh-oh.  Southmoon just discovered the catnip residue on my hands.

Memo to the alarm cat

Getting up early on Christmas Day may be a tradition.

Getting up early on Christmas Eve is not.

After many cat-buzzing-on-nightstand events, I finally gave up on getting back to sleep. At π o'clock.