Free Cat, Maybe

Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness: an album name that came to mind today. 

Our super-duper sweet kitty cat, the only non-meowing cat I ever met and, according to my daughter "the best friend ever, ever ever!" may have to go.  She keeps putting her nasty cat-stank PEE in non-litterbox locations in the house.  This makes my Darling Wife go into homicidal rages.  I've barely kept the cat around a couple of times already by getting #1 to keep the litter cleaner and going to a different litter.  Changing the litterbox to a place that doesn't smell like potty-training-in-progress-boy pee, and using the old litter she used to have, is the final test.  Next time she pees elsewhere, she's out for good. 

#1 said "Thanks for the bail money" and meant it, but I told her to get used to the idea that the cat is going to have to go.

If you can train a cat better than a 10 year-old girl,  do like a quiet, gentle animal, and don't mind the razor-sharp claws, well...

What in the World?

First I thought, "what are you?" ...then I grabbed my camera with the sharp lens on it.

This was hanging out on the deck behind our house earlier today.  Some well-chosen Google keywords told me it was a Hypercompe scribonia, the Great Leopard Moth.  Pretty, for a bug.  I didn't notice it was iridescent until I hit it with the camera's flash.  Click to enlarge.


This has been an interesting couple of weeks when it comes to seeing huge moths I've never seen before.   Please excuse the muddy long-end of my telephoto lens:

Hyles Lineata, a White-Lined Sphynx moth, which tricked us into thinking we had a tiny hummingbird on the Jasmine for a moment.

I'll Just Be . . . RUNNING IN TERROR

"You came to the wrong neighborhood [deleted]"

Click to enlarge
 
or, to quote the ship's Cat, "I'll make myself look big, and scary!"

You Were Expecting Someone Else, Perhaps?

A crescent moon that shines on the bottom half of the orb is referred to in our house as "The Cheshire Cat" after the character in Disney's Alice in Wonderland.

Well I was outside the other day and he showed up again.  He almost faded out completely before I could get a picture:

Click to enlarge 

The trees, telephone wires, and moon were left as they came off the camera.  The cat, you may guess, was a photomanipulation.  I particularly liked how his hand and feet lined up with local scenery just right.

Fast New Glass!

When I started selling stuff to pay for my "new" camera, I found out it's not too hard.  I said "the next extra hundred dollars I have, I'm going to get myself one of these!" 

That was a year and change, and lots of groceries, eating-outs, and various bills later.  I went through a few thousand dollars and didn't get my lens.  Then a couple of weeks ago, I found an eBay seller with a pile of these refurbished by Nikon for just under $100 each.  My Darling Wife said "You really want it. Just get it."

So...

...I did.  Thanks Jesus, I love it.  As BR said, "That's really, really fast!"  Indeed.  But the speed is only half the reason it's great.  The other half is that it meters exposure and autofocuses on my camera (unlike my red-headed stepchild lens).  The other, other half is that it's pretty sharp without trying hard at all.  Click the camera-shy dog to enlarge, then right-click and View Image, and hit the Plus magnifying glass.

The speed is a little hard to explain.  In conditions that well and truly NEED a flash with a kit lens, this thing just goes ahead and makes natural-color pictures without the flash.  It's magic.  If you have a Nikon and a hundred dollars, get one.

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If you have a Nikon without a focusing motor in the body, or if you just gotta have instant manual focus override without turning a switch, get one of these instead, for an extra $100.

Here There Be Dragons

It looks like you don't want to be here.  I thought "dragon tail"

In reality . . . close enough.  You still don't want to be here.  My guess is these two were at least 8, maybe 10 feet long.

As I was saying...

A Few Shots From the Zoo

We went to the zoo a couple of days ago, and a few of the pictures came out extra-well.  Click any of them to see them larger; I think it's worth the effort.

This is my good side:

BLACKbird?  Who you calling BLACK?

If you must know, I am hunting.  Now shut up, you're scaring the prey!

Security: It's for the birds!  I bet you didn't know they establish a perimeter before setting up camp.

Well That was Gross

Listen to the children. Sometimes you'll get a valuable heads-up.

As we were driving home from church, VFDKitty was reported to have a tooth poking out funny. When we got home, she was brought up to the Master Bathroom (mine) where there are coincident bright lights and a big countertop. I had my Darling Wife hold the cat down on the counter while I held the cat's head. The poor thing had a lower canine tooth poking out the front of her mouth, with the upper lip resting on top of the tooth. I gave it a litle tiny tug and the tooth came right out.

The cat was none too happy about these shenanigans, but within a few minutes was reported to be back to cheerful and playing. My Darling Wife said "well that would explain why she hasn't been eating her food." I wouldn't want to eat anything either! I gave her 1/4 a baby aspirin in some peanut butter and she should be just fine.

