Ghosties and Ghoulies and Falling Back ...

... and the damned cat

Happy, safe and mindful Samhain, Hallowe'en, Los Dias de los Muertos, Guy Fawkes Night, Hallow Tide ... bon fires, candles, trick or treating, parades, graveyard renovating, buying things, getting drunk ... however you celebrate this time of year.

A few of us gathered at Pat's house yesterday to visit and take home the last bits of his household that Cathy and Skyler had set aside for family and friends. We talked and laughed and cried, fed the kids too much chocolate and some of the adults entirely too much vodka, Mudslides and scotch. Pat looked on through the mirrors when he thought noone was looking.

Dawn and Hugh came by one Friday. We tie-dyed two of Hugh's T-shirts. He was immensely interested in bits of the process, but far more interested in what Becky the cat was up to most of the time. We tied and dissolved and mixed and submerged and stirred and checked and waited and lego'd and stirred and checked and snacked (Ryvita fruit crunch, oh my!) and poured-out and rinsed and soapy-soaked and rinsed and untied and rinsed and soaked and admired. It was a ton of fun! I found out that if we do T-shirts in one colour each and send them home wet, we can do the whole process in a couple of hours. I think this might just be do-able as a come-over-and-dye thing.

I set all the clocks back and puttered for an hour this morning, while the cats complained loudly about not being fed at their regular time. They're going to be confused for a week, but they'll get used to it. In 2007, the US will be extending daylight savings time by 3-4 weeks. When it was extended by a month a few years ago, it was discovered that it really doesn't save any on energy costs overall ... but it means a huge boost to many companies, notably those in the barbecue and golf industries.

So, around the end of September sometime, Billy finally got back to me about the cat he left here when he left after Christmas. Turns out he wants me to either keep the cat or find a home for it, which sounds reasonable enough, if somewhat irresponsible. Upon thinking about it and checking options, it turns out that it's exceedingly difficult to find a home for a twelve-year-old cat with behavioural issues. The local humane society will take owner-surrendered pets and adopt them out if they deem them to be adoptable, or euthanize them if they don't. They will not tell you whether or not your pet is adoptable, nor what has happened to your pet after they take it. I can't do that. So my choices are keep the dear old thing and clean up its shit in the front hall every morning and the small lake of cat pee under the litterbox every few days, or I can kill it. That's not much of a choice, and it's not reasonable to ask me to make it. What I would like to do is ship the cat back to Miami and hand the decision back to Billy. I'll ask him if he ever turns up back online again, but I don't expect he'll go along with it. Barbara and Nina and Brandon would all dearly love to help me with this, each in their own way.

Stuff and Nonsense ...

Daylight:

Length of day: 9:37
Hours of dark: 13:10ish
Sunrise: 7:29 am
Sunset: 5:06 pm
Start of twilight: 6:52 am
End of twilight: 5:43 pm

Current weather: Mostly Clear. 0°C (32°F), Windchill -3°C (27°F) humidity 80%, wind S 8 km/h (5 mph.), barometer 30.09 in. Hg

Forecast:

Today.. Sunny. High 7°C (45°F)
Tonight.. Clear. Low -6°C (21°F).
Monday.. Becoming cloudy in the morning. Wind becoming SW 20 km/h (12.4 mph) late in the morning. High 7°C (45°F).
Tuesday.. Sunny. Low -2°C (28°F). High 6°C (43°F).
Wednesday.. A mix of sun and cloud. Low -7°C (19°F). High 4°C (39°F).
Thursday.. Cloudy. Low -7°C (19°F). High 5°C (41°F).
Normals for the period.. Low -6°C (21°F). High 4°C (39°F).