Nekorific

Went and saw Neko Case play at First Ave. She has the kind of voice that can send shivers up your spine even in a sweltering hot Minneapolis night club.

I've seen her twice now and both shows she did a nice cover of Bob Dylan's "Buckets of Rain," a song that contains one of my favorite Dylan passages of all time: "Life is sad, life is a bust. All you can do, is do what you must. You do what you must do, and you do it well. I do it for you, honey baby can't you tell?"

Neko said earlier in the day she visited a local humane society shelter that was conducting a pet adoption. She dedicated most of her songs to individual cats and dogs she had seen that needed good homes.

Disapproving Look #961

The evening was spent playing softball (we won 18-15 no thanks to my feeble efforts) and meeting a friend (to say goodbye) at Mystic Lake Casino. Thompson scolded me when I finally got home because I'm much too old to be staying out when it is a work night.

Urp

I went to work at 7 in the morning and didn't get back home until 11:30 at night. The boyz were pretty wound up when i finally got home. I fed them two meals worth of food and went up to go to bed.

Theo came up a short time later and proceeded to urp up his meal(s). He did this, of course, all over the carpet. When I tried to move him into the bathroom and he ran downstairs and proceeded to urp up the rest of his meal all over the carpeted stairs. So I got to spend the next 20 minutes cleaning up cat urp.

Diego-san Sez

"If you would only show me how to use this fancy litter box I'd be happy to give it a try."

The Dare

The boyz and I took up Mr. Chen's winning dare as posted by our friends over at the Cat Realm.

"Mr. Chen dares you all to come up with one creative, fun, useful way to save the environment and put a picture of yourself doing it on your blog!"

After much thought the boyz and I decided to switch to an all natural litter called "Swheat Scoop." According to the manufacturer: "Each year, over 2 million tons of cat litter ends up in municipal solid waste landfills (Judd Alexander, In Defense of Garbage, Praeger 1993). Most of that litter, an estimated 100,000 truckloads per year, is made from clay that is mined and doesn’t biodegrade because it’s never reabsorbed by the earth. That’s why the time is right to consider the merits of a product like Swheat Scoop Natural Wheat Litter."

I'm interested to see how the boyz take to their green effort.

In other news we'd like to thank Parker for giving us a nice award. Thank you Parker.

So Long Pixie

A Day Late

Laundry day was postponed a day because I had to go to work. But the boyz were more than willing to help out by making sure the clothes hamper was in good working order.

September Saturday

Sleep, sun, eat, drink, and be merry. Sounds like a full day to me.

Scooter Route

One morning as I was riding my scooter to work, I looked up and noticed a name of a street that I hadn't noticed before. I just had to stop and take a picture for the boyz new friend, Lil Gizmo...

Late Show Here We Come

Diego-san and I have developed a trick together. When my stomach growls/gurgles, it sounds just like Diego's roar/unhappy meow. I discovered this as we were lying on the couch and I honestly couldn't tell which one of us the sound was coming from.

Up and Down Boy

Theo himself doesn't even know it but his least favorite inventions of all time likely would be the elevator and the escalator (not that he has seen either one). Other than meal times there is nothing he enjoys better than racing me up and down the stairway. Of course most of our races aren't really races since it's rare that I'll actually try to beat him, but Theo doesn't seem to mind. He takes great pleasure in zooming up and down the stairs as if he is Michael Phelps and the stairs are his pool.

Tuneless Tuesday

One boy looks on in stunned disbelief while the other looks like he has seen it all many times before...

That's Amore

Diego-san was named after the Mexican painter Diego Rivera. But I think my Diego has some Italian blood in him.

Whenever I'm eating Italian food he just assumes he's going to get a portion even though I've never treated him to spaghetti, lasagna, or rigatoni. I think he just loves the smell of tomato sauce. Last night I was frying some zucchini in garlic and he was pacing all over the kitchen trying his best to quench his hunger by breathing in the fumes.

Happy Birthday Thompson

Today is Thompson's designated birthday. He turns six. And he gets a pat on the noggin.

Pound Pound Whrrrr

What is all that noise coming from the basement?

Not a Happy Kitty

Diego-san and I had a little spat yesterday. I'm having a contractor finish off my basement. Last summer the contractor framed and sheetrocked the basement and this year he's putting in the doors, carpet, and painting.

True to his nature Diego wants to supervise the project. I let him downstairs last week after the basement had been primed. He proceeded to throw up not once, but twice, presumably from the paint fumes. So yesterday after more work had been done I got home and found that my contractor hadn't latched the door shut and Diego had managed to work the door open. He was down there walking between all the powertools and breathing in all the saw dust. The paint was still wet so I yelled at him to go upstairs.

He of course wanted none of that so he kept running around the basement until I was finally able to shoo him upstairs. The rest of the night he tried reopening the door, and being unsuccessful, howled in protest. Since all this was going on around dinner time, he missed a meal and I refused to serve him. The rest of the evening the two of us avoided each other.

We did make up at bedtime however as he came up for his nightly combing and snuggled with me afterward.

Our Own Convention

I asked the boyz if they had been properly 'vetted.' They all responded by telling me I should call Dr. Timmerman and have her send over their vaccination records.

Katie Likes Us

Katie Couric ended her newscast last night by paraphrasing a line from the old Mary Tyler Moore Show. She said, "Twin Cities, you've got spunk. And we like spunk."

Speaking of spunk, Theo was more wound up than usual when I got home. He was running back and forth and I surprised him by tapping him on the back causing him to jump two feet straight in the air. He's my lil spunky.

Living the Holiday

The boyz and I honored Labor Day by not doing anything that could be misconstrued as actual labor.

Flexibility

Yesterday didn't go at all like I had planned. I was supposed to meet my friend A- and her husband for dim sum. A- called and said she wasn't feeling well. Then my friend M- called and asked if I wanted to meet her and her parents at the State Fair. I wasn't planning on going to the fair but thought I would be social so I agreed.

The state fairgrounds are about a mile from my house so for the past week and a half the boyz and I have had to put up with a lot of heavy traffic (both pedestrian and vehicular) around our house. For the boyz the worst part about the fair is around 10:30 at night when they shoot off fireworks.

I don't make it to the fair very often because in my entire life, I don't think I've ever really had a great experience there. It's lots of people, fried food on a stick, and seeing the same exhibits year after year. My favorite part usually is visiting the animal barns and yesterday was no exception. I think I bonded with a cow.