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A few days after my birthday, the snow had settled enough that we went out shopping. First we crept slowly toward the Target in Victor, mired in holiday traffic. We got Sarah a pair of shoes. Then we set a course for Lollypop Farm, a local animal shelter, to pick up a birthday cat for me.
The cats were all behind glass, which made it hard for me to conduct the simple test of how forward they were. Feeling somewhat hopeless, I drifted past cat after cat. They were mostly doing their own thing, but one brown striper sat and looked at me. I looked back at her. We made eye contact. I put her first on my list of kitties to look at, and after a short audition, I decided she was the one. I am, therefore, the proud owner of a cat named Princess. I am now calling her Frances, so that I won't have to call her Princess. If anybody has any other good ideas for names that sound pretty much like Princess but aren't, I'd be happy to consider them.
She sneezes and coughs a little, which is apparently normal for ex-shelter cats. She's six months old, spayed, and has her shots. She is reasonably friendly and alert. She hangs out with Cathy whenever she's not doing anything else, and if not, she's upstairs on the rug by the piano. She was here with me for a while on the first couple of days. Perhaps I failed some test. She's happy when I pet her, anyway.
I went out today -- had to shovel the car out -- and I picked up a piece of cat furniture for her two-level lounging and scratching pleasure. I also got a carrier so that when I take her to the vet tomorrow, I can keep a promise I made to her on Saturday not to make her go anywhere in the cardboard carrier again.
In other news, my tuning hammer arrived today, and I unwrapped it and opened up the piano and started whaling away. Several notes sound better now. I hope none of them sound worse. There's still more work to do. I couldn't find a real tuning procedure online, and (surprisingly) I don't have a book that goes into sufficient detail, with the proper order to tune in, and the information on beats and cents and all that. There are videos, but I want something I can refer to while I'm doing it. I ended up tuning it to some notes of my medium-small Yamaha keyboard, but was hampered by company. Zach, from the house back of ours, showed up on our porch just after two. I told him Sarah would be back from school in about an hour and a quarter. He continued loafing on the porch. Finally, I said it was pretty cold and I wanted to shut the door, so he came inside. I turned the TV on for him. He said he was feeling "peckish," so I suggested a couple of possible snacks, which he rejected, until I mentioned the S'Mores granola bars, which met with his approval.
From then on, I had pretty much continual company, with Sarah around 3:28 (bus was late), and then Michael shortly after, followed by running, crashing, and shouting through the house. I managed to drop a rubber mute down into the action, but was able to get hold of it an hour or two later and extract it again. Sarah introduced her friends to the cat, who took it all pretty well.
I'm glad to have a cat in the house. To me, a cat is the soul of a house. With luck, she'll maybe hang around with me some, so I'll get to see a living creature during the day.
.
A few days after my birthday, the snow had settled enough that we went out shopping. First we crept slowly toward the Target in Victor, mired in holiday traffic. We got Sarah a pair of shoes. Then we set a course for Lollypop Farm, a local animal shelter, to pick up a birthday cat for me.
The cats were all behind glass, which made it hard for me to conduct the simple test of how forward they were. Feeling somewhat hopeless, I drifted past cat after cat. They were mostly doing their own thing, but one brown striper sat and looked at me. I looked back at her. We made eye contact. I put her first on my list of kitties to look at, and after a short audition, I decided she was the one. I am, therefore, the proud owner of a cat named Princess. I am now calling her Frances, so that I won't have to call her Princess. If anybody has any other good ideas for names that sound pretty much like Princess but aren't, I'd be happy to consider them.
She sneezes and coughs a little, which is apparently normal for ex-shelter cats. She's six months old, spayed, and has her shots. She is reasonably friendly and alert. She hangs out with Cathy whenever she's not doing anything else, and if not, she's upstairs on the rug by the piano. She was here with me for a while on the first couple of days. Perhaps I failed some test. She's happy when I pet her, anyway.
I went out today -- had to shovel the car out -- and I picked up a piece of cat furniture for her two-level lounging and scratching pleasure. I also got a carrier so that when I take her to the vet tomorrow, I can keep a promise I made to her on Saturday not to make her go anywhere in the cardboard carrier again.
In other news, my tuning hammer arrived today, and I unwrapped it and opened up the piano and started whaling away. Several notes sound better now. I hope none of them sound worse. There's still more work to do. I couldn't find a real tuning procedure online, and (surprisingly) I don't have a book that goes into sufficient detail, with the proper order to tune in, and the information on beats and cents and all that. There are videos, but I want something I can refer to while I'm doing it. I ended up tuning it to some notes of my medium-small Yamaha keyboard, but was hampered by company. Zach, from the house back of ours, showed up on our porch just after two. I told him Sarah would be back from school in about an hour and a quarter. He continued loafing on the porch. Finally, I said it was pretty cold and I wanted to shut the door, so he came inside. I turned the TV on for him. He said he was feeling "peckish," so I suggested a couple of possible snacks, which he rejected, until I mentioned the S'Mores granola bars, which met with his approval.
From then on, I had pretty much continual company, with Sarah around 3:28 (bus was late), and then Michael shortly after, followed by running, crashing, and shouting through the house. I managed to drop a rubber mute down into the action, but was able to get hold of it an hour or two later and extract it again. Sarah introduced her friends to the cat, who took it all pretty well.
I'm glad to have a cat in the house. To me, a cat is the soul of a house. With luck, she'll maybe hang around with me some, so I'll get to see a living creature during the day.
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