Today I moved up in the world, in a physical sense anyway. I spent the afternoon moving things from one office to another office, one floor up.
There was also a fire alarm. The two items were not related. But my new digs have a bookcase! I lost two bookcases in my last move. I was given, instead, some low flung thing that could best be described as a deep entertainment center with a shelf. But that’s no longer my concern. My concern is stocking this bookcase. So I can bring some fancy books back to the office. That means, more importantly, I can move them out of my home office. And all of this, most importantly, means I am able to take two keys off my keyring. My pocket is the big winner.
Speaking of which … where are my keys? Maybe the cats have them.
Let’s check in on the kitties; I know you’re clamoring the for the site’s biggest feature. Here is our biggest cycling fan, ready to take the Poe-dium.
Poe. Poseidon. Podium. Poe-dium. You get it.
Phoebe heard us talking about tomorrow night’s dinner — the really important stuff — and she, too, is ready for taco Tuesday.
She was snoozing on Sunday, and he tried to sneak up on her from underneath a blanket. He was busted.
So they’re doing well, and we’re doing well and we hope you are, too. Hope you’ve had a great start to your week. See you back here for more tomorrow.
We enjoyed a little bike ride on Saturday morning, trying to beat the heat before the heat beat us. We stopped about 10 miles in to stretch the legs and let the sweat drip, drip, drip onto the cement under a church awning. A man walked by with his dog on a leash. He told the dog, “Do not bark. Do not bark.” And the dog did as he was instructed. He did as he was instructed for as long as he could, and finally he let loose with a deep woof-woof-woof that intimidated me into action. I told the dog I had learned my lesson, and would be on my way. He had saved the day, protected his neighborhood from the outsiders in funny clothes.
The Yankee had already set out to continue her ride, but somehow the dog positioned himself in my route of travel. So I had to wait until the nice gentleman was able to reel him in. He was a very good boy, that dog, and made me leave as soon as possible. I am sure he told everyone about it the rest of the day, for treats and pets and to reassure his people that he was on the job. The sweaty guy dressed funny won’t be back anytime soon. Woof.
Anyway, since she got off ahead of me I had to catch up, which changed the video I was going to make for that ride. But this one is still fun.
I hit 43.7 miles per hour somewhere in here. That’s 70 kilometers, which sounds more impressive — and we’re presently watching the Tour, where everything is in kilometers anyway. So it was a 56 kilometer ride, and I topped out at 70 km. Not bad for a Saturday morning.
Time for the weekly kitty check in. The cats are, happily, doing just fine. And they are, of course, pleased to provide the site’s most popular feature.
Here’s Phoebe hanging out on top of the cat tree.
And here she is, yesterday, sitting in the duffel where we store the massage boots. A little compression therapy for me, a little bag time for her.
Such a character.
And here’s the occasional proof that they do, sometimes get along.
Poseidon is sometimes pretty aggressive and she doesn’t tolerate it very well and it carries over into many of their interactions. This morning she walked up to him and hissed at him for just sitting there. Usually it is the other way around. But sibling rivalries
Poseidon, meantime, works extra hard to be cute and charming, when he’s not being a pill.
He’s just an adventurer at heart. Here he is in the laundry room.
I measured all of this, after I climbed up there and dragged him out. That’s a four-and-a-half foot jump from the top of the washing machine to the top of the cabinet. And the space between that molding and the ceiling is about four inches.
I thought that was pretty agile, even for a cat. Showed that picture to The Yankee and she was not surprised. I complained about having to pull him down from there.
Oh, she said, I just leave him.
So it isn’t the first time he’s made that leap.
adventures / cycling / Monday / photo — Comments Off on Of bikes and bees and bushes and cats and things 11 Jul 22
A quick shot from our Saturday bike ride. This is on the part where we go around a sharp right curve that’s almost a turn. It’s an uphill that’s almost a downhill, or a downhill that is an uphill, I can never decide. The part just before this you can really hammer it. And within just a few feet from here you’re in the Bermuda Triangle of gear selection. It never makes sense.
Immediately after that, though, there’s a left hand turn and she takes off. It’s a three-mile stretch that suits her strong, powerful style. I slowed down, too, because my rear tire was starting to feel a bit spongey and there’s a big downhill ahead that ends at a stop sign. I wanted to be conservative there.
But then you turn left and eventually it turns into a one-mile uphill.
There was another cyclist up ahead. We caught him. I jokingly cautioned him against letting me slow him down when he passed me on the bigger part of the climb. I heard The Yankee giggling at that as I went by her. And then he passed me.
But I caught him again. And then I got stung by some sort of flying insect, just above the knee. It only hurt when I pedaled, which I had to do for another 10 miles or so.
All of it was fun, except for the bee sting.
But I don’t want you to think that all of life is fun and musical and amazing. Today’s big adventure was trimming back a huge shrub in the back yard. It was long overdue.
And now back to your regularly scheduled cat update. No bush chores for them, but they had a big week nevertheless.
Here’s Phoebe enjoying her Sunday evening nap.
We’ve recently moved some furniture around and she has had no problem adjusting to that, as you can tell.
Poseidon is living up to his name, looking for a shower this morning.
