A new immigrant

One of our soldiers repays a feline friend for his kindness...

"I'd lost hope in myself. I'd lost faith. Then all of a sudden this cat came over, and it was like ‘hey, you are you,'" he said.

But that same act of kindness made it clear to Knott that if he wanted to do what was best for Koshka, then he had to get his beloved cat out of Afghanistan and to his family home in Oregon.

"He pulled me out of one of my darkest times, so I had to pull him out of one of his darkest places," he told the station.

And people wonder why I love cats...because this is what they can do for us, if we let them.  God bless you, Sgt. Knott, and little Koshka as well.

Awww....!!

I present a bunch of cute kitty pictures, because everyone else is doing it and I hate feeling left out.

WARNING:  Rest of blog TOTALLY NSFW.  Read at your own risk.

Here's a couple:

Cease-fire

Sam and Glock are normally engaged in battle, but they both love Mom enough to call a truce once in a while:

Just a little dose of cute for ya.

Visitors

There are quite a few feral cats running around our little part of the world, including a couple who come to visit us on a regular basis.   I've noticed there's quite a few cats like this around--fluffy and narrow-faced. Maybe we're starting a whole new breed.  They're too skittish to get near, but they've gotten mostly used to us, or at least used to the food.  Meet Stumpy and Cloud:

 

 

That was taken on a nice day, as opposed to today, when it's been pouring rain and the poor little bedraggled things were sitting on the back porch begging.

 

 

 

Some folks ask why we bother feeding strays.  It's a double layer of home protection, really.  Spike, Sam and Glock take care of any vermin that gets in, and hopefully, Stumpy, Cloud and their buddies will keep them from getting in from the start.

 

Besides, they're cute little guys, and it's kinda sweet having a couple of contented puffballs relaxing on your porch.

 



It's not an unexcused absence!

The dog ate my homework cold ate my plumbing.  Really.

The moron who built this place ran all the water on the property through a shed out back, with a shutoff valve that was nonfunctional.  So when the uninsulated pipes blew up from the recent cold snap, there was no way to stop Prescott Falls other than shutting off all the water to the house.  This is not helpful for such things as cooking, washing the resulting dishes, flushing the toilet, or basically anything.

Now, there was a positive side, at least for me.  When the first thing you see in the morning is a beautiful naked woman standing in the bathtub looking like an even hotter Venus on the Half Shell, that can't help but make your day a little brighter.  When said woman is doing so for the purpose of taking a shower from a couple of cooking pots with stove-warmed water(and definitely NOT happy about it), however...

Well, it is what it is.  Luckily, one of our brothers in the Eagles is a plumber, and managed to solve the problem once and for all, at a more-than-reasonable price.  Once it gets warmer, I'm tearing that damn shed down so that one stone may not stand upon another.  I'll use the lights, sink and AC in the garage, the siding to fix some broken skirting, the frame for firewood, and the leftover drywall and shingles to throw at solicitors who ignore the sign.

As for the leftover concrete pad?  Maybe a big-ass BBQ pit, or if we can score a great deal on a hot tub...

Anyway, I'll be back in full swing in short order.  And Glock just jumped up in my lap and farted.  You probably didn't need to know that, but if I have to suffer through it, you at least have to read about it.

When my time comes...

...unless it's quick and brutal, like a vehicle wreck, meteor strike or whatever, I hope they let me see my cats.

Like this lady.

If you have to go, that's the way.

Cats and Christmas presents

I was Goth when Goth wasn't cool.  This was back in the late '80s, when you couldn't just go down to Goth In A Box Hot Topic and buy a ready-made look.  You had to find stuff yourself, make it yourself or know someone who could.  We were known as "Darksiders" and "Grave Rockers," and persecution was ten times worse than today.  Not only did the general public look at you askance, but the punks, skins and hessians would gladly kick your ass just for being Goth.  So I confess to a smirk when today's Goth kids cry about being misunderstood and persecuted--kid, you have no idea.

Damn, I got old somewhere.

Anyway, my ex-wife sent me a great blast-from-the-past Christmas present--a double-disc set by one of my favorite bands from back then, The Mission.  It's Carved In Sand and Grains Of Sand, with a whole mess of bonus tracks that I'd never heard before.  Great lady, my ex.

(Apparently, if you don't use Chrome, you can't upload your own images on Blogger anymore.  Good to know, I guess.)

So I've been travelling back in time on my way to work lately.  Part of me wishes I could literally do so, so I could slap the hell out of my younger self and tell him to get off his ass.  But I think most people would welcome the chance to do that.

I'm fixing to try my hand at Korean food tonight, so I'll post up the results soon.  And one more thought...

I know I wanted to stay out of politics with this blog.  But, since the entire nation is once again obsessed with victim disarmament 'gun control,' I'll just say this:

You can have my Glock when you pry him from my cold dead lap!!

(Yep, that's Glock the cat.  Feline Labe.)