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I know I wrote that I wasn’t going to write any blog posts in October (with the notable exception of the official proclamation post), but that was before I remembered that today, nine years ago, Luke and Beau were born.

That nine years has been simultaneously long and incredibly short. Long in that I have plenty of memories as well as photographs documenting their growth, and short from my human perspective.

I almost didn’t get those two. They were born in 2015, the year I lost both Max the yellow Lab and my little Lucy. I lost them both on the same day at the vets; Luke to old age (he was 15 1/2) and Lucy to feline leukemia. I tried to save Lucy but her cancer wouldn’t respond to treatments. I knew she was in pain, but she was still fighting, and I wanted to give her every opportunity to beat her cancer. She was fighting still when they gave her the shot that put her to sleep. Losing one beloved pet is bad enough, but two on the same day in the same way was a horrific moment I’ll never forget.

I consider Lucy my first real cat. When she came through my front door that hot summer in 2008, I never realized a creature as small as Lucy would have such a profound impact. I already thought of myself as a Lab Person. Through Lucy’s love and attention to me I came to realize I was, deep down, also a Cat Person.

When Momma Sunshine had her litter of five the following October, that litter included Luke and Beau. Their three female littermates were all Torties. The females were quickly spoken for. The ginger boys, however, were languishing as it were. I offered to adopt one of them, hoping to take some pressure off my daughter and son-in-law’s attempt to get them all adopted. But still no-one came forward for even one of the ginger males. So in a fit of insanity charity I offered to adopt both of them.

Normally you wait eight weeks from birth before bringing kittens into the household. But I had to travel to Japan that December for business, so that by the time I came home and took care of some other tasks and travel, it was January (a good twelve weeks) before I could “take delivery” of the two boys. The “late delivery” didn’t have any negative effects whatsoever on their little psychies. They quickly settled in and took over the place.

I had originally decided on some decidedly awkward names based on Disc World characters, but I quickly discovered they didn’t fit either boy. One day while watching them chase each other, they both went running up a little cat box and then leapt into the air. I immediately thought of the Dukes of Hazzard TV show with its orange Dodge Charger and that’s when they got their names. I’ve since decided to simply call them Luke and Beau and I’ve dropped the backstory.

The boys have decidedly mellowed in their “old age.” I certainly hope they’ll be around for another nine years. Assuming I live that long I’ll be 80.

You’ve seen these photos before, even if you don’t remember seeing them. They were originally in past Caturday posts. Unfortunately, writing about them in Caturday posts wasn’t good enough for them, so they took a vote in one of their magic circle meetings and decided they wanted their various photos to also be used as device wallpapers. And so I started to experiment with using my cat photos on my soon-to-be-legacy 12.9” iPad Pro.

The ability to create new iDevice wallpapers is a feature that crept upon me over the last few major releases. I’m not too sure I like the way this feature’s been implemented. I did manage to edit the lock screen text for the time such that it’s back to being thin weight, instead of that horrible (to my eyes) bold weight that suddenly appeared several releases back. Very large fonts do not have to be bold. Thin and elegant is more than sufficient.

One feature I don’t like is how the application so lightens the top of the photo for the lock screen that you can’t read the indicators for WiFi signal strength and battery percentage.

The picture of Nicholas was taken back during his invade-all-the-boxes phase. I actually had to be careful and make sure Nicholas wasn’t in a box I took outside to recycle, because he liked to hide inside boxes that had the top down.

The interior wallpaper is Luke and his sous-chef role during early morning breakfast preparation. He’s always up on the countertop walking around and providing a running commentary in Cat speak. I give him kisses, quick little rubs and scritches, and answer back when he speaks.

In this example the Apple software has dramatically darkened the top third of the photo, far more than what I’d photographed it as, but that’s fine because it allows all the white text to stand out.

I have lots more portrait oriented cat photos, so that over time I’ll cycle through them all. So far the cats haven’t asked me to make a made-on-iPhone movie about them, but I suppose it’s only a matter of time.

Last night, around mid-night, we had an hour’s worth of thunderstorms come rolling over the house. None of the iPhone’s weather apps forecast the rain. I only got a snapshot of the precipitation from the Apple Weather app after the rain started to fall. In the mean time all the little cats came into the bedroom to be with me, either up on the bed next to me, or else under the bed. Luke in particular came back and stood next to the bed and vocalized up to me, then leaped up to settle next to my feet. He hasn’t done anything like that in years, but last night sent him back to stay with his person. I suspect it’s going to occur more often as the climate, and the weather, grows more extreme.

