The Pit Bull and the Water Heater

Back on April 8, our water heater busted and was leaking. The landlords had just driven off to the airport for a short trip (great timing!) , so we had to wait until we could call them when they arrived at their destination and let them know. The landlord made some calls and the next day the plumber came out and installed a new water heater. I noticed a DOG was seated in the truck (if you look closely, you can see her through the windshield).

I kept an eye on the dog from my balcony,


but then I went down to the truck to get a closer look.



The lady took pictures of me snooping around the truck, but for some weird reason, none of them are in the camera! But, here is a photo of the dog looking at me. I guess it was a girl dog. Her name was Pixie, or Dixie, or something like that. Something with an "ixie" in it. She is a pit bull. She seemed nice enough. She didn't bark or growl or anything. I really checked out the truck and even crawled up and sat on the axle. The lady kept shooing me away. Before he left, the plumber- man let the "ixie" dog pee on a shrub, but I stayed away.


Elvis says hi. I don't have a recent photo of him. He went to the vet on May 7 and got his ears cleaned, toenails clipped, blood drawn for thyroid level check (to make sure his medicine is still the right dose), had an exam, general health profile, and urinalysis. He had an ear infection and the lady put drops in his ears once a day. Then, a few days after he got home, he showed signs of an upper respiratory infection, so he just finished 7 days of Clavamox, twice a day. He wasn't too happy about it, but the lady gives him treats after he takes him medicine, so he doesn't fight her too much. He mostly tries to wiggle away. He seems to be doing just fine.

We're Fine

Elvis Pussley and I are fine, and hope to post something soon. The lady hasn't been feeling up to par the past month. Nothing serious. Just "not herself." I'm not sure who she is, but as long as she feeds us, whatever.

Thanks to our friends for their good wishes.

Wordless Wednesday

Best Friends

We saw a photo of Franklin and Dobby over at Mishkat's today and it reminded the lady of her first cat, Smokey (1986-2001), and her favorite cat of all time, Addie (1993-2007), and how they were best of friends. So, she dug through some photos and found some prints which she scanned so that she could share them with you.







The lady likes it when cats have buddies. Addie lived with Elvis for three years before she died, but, she was not too fond of him. She was always growling when he got too close, and she slapped him across the face a few times. But, something connected between Addie and Smokey, and they were inseparable.

Easy Like Sunday + Bonus Yellow Photo Hunt

Last night was very stormy with lots of wind and rain. Today is cool and sunny. I lounged around a bit in my "secondary" bed on top of the car. Obviously, the lady removes this bed before driving down the road.



Also, here is my yellow food bowl (yesterday was a Photo Hunt: Yellow).

I like the size and shape of this "Active Longevity" Science Diet because it is the original SD shape. The lady tried an Indoor (hmph!) Cat Science Diet (you can see one of the morsels in the bowl--it is a large, triangle shape), but both Elvis and I thought the kibbles were too big. The other day, the lady noticed a bunch of bags of SD emblazoned with the words, "New Shape!" so she thinks maybe they have gotten the message and that the "new shape" is the old, traditional SD shape, 'cause this Active Longevity said "New Shape!" and it is the old, familiar SD shape.

As far as wet food, I like Fancy Feast Salmon Feast, and FF Chicken Feast. The lady is always trying to slip me something new, like some organic food, or things like "stew". Yech. I am a creature of routine and I don't like changes in my wet food. Now, Elvis will eat almost any type of wet food and he seems to like trying new stuff. Today he had something called, "Spot's Stew", and he really liked it. I'm not so sure that his intestinal tract likes sudden changes. He did a major stinky poop.

The lady keeps his litter box in the room she calls her office. It is a really big "Booda" and has a charcoal filter. Well, I guess that didn't help much, because she had to resort to another Buddha:




Elvis was banished to another room to do his loud butt-licking.

As an aside, have you noticed that we like to give you a big kiss after we're done "bathing"? Heh, heh.



P.S. Thanks to all our friends for their suggestions and comments about our internet problems. We do have an excellent virus program that scans for spyware, grayware, malware, etc., and we're going to start running a check every day. We also uninstalled a 'web accelerator' that was acting kinda loopy. So, hopefully, things are on the right track!

