Andy Laub they call me "The Solution"

Speaking of raccoons, allow me to regale you with tales of urban nature this Labor Day weekend:

Tale #1

It was about 9:00 on Friday night when we were sitting in the media room. I was messing around in Little Big Planet while Abe was doing… whatever he does. We heard a noise, but didn’t think much of it, as we live in a house where noises are practically de rigeur. Honestly, I’m not even sure I heard the noise at all. I don’t really pay attention well.

So ten or fifteen minutes later, we go to the basement bedroom to find that the screen in the window has been pushed outward, leaving a much-larger-than-cat-sized opening and reducing the number of active cats in the household by one. From what we can deduce, Marshie (shown in anger mode), saw something (most likely a cat) outside that caused him to lunge at the screen. Imagine the surprise of both parties when the screen gave way and Marshie was suddenly outdoors.

By the time we got out there, he was frantic and desperate to return to the safety of the house, but so confused and upset that he ran past us several times. He finally showed up at the back door, where we were able to let him back in. He was still pretty upset, but a few minutes and some Party Mix brought back the Marshie we know and love.

Tale #2

We were driving and saw a raccoon. That was pretty neat.

Tale #3

So, it’s now 4:00 on Sunday morning. Sleep is happening, because that’s what I like to do at that time of the day, when I awake to banging on the same basement window as before. Inspection reveals two subjects: Subject A is a white cat sitting on the ledge of the window well (at ground level) – it’s the neighbors’ cat, and very likely the one that riled up Marshie the other night. Subject B is a rabbit that the cat has chased into the window well, and is now trying to escape.

This particular window well was added to the house when the previous owner started to finish off the basement. The window is probably 4′ x 3′ or so, and this well is sized to accommodate a human who would be climbing out of that window in the event of an emergency, so it’s of similar dimensions. That would be why the rabbit is having so much trouble. They are pretty impressive jumpers, but aren’t exactly practiced in the vertical leap; he’s manages to get about six inches from the edge, but then falls back down.

Let’s finish this story. I grabbed a towel and a pair of gloves and went outside. I managed not to step on the rabbit when I jumped down into the window well, and that’s pretty good considering I was only half awake. It was when he continued to run in circles that I realized getting the towel on him might be more challenging than I had originally thought, but he finally paused for a second so I went for it. Unlike birds, mammals just freak out more when you cover them with stuff, but fortunately he just kind of bumped into the window and stopped long enough for me to pick him up.

I set him down next to the ledge and uncovered him, and I think he was dazed for a minute because he just stared at me. Then he hissed (I swear!). Then, finally, he ran away, where he was probably eaten by that cat. I went back to bed.

How was your weekend?

At some point it was bound to happen.

I’d mentioned before that Bender was not exactly the healthiest of cats; not a month went by that he didn’t visit the vet, or as we called it, his home away from home. Some of his ill health we attributed to his having been a stray before we adopted him, while some of his issues stemmed (we think) from his breeding.

I honestly can’t say it was a surprise when he was afflicted yet again. A few days ago we noticed that he was no longer his normal, active self. He had stopped eating and drinking, and spent most of his time hiding. When we were able to coax him out of his hiding place, he refused to purr and only meowed when we picked him up. We took him to the vet on Wednesday and learned that these symptoms were a result of a liver issue that would require hospitalization and possibly a feeding tube along with antibiotics.

We couldn’t do it. Abe and I decided that there was no way we could continue to spend this kind of money on Bender, for a number of reasons. While he would have theoretically recovered fully, neither of us believed that this was the last problem he’d have even in the near future, and once we’d spent this amount of money to take care of him we’d be obligated to continue doing so. With that in mind we committed to the hardest decision either of us has ever had to make in our entire lives.

Bender was euthanized yesterday at 5:30 PM. It was the most painful, gut-wrenching experience I’ve ever had.

Parties, pool, googly eyes, badgers, Frankenstein’s monster, stroked-out cats, raccoon heads.

A picture, but no words.

I swear, Bender has to be the freakin’ Volkswagen of cats – always something wrong.

Somehow he managed to get a hole in his epidermis that was promptly sewn up by our vet. How does he get himself into these things? Anyway, sorry – I warned you it was gross.

One of my guilty pleasures is a little show on G4 called Cinematech which is, ridiculously, videos of video games. Absurd, but for some reason I’m drawn to it. I guess it’s cause I’ve always liked watching people play games (well) just as much as I enjoy playing them myself. And on the subject of playing games well, they were playing through Half-Life. The entire game. When I played through that earlier this year it took me a couple days, so maybe 10 hours or so to finish. They were slightly faster at 45 minutes. If you’ve never played Half-Life think of it as watching a two-hour movie, in its entirety, in 15 minutes.

