The new wrinkle: she’s now allergic to cats.
As noted, we got two cats last year. Continue reading “The Lydster, Part 126: Allergies”
The Lydster, Part 126: Allergies
Cats, and in particular, Midnight and Stormy, The Daughter LOVES.
Tag: cats
Cat fight
He still chases her, but occasionally, she chases him.
I had previously mentioned our cat Midnight, who we got March 23 when he was two months, two days old. What I have not mentioned is that we subsequently got Stormy, back on August 15, when she was two months old to the day, as a companion for Midnight.
Midnight was instantly hostile to Stormy, even when we had her in a cage, or him in the cage, in order that they get to know each other better. And after she got fixed, we continued to separate them for fear that he might hurt her.
So this is how it worked: two feeding stations, two litter boxes, one in the kitchen, one in the Daughter’s room. The cats would alternate being in the room or the rest of the house. This was really a pain to maintain. And when the one in the room got out, there was a lot of drama in the house until the recapture.
Everyone said they would get along eventually. So on Palm Sunday, with the Wife and The Daughter out of town, I let them have the run of the house together. Stormy is much bigger and stronger now. When they got too rough, I sprayed them with water. Eventually, they tired of the struggle.
Now I feed them at the same time, with their bowls a foot apart. They’ve become, as the Daughter put it, frenemies. He still chases her, but occasionally, she chases him. One will sleep on the sofa, while the other will sleep on our bed. And I was surprised to note that, one time when I was taking a nap, they slept on my bed together.
Life in the household is much easier, and the Daughter’s room, bereft of the litter box, is a little cleaner.
***
The Cat Came Back. Oscar®-nominated animation is based on the century-old folk song of the same name. Old Mr. Johnson makes increasingly manic attempts to rid himself of a little yellow cat that just won’t stay away.
January Rambling: looking for good news
Ever confuse palate, pallet and palette? I did this month.
Arthur’s article Why we think the news is worse than it is. This led to a thread that I wrote about finding good news amongst the bad which are here and here and here.
People I know personally, at least one artist, seemed really irritated that a Norman Rockwell painting fetched a record price last month. This antipathy seemed to be tied to the notion of Rockwell as artistic pablum. Another view of the artist is Closet Case as Gay Icon. I find these assumptions interesting, but highly speculative.
I am tired of being the T in LGBT.
Albany, NY has been a city since 1686; got its first woman mayor in 2014.
The Albany Symphony Orchestra Wins a Grammy Award! And I went to that ASO concert the week the recording was made.
Re: the Chris Christie/George Washington Bridge story, Stereotypes still caught in gridlock. You’ve probably already seen the take by Jimmy Fallon and Bruce Springsteen.
Speaking of whom, an NPR interview with Springsteen.
Criticism of Israel is not anti-Semitic.
My Pete Seeger obit, which is a rewriting of what I wrote when he turned 90.
.
The first obituary I saw for Amiri Baraka, formerly LeRoi Jones, whose Blues People book I loved, was a prolific author. Later stories focused on him being polarizing and controversial. I prefer the balanced NPR report.
Morrie Turner, R.I.P., creator of the comic strip Wee Pals, revolutionary in its own way.
Growing Up Unvaccinated. “I had the healthiest childhood imaginable. And yet I was sick all the time.”
In 1919 wave of molasses in the North End of Boston killed 21 people.
The Decoy Effect and, re: Fidel Castro, Elimination by Illumination, and early phone service via barbed bells and the medical wonder of tiny sideshows.
Lefty Brown is open-sourcing his weight loss and exercise.
About the new Presbyterian hymnal, written by my pastors’ niece.
50 Shades of Smartass, Chapter 9 and Chapter 10 and Chapter 11 and Chapter 12. Plus SamuraiFrog explains his visual autobiography.
Jaquandor is killing his darlings, so to speak.
The New York Times’ Most Popular Story of 2013 Was Not an Article.