Something's Chewing on My Internet Connection

The lady informs me that it looks like we won't be able to comment on the blogs we usually visit. We might be able to comment on a few. Something has happened to our internet connection.

It is slow to begin with. A dial-up connection that averages 26.4 kbps. For the past few days, it is taking forever to load a page (the "Blogs I'm Following" with all your updates took 15 minutes to load yesterday, and even then, it didn't load completely). The connection speed is the same as always and the speed of 'send' and 'receive' bytes looks no different than usual (although we sure seem to be "sending" a lot more bytes...millions more). Today, things loaded a bit faster, but when I try to visit your blogs, all the pages are loading very, very slowly. Then, at the bottom of the comments box on some of your blogs, it doesn't say "posting as Mr. Black" anymore. It has a drop-down box and asks me who I want to comment as, and it doesn't even list me! One of the choices is "Google Account", but when I choose that, it doesn't post my comment, it just reloads the page with a blank comment form!

The lady has "cleared the cache" and logged out and logged back in. Refreshed pages. Nothing seems to be working. She was able to comment over at Tristan and Crikey's page, but at both Mishkat's and Dash Mouth's pages (both have the blog format with the comment box at the bottom of the comments), the above problem happens. The lady didn't try any other blogs because everything is taking so long to load.

Now, the lady hopes this doesn't have anything to do with Photoshop Elements. She knows that Adobe has its software "phone home" to (ostensibly) check for updates (and I guess, to make sure you have legal copies of their software), but for a week after installing it, she did not notice any decrease in internet speed (and she was looking for it because she knew that Adobe would use Photoshop Elements to 'call their server'). The lady has up to date (updated daily) virus protection and ran a scan the other day. Some 'grayware' (not quite malware, I guess) was found. Something called addynamix (AdDynamix) was on her computer (I guess it follows her around to see what websites she visits). She deleted it, but has since found out (via some research) that it can insinuate itself into your hard drive, so even if you 'delete' it, it is still there, following you around the internet and, I assume, using some of your internet connection to send information to whoever it sends info to. This is probably not even noticed on a high-speed connection, but on a very slow one like ours, it makes doing anything on the web excruciatingly slow. If this addynamix is the culprit, she is stuck with it (at least for a while). This nice, new Dell laptop that she is using belongs to an organization that she does some desktop publishing for. She doesn't want to start messing around with it to try and get rid of something on the hard drive. This organization is 2 hours away and I guess she'll have to make a trip in the near future to see if their computer guy can make sure this addynamix is not the thing causing problems (and where it might be hiding on her hard drive). Her computer works fine and at the same speed as it always did. It is just the internet connection that has slowed down to a crawl. It does not appear to be the ISP, as the connection speed is the same as always.

She is giving Adobe the benefit of the doubt that this is not some third-party 'spyware' that Photoshop Elements loaded onto her computer. She has temporarily 'uninstalled' Elements to see if the internet speed is improved. It improved slightly. She is going to reinstall and see what happens.

Anyway, she did delete her browsing history and cookies and maybe that is why she is having the problems with blogs not recognizing me (Mr. Black!). She is not sure why clearing the cache, logging off Blogger and signing in again won't fix that. She didn't see anything in 'known issues' for Blogger.

Well, hopefully she'll be able to fix this. Even though we have rambled on in this post, we really just wanted our blogging friends to know why we are not commenting on their blogs. We miss visiting our friends!!

We'll see if we can do posting. At least that is something.

Thanks for listening, and if anyone has any advice to offer, it would be appreciated!

Wordless Wednesday

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

Walls for the wind,
And a roof for the rain,
And drinks beside the fire -
Laughter to cheer you
And those you love near you,
And all that your heart may desire!

An Irish Blessing

Elvis and Me as That Cool Cat That Wears Boots

Well, the lady won't say how many hours she spent on this. The phrase, "get a life" comes to mind.

For Elvis, she cut and pasted his fur from different photos. He looks kinda weird, so don't look too close.

Hey, Elvis. You're like Frankenstien's kitty.

Now, for me, she tried "cloning" my fur, but that didn't work out too well (she needs lessons in this Photoshop Elements thing). So, she just painted a body for me over the "real" Puss in Boots. Sheesh. Rip off. I do like how she matched my scarf to the feather in my cap.