And while we’re on the subject of games, I finished The Getaway : Black Monday and was not disappointed. Despite their rather mediocre ratings I’ve really liked both of the games in the series. They’ve got a nice feel about them and you can really see how the developers tried to inject it with a cinematic vibe.

As an afterthought, I need to direct you to their site again. It is a pretty impressive endeavor, not so much because of its design but because of its content. By clicking around you end up on a mini-tour of London and meet all the characters (played by their voice actors from the game). It’s a great way to introduce you to the environment or just kill some time.

What happened here?

Still another shot at the kittens’ new home.

Another shot of the kittens’ new home.

The kittens’ new home.

So Operation : Cat Transplant occurred yesterday with almost zero hitches. We were unable to apprehend the mom, so after half an hour of looking and some heartfelt goodbyes the kittens were on their way to their new home. The coming weeks will be filled with more learning and exploration, with plenty of mousing practice I’m sure.

I’m listening to Keith Urban’s Be Here right now and actually liking it. This is the first country album I’ve ever, ever bought, but it’s one of those that totally blurs the genre line. It has its share of southern influence in the instruments that are used but at the same time I’m totally fine with banjos and the like being part of any kind of band as long as the music is good. The only thing that really defines it as country is the twang in his voice, which is interesting considering that he’s from Australia.

In more media-related occurences, we watched Constantine on Friday and Win A Date With Tad Hamilton last night; both were decently good but nothing I’d need to see again. And, after some hemming and hawing, I finally picked up Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. I’m only about 4 or 5 chapters through it because I’ve not had much time to read since yesterday, but it’s good just like all the other ones are so I can’t wait to get further into it.

Our cats have a thing for bits of cheese. I’m not sure what kind of a thing it is, but it’s most definitely a thing.

On the subject, we went with George to her grandparents’ house with the intent of picking up some kittens and transplanting them on her fiancee’s farm. Mission: unsuccessful. We learned that they’re still exiting the nursing stage and without the mom it wouldn’t be a good idea to take them just yet. Ideally Mom would come too but she spent her time on top of some haybales observing us.

The plan now is to give them another week to become more self-sufficient and also to try to catch their mom in a live trap (not as bad as it sounds) so she can join them at the new location. We’ll see how it goes.

I’ve written this before but I am always amazed at the smallness of kittens. These must have only been about two months old, barely, because they’re hardly bigger than my hand and they still make their cute little mewing noises. It’s hard to imagine Maynard in all of his 18-pound glory ever having been that tiny.

Bender is our second cat. To cop a line from Dave Barry, this makes him our auxiliary cat, ready to leap in at the moment Maynard is unable to perform his feline duties.

Actually, I pretty much almost never wear them; they are confined to the glove compartment of my car. It was bright outside today, so I actually put them on. I had nearly forgotten how gorgeous things look through amber tinting.

I’ve also realized that despite the fact that we have two cats, I don’t say much about them. On both occasions, I was too busy to say much more than “we got a cat” and so it was left at that.

So let’s start with Maynard. He’s three point five years old and is 15 pounds of pure pretty-kittiness. He doesn’t purr much but he always looks content until you rile him up and he bites you. Then after that he is content again. He’s not into table scraps unless it’s tuna, and he yells at you when you take a shower. Then when that doesn’t work he splashes his paw in the water dish and gets it all over the floor. He’s also beneficial in that instead of owning a paper shredder, we can just throw a piece in front of him and it will be shredded in no time.

Bender is a different story. He’s much more into attention than Maynard and that could be because he was a stray where as Maynard was a surrender. He only has a stub of a tail but this doesn’t seem to affect him – he just keeps himself happy by attacking Maynard’s. He is particularly interesting in that he will pretty much lay down where ever. You could pick him up so he’s laying on your hands, and then put him on the bed, and he will not move. He sleeps in the bathroom sink. He’s also much more vocal than Maynard; not only with purring – he’ll randomly make noise to let you know that he’s still there and could you come find him please?

Together they are the best pair I’ve ever seen, as good as any pair from the same litter than I’m aware of. They can change from licking eachother to wrestling in a split second and the ruckus they create when chasing eachother down the stairs is tremendous. I think Maynard is especially happy to have a companion since we were gone daily for work and he had nothing else to do, and I’m glad we were able to adopt Bender because he is such a wonderful cat.

And here we are in the new year. You’ll notice little baby changes, in the fact that everything is now CSS. I figured now would be a better time than any to begin a transition. I don’t have an approximated end time for the switch, because there isn’t one. I have to really figure out what I want here, but we’ll see what happens. Nothing much has changed as far as navigation, but guess what – now it works on mobile phones.

So yeah, there it is. We saw some really good movies over the past week. Collateral was a really good movie, but I wasn’t really thrilled with the ending. Then we saw Changing Lanes and I, Robot, both of which I thought were really, really good. We also watched two really funny movies in Napoleon Dynomite and Anchorman, which, again, were really, really funny and good. The Manchurian Candidate was interesting and I liked it quite alot, as was Open Water. Last night we went to see Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events. Abe and I both thought it was a good adaptation of the books, but the two we were with weren’t so pleased because they were not familiar with the books.