I tremble in fear at what he might want tomorrow.
That’s it for now. Please check out my Twitter for more. And you can also see the (still-running!) series of videos I’m uploading daily from our Cozumel dive trip, over on Instagram, too. Speaking of Instagram and cats, did you know that Phoebe and Poseidon have an Instagram account? They do. Check them out.
Happy Fourth. I hope you have big plans that involve a barbecue, but not chemical burns, being outdoors, but not sunburns, and good times, but not … too good a time?
The juxtaposition-for-dramatic-and-ironic-contrast device ran empty on me there, apologies.
Not much to our Fourth. The city didn’t host a fireworks show this year. Not sure why. It can’t be too pandemic related, though, since they returned to their parade tradition this morning. (Last year they had a reverse parade and people apparently drove their cars around parked floats. You do what you can.)
The next small town up the road is hosting fireworks, and there are a few large church displays. Someone at one of the lakes is doing fireworks. It’s out there if you want it, plus a parade. There’s also a neighborhood parade, and we rode our bikes through that route just after they concluded this morning. We rode very fast, but did not catch them. That would have been amusing.
Perhaps our neighbor, who has wowed us all with pyrotechnic displays that surely equal a mortgage payment the last two years, will hurl flaming sulfur and blackpowder into the sky this evening.
Let’s check in on the cats, who would be fine with fewer things exploding within earshot.
Phoebe was enjoying a late afternoon in the sun on the dining room table that she is not supposed to be on.
But she’s so cute, and she doesn’t care about your rules, so what are you going to do?
You get her back by putting a taco toy on her head. That’s what you do.
Poseidon was playing … under … the tunnel?
At least he wasn’t on something he’s not supposed to be on. For a change. (Alert the media!)
And alert them because he’s ready for his closeup.
I mentioned we saw a rock ‘n’ roll show on Friday night. I’m going to stretch this out all week, so settle in. Here are a few clips from Toad the Wet Sprocket.
“All I Want” is a song about the fleeting feeling of epiphany. It comes and it goes, but when it goes, it goes very quickly. Yes, it’s a nostalgia-adjacent song that’s sang nostalgically. Peak Gen X irony, I’ll grant you.
A few years later, this song was released. And, pretty quickly Toad the Wet Sprocket found themselves at that point where they say “This song is a hit! … but it’s just not as big as your last one.”
I wonder, if they had any sense they’d be doing this 30-plus years later, if they would have stayed away from the Monty Python reference.
Tomorrow, I’ll share a Gin Blossoms clip, because Friday night had a distinct mid-90s feel to it.
We were also in Nashville for part of the weekend. Our friends Sally Ann and Spencer finally held their wedding reception. (They did a private wedding during peak Covid and Saturday they finally brought all of their people together. They had a party worth waiting for. We all got dressed up and had a fine time. Because we were in Nashville, I had barbecue for lunch Saturday and Sunday. Because we were returning to Bloomington, we brought enough barbecue back for two dinners.
We had one of those dinners tonight.
Most importantly, our friends had a lovely time, and they deserved it. It was nice to be a small part of their festivities. They hired a photographer for the evening, and I didn’t even pull my phone out of my pocket for any pictures. You don’t have to take my word for it, though.
It has been three weeks since we featured the most popular part of the blog — hey, we’ve been busy. But now we can catch up with the kitties. They’re both doing well, thank you.
Phoebe has been having a lot of cabinet meetings of late.
I’m sure there are many important policy decisions are made in those meetings. Where to map, what to scratch, how to stretch.
Probably the cabinets are a part of her routine to try to create distance between her and Poseidon, seen here showing of his regular charming nuisance.
No breakfast is safe from this guy. Mine certainly wasn’t yesterday.
Can’t say he didn’t warn us. Here he is, warning us.
“YOUR BREAKFAST IS NOT SAFE!” — Poseidon, probably.
I don’t know when I wrote the nerdiest thing I’ve ever written, but it occurred to me early this morning that this is a thing we should chart. I wrote this.
How many errors should I accept in a (good) book? Now I want to verify every anecdote and trivial bit.
1. Technically four, but I get it. 2. Missed the date. 3. You never study the messy 1876 election. Close, but no. 4. After two years in NYC. (He spent about a year in Philly.) pic.twitter.com/YqGO9j4Lay
It is a good book. It is, unequivocally, an important book. It was when it was released in 2011, and remains so today. But these little problems are compounding. Maybe it is a function of the editing process when they created the Kindle version.
Look, I’m not an expert in this area. Far from it. The first error, I knew a tiny bit about the man involved. The second was revealed as a chronological inconsistency one page, and a few paragraphs, apart. The third is an obvious error. The fourth I found because now I’m googling every name and publication in this book. I’m enjoying the book and learning a great deal. It’s just slowing me down, from the continued learning, is all.
Of course, I’m also picking up tidbits here and there about the people and their work that weren’t included in the book. When the world wide web is your footnote database …
I don’t know if this is the nerdiest thing I’ve ever written (Not by a longshot. — ed.) but it is somewhere on that list.
Come to think of it, let’s never chart the nerdiest things we’ve written. Never, ever.
