Liz thought it would be a great idea to put a tiny Christmas hat on one of the cats. The cat... not so much. We'll see who's laughing when the claws strike in the night to extract her furry vengeance.
13 days to go.
A neighborhood cat has been coming by the past couple of days to look in our back windows and tease our cats. Valentine largely ignores Allie's visits, but Julia goes absolutely bananas, puffing up, flattening her ears, yowling and hissing. Here we find them locked in a bitter standoff.
17 days to go...
Valentine decided to come help me take photos of things in the kitchen, and for once she held still long enough for me to get a good shot of her.
27 days to go...
Sometimes the cats give me a break when I'm headed to bed, but usually one of them will run ahead of me and sit right in the middle of my side, and they're reluctant to leave until you've either satisfied their need for feline affection or they've decided that they're done toying with you.
This was one of those typical nights. Thanks, Valentine.
84 days to go...
I finally got to meet the neighbors' new Siamese kitten, Bing Bong, who is ridiculously, painfully cute. It was really hard to pick a single shot for the 365 and ended up leaving the choice to my wife. (Here are some of the other contenders.)
Claire, of course, is head-over-heels in love with Bing Bong and is already asking for her own kitten; we've told her that when she starts cleaning the litter boxes of the existing cats, then we can talk.
It seems somewhat fitting that on this, the hundredth day of my 365 project, I add more cats to the Internet. I honestly didn't expect to persevere this far.
Chris's cat, Julie, doesn't seem to think I'll last much longer.
As the sun shone strong and bright through our bathroom window, I caught Valentine hiding behind a bag, enjoying the sunbeam while also hiding from our daughter. Here, her attention has suddenly shifted from "fear-of-child" to "what-is-the-other-cat-doing".
Spent most of the day in bed with a fever, so I wasn't stupendously inspired on the photo front. But this largely sums up my day--lying down, covered in blankets and cats.
The only thing I managed to shoot during the day was pretty half-hearted and uninspired (and ultimately poorly framed), so in a fit of photographic despair, I started stalking the cats to see if they would do anything remotely cute that I might use.
This late-yawn catch was nearly titled "AYFKM?" (you do the acronym expansion), but cooler heads appear to have prevailed. I'm not entirely satisfied with the DoF (which I feel is a little too shallow) but it's about all I have energy for today.
I spent the better part of a week in bed with a nasty case of influenza--chills, aches, sweats, nausea, digestive "issues", 102.9 degree fever--the works. And once again, everyone in my family had the great taste to all get sick at the exact same time, so you can imagine the fun that Liz and I had trying to comfort and care for Claire while we were clobbered by the bug.
But! Surprise, surprise! It turns out that even influenza can have a silver lining or two.
First, I lost six pounds, which is nice in the wake of holiday indulgence and a baby-driven complete lack of regular exercise routine.
More importantly, I now know what's happening to my sock drawer.
About once a week, I find my sock drawer in disarray, half-open and mixed-up, with two or three pairs on the floor in front of the dresser. I'd been wondering why and how for a while. Luckily, when one spends a week in bed with said dresser in direct view, one gets a chance to observe the cause and culprit first-hand--namely, Valentine the cat. She's figured out how to open the drawer, then jumps up onto the dresser and starts digging in the socks until she's satisfied with the disaster she's caused. I watched her steal four pairs of socks before she finally got bored and dashed off to chase her sister. I just about died laughing.
I know I sound like a broken record--but I'd really love to have a couple weeks or even a month of 2008 in which I'm not being devastated by the illness of the week.