Spoonerisms: Meow, Meow, Captain

Why does this make me think of Star Trek as enacted by cats?


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"Because you're a total geek, Karen."

Spoonerisms: Wimpy, Wimpy, Wimpy

January 2007, day 1 of the electric lap. Spoon discovers its joy the first time. Pandora waits in line for the first time after trying to glare him out of it proved unsuccessful. (Spoon had a boo-boo on the back of his head at the time, hence the collar. I believe he had had an altercation with the fold-out couch.)

I got the electric lap almost three years ago to soothe Pandora's stiffening joints. She spent several hours the first time and would get up for short breaks. All was groovy until, later that day, Spoon also discovered the electric lap. Pandora jumped up, all ready to resume her nirvana... and realized there was now a line. Bummer. Spoon ended up spending more time in the thing, I think mainly because, even with all his extra subcutaneous insulation, he likes to be really, really warm, warmer than Pandora usually liked with all her supercutaneous insulation.

Flash forward. Dipity is totally digging the bed of bliss. She has already started to compete with Spoon for the most outlandish position possible. She has also discovered the queue. Yesterday she just charged up there, looked out the window a bit, turned to the lap, and discovered it was occupied. She didn't even growl at Spoon. (I think she might think of this as "his" territory.) She settled down, I presume to wait or just to act cool. I watched with academic interest for a bit, then set up the camera to video to record the nuances of their interaction while I got up and left the room to take care of other stuff. When I came back about 5 minutes later, Spoon had vacated the bed! Dipity was still sitting there, looking totally innocent. I watched the video. She didn't even do anything to scare him off! He is a seriously wimpy cat.

Spoonerisms: Dipity Discovers the Electric Lap

Dipity has discovered the wonders of the electric lap. Although she had actually climbed over it before in her explorations, maybe her feet hadn't registered its magical properties. Today, however, she became enthralled. She spent a couple hours there in her first visit and then after a break, returned and has been there several more hours.

Spoonerisms: Dipity Doo-Dah

Dipity's been here three months now. She seems to be pretty much at home. She even got her first Ravelry avatar appearance! She's also become much more bossy, exploratory, and social.

Examples:

• Bossy: See the hungry cat cartoon I posted previously. She's an expert at the "get out of bed and feed me" song and dance.
• Exploratory: Last week she started following me down the very short hallway from my bedroom to the bathroom. She's pretty consistent about that. The past couple of days, she's started coming out in the living area more, but that creates problems when she runs into Spoon.
• Social: When I started this post, she was curled up in my lap, something she did for the first time last night. So cute. She talks to me all the time and wants more attention, but I want her to learn to come out of the bedroom and get it, but that creates problems when she runs into, well, you-know-who.

Poor Spoon, he just wants to be buddies, but she's gotten more aggressively defensive, chasing and slapping at him when she feels cornered in "her" territory. Of course, she also doesn't look where she's going, so she'll be exploring, end up 6 inches from him, and start slapping. That leaves him a poor, confused boy. I'm trying to give him all the extra loving I can. And it looks like he might even get a vacation next week!

Other: How That Laptop Can Kill You

Those two Northwest pilots who, um, missed the city of Minneapolis now say they were using their laptops in the cockpit, against airline regulation, to check out the scheduling software of Northwest's new owner, Delta. Considering this isn't the first story they told investigators, I think we need to draw the obvious conclusion.

They were playing World of Warcraft.

Speaking of laptops on airplanes, those lithium-ion batteries used in laptops pose a greater fire risk than most people understand, and the number of fires they cause in airline cabins is starting to rise rapidly.

Ok, seriously, and they're trying to tell us it's not safe to bring our own water on the damned plane????

Spoonerisms: Funneh Kitteh Videos

Kitten vs. doberman!



(My mother said she thought the kitten would win. I figure he won because he pissed off the dog but managed not to get eaten in the process.)

And anyone who has ever owned a cat knows the following morning ritual.



And the engineer's guide to cats:

Metro Journal: Oct 21 Are you Finnished, er, Done Yet?

I had an appointment at a nearby hospital today. It's about a mile and ½ away, but, of course, it's at an angle. I took the 685 most of the way, and even though there was another bus that went the rest of the way, it only runs once an hour, so I walked the rest of the way. It was kind of warm, but not too bad. Walking under the 134 freeway, there was some cheap 80s Japanese import parked along the street. It had a pile of 4 tires next to it. It also still had its own tires on.

At the hospital, they needed to draw blood. As my last experience with needles didn't go too well, I was a little apprehensive, but tried not to be because thinking about it would just make it worse. I just refuse to give in totally to a phobia like this, particularly when needles didn't bother me like this before last year. (And it's just medical needles. A couple weeks ago I accidentally stabbed my finger on the sewing machine needle. I cursed because it hurt like a mother, but I didn't get dizzy or anything, just really annoyed.) Maybe I would have been all right except there was a problem with the vein the technician chose, and it started bleeding immediately under the skin. She had to stop before she got enough blood, which, of course, meant she would have to do it all again. Yup, I started feeling hot and dizzy and sick. Fortunately the chair reclined, and the nurses were really cool about it. I'm sure they've seen worse reactions. I tried to take deep breaths, but I'm pretty sure I did actually faint. It finally passed and they gave me some crackers and juice and waited for me to get back to normal. Fortunately they weren't backed up or anything so there was no pressure. The nurse tried again on the other arm, and this time we reclined the chair first. I didn't have a problem that time. I don't know if I had gotten it out of my system, or being reclined was the key, or what. I just hope I don't keep having this problem. I think one issue may be that I haven't been eating regularly, mainly because I lack a regular schedule and end up eating something light and quick when I realize I'm hungry. I'll also have to try to make it a point to eat right before a shot or phlebotomical incident.

I walked down to the post office to check my box and I had a package waiting for me. From Finland! At first I was confused, because the only package I was expecting was from the Kawaii/Zakka swap, but my partner lived in West Virginia. Then I realized that we didn't actually have partners in this swap; the person to whom we sent a package wasn't necessarily the one sending to us. This box had been posted a little over 2 weeks ago, so apparently it didn't take the slow boat from China to get here like the one from England for the plushie swap. However, like that swap, this box was somewhat smushed, too. No matter; everything inside was fine. spanielino made some cute stuff!



The surprise and all the neat stuff perked me up. I took the 181 or whatever showed up to the nearest Starbucks and treated myself to a white chocolate mocha while I read my book. I looked over and the guy at the table next to me was reading something on his laptop using about 100-point font. He had to keep scrolling left-to-right. That alone would have driven me nuts. I get annoyed just scrolling from top-to-bottom sometimes, particularly when the browser is being stupid and non-linear.

I started home but realized I felt slightly off-balance again. I decided to take the 18-whatever back. Of course, it was standing room only, but I hung on and survived, as it was a short ride. I did actually walk the last half mile home because I wanted to stop at Zankou Chicken and pick up some dinner.

By the way, here's the Kawaii/Zakka swap package I sent to my target. The apple is a little box! Both the apple and the chick bag patterns come from Japanese books, in keeping with the japanophilial nature of the swap. And they're both both kawaii (cute) and zakka (useful everyday items). I also put in some Japanese gummy candy, Mario Bros. trading cards, and a wind-up jumping Totoro! I have no idea how well it jumps, though, because I didn't want to take it out of the sealed bag before sending it.