Other than that and long periods of playing Burnout 3, which I got Abe for Christmas, it’s been a fairly uneventful break. I go back to work on Monday, and I’m not sure that I’m looking forward to it. It will be good be doing stuff again, but I was so happy with not doing stuff that it may prove to be kind of a difficult transition.

We also went to check out some new apartments a block away from ours. They are pretty cool, but not nearly as big as ours, and a couple hundred dollars a month more expensive. I also paid my final CellOne bill.
Here is the biggest news: we have another cat. His name is Bender, and he’s a year old. He has no tail, but we think he was born that way. Anyway, there’s the news.

I figured, copycat that I am, that it would be good to have a biography, since it was never my intent nor is it my desire to remain completely anonymous.

Also, I received a call from my dad today, to let me know they are going to euthanize our oldest cat, CooCoo. Name notwithstanding, CooCoo was cat who was both loving and demanding. In her later years her caterwauling would fill the house – being deaf, she had no idea what was going on and this was her way of keeping in touch. She was my first cat ever, and probably the best, too. She lived an amazingly long and healthy life, to the age of 21.

This kind of thing starts me thinking about death in general, and I become very weighed down with all kind of emotions. At that point it’s best for me just to go distract myself with something else.

There was this one time where I had this blog and I didn’t update it for like two weeks. Wait – that was now. Anyway, here I am with a list of fragmented thoughts:

• scootering is fun, biking is almost as fun, especially with the weather finally getting nicer.
• bought Kanye West’s the College Dropout and Jay-Z’s Black Album. Kanye’s is better.
• also bought the Kill Bill vol . 1 soundtrack – also good.
• also also bought Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty and Hitman 2: Silent Assassin. MGS2 is good, Hitman is hard.
• still enjoying the Getaway and eagerly awaiting my reserved copy of Driv3r.
• finally updated my blog with more meaningless blather nobody cares about.
• thinking about a new phone (camera!) but there aren’t any good ones around here. Yet.
• we gave the cat another bath the other day – he liked that a lot
• I need to go rollerblading sometime.
• it’s finally almost summer and I’m happy about that. I think

Yesterday we went to see Billy Joel’s Movin Out at the Fox Cities PAC. Surprisingly, it was not a musical, as we expected it to be. We figured it’d be similar to Mamma Mia, but it turned out to be more of a ballet type thing. It was very good. The lead singer was Darren Holden, and he did a spectacular job.

We also took the opportunity to eat at Victoria’s, an absolutely fantastic Italian restaurant. All in all, it was a very nice day, especially considering the weather.

Also:

• I got my helmet.
• www.subservientchicken.com
• Maynard was sitting under the desk and licking my knees
• I still like Grand Theft Auto.

So, I got my tax return which means that it was finally office chair day today. We went to check out what the store had in stock, and in lieu of custom ordering (5 weeks) we bought the two remaining MIRRAs in the store. Mine is all black and Abe’s is tan on black. It is so comfortable and I may never buy another chair again. Seriously, though, I can not recommend the MIRRA enough. It is fantastic, and even better when you consider the huge discount when compared to the Aeron (my original favorite). It’s surprisingly comfortable as well. I am very happy with it, and the fact that I got it today, and the fact that it was about $100 less than what I would’ve paid at Room & Board.

We also decided to give the cat a bath. He was surprisingly tolerant of this, and doesn’t seem traumatized by the experience at all. He’s happy as he ever was, and a lot fluffier too.

We just watched Matchstick Men and I’m not sure whether I liked it. It was clever, nonetheless. We’re planning to watch Confessions of a Dangerous Mind tomorrow in what has turned out to be a Sam Rockwell (hot!) themed weekend. Last weekend we saw Pirates of the Caribbean and I’m happy to say it was awesome.

I am also excited because our housewarming party is coming up – an event I have looked forward to since October. That said, we need to focus on hanging the rest of our pictures this weekend. And maybe finding a bookshelf / room divider. And cleaning up the huge mess of LEGOs on the floor.

Ok, I think it’s due time for bed, since it is actually technically early morning on the 27th.

…and he pulls it off so well that I’m sending him to work for me tomorrow. He’s a pretty kitty.

I neglected yesterday to mention that my phone is the 3560. Not that it’s important. I like it. One of the coolest features is that you can change the color schemes. It also has the polyphonic ring tones which are kind of hard to get used to. Compared to my old 3360 it’s more phone in a smaller package. I appreciate the ability to separate my phone book into groups (friends, family, etc) and assign particular ring tones to those groups. Even cooler is the option to turn off alerts for certain groups if you so desire.

OK, I don’t know where I’m going.