Fog

Home and Healthy

Lily is home with a clean bill of health. She got a couple of shots, which doesn’t make her happy, and she had her nails clipped. Other than that, she’s back to normal. The vet staff said she was friendly and wonderful and not a gremlin at all.

I still feel like a prison guard every time I put a cat into the carrier. Lily is done now, but Robin goes to the vet on Friday.

Vet Appointment Blues

Few things in life make me feel like a horrible person the way bringing a cat to the vet does.

She’s fine. It’s just a check up.

Car Music: 2024

Was today the first car music of 2024? I think so.

I snuck out of the house a few minutes after 7:30, got to the movie theater parking lot (which wasn’t quite as empty as I like it to be) by 7:40 and recorded vocals for two songs until 8:25. I didn’t have time for any more, and even if I did I might not have. It was a struggle today. My voice was very scratchy and I’m not terribly pleased with the results… then again I am never pleased with the results so what difference does it make?

The upside is I now have two songs that are ready for lead guitars. The downside is that I have no calluses on the fingers on my left hand so recording lead guitars is going to hurt a bit. I can hack it though. I’m practically a pro at this… not really… whatever.

Here’s the view of my “studio” today:

There was a truck parked right next to my usual spot so I had to move over a few rows.

In closing, here is the obligatory clock picture:

Cat

Robin just let me pet her belly. She was purring like a hot rod engine but she didn’t return my slow blink. Oh well.

Cats Need to Listen to Me

Bloganuary writing prompt

If you could make your pet understand one thing, what would it be?

View all responses

There are a few potential responses to this one, but if I had to narrow down to just one thing I want my cats to understand it would be this:

Just because you can see the bottom of the food bowl, it doesn’t mean that you are about to starve to death. There’s enough food in there to keep you alive for a while, and I will top off the bowl soon enough. Calm down.

Now having said that, Robin Sparkles has an interesting response to the food bowl getting low. She gets extra super friendly. Where she normally barely acknowledges my existence, when the bowl is even slightly less than full she comes to me practically begging for attention. She rubs up against my feet when I am walking by, she head butts me when I am sitting down, she meows at me, the whole works. All the things that cats do to remind you that they are there and to trick you into thinking that they love you. All of it. It’s not enough to make me purposefully let their food get low… but it’s a close call sometimes.

A couple of honorable mentions include the following:

Yes, cats. I am aware of the state of your litter box. I am always aware of the state of your litter box. Relax.

No, cats. You are not allowed in the cellar. Not since Lilly tried to claw her way through the central air duct or when she tried to climb over the top of the ceiling to get behind the wall board where she would get stuck and I would never, ever be able to find her or rescue her. Get out of the damn cellar, both of you.

This last one is going to come up tomorrow, and then again on Thursday. Yes, cats. We have to put you into the cat carrier in order to take you to the vet. It is not punishment or torture and I am not some kind of nazi death camp guard. Stop making me feel like one. It will all be over soon enough. Just be patient and accept my apology. Good kitty.

One Year

Today is Robin Sparkles the Cat’s first adoptiversary. One year ago today we met her for the first time at the MSPCA in Methuen, Massachusetts and we took her home with us. Her daughter, Lily Pad the Cat, was also adopted that day but she needed some medical work before we could take her home. We’re marking her adoptiversary as the day she came home for the first time. That is early next week.

Robin’s name was Disco when she was at the shelter. Lily’s name was Boogie.

Officially On a Streak

When I finished playing guitar yesterday morning I had run out of tracks that needed to be recorded. Last night I started another re-recording song so that I could have something to work on today. Now here we are again with nothing ready to work on because for the third day in a row I played guitar!

I now have six quarantine tunes ready for vocals. That’s what I call a backlog. It’s going to take me a while to get through all of that. I have one more song on my list for this round of re-recordings. I had two but I decided to drop one of them. If I can prep that one with bass and drum MIDI tracks today then I’ll have something to do tomorrow morning. Then we start doing car music on Tuesday? We’ll see how it shakes out.

Obligatory guitar pics, via Hipstamatic shake-to-shuffle….

For All Mankind

Now that the epic Star Trek: Deep Space Nine rewatch is over I need a new show to binge. Jen and I are going to watch Star Trek: Voyager together. I had started an X-Files rewatch at the same time as Deep Space Nine and I intend to get back to it. I also started For All Mankind the other day. I am on season one episode six right now. There are four, 10 episode season. It’s pretty good, so far at least.

I also thought about giving Peaky Blinders another try. Jen and I watched the first couple of episodes a long time ago but stopped for some reason. Maybe it’s time to try again. Unfortunately it’s only available on the ad-free tier of Netflix. Figures. Jerks.

Anyway, here is a picture of Robin the cat. Just because.

More Playing

I played guitar again this morning! Two days in a row!

I put rhythm guitars on a Quarantine tune, and lead guitar on another song. It was my first recorded lead on the new frets and the first recorded lead in months, meaning I have no calluses, meaning ouch town, population: me.