Cat Thoughts

Cat Thought #1: Nelson needs to go on a diet.

Before:

After:

Hmm, Iams weight control cat food is now being served!

Cat Thought #2: the other day I saw Tango and Healy sitting on the couch together.


Given that they hate each other with the white hot searing heat of a thousand suns*, the concept of them sitting peaceably on the couch together kind of made me think of this picture:


Oh, and Healy: you need to go on a diet, too...


(* the "white hot searing heat of a thousand suns" phrase has been shamelessly stolen from the inestimable Dr. Walter Harris.)

REDRUM!

So Thalia is working hard on her letters, but has this tendency to write mirror images. Perfect mirror images. Case in point, her writing this morning of "Mommy, Thalia, Abra":



It's exquisite, both the letters and the writing is perfectly backwards. Here it is mirrored:

What's going on in her eye/head/hand to do this? I dunno, but it fascinates me. And at age 4 (in a few days) this is not really a worry. Or so I thought, until I remembered Danny Torrance.





So if I wake up and see this on my door any time soon, I'll be quite worried....

The Holiday Reddi-Whip Oral Injection

So for the kids in our family, one of the traditions at holiday meals is the ever-popular shot of reddi-whip straight to the mouth from Papou. (To the non-Greeks out there, "Papou" means grandfather in Greek....) The grandkids would line up for the shot, and then run to the back of the line to see if they could double-up on the dose. The tradition waned in recent years as the grandkids got a more.... discerning palate(?), but now Papou has new grandkids to indoctrinate. So sure enough, this Thanksgiving Abra and Thalia lined up, and the results were rather unique.

First up was Thalia, who was a bit unsure about the whole process, but was game at first....


But then, she wasn't sure about what to do with a mouthful of reddi-whip.


And so it got spat out. Infidel!

Then Abra got in to the act. Having witnessed the operation on Thalia, she was a bit readier for what was coming.

But even she gave the reddi-whip rather mixed reviews, while Thalia looked on, still in rather stunned disbelief.


Rather odd reactions, if you ask me. Ah well -- we will simply have to keep trying until they succumb to the power of Reddi-Whip.

See See C.C.?

So Abra comes home from school with "sight words" -- words that she has to use to make stories or draw pictures, etc (don't ask me the details, I don't understand half of the homework assignments she comes home with....). Anyway, her latest sight word was "see," so what does she come up with?


SEE SEE SABTHEA! aka C.C. Sabathia, the Cleveland Indian's Cy Young award winning pitcher:



Heh, her mom and I both laughed out loud at that one. I will admit there is a good bit of sports on the TV around our house, and Abra and Thalia are soaking it up like little sponges....

Buckeye's is good spelers!

Yes, it's Ohio State - Michigan week again. Time for the battle for the Rose Bowl, played in lovely Pasadena. Or, if you are the Ohio State Buckeyes, I guess it's played in "Pasedena", at least according to this article in the local paper. Is that Pasedena, North Dakota, maybe?

This reminds me of the episode of Cheers where Norm and Cliff go out for dinner at the Hungry Heifer:

Norm: Yeah, Cliffy had himself the "Ton O' T-Bone". For less than four bucks you get 24 ounces of USDA Choice "bef".

Cliff: Bef? No, you mean beef.

Norm: Beef? Don't be ridiculous, Cliffy. That stuff is "bef". You see it's a Hungry Heifer trademark for a processed, synthetic – what – meat-like substance.

Cliff: Ah, no.

Norm: What do you expect for four bucks? You see me complainin' about the "loobster"?

Maybe that's what's gonna happen to the Buckeyes. They'll go to the Rows Bowl in Pasedena, while Michigan will get to go to the Rose Bowl in Pasadena.

And how much do you want to bet that Doug Lesmerises has an English degree from Ohio State?

I had no idea....

So I found this picture from a while back. This was taken on Nov 16, 2002, the day of the Michigan-Wisconsin football game. Brenna (and Abra) had come to Mark's for the game, as had I. This was the first I had ever met little Abra, she was quite the cutie.


I had no idea at the time that I was holding my daughter-to-be. Wow.


As it turned out, Brenna was very sick that day, so it was just me, Mark, and Matt that went to the game. Michigan won, of course, 21-14. Anthony Davis had a good game rushing for Wisconsin, with 154 yards, but Chris Perry eclipsed him, rushing for 177 yards for Michigan...

Mouse in Da House!

So I used to get mice in the house pretty frequently, but since Nelson and Healy showed up, there have been no mice sightings, at least not in the living area (a few mice have been seen in the basement...).

And now with Pearl and Tango around, we now have four cats. Add in the fact that Wacko is part terrier and we now have five mousers in the house. So you'd think the mice would stay far, far away.

Well, now that the weather is turning cold again, guess who tried to move into the house today? Here is the first sign that we had a small visitor:


So looking under the radiator, there was a little mouse squished up against the wall, trying to avoid Pearl's terrifying wrath.



It must be admitted that, from the mouse's perspective, Pearl can be a particularly worrisome sight:



And then the other cats decided to come over and help out:



(You will notice that Tango is not there. Tango seems very pleased that all the other cats are in the dining room so she has the living room to herself, thank you very much.)

So here we sit; the cats are camped out by the radiator, and the mouse is trying to make itself as small as possible. I imagine this little stand-off will last... as long as it takes.

Stay tuned...

Update: Pearl finally caught the mouse, and was running around with it in her mouth. She dropped it for a second, and I (to her extreme frustration) snatched her up and the mouse ran away. She's peeing in my shoes tonight for sure....

Dear Sparty

28-24 Michigan

Halloween postmortem

The latest from your favorite radio station and mine, KBRA, broadcasting day and night:

Abra: You know the best part about Halloween? You get all this candy and you don't have to pay for it.

Heh, daddy's girl!