I’m no weather person but I would call what the precipitation view of Apple Maps showed as a micro front. It formed north-to-south and rolled out towards the Atlantic coast at a rather rapid clip. This isn’t the first time I’ve experienced something like this, but it was one of the worst. Constant loud thunder and heavy downpours accompanied this meteorological event. It showed up without warning, and then left rather rapidly. When I went out this morning there was still standing water around my street where the nearly seven hours after that rain storm was insufficient time for full runoff to occur.

This is unusual for mid-Florida. It’s just a taste of what south Florida has been going through this year. Florida has an idiot governor who won’t do a damn thing to help mitigate the destructive effects.

This past Monday Luke made the trip to the vets for his rabies shot. He was totally quiet riding over, and totally quiet riding back. No upset howls from the Luke man. Luke is also the easiest cat to get into the carrier because he uses that carrier as one of his sleeping spots around the house. I prop the door open and he just waltzes right on in whenever he feels like it. Luke is the first and only cat I’ve ever had that willingly sleeps in the pet carrier.

Luke’s the third cat so far this year to get his rabies shot, the other two being Nicholas and Beau. What’s nice about these current rabies shots is that they’re certified for three years between when they’re administered. Like all the other cats, Luke took to hiding in this unfamiliar place. Luke decided to hide under the blue towel while cuddled next to my right hip. The two of us sat together on a bench in the waiting room the entire time we were there. The staff infused the blue towel with pheromones and lavender scent to help calm little ones like Luke, so since he sat calmly while under the blue towel, I have to suppose it worked.

Before Luke got his shot, he got weighed. Luke weighed in at 14 lbs. According to the vet’s records he hadn’t gained any weight since the last time he was there, which I suppose is a good thing. But 14 lbs is still a chunk, which I feel every morning as Luke walks across me while I’m still sound asleep. That’s Luke’s way of telling me to get up and feed him.

The next day, Tuesday, I held a telemedicine consultation with the orthopedic surgery group that’s going to operate on my left knee come 18 July. According to them the data collected during the recent medical visits were fine, and I was cleared for surgery. I suppose that there was a corner of my mind that was listening and said quietly to itself, “finally!” Because the next day on Wednesday it was like my left knee went to hell in a hand basket, with me limping around the house like an old gimp, wobbling around and feeling sharp pain in every step that alighted on my left foot. It was so bad that I spent the evening out in the main part of the house in my recliner, with my leg propped up and knee iced up. That’s when all the cats came by to check out what was happening and to give me their version of comfort.

Nicholas Joseph was probably the biggest comforting soul that night. The others came by and stayed a few moments to collect some gentle rubs, but Nick curled up in my lap and went to sleep. I should note he did not pick the left leg to lie upon, and in fact stuck to the right side of my lap. They all did, which makes me wonder what signals I gave off that my left knee/leg was in such a sorry state Wednesday night.

Nick stuck around until after I dozed off to sleep. Nick’s behavior is notable for how long he was with me. Nick is a sweet little character, just like the other five, but he’s so busy checking things out that he doesn’t hang around the humans as long as he did with me that night.

Today turned out to be an all day rainy day in central Florida in spite of what all the iOS weather apps forecast. So I spent a good portion of the day just sitting in my lounger, giving my left knee a rest, with a blanket over my lap. As soon as I placed that blanket across my lap the various household felines came up to snuggle on my blanketed lap and get rubs and scritches. Which elicited a constant stream of purrs, both heard and felt.

A very low energy day to be sure, but satisfying none-the-less.

We have many cats, and we have many cat toys for our many cats. Two of those toys are Vesper Minous from Catit. They are strong wood cat furniture pieces with woven cloth across the top for the cats to scratch on and a soft interior for cats to lie within. I picked them up this past Christmas from Costco for $39 each. Normally they’re double that cost direct from Catit.

What I truly appreciate is that after six months of scratching by all the cats across the cloth top that there are no loose threads or any signs of destruction on either one. I’ve watched all the cats go to town on those scratch pads, and I’ve even sprinkled catnip on both to enhance their attentions. And yet these two cat furniture items have endured quite well.

Link

Vesper Minou — https://catit.us/products/vesper-minou

Luke likes to pretend he’s all majestic, what with him being the self proclaimed alpha male (by two hours birth before Bo). Most of the time Luke gets away with it. But if I’m carefully paying attention and have my camera, I can grab photos of Luke behaving like the silly cat I know he is deep down inside. In this instance he was licking his chops when he spotted an Anole lizard that had the bad luck to have found its way into the screened-in area full of cats. Fortunately for the Anole, after taking this photo I trapped the little Anole and put him outside and out of harms way. I try to rescue the Anoles not so much out of kindness towards the Anoles, but because I get tired of cleaning up dead Anole guts off the kitchen floor at night. With six cats in this household cleaning up dead Anole guts can be a bit of a chore.