Okay, if you'll excuse me, I have damsels in distress to rescue and some salmon to skewer.

Puss in Boots

There's something about cats wearing Three Musketeer style clothes (even I think it's cool). Maybe it's the boots, the hat with the feather, or the ruffled collar. The lady doesn't know if the style is medieval, renaissance , or something else. She did find out a little bit of the history of the Puss in Boots story, and, as with all fairy tales, it has many twists and turns.

The lady bought the old, framed print (shown above) of PiB about 15 years ago. She found it in a consignment shop and it now hangs in the bathroom, standing guard over who knows what.

She has a close friend, JD, who is always finding things for the lady...all the gifts have a special quality: whimsical, useful, and sometimes beautiful. Well, most of them. Once in awhile, there's a dud. Take this little PiB "action figure" for example. When you put it in water and let it sit there for about five minutes, it is supposed to double in size. Hah! The only thing that happened was that it got some kind of slimy granules all over it.

Yeah, I know. The "after" PiB looks smaller than the "before" PiB. But, it's not. Just look at the tape measure. It's the same size as before, just slimier.

Now, the next PiB-related item that JD got for the lady is pretty cute. Not useful in ANY way, and Elvis is scared of it, so it sits in an out of the way corner (not in the bathroom). This is a motion-activated, talking Puss in Boots. It is fourteen inches tall and it speaks in a Spanish accent (it could be the voice of Antonio Banderas, who knows?) and says things like, "I have traveled through many lands, but I would give all that up if you will just keep petting my head", [whistles] "Stop! there is no need to walk by, for Puss in Boots is right here", "Give me your hand, baby, I will keep you safe." You can't shut him up (except for the "off" switch, of course).

For you fans of Antonio Banderas as the voice of Puss in Boots (in the second and third Shrek movies), Puss in Boots will be starring in his own movie. The lady thinks PiB was the best character in the Shrek movies, so she may actually have to go and see it (she usually waits for Netflix--too much loud popcorn chewing going on in the movie theater).

P.S. I told the lady it would be okay to make a picture of me in Puss in Boots attire, but she says she needs to work on her Photoshop Elements skills.

---

On another topic:

We thank the people who kindly passed along the following awards. We think all the cat bloggers we have met are deserving of these awards and since it is very hard to keep track of who has already gotten what award, please feel free to accept one. There are rules and lists of things to do with each of them, but to be honest, I can barely get the lady to do a couple (or maybe three) posts a week, so as usual, she didn't do what she was supposed to with them. You can find the rules for each one by visiting the blogs who awarded them. Thanks again to the people who thought of us.

• Thanks to Cat with A Garden for the Bubblin' Over Award
• Thanks to Housecat Confidential for the Kreativ Award
• Thanks to The Whippy Curly Tails for the Lemonade Award
• Thanks to Ginger Jasper for the Proximity Award

Take Me to Your Leader

Okay, the lady is going a little kooky because she just got Photoshop Elements 7. She's wanted Photoshop since she took a Dreamweaver website design class at a Community College a year and a half ago, and they had Photoshop on the computers. She kept telling herself she would save up for it. Yeah, like that was ever going to happen.

She mentioned to Mishkat that she was saving up for Photoshop and Mishkat gave her some good advice--that she should check into Photoshop Elements. Now, the lady had some vague memory of hearing about Elements, and she thought it only did a few basic photo editing tasks, so she never even investigated it. But, this time she did some research and was surprised to find out how much stuff could be done in Elements. Plus, the cost was very, very reasonable ($99 with a $20 rebate versus about $600 for the "big" Photoshop).

So, she bought it! She is having fun exploring all the cool stuff you can do in it. She thinks it is like the "big" Photoshop, but without all the stuff you never use. I mean, it has layers, filters, effects, and every tool you could want! She knows that she has a lot to learn, and she is experimenting with photos as a way to learn how to do stuff.

So, dear blogger viewers, I fear you may be subjected to her strange photo manipulations and odd creations for awhile. Because I need her secretarial skills in order to post to this blog, I will have to indulge her enthusiasm. As long as she doesn't play me for the fool.

