One day at Fort Point…
We have a two year old!
Today is Miss Nightshade Jenny’s birthday. She is two. She also behaves like a typical two year old, but she has done that since she came to live with us.
She came to us as a timid youngster. She spent her first three days hiding under the dresser in the safe room, only emerging to eat and dart back under. I lived in the safe room with her and she finally got brave and emerged. She and I get along quite well, but she’s daddy’s girl and has been from the beginning. 🙂
She managed to fit in quickly. Tito adores her and grooms her at every opportunity.
Kitsy adored her. She turned into nurse Jenny when he was sick. She wouldn’t let him sleep alone…ever. She stayed with him and kept him warm. She missed him a lot when he crossed the bridge.
As for behaving like a two year old? She’s a pen thief. She steals lots of things, but her favorite is pens. She likes to bring some to bed and the rest she hides somewhere. I figure they’re behind the futon where I can’t get to them. I wrote about her thieving ways here. She also loves to steal taters. She rolls them around the floor and even brings them to bed. Cats are strange and she’s no exception to the rule.
Of course, she’s still a nervous kitty and will hide from strangers, new lamps, new drapes, etc. She’s even hiding from her mousie birthday present.
She’ll be playing with it soon. It just might take a day or two. She’s probably still recovering from her fear of the lamp monster.
She was named Nightshade by the shelter. We added Jenny after Pirate Jenny in the Threepenny Opera. Jenny was played by Lotte Lenya in the original movie. She is a prostitute who was mistreated by Mackie (Mack the Knife) and she’s our favorite character. This song is her dream of revenge for the abuse she has endured. This version, by Marianne Faithfull, is a more accurate translation (from the German) than most. I hope you like it as much as we do.
Warning: this song contains a bad word or two and may be NSFW.
You can see the original by Lenya here.
Caturday: OMG WTF Izzat? Kill it!
Most of our friends living with nervous pointy eared people will be familiar with the sentiment above. Change (ANY change) is met with fear and loathing. In our case it was a new lamp. Yep, we brought home a simple torchier style floor lamp and the world almost ended…for Tito and Jenny (mostly Tito) at any rate.
I decided to assemble the lamp in the kitchen. Tito and Jenny took one look at what appeared to be a headless tentacled monster and scrambled into their bolt-hole (kitchen cupboard). I could see their eyes glow, but that was all.
I had it put together in no time and tucked into place on Lastech’s side of the bed. We turned it on and then ignored it. It took a while. Miss Jenny emerged first. She glared at it for a while. Once she figured out that it wasn’t going to attack or fall on her, she hopped in the basket for a nap.
Tito was a different story. He crept in on his belly. He glared. He paced a bit like the cavemen around the monolith in “2001: a space odissey“, then bolted back to the cupboard. After about three rounds of this, he finally decided that it wouldn’t kill him. He went off to nap. It will take a while before he gets brave enough to approach the bed. If not for the fact that the monster loomed over him, he would have slapped the crap out of it a few times and gotten over it faster.
Where was Titanescu through all this? Did he care? Was he upset?
On the serious side… Yes, we can laugh at Tito and Jenny and their nervousness. However, we do try to make changes as easy on them as possible. Once they went into hiding, we left them alone to come out when they were ready. After all, it may only be a lamp to us, but to them it’s like their entire world was rearranged. We wouldn’t react well to that either.
Back to the funny side and more scaredy cats for you to enjoy.
Early morning at Stow Lake with a bit of Karl (The Fog)
Summer has arrived in San Francisco and with it comes Karl The Fog. I got all the sunshine I needed after spending more than half my life in the desert. Now I just relax and enjoy the fog. Karl hangs around on Twitter and to quote him:
Summer has officially arrived in San Francisco. Don't leave home without your pea coat, scarf, and memories of sunshine.
— karl the fog (@KarlTheFog) July 15, 2013
Here are some photos from a recent trip to Stow Lake in Golden Gate Park.
Happy Bastille Day!
For those who may not know, or have forgotten… Lastech came from the land of the baguette, pâté and good wine.
