So I took a short nap today, as much to get warm as for anything else. When I woke up, I had to familiar lumps sitting on me. This time though, I sneakily grabbed my camera.

( Alice: Your head needs a good washing! )


( The 'What do you think you're doing?' stare )

Sadly, after this, I had to get up and go back to work.

I would totally read every Wonder Woman comic published if they were written and drawn by Kate Beaton, of Hark a Vagrent.

Best Wonder Woman Ever.

It's not surprising that Alice would find that if she rolls over while being petted, she will fall off the footstool with a  "plop!".  Which then takes lots of petting and soothing words to settle her affronted dignity.

What IS surprising is to find out she will do the same thing AGAIN.

And yes, I totally failed in the "not laughing" part.

After making my last post, I heard Sandy in the living room saying "Are you going to do a somersault?  Somersault?"

And as soon as I come into the living room, there Dorthy was lying in the middle of the living room floor, and when she saw me: SOMERSAULT!

This is her only and best trick, and the reason Sandy claims we haven't put her on the porch for the coyotes (ninja coyotes, that can climb walls).  Pee on our stuff?  Scratch everything in sight?  She does somersaults!

And she did it just for me.

Now that is love.

Dorothy was in the upper trough of the cat tree, or rather 3/4s of the way in it, while she taunted her sister Alice, by dangling her front feet insolently.
Lean, swipe.
        Lean, swipe.
                Leeeaaan...swipe....
*plop!*
Stalk away offended, as we laugh.

"Dad, I SO did not fall out of the cat tree.  I leaped and fe- LANDED on my feet.  Because I was bored.  See, I am over here.  Eating kibble.  Just as I intended.  Shut up!"

 I have to admire a bit that Dorothy has graduated up from pouncing on my toes in pursuit of bedmice.  This morning, around three-ish, she turned to chasing larger prey- my entire feet.  Nor was she dissuaded much by my sliding my feet toward her- a stunt that in the old days would have scared her off.

Also, in the "log rolling" category, she's somehow managed to learn how to stay on top of me when I shift positions, without standing up.  when i did slid her off me, I checked by feel, and where normally she'd be stretching indignantly, this morning she remained cuddled up ion the space between Sandy and I.

It's all very cute.  Adorable in fact.

I may have to start sleeping in the bathtub.

So, today was supposed to be spent doing research and writing a proposal.  I have what sounds like a cool job waiting for me, assuming I can parse my prospective employer's instructions well enough to figure out how to improve his website for the upcoming 2010 Olympics.   Instead, it ended up something like this:

Kitty to the Doctor!

For the shots, I was originally supposed to take the kitties to AMD vets.  Due to budgetary concerns, I instead took them to Al's Lube and Vet.

*VRRRRRrrt!  VRRRRRrrt!*  "Yeah, looks like yer cats gotta cracked valve or a bladder infection or sumpin'.  Gonna cost ya.  Be two weeks, if I c'n get the parts.  Tell ya what- I'll give ya a loaner cat.'
"Aackpth!"
"Just keep im from eatin' the litter, and away from open flame, 'kay?"

It didn't help that when I came home for the kitties, the house smelled of ammonia.  The cat box that I had argued with the RxM over whether it was too expensive to replace got unceremoniously dumped in the trash, and the next hour was spend gagging on fumes while cleaning the corner the catbox had inhabited.

Next big thing: I noticed that the latest unemployment check was supposed to be the last one: even though I had money in my balance, my unemployment term had ended after only three months.  PANIC!  This led to a mad dash to the Sunnyvale EDD office, and the information that my old unemployment account hadn't actually been closed, and had expired after the year was up.  So I redid the paperwork, and was told that I should get my next check in two weeks, not after a waiting period.  Yay.  And since it will be based on my latest job, it may even be more.  Double yay.

So, I got my cats back, who aren't speaking to me, and I got an unemployment benefit restored that hopefully I won't even need if I can get this damn project done by Thursday.   O which I got exactly...nothing done on. 

Tomorrow.  Tomorrow will be a good day to panic.  Tonight is a good night for a potato and sausage medley, and Slivovitz.

I found that a half hour or so of vigorous dancing alleviates somewhat the icy cold of Outermost Apartment.    "Pink Panther's Penthouse Party is an especially efficacious album for warming me up.   

"Baba ba ba, ba baba ba, baba ba ba, ba baba ba..."

Our cat's have a different opinion. Alice found my dancing in a circle around her puzzling, and then alarming.  She escaped under a chair, and then the bedroom, to avoid Papa's strange behavior.  Dorothy had enough sense to stay on the bed the entire time.

"You can blow with this
Or you can blow with that
You can blow with this
Or you can blow with that"

After that, I retired and wrote an entire short story about Dealing with Cold.  I may put it up here, after I sober up and edit the thing.