Wordless Wednesday

Thyme for Weeding

The sun was shining the other day, so I told the lady I'd help her do a little weeding. I checked out the area and found the spot where we should start.



I find that she works best under my guidance because she is apt to make mistakes, like here, where she is about to pull up a thyme plant instead of the obvious weed right next to it!



I decide to keep track of the thyme, er...time, and let the lady play in the dirt. I'm going to have the lady move this sundial as too much shade defeats the whole purpose!



When I decide that we have done enough weeding for the afternoon, I walk over to let her know that she can take a break, but advising her that she still has a lot of work left to do.



She thanks me for my benevolence with a nice head scratch. Those gloves tickle.
Hey, lady. I just noticed something. In this photo you look like you have "man-hands." Heh, heh.



Elvis was his usual helpful self.

hangdog

Adjective
dejected, ashamed, or guilty in appearance or manner

Collins Essential English Dictionary 2nd Edition 2006 © HarperCollins Publishers 2004, 2006

Woody, the landlord's dog, is a bit depressed. I guess his feelings got hurt when he found out that I named the landlord's two cats in a post, and the only mention he got was in the post that had my list of 10 honest things about myself, and his name was not even mentioned--he was only described as "the landlord's dog". To add insult to injury, I said that he yelped when I jumped on him with my claws out (well, he did!!).

And that is not the only reason he is moping around.

He now has to be on a long leash while the landlords, S and J, are at work. Woody used to have the run of the place up there, but he blew it, man! There is fencing around a large area near the landlord's house. This helps deter deer and other creatures from venturing in. Unfortunately, no matter how S and J tried to Woody-proof the fence, he kept escaping and running down the road to the neighbor's house to visit his dog girlfriend, Lola. And, when they get together...whoo-eee. Trouble. At their latest tryst, just for fun, they killed the landlord's chickens.

Now, Woody is sort of okay for a dog, although I don't quite trust him. I mean, as indicated by the aforementioned chicken episode, he can easily fall prey to a bad idea. A few times when he has been down here, he kind of tries to corner me...sort of like he wants to play (oh, he always acts all innocent), but I can never quite tell what his intentions are. I'm afraid I have to err on the side of caution (or, clawtion [heh, heh]). Which brings us back to the claws-in-the-back incident. I was up on my deck, minding my own business, when Woody walks up the steps and is looking in the screen door. First of all, that is MY job. Secondly, he just stood there like he owned the place, and way past any grace period I might have given him. So, I took a flying leap off the table right onto his back. Ooo-wee. You should have heard him yelp. He ran down the steps and headed toward home. Total overreaction (on his part, not mine). I didn't draw any blood. It was just my way of telling him to get off my balcony. Well, it must have worked, because he has never come up those steps again!

Anyway, I do sort of feel sorry for him. He is a good watchdog--he barks to keep away the bobcats and mountain lions, raccoons and who knows what else.

So, Woody. As my way of making amends, I am calling you by name in this post and I am including some photos of you. But, you still can't come up the steps. Seriously.

Wordless Wednesday

Which Came First, the Chicken or the Egg?

I really don't care.

The lady has been looking for some excuse to post a photo of those peeps from up the hill. There are four of them now. When she posted on February 24, there was only one peep, newly hatched. Soon afterward, three more hatched. So, she has convinced me to allow just one more post about them, as a sort of update. But, that's it! And, I've insisted that she include a photo of me, and one of Elvis (it is our blog, after all). No more bird-dominated posts. Let them get their own blog!

Here are two photos (taken on Wednesday, February 25) of the peeps. There is one gold one (she/he is very bossy), one reddish brown (that was the first one hatched--the one in the
incubator photo), and two dark ones (one of whom is a bit of a runt). So, the lady calls the gold one Goldie and the runt, Runtie (oh, brother--real imaginative nicknames [rolling eyes]). The landlady will give them their names; the lady just likes to call them something when she's up there. Mostly, she just calls them peeps.

And, here are three of the little brain surgeons standing in their food bowl, scanning the horizon...hm, where could the food be? We can't find it.

The lady says they are fun to watch. They'll eat, drink, run around for a bit, then suddenly just fall down and sleep. Kinda sounds like my life. Heh, heh.

Anyway, here is the required photo of me,

and one of Elvis Pussley.