Happy Bastille Day from Rudha-an, Lastech and the pointy eared people.
I can’t help myself. Lastech and I love Catherine Tate. Here’s a clip from her show, thanks to the BBC.
Caturday: Peace at last. Er…what?
Titanescu has continued to settle in. He rarely yells at the other two to get off his lawn. However he still has a most powerful stink eye and a lightning fast paw strike. He still plays with Miss Jenny every day and plays a bit with Tito. This week brought us this.
It looked so sweet. Titanescu was quite contented. Peace at last. Then he noticed and … Что за черт? Он трогает меня! followed by slappity slappity. Tito was unfazed.
Here is Miss Jenny trying to disguise herself as a prissy little kitty. It’s a fake out. She’s anything but a girly girl. She’s rough and tough and all girl, but she refuses to conform to anyone’s notion of what’s proper.
My Facebook friend Henry shared this LOL with me. I thought it might be one of Titanescu’s followers. Thank you Henry!
OMG! Tourists!!!
It’s that time of year. Personally, I like tourists. Most are pleasant and I’m even guilty of deliberately looking like one on occasion. Tourism helps keep my fair city going.
Lastech is wonderful and patient. The poor guy is used to me yelling I NEED A PICTURE! The last time I yelled, we were near Lombard Street. He patiently dropped me off and waited.
A somber week for First Responders and disaster victims
Since Lastech works odd hours and sleeps during the day, I sometimes plug earbuds into the laptop and listen to either the police scanner or EMS scanner online. I was listening to the EMS scanner when the call came in about the crash of Asiana flight 214 at SFO. For the next several hours I listened to emergency teams coordinate their response. I also heard the sirens of ambulances making trip after trip to the hospital with victims. You see, the airport is ten minutes South of us via Interstate 101, which itself runs right behind my building.
There were 307 souls on board that plane. 291 Passengers and 17 crew members. Two 16 year old Chinese students (girls) lost their lives. 182 were injured, 49 of them seriously. The only reason more were not lost is due to the airline crew and the other first responders.
That wasn’t all that happened this week.
Our neighbors to the north have suffered a huge loss. Lac-mégantic in Québec still doesn’t know what the death toll is and won’t for some time. Train cars carrying crude oil broke away from the engine and rolled back into town and derailed. Five of the cars exploded. The destruction is massive and the death toll (now at 5) is expected to climb. Many buildings have burned and the number of missing is fluctuating.
That still isn’t all.
One week ago today, 19 firefighters from Prescott Arizona lost their lives fighting a fire. They were members of a Hot Shot team and made up almost 20% of the Prescott Fire Department. It’s a huge loss for everyone.
This has truly been an awful week for first responders AND for victims. Our heart goes out to all of them. It has also been a week for our first responders to shine. We are proud of all them, here and everywhere.
Caturday: Circo de Gato
Pandemonium reigns supreme in the JBoD household. Tito, Jenny and Titanescu go ballistic for a while. Once done, it’s naptime. The manic moments are a wonder though.
Martial acrobatics meet Jenny’s Petomania under Tito’s benevolent gaze. If you remember, Miss Jenny runs on poot poot power. Most people can blame the dog. We blame Miss Jenny. These martial acrobatics bring out the best in her. Hmmmm, maybe that’s the worst.
As for Titanescu, he looks forward to playtime. He’s still a grumpy butt , but he’s a happy grumpy butt. Here’s a little slideshow movie I made of his acrobatics with Jenny. She does most of the acrobatics (and poots), but they have fun. Oh, and please forgive the music’s abrupt ending on the video.
Caturday: What a week!
This week has been amazing. Proposition 8 was wiped out by the Supreme Court and the 9th Circuit Court surprised everyone by dropping the stay on marriages early. Now Pride week in San Francisco has taken on a new meaning. Marriages have resumed and the City Hall will remain open this weekend.
San Francisco is expecting record crowds for the Pride Parade tomorrow and I’m sure it’s going to be a fabulous party.
Love? We haz it and now everyone can haz it AND marriage too!
Congratulations to ALL the newlyweds and to those will soon be married!
As for Titanescu…
