Cat Tails

A couple of weeks ago J and I were hanging out watching tv and enjoying having the windows open.  Boris was outside and we heard him meow.  That’s how he tells us he wants in or out, he meows.  Considerate of him, no?  So J opens the door to let Boris in, only there’s no Boris.  He looks in the bushes in front of the house and nope, no Boris.  But Boris is still meowing.  Finally J sees a shadow of a cat head on the ground and looks up.  Only to find…

 Yep.  Boris somehow got himself up onto the roof and he couldn’t figure out how to get down.  J could have easily lifted him off of the roof by simply standing, but Boris was having none of it.  So we hauled the step stool outside and Boris kept moving out of reach.  I tried, which in hindsight wasn’t a good idea.  One of my current post surgery restrictions is no reaching overhead for stuff.  Boris didn’t want to come to me either.  In the meantime, he’s meowing his head off the entire time.  J ended up going into the back yard, climbing the ladder onto the roof and picking up Boris.  He brought him back to the ladder where I climbed up a few steps (again, a current post surgery no no) and took Boris from J where he (Boris of course) promptly jumped down and went on his merry way.

A few days after all this occurred Boris found his way onto the roof yet again.  I got onto the step-ladder and was attempting to convince him to jump onto the bush/tree thing that grows right by the side of the house.  Boris had other plans.  Instead he decided to use my shoulder as a mid-way point to the ground.  Only I didn’t know he was using me as a mid-way point so I grabbed him and started down the step-ladder.  And Boris dug in his claws in an attempt to jump to the ground.  Thankfully Boris has finally figured out how to jump down to the ground from the roof and no longer requires our assistance.

On a side note, why does WordPress think “ladder” is spelled wrong?

Picture Pages

In my last post I said that I had been busy crocheting blankets for the Hillsborough County Animal Services Pit Crew. I managed to get three completed for them and here they are!

 As Tasha is demonstrating, this one is comfortable for all types of animals. I’m sure she thinks the same of the other two, but she was too busy trying to keep Duncan away to be bothered to pose for me.

And finally, J turned 40 last week and this was one of his gifts. I’m not 100% sure I’m done with it, I’m playing around with ideas to add color to make elements pop. J thinks I should do a “cross stitch” concept, or find a way to weave in embroidery thread. I’ve been contemplating dye and painting the areas I want to pop or just putting glitter on those areas. Thoughts and suggestions are welcome.

Also, I’d like a decent, easy to use photo editing software. Nothing fancy, I’d like to be able to remove backgrounds, change background color along with the typical crop/brighten etc. I don’t mind paying, but I don’t want to pay more than about $100, however free is always better Any suggestions? What are you favorites?

One of these things is not like the other

Last weekend J and I went to check out some houses and neighborhoods.  This is very important around here because one block may look really nice and the next block completely run down and nasty.  While we heading to one of the houses, we saw this:

This house was a bit out of place.  I wish I had taken a picture of the buildings across the street from it, just to show the complete differences.  The building on the left, the one with the connecting walkway, the backside of that building has the garage doors.  J and were guessing that the upper part is the guest or servant quarters.

The other day I was waiting for Adrienne Reed yoga to start on WUSF.  Apparently Boris was also waiting to practice some Down Dog.

Remember the recent photos of Boris and Ciera both crashed out on their backs?  Well here’s Tashas version.  She curls her feet up just like she was laying on her stomach and then someone picked her up, flipped her on her back and she couldn’t be bothered to move.

And finally, look what I caught Boris doing while I was working last night.  Sorry about the light, I didn’t dare get up to turn on more light, I was afraid he’d stop.  But you can still see him. 

Lazy Indolence

I was working last night and turned around to find this.  The only one missing is Tasha, she was probably curled up on the bed.

And just because I get such a kick out of Ciera doing this.  I’ve seen her literally lick her lips/nose/snout/whatever before, tongue goes in and then just slides right back out a little bit.

Oh my Eyes!

I live in an apartment complex that’s probably a few steps up from ghetto.  But I’m left alone, for the most part it’s safe and I couldn’t beat the price or location.  So while I work on paying off some bills, I’m here for the time being.  The people (company?) that owns my complex also owns the one across the street and in fact there’s only one leasing office and maintenance staff for both complexes.  And when telling people where I live, I’d tell them it’s the blue apartments.

See? Pretty blue apartments.  The one on the third floor right side of the picture is where the fire was last year.  Someone apparently forgot how to fry chicken and there was a grease fire.  Yep, it’s still being worked on.  This is the building I see out of my patio door, so I saw the wall of flames on that balcony. 

So we have this nice light blue with slightly darker trim.  Then, someone decided to paint the buildings.  Any guesses about what color?

Now it’s a bright terra cotta / orangey color with dreamsicle contrast.  Trust me, the terra cotta color is much brighter in person.  Bleh!  I’m happy they’ve decided to spruce up the place (I better not see an increase in my rent to pay for this ugly color!), but could they also work on the grounds?  See the ground in front of my patio?  See how much grass there is? Yeah, that’s the reason I’m constantly fighting fleas.  It’s more sandy dirt than grass and the perfect breeding ground for sand fleas.  My poor animals.

Speaking of animals, here’s one of Tasha for your enjoyment.  She’s got this thing lately for re-locating pieces of clothing.  And kleenex.  The brat will pull them out of my bedside kleenex box, bring them into the living room and then leave them.  I finally managed to get a picture of her “haul” one day.

Pictures, pictures everywhere

My parents neighbor is now in assisted living.  When I heard that she and her husband were making this move, I thought I would put together a comfortghan for both of them. So I sent out a request to the wonderful people at Crochetville asking for squares so I could put together one for Yvonne and Pete.  Sadly, while still collecting squares, Pete passed away. So I put together all squares in one afghan for Yvonne.  All pictures are clickable.

I took this picture of Tasha tonight.  I couldn’t resist taking one of her spread out like this.

And finally, we’ve apparently been having problems with our coke machine at work.  Personally, I think change is a good thing. If one doesn’t change, they take the chance of being left behind.  J wants to know if the machine has considered therapy.