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blankets in July Monday, July 26 2010
Ever since Nigel's incarceration began over a week ago, we've had to visit him in the laundry room at least twice each day to give him his antibiotic pills (so as to treat whatever urinary tract infection he might be suffering from). We've also been taking him out to help him aculturate to the rest of the house. This usually happens either up in the teevee room or on a couch in the living room.
Today when I went to give him his morning antibiotic, it was only a little after 7:00am. I invited Eleanor in, letting her eat the last few morsels of kibble remaining in Nigel's dish. But Nigel was having none of it. He ran after Eleanor and swatted her, so I hurried to open the plexiglass door to let Eleanor escape. But once she was gone, Nigel was still riled up. He charged after me and swatted me too, leaving a bleeding scratch on my right shin. Had Gretchen not clipped his claws awhile ago, it would have been much worse. Up until this point, I'd thought of Nigel as peaceful and well-adjusted. He'd never demonstrated any anger or territoriality before. Evidently his incarceration had left him feeling territorial about his little piece of the world. That makes sense, but it revealed a whole unexpected new aspect of his personality. A cat has a head no bigger than a human fist, yet there's a brain in there that can still surprise us with its mysteries. Then again, a modern hard drive has the volume of a fist, and it too can surprise us with its mysteries (though, as with a cat, usually it doesn't).
Soon thereafter I took the dogs for a walk in the forest, starting on the Farm Road and busting a left on the Chamomile Headwarters trail. Of late Sally has been abstaining from walks, but I think the cool of the early morning made the walk more attractive, so she came along.
I took Sally and Eleanor with me on my occasional errand to pick up coffee at my coffee supplier, Catskill Mountain Coffee on Route 28 near Onteora Lake. There's a beer supplier next door, so I decided to go in there to see if I could find an IPA superior to Hurricane Kitty (our locally-brewed IPA). I wouldn't normally be fussy about such things, but the memory of Oregon IPAs is still fresh. I ended up buying a six pack of Lagunitas Maximus for $13 plus deposit and tax. That's a lot of money for a six pack of beer, though this brew claimed to be 7.5 percent alcohol.
After I'd taken care of my retail purchases, I walked the dogs at Onteora. In that I didn't lose Sally or have to explain scratches made by one of my rearing dogs on somebody's SUV door, this part of our outing went well.
This evening I tried to watch a bittorrent download of Get Him to the Greek on my new media computer setup. But the movie is still in theatres and only available as cam rips from Eastern Europe. This means they were filmed by someone pointing a camera at a screen in a movie theatre. Such operations are often sophisticated; in Eastern Europe it's easy to get collusion with the theatre, so the camera is usually on a tripod and sometimes there is even jacked-in sound (that is, there is no audience noise). With this copy, though, the audience provided something of a slavic laugh track, and occasionally we'd be treated to black silhouettes of people heading to the bathroom. I made it about three quarters of the way into the movie before giving up on it. I'm too old to be watching a movie with such crappy production values.
The evening was cool enough to require blankets even in the upstairs bedroom (whose windows have been open now for well over a month). I like having to use blankets.
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