This photo was taken with the Lumix G9.2 and the M.Zuiko 1.8/75mm. The Lumix was set to its internal 709 color balance, which I am finding much more to my liking than any other pre-programmed color balance within the Lumix. I also like the fact that this camera has a base ISO of 100, of which this particular photo was at 125. I’m certainly not some globe-trotting professional photographer, but after having used the G9.2 for well over a month I can say how pleased I am with its operation and its output. Quite pleased indeed.

Luke is the clowder’s alpha. Being the alpha means he takes every opportunity to exploit every special spot in the house, special being defined by how much they each covet a particular spot. Recently the space between the base of my TV and the sound bar has become one of the most coveted spots in the house, primarily as a napping aid. Here we see Sir Luke napping to the left of me on the sound bar.

Here, he’s switched positions and is now napping to the right of me on the sound bar.

And to prove how popular a napping spot the space between the TV and the sound bar has become, we see Nicholas the Youngest napping to the right. Others in the clowder (it has six cats) may also nap there, I just haven’t caught them at it yet.

There are at least three problems with the cats napping on my sound bar:

1. They all shed like crazy, so I’m regularly pulling out my special vacuum and wand and constantly going over everything to pick up the hair. I have to really work on the sound bar because it’s covered in cloth. Looks stylish, but it’s a royal pain to keep clean with this crew.
2. Cats are not windows. Their fat little bodies cover the IR window at the base of the TV, meaning that when the humans want to watch TV with the remote control I have to get up and chase them off.
3. One morning I came out into the TV room and found the sound bar pushed off the normal position you see it now, and down onto the floor. Thankfully I still had an Orvis thick dog pad on the floor so that the dog pad cushioned the fall. The fall still disconnected the HDMI cabling as well as the power, so I had to reconnect everything and turn it all back on again. So how did the sound bar wind up on the floor? I suspect a brief but powerful wrestling contest between Luke and more than likely Nicholas, resulting in the sound bar being pushed off by all that thrashing cat mass.

*sigh*

The second day of May here in central Florida, late afternoon, and the temperatures are already summertime hot. Fortunately we have air conditioning to help keep the indoor temperature comfortable. Luke still loves to nap in the rays of the Florida sun, just like he’s doing here on the kitchen table.

Luke (and cats in general) like to hide and then peek out at the world. This is what I’m seeing here. Unfortunately for Luke, if Luke can see me I can see him.

Luke knows exactly whom he’s peeking at, and the little game he likes to play. Unfortunately for me I have no idea what little game he’s playing at, which I can only assume that’s the whole point of this; to keep me guessing.

This Caturday’s selection of images are brought to you by my new/old M.Zuiko 12mm/2 prime lens; new because I only recently purchased it, old because it was first announced back in late 2010. This is the lens I mentioned a few posts back that I’d been waiting to purchase when it was first released 14 years ago, but couldn’t due to the cost at the time and my lack of budget. It took 14 years, but the price finally dropped down to the point I could afford it. And now I’m learning to use it, not for landscapes, but for environmental photography where I can incorporate more of a subject’s immediate background and environment.

The first image shows little Joan Jett on “her” dog bed, even though it was purchased for Ruby the Lab. When Joan is in “her” bed, no one else around the house tries to usurp her place, even Ruby. Joan has that “this is mine” look on her face.

In the evening all the cats like to congregate on the kitchen table for their evening Temptations. Luke rests in his turkey position, as is his right as the oldest and the alpha, while little Nicholas comes over to look at the camera and lens. I like the accidental combination of the oldest and the youngest cats in the photo.

I’m trying to mix up my story telling a bit. Hopefully this new lens will help with that. And I suppose I need to actually take it out and try out its landscape chops on, well, some landscapes here in Florida.

Luke loves to lounge around the house, especially in the TV room (hey, I’m 70, it’s a TV room even though I stream multiple services only). This is one of his favorite spots, so much so that fights will erupt between him and his brother Beau as to who will lounge in that one spot.

Beau of course has his own selection of spots, such as out on the lanai in the corner of the lounge furniture. Normally he likes to pick a spot so he can keep an eye on the other cats, such as…

Zoë, who likes to sit up high so she can keep an eye on everybody else eyeing her.

Now that I have the Pen F on those crazy color settings, I’m using my E-M1.2 with the 12-40mm/2.8 PRO. Makes a potent combination for general running around. One body, one lens, and that’s all I really need.