Dates you won’t find on your calendar, such as January 0.
Happy introverts day was January 2. I so relate.
Melanie’s A Bit of Happy: Reading, Russian, and the Soviet Union and The Memory is in There.
Ever confuse palate, pallet, and palette? I did this month, but I had the good sense to stop and look it up before sending it.
The Official Website of William Schallert. He’s a character actor I know best as the dad in The Patty Duke Show.
The new and ugly Monopoly “Get Out of Jail Free” card.
Fables, Elfquest, Marvel’s Conan, and Neil Gaiman’s Sandman are the best fantasy comics of all time, according to Comic Book Resources.
Ever since two Atlanta Braves pitchers got elected into the Baseball Hall of Fame this month, people have been telling me about this commercial, which also features a former player NOT yet in the HoF, and who may never be.
Alex Trebek raps clues on ‘Jeopardy’, sort of.
Robert Downey Jr. sounding more like Sting than Sting does.
Leon Theremin playing the theremin.
Between the music and the history, well worth watching; I will say no more.
The history of Amazing Grace with Bill Moyers from 1990.
Quaker Parody: What Does George Fox Say.
We have two felines and can’t argue: Sorry, But Your Cat Is Actually A Total Jerk. It’s Just Science.
***
GOOGLE LINKS (not me)
The website is the brainchild of Roger Green, founder, and owner of £10m national office cleaning contractor, Spotless Commercial Cleaning Ltd.
Re: Statistically speaking: ‘Anti-mayor’ voting block overstated. Brighton Independent By Greg Smith and Roger Green.
I bought me a cat
Weird thing about getting a cat in the 21st century: the “book” said that you should keep the cat in a small location so that he doesn’t get too disoriented.
Being the terrible blogger that I am, I have totally neglected to mention the fact that we got a cat this year.
The Daughter has been wary of animals, especially dogs and cats. So we had never had pets of any kind since she was born. But as she spent more time with her friends’ cats, she decided that she wanted a feline of her own. In fact, when she didn’t get one for Christmas 2012, she gave us a deadline for her birthday in March to get one. Finally, around that date, she and her mother went to the animal shelter. There were two kittens she really loved who liked playing with each other. But before they could decide on which one to get, or possibly get them both, one was selected by another family.
They came back the next day and picked the remaining kitten of the pair. He was born around January 26, so he was two months old when he arrived. The Daughter named him Midnight.
The weird thing about getting a cat in the 21st century: the “book” said that you should keep the cat in a small location so that he doesn’t get too disoriented. I had cats 30 to 55 years ago, and I had not heard such a thing. So he was in the guest room for a time unless he was with one of us, for too long for my taste. Part of the issue is that, to this day, it’s almost impossible to catproof the house. While sometimes he cuddles and is mellow, other times he’ll run the length of the house and jump on the dining room table, or some other verboten locale, knocking over any vulnerable items.
The general routine is that someone, whoever gets up first, will go downstairs and feed him; that’s usually me. After that, he’ll be purring and mellow for about five minutes. Then he’ll look out the window and watch what The Wife has dubbed KITV, Kitten Television before he starts marauding. This tires him out and he’ll sleep for a while.
The Daughter really loves him. I guess The Wife and I do too.
December Ramblin’
Hit me with your rhythm stick/Je t’adore, ich liebe dich
Hit me with your rhythm stick/Das ist gut, c’est fantastique
I’ve enjoyed seeing composer Steven Sondheim, lyricist for West Side Story, A Funny Thing happened on the Way to the Forum, and many, many other musicals, a couple of times on television recently, promoting his book “Finishing the Hat: Attendant Comments, Principles, Heresies, Grudges, Whines, and Anecdotes.” I’ve ordered the book if only for the lyrics themselves, and what he’ll have to say about them. I enjoyed hearing about the strong tutelage of family friend Oscar Hammerstein. He has appeared on Stephen Colbert‘s program and on The Newshour on PBS. Part of the latter interview is here:
JEFFREY BROWN: And the greatest focus is on words that rhyme…He uses an old rhyming dictionary and a 1946 edition of “Roget’s Thesaurus.”