Unless she's dying of somthing nasty with one of the symptoms being a tooth fall out. But more likely, she just snagged the tooth on a dog or something.

Hoooooooooooly shit.

My next-door neighbor has two pit bull terriers. They are a year old, and largely untrained. They live outside. They have broken THROUGH our common fence at least three times, finally stopped by hog wire lining on their side.

Say hello to Mimi and Skittles, at my back door last week.



These dogs are stereotypically sweet, gentle animals. If they were any other breed, you would think they were perfect family dogs. Wouldn't hurt a fly, come when called, etc. But they are pit bulls. Click that picture and zoom in. See how the "top" ear of the dog on the right is a little bloody-looking inside? It was almost bitten off by the dog on the left, in a fight over who got to sit on the couch.

I was sitting here minding my own business just now, and I heard the neighbordude holering like he meant it. I killed the TV and went and cracked the back door to listen. He was splitting his attention between Mimi and his daughter, who is like 4-5 years old. The dog probably outmasses the girl by 10 or 20 pounds. She had tried to take something from the dog. She did not sound greatly reassured that "it's only a scratch."

Jesus H. Christ! You can't just TELL a four year-old to leave the sweet lovable doggy alone, and to remember to never try to take something away from the dog! If a chihuahua nips at a child's hand, it stings. If a pit nips at a kid's hand it's like an iron bear trap.

Now don't get me wrong: I think it is stupid for government to ban ownership of pit bulls. Pit bulls are just dogs, after all. Big, strong dogs, but just dogs. Dogs ALL nip, especially when they are young, especially when they are untrained - pits are no exception. But they also have this little feature where, every once in a great while, they get a little crazy over not-much. Having small children and pit bulls in company is a nasty way to play russian roulette.

Just a scratch. This time.

How Many Innocent Brown Babies Must Die Before . . .

. . . before you decide it's a bad neighborhood in which to raise some birdies?

The answer, apparently, is two. The new rat-dog is part Terrier, which means anything small and flopping gets pounced on and eaten. To include two of the three cardinal chicks that fell out of the nest in the rose bush.

My Darling Wife, as sad as could be about such a random wild thing happening, took one of the dead birds right out of the dog's mouth and set it on the picnic table. The birds came and took it, and the remaining chick in the nest, and beat feet for less-hostile territory.

Oh well.

You Know What I Hate?

WHAT?

I hate cutting dogs' toenails. But I gotta. I hate to hurt their little cuticles, but their feet hurt if the nails are too long.

Stupid dogs. Oh well.

The New Dog

Looks like a wirehair chihuahua, but appears to be a Norwalk terrier. Well, we could do worse for a free rat dog. I mean, we could have ended up with a pair of chihuahuas.

Oh, wait.

Dat YO Dawg!

It is still a matter of debate, who wanted VFDDawgs #1 and #2 but this one is pretty incontrovertible. My Darling Wife showed up WAY late tonight, with another rat-dog looking dog. Some sort of a terrier puppy.

Great. Just what we needed, another mouth to feed.

Sure he's cute but he's NOT going to be called my dog!

King Cobra, per Special Request

This guy was just hanging Out, literally. His head was 4-5" off the rock, and he was looking through the looking glass at the people looking at him. King cobra at the San Antonio Zoo. His hood is retracted, as nobody has aroused the ire of the King :)



For scale, the enclosure is about 5 feet across. This is no small snake.



The color has a blue-green cast because of the lighting and the intervening glass. I think I'd rather have a glass-green tint than a loose cobra!

So Close I Can Taste It

To you these may look pretty good. They may be better than your camera can do. To me, these highlight the limitations of my camera and lens combination.

Click any image to see it at higher resolution.

Crane with a funky wig


Crane wig inspiration? Starburst looking flower


Look on the left - BIG crane in flight


Still, not too shabby for autofocused snapshots handheld.

Coming Up Roses

Two positive developments appear as I gaze into my navel again:

My 10lbs chihuahua bitch is doing better. She was outside when I got home and acted all "oh poor me I need you to come get me off the ground" when I called her in. My Darling Wife (being a Mexican Female and not one to like ANY non-daughter female getting TLC from me) said she was walking around all day and not to buy the dog's act. I went out and shoo'd the little gimp inside and she was about as quick as ever, but with a big limp.

I thought I had lost $50 and was running out of places to look for it when I found it again! Whew. Good thing I like to sit on accusations of theft without proof vs. just throw them out there.
Example:

VFD: haha, yeah, so about those charges?
Officer: mm-hmm?
VFD: well, uh, nevermind we found it after all. Right where we'd put it for safe keeping.
Officer: we gotta fun thing we do here, where we trade charges: their Theft for your False Reporting
VFD: (ghost)

See? Better to be careful when thinking what happened to your stuff eh.