The cool days continue here in central Florida. Right now it’s a balmy 62°F, today’s high. Luke has decided that it’s better to stretch out on top of dad and his blanket, between his legs, in order to get warm and stay warm. As a human I certainly can’t argue with that sentiment. As cold as it may feel, I won’t complain one bit. Soon enough these cool days will give way to the short warmth of spring, followed by a long hot summer and fall of 2024. So the wife and I are enjoying all these cool days.

Workflow;

1. Photo was taken with my iPhone 11,
2. then moved over to my MBP via AirDrop,
3. then exported to PNG before uploading to Flickr.

I chose PNG this time instead of JPEG as an experiment in resolution. Lossless PNG is supposed to be superior to lossy JPEG. I can’t comment on lossless vs lossy, but I can comment on the file size; the PNG file size is an order of magnitude larger compared to JPEG. I also chose this route because I’m just as annoyed by WordPress’ Jetpack as I was with their earlier mobile app. My review of Jetpack deserves its own post, which is coming soon.

In the meantime yet another cat photo on the internets.

Since 1982 I have been blessed with the companionship of dogs and cats in my household. In all those years I’ve never had any exceptions. When there appeared to be an exception, it was because I failed to fully understand the smaller creature in front of me. As Robin Williams as Teddy Roosevelt (Night at the Museum) said “Who’s evolved,”, I keep that in mind at all times. We anthropomorphize them too often, much to the human’s regrets when the animals don’t “measure up.”

The little animals have considerable sweetness about them. They demand so little and give so much to us.

Let the photos speak for themselves.

The month of November brought in much cooler temperatures, especially in the morning. The cats loved to spend the mornings on the lanai, some napping, some just observing their world.

Since 2007 we’ve been a household with both dogs and cats. The dogs came long before the cats. My wife and I have cohabitated with Labs since 1979 for her and 1982 for me when I started to date my wife-to-be. His name was Rhett Butler, a name my wife chose because he was a southern Lab. He lived a long life of sixteen years. Along the way we’ve also had Katie (Catherine Scarlett O’Hara), Babe, Max, and now Ruby. They’ve overlapped in such a way that we’ve usually had two at one time.

Right now we have Ruby and a Labradoodle name Annie. We’ve also got the six cats I’ve covered elsewhere throughout this blog, so I won’t go through that list. Everybody is chill with everybody else, meaning no fights, at least between the dogs and cats. Fights between some of the cats, well that’s another TouchStar story.

I tend to think that the four Gingers think that Ruby is a very, very big Ginger. And she may think of them as very, very small pigmy Labs. Who can say? As for the two Torties, well, they have their attitudes about the world, don’t they?

Thundery Saturday. Tropical depression Arlene, which formed in the eastern Gulf, is heading south out of the Gulf and over the western tip of Cuba (now that’s a switch!). While that’s happening, the storm is pulling rain bands across central and south Florida. Meanwhile the cats are finding spots all over to nap while the rains and the thunders pass over us. It’s going to be interesting at 2am tomorrow morning when everybody decides it’s time to play.

A lot has been happening in my life since January; it has been, as the Chinese curse says, interesting times. As a consequence I’ve not written much in my weblog, as anything I might write about has been overcome by events (OBE).

Today I decided to add a bit of whimsy to my weblog with another photo of Luke in his favorite spot in the house, on the kitchen counter-top next to the sink. He’ll either sit and purr or walk over next to me and head bop me for rubs and scritches. And that face, with those eyes. I know he can’t talk but I sometimes wish he could.

I’ve also decided on the following rules for writing:

1. This is a weblog, not a blog, and
2. I write in my weblog, not ‘blog.’ The word ‘blog’ is neither a real word in spite of common usage over the decades, nor is it a verb.

I’m glad this is a Caturday. I’m glad I have a house full of furry happy characters. They’re so sweet. To paraphrase an old saying, the more I know people the more I love my cats (and my dogs too, for that matter).

Luke is always marching into my lap and settling in for rubs and skritches. This photo of him should show you just how big his head is in comparison to my hand. His head is about as big as a softball, which, to me, for a domestic short-hair house cat is pretty darn big. What you can’t hear are the constant and loud purrs of contentment coming from Luke. As a side note, would you look at the long whiskers on that boy!

When Beau wants to sleep, he doesn’t want to be disturbed. He will tuck his head underneath a foreleg and wrap his tail around himself, so that he’s a compact bundle of sleeping ginger cat. I don’t know what it is they do to get so tired, but whatever it is it must be pretty intense.

Top photo was grabbed with my iPhone 11, the bottom was taken with a first generation (the original!) Olympus E-M5 and 1.8/45mm M.Zuiko lens.