January 2008 Archives

It's raining this morning. And it's destroying all the beautifully crusty, three-week-old snow pack in the back yard. It's starting to get this exsanguinated Edward James Almos appearance to it. The good news is the cat hasn't begged to come in yet, so that it may track winter yard-slime all over the floor.

The cat.

OK, here's the deal with the cat. And let me start by saying, as I think I have before, that I like cats (and dogs). Really, I do. What I don't like is loose hair, cleaning up dookie, and tracking down ellusive ammonia smells in my house. I'm pretty sure I don't like vet bills either.

For the last few years, there has been this neighborhood cat that doesn't really 'belong' to anyone. Well, it belonged to someone at some point, seeing as how it was neutered, but for some unspoken reason in its dark past, it was on the run. At first, it wandered around and sought what pittances the various households on the block were willing to bequeath it. Eventually, it acquired the name 'Hobo'. Out of mercy, our next door neighbors ended up taking stewardship of Hobo. They never outright claimed him, but they were the main food & garage-shelter providers. This was nice. The kids could strop the cat and give it treats when it made its rounds, but there were no real strings attached.

Well, the neighbors moved away a couple months ago and were not taking the cat with them. By that time, we had become concerned enough about Hobo's welfare that we arranged to accept the food & shelter baton. I was worried, but things have gone pretty well so far. My stipulation: No indoor cats. Amanda and Harrison's allergies, and my aversion to the leave-behinds of fur-bearing critters sealed that deal. The cat can come in to eat, drink and be petted, but it must stay on the hard kitchen floor, and then it must go right back out.

So we made an insulated shelter for him in the carport, got a little fuzzy cat mat to recline on when indoors, and secured a big bag of hand-me-down cat food from the neighbors. Hobo has gradually learned that leaving the kitchen results in being dumped outside, which is pretty cool. He does not use his cat shelter for some reason. He prefers to perch on top of the recycling bin and puff up like a snow bird. Suit yerself, I figure.

The big question is, where is he easing nature these days? I do not know if it's going to be possible to set up an outdoor litter box and 'train' him to use it. Somebody may end up donating a nice fresh bowl of antifreeze to him one day, thus completing the circle of life.

Any suggestions are welcome.

Here's to tufts of quickly vacuumed hair.

Shy on material, I resort yet again to a recent dream. I've gotten pretty good at commanding a flying ability in dreams where my character is threatened. The bad guys come at me, and I fly up to a nice, unstrikable altitude and generally the dream ends after a few seconds. Lucid dreaming is pretty tough. As soon as I try to take control, it starts to fall apart. Just like real life I guess :-/

But the other night, it held together, and I tried to work on developing some additional 'powers'. My attackers came at me and I lofted upward only to be thwarted by a ceiling. Before my thankfully gunless nemeses could thwack me with a coat rack or a throwing knife, I decided I should tap some offensive skills. Disrupting the molecules of the head thug seemed like as good a plan as any. So I strained my dream knuckles into a clutching posture and commanded my disruptor powers. But, much like trying to push a cat from one room to another, the attempt failed miserably. The scene kept skipping and replaying as I tried again and again to fry my opponent while my dream pressed the 'cancel' button.

Rationalizing that my foe must be invincible, I swooped down, scooped him up, blew through a convenient ventilation shaft, and headed skyward. Into the sun with you, you indestructible villain! That's when I analyzed the whole thing to death and woke up.

As we flew toward the tenuous limits of the upper atmosphere (I figured I should be indestructible to vacuum too!), I tried to remember what Earth's escape velocity is. No sense in the bad guy eventually falling back, trudging out of the Marianas Trench and starting more trouble. I pulled a figure of 17,500 mph outta somewhere (it's actually 25,000 mph you see) and as that number came to mind, the dream started to flicker. I then thought, how will I know when I've reached the right velocity? I decided I would only be able to carry this dastardly fellow at 1g acceleration as I lofted him to his solar oblivion (I didn't consider summoning super-strength). So, how long does it take to accelerate to escape velocity at 32ft/sec^2? That's when the acceleration functions v^2=2ad and d=.5at^2 started to drift in, and the dream was finally analyzed to smithereens. What a sad way to go.

I have nothing more now, and my regrets & condolences on this cruddy post. Hopefully something better will occur to me soon.