Poor Little Thing!

I'm pretty sure #3 closed the back door on one of our chihuahua dogs. She cried then and she cries when she is picked up. The first time I went to pick her up after it happened she was so crazy with pain she was nipping at me as I picked her up the wrong way - she NEVER bites, ever. She cried a couple of times in her sleep when she rolled over last night.

We looked her over and poked and prodded and she doesn't have any obviously broken bones. We're thinking maybe her first ribs or something in the shoulders is either bruised or cracked. She is tender around the front quarters when she moves though, and doesn't track straight when she walks - which is seldom as it hurts to do.

Tonight when we got in, I dragged her pillow out of their little room until I could lift the pillow with her on it, and carried her into the back yard and turned her out of the pillow. I told her "go potty!" a few times, gently, and she walked a yard, pissed, walked another yard and lay down on the ground. I picked her back up and placed her on the pillow, then it into their room.

We give her 1/2 a baby aspirin and it seems to help a lot but when it wears off she just lays around. No we probably won't taker her to the vet, but that is our way. Recall that I didn't take myself to the vet when I recently broke my finger (which still hurts a little) or my toe (which is all better thanks for asking). She'll be alright, I've been sure. Still, for such a little doggy to be hurting is pitiful indeed to behold.

To Mock, or To Weep?

"Man, I'll kick that turkey in the teeth." -Me, about this story.

Is it a humorous example of City Folk behavior, or a horrible sign of impending societal collapse? A group of turkeys in a suburban setting is defending a vacant lot . . . chasing people away. Even intrepid "journalists" are sent running to the car.

Hat tip: Uncle

Almost a Really Bad Day, Dog!

We went to a park today to let the Zoo run around with the Zoo from another friend-family we know. This park is actually pretty big and a (now dry) creek runs through the middle. We had crossed the creek and I eventually went back to Bad Robot to change the soaked diaper on #4. I jogged with him across the field until we got to the creek, and he loved it because he was bouncing and going fast. I jogged back across the same field on the way back, and he loved it again. There is a dog park associated with the people park, and sumdood had his dogs off-leash where we were jogging through the field. One of them thought I was suspicious but kept his distance as I ran up. Then all of a sudden I was running away, and looked tasty. He gave chase, and his little doggy buddy saw this and ran up also. Barking.

This, while I'm loping with a 1 year-old in arms. Spidey senses on full alert, I kept jogging. Sumdood's dogs are badly enough trained they wouldn't come on command, but kept chasing me instead. One of them, some sort of knee-high Terrier thing, decided to get close enough for tasting.

Hold on there.

You see, I have a special creed when it comes to dogs: If I'm close enough to taste, you are close enough to kick the shit out of.

But his heart wasn't really in it. One glimpse of my double-wide coming right at his snout and he stopped short. My lightning-fast reflex speed kicked in and I stopped short also. No kicking of dog head this afternoon, which was VERY fortunate for the brave hunter chasing me. I was still in my grubbies from work, to include heavy steel-toed boots. That dog would have been well and truly in the hurt locker when the kick landed, and then (as I was observing rule 2) if necessary it would have been stabbed/slashed as required by the little stinger that lives in my pocket. But hey, no harm no foul, and the little dog pack kept its distance until they lost interest in chasing the mailman.

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Which of course reminds me of this one time in Spain when I was out for a walk with my Darling Wife. The sidewalk was nice and broad, a couple of meters wide, opening up to maybe 10 meters. It was a pavilion almost. Some Spani was out walking his dog, also a rat terrier thing, also off-leash. Whatever, it was a nice day, let the man walk his dog right? Except that his dog got one look at me and it was instant hatred. It ran up on me from like 30 feet away and grabbed the bottom of my pants (about the height of its whithers). I punted that little basterd right across the sidewalk and we kept walking on our merry way. The dog decided I was no longer tasty-looking. Later, my Darling told me that the Spanish dude thought the whole thing was pretty funny, right up until I kicked his dog. Haha.

Yahoo! News . . . Actually Linking NEWS Stories?!

Someone told him it was hurting him in the polls not to: T+1 Week, President Obama signs disaster declaration

Those "oopsy" coins your rare coin dealer sold you were stolen. By a mint employee. $2,400,000 worth.

I hate mandatory DNA sampling of prisoners, but it's a little hard to argue against results like life in prison for a gang-rapist convicted by said sampling.

Philipinne fishing community plans to poison 20-foot crocodile to protect fishermen. Town captures it and puts it in a zoo. PETA demands its release.