A Pox on Both Their Houses

Miikka says "Enough with all the politics. It is time to get me some cookies." I agree. Cookies = yes. Politics = no more! Almost none of the candidates or issues went the way I voted. At least we kept our Democrat governor.

Mr. Meowster

Meowster in full voice.

 One of Oliver's nicknames is Mr. Meowster. He likes the sound of his own voice, and he uses his voice a lot. He just starts, for no apparent reason, and continues until he goes back to his cat napping. Sometimes it is to let us know that the food bowl is empty, but mostly, it is just to let us know he is there, at least as far as we can tell.

Mr. Meowster does not approve of paparazzi.

He really wants to be with us in the evenings, when we are in the living room, and he really wants to go out on the deck and into the yard to eat grass. Miikka likes to chase Oliver, when he notices that Oliver is in the room. Too often, Meowster sabotages himself through his incessant meowing. If he would just stay quiet, Miikka would ignore him - I know this because on the rare occasions Oliver refrains, he is left unmolested. But Oliver is our kitty of very little brain, so he never quite makes the connection. Sigh.

Remind me why we didn't buy a townhouse

 

Between the two of us, Benjamin and I spent about 10 hours in the yard this weekend. Most of that time was spent raking and bagging oak leaves. The bagging is the worst part, because the black plastic bags don't stand up on their own, and it is hard to shovel leaves into them without a second pair of hands. For some reason, the home improvement stores around here only carry the paper bags in the spring, and if you go asking for them in the fall, the staff look at you like you have four arms (which you need for the plastic bags). You may remember that last year I bought a leaf blower/sucker that was supposed to speed up the process and reduce the number of bags we needed. It is a great blower. But it really sucks as a sucker. It clogs. It is slow. The bag release gets gummed up by ground up leaves, requiring two people to pull the darn thing apart. I eventually gave up and went with Benjamin's baleen whale approach to scooping up leaves. And of course, we will have to do this all over again at least one more time before all the trees are bare.

At least the weather was nice.  The sun was out, and it got warm, but not too hot.  Miikka had fun helping on Saturday - biting the rake, running through leaf piles, escaping from the back yard when the gate was opened. But he also got to do some leisurely sun bathing.