Communications

Various ones taking various forms, going more or less in order:

The feeding routine around here has changed little since the dog's arrival almost three years ago, despite assorted comings and goings among the feline crowd. Be they cat or kitten, good or (no longer) Evil,  they demand and receive their noms at an average of 6 a.m. and p.m.  It varies a bit by day and season, but they go first. Most mornings, I rise before Eleanor to do it (today was not one of those most) and then attempt to return to sleep. Pepper gets hers when I dress and hit the ground staggering for coffee, usually around 7:30.  The evening routine is the same, except the dog doesn't wait an hour.

We feed everybody in separate rooms, because none of these animals can be trusted not to steal somebody else’s noms. Zoey, the oldest cat, gets the highly coveted wet food, so she gets to eat behind a closed door in a room that has an old computer in it. When I went to let her out, I saw she’d stepped on the keyboard and activated whatever screen I last had it on. I made a joke about her trying to send email. She apparently took it as an instruction.

After the humans were both up, Eleanor asked what I was watching that had some monotone voice with zeros in it. I thought she might've meant the Bluto GPA scene from Animal House, but I assure you I wasn’t watching THAT at 6 AM. Then I went back in to that room and solved the mystery.

Zoey, in her attempt to access kittymail, managed to turn on the accessibility features. Every key now produced a monotone voice. And she managed to hit several of them.



I got a whole video of it which that shitty picture comes from, but it's also pretty shitty. I had to reboot the whole thing to get HAL to shut up.

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I spent more time in that room yesterday while Eleanor was continuing the bathroom repaint/retile project. The desk that "computer" sits on is one I got as an 11-year-old, and was Emily's bedroom desk until she colleged out. It now houses the computer in quotes- a literally hanging-by-a-thread laptop which we reconnected to an external keyboard and monitor and mostly use for backup purposes.  The two windows in that room sit in front and to the immediate right of that desk, and neither had had its blinds cleaned or the area under it dusted or vacuumed in ages. So in I went to clean.  I even made an actual hardware store trip myself to get a blind cleaner- no, not a washcloth for Stevie Wonder but one of these gizmos-


-to get in between the slats.  On that same trip, I dropped off an even older computer that had been boat-anchoring under that desk: a 2000-era tower still running XP. I'd kept it as my last vestigal way to contact AOL, but realizing that I hadn't logged on in years, and that their desktop software no longer supports the chat rooms I would have gone to if I had, it was time to literally cut the cord.  Our town highway department accepts computers for recycling daily from 8 to 3.  It's right up the road, you show your ID and head back to the shed.

In the shed are major appliance-sized cardboard boxes to handle the incoming booty. On the website, at the gate and on the shed itself are huge signs: NO TELEVISIONS. Yet gwon, guess what the one closest to the entrance was all full up with from the overwhelmingly white population of Amherst.

And police say they only kill disproportionate numbers of Black people because they refuse to follow instructions.

#Checkyourtv #Andyourprivilege #Atthedoor

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I got most of the cleaning done as Eleanor went through various assortments of power tools to tile over holes left by things we took out in recent weeks.  I got it all finished in time for a livestream of a Maine musician I became friends with through his GF two summers ago. They spent most of 2019 on his boat named Stinkpot, traveling an inland waterway known as "The Loop" through which you can circumnavigate the entire US.  Or, if your Stinkpot is too tall for a certain Erie Canal Bridge somewhere near Syracuse, you make a right toin at Albukoikie Baldwinsville, take feeder canals to Lake Ontario, and reconnect with the US Loop somewhere on the other side of our fair state. 

Although he performed from their home in Maine, the stream was produced by a folk singing group out of Rochester (the one that IS in our fair state), and between him singing, Stacey feeding multiple camera angles, and Golden Link engineering and putting the signal out, it was a multistate labor of love. Around 50 of us were listening in at one time or another last night until some gizmo on the engineering end overheated and took the stream down briefly (the engineer almost burned his hand on it and literally cooled it with a fan to get it going again). 

It's been months since I've been in the same room or even patio with any performers, and hope that, despite my continued woes with getting a passport, that day will come soon.

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After sleeping past kitty feeding time, I was up in time to feed Pepper and take her on the usual Sunday walkies. First was the usual stop at Timmy's, but the drivethru line for it was redonkulous. They were open inside this time, so I parked car and dog and went in for my mandatory cawfee. 

My glasses were fogging with the mask, and I misread the WELCOME TO TIM HORTONS display on the register as WELCOME TO TIM BURTONS.  I thought, that'd make for an interesting donut, eh?

Apparently, so did somebody else;)



Eleanor noticed the eyeball in the donut that I missed.  But I was careful not to order a Beetlejuice triple-triple;)

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After that, a workout, more errands including a return to one of yesterday's half-dozen hardware store visits, and a near-final resting point on the bathroom work. I took on cleaning the floor in there as  well as all the shelves and surfaces that had accumulated a lot of dust from various sanding, sawing and scraping portions of the job.  Most of what's left is installing new tile and hanging a new medicine cabinet.

Somewhere in there, I realized where we'd been two Sundays before. It's now been 14 days, so we are now officially Jack-ccinated:)  Zoey’s still not entirely onboard -



- but Bronzini is definitely with the program-



-and the new guy seems much more at home here 🐱

What I DON'T see heah is a failyah ta cammunicate:)

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The final message is wordless, and so far relatively painless, but I'm getting it.  The abscessing post under a crown we discovered last month is starting to send messages. Nothing major- I'd put it at maybe a one on the fabled ER "how much does it hurt and don't say 10 just to get the good drugs" scale- and since it isn't even in the exact area, I can't even say for sure it's what is causing these subtle little dental hints.  But I know something has to be done, I now have the pre-clear from my insurance to at least get the damn thing out, and I am looking into what would be involved with my first-ever implant if it comes to it.  My own dentist is a good hour away and isn't available daily, but Eleanor's is here and he'll take me on if it comes to a midnight beg.

Hopefully soon this will be over. And out.