STEPHEN SONDHEIM: A rhyme draws the ear’s attention to the word. So, you don’t make the least important word in the line the rhyme word. So, you have to — and also a rhyme can take something that is not too strong and make it much stronger…
BROWN: And…he believes words that are spelled differently, but sound alike, such as rougher and suffer, engage the listener more than those spelled similarly, rougher and tougher.
SONDHEIM: I think we see words on — as if they’re on paper, sometimes when you hear them. I don’t mean it’s an absolutely conscious thing, but I’m absolutely convinced that people essentially see what they’re hearing.
BROWN: Yes. So, I’m hearing rougher and suffer rhyme…then I quickly think…
SONDHEIM: And that’s a surprise… I have got a rhyme in “Passion,” colonel, and journal. Now, you look at them on paper, they seem to have no relation to each other at all. So, when you rhyme them, it’s, ooh, you know? It’s — it — I really may be wrong about this. It’s just something that has struck me over the years.
So what lyrics immediately, and I mean IMMEDIATELY, come to mind? Hit Me with your Rhythm stick by Ian Dury and the Blockheads, a staple on my favorite radio station of the late 1970s, Q104.
Specifically:
In the wilds of Borneo And the vineyards of Bordeaux
Eskimo, Arapaho, move their body to and fro
But also the foreign language rhymes:
Hit me with your rhythm stick/Je t’adore, ich liebe dich
Hit me with your rhythm stick/Das ist gut, c’est fantastique
Here are a couple of recordings HERE with some misspellings, and an odd ending and HERE, after an ad.
Jaquandor found this nifty cartoon that explains climate change.
Eddie shares this Go Go’s video. Eddie notes that Belinda Carlisle’s memoir states their repertoire was limited to the songs on the first album in
their early touring days. This confirms my recollection that when I saw them at JB Scott’s in Albany in 1981, or late 1980, around the time of their 1st album, they played every song on the album plus one non-album B-side.
The Playing For Change Foundation’s new Song Around the World – John Lennon’s “Imagine”
The Twilight Zone Marathon is on again. The December 31 lineup has been posted at syfy.com. But the Marathon will be interrupted for two hours that evening by one of those dopey wrestling shows.
How cats lap up milk, in slow motion
Painting Like Jackson Pollock
I’m afraid I cannot condone this abuse of perfectly good coconut creme pies. Well, maybe for a good cause.
STAN LEE is on their side! Spidey an agent of the Illuminati? Say it ain’t so, Stan! Say it ain’t so! Especially now that you’re 88, as Johnny Bacardi notes.
I mourn the loss of Matt Staccone, SBDC advisor, at the age of 55.
A friend of mine came across this eBay sale of ‘Two Decades of Comics’ fanzine booklet from March 1981; “Fantastic Brian Bolland cover art featuring Brother Power The Geek, Nightshade & Indian? looking at book with characters heads flying out: Storm, Man-Thing, Sgt Rock, Cain, The Demon, Howard The Duck, Metamorpho, The Spectre etc.
Very scarce – Book comprehensively views A-Z of comic book titles with fan-art – notably: Dave Hornsby “The Creeper” art 1pg, Nik Neocleous “Deathlok” art 1pg, Kev F Sutherland “Iron Jaw” art 1pg, Steve Whitaker “Red Wolf” art 1pg, Steve Lowther “The Werewolf” art 1pg, Eagle Awards 1976-1979 Results feature 4pg.” And boy, did that cover look familiar. As it turns out, FantaCo published it as an inside cover in our Chronicles Annual. That Annual was based on that same magazine.
Five Sci-Fi Children’s Books, including Kirk and Spock are Friends.