Friday, June 25, 2010

A conversation with Elaine about why her Auntie M. gets to have a birthday party before she does took an interesting turn:

Elaine: "I was born in July!"
Me: "Yes. And Auntie M. was born in June."
Elaine: "And Daddy was born in computers!"

Monday, June 21, 2010

We found feral cats living under my mother's deck. One gray tabby mama and four kittens. I was the first to spot a kitten, and I couldn't fit a non-kitten-shaped thought in my mind from that moment on. Unfortunately, I live an hour away from my mother's deck, and I have various responsibilities in my life -- including a rather noisy two-year-old, Sheltie, and spaniel -- that kept me away.

Nevertheless, I waited nightly for news of the kittens. Sunday: confirmation that I had not conjured up imaginary kitten ghosts from the depths of a kitten-deprived mind. Monday: that the kittens were being trained to eat on my mom's deck. Tuesday: a fourth kitten appeared! By Thursday, I could stand it no longer and designed a homemade kitten trap involving an old sheet and a lot of string. The design was classic... cheesy, even. No one who's seen Return of the Jedi would fall for it. But, I figured, these kittens probably hadn't seen that kind of movie.

I sat on the roof, silent and motionless, for twenty minutes before I saw any feral cats, and then it was only the mama. It had been fifty minutes before the kittens even appeared. More than two hours passed before hunger outweighed caution for all four of them. Four kittens, perched around a plastic bowl, on a sheet, ten feet beneath me. I pulled the strings, and the corners of the parachute shot up. The kittens scattered, and their distributed weights tipped the ballooning cloth. Two escaped. Two were caught.

Over the next two days, we managed to catch the final two kittens and the mama with a traditional live trap. (Once any given cat has seen a parachute trap in action, it will never fall for it again.) But, I don't know that I've ever done anything quite so thrilling before as catch myself a pair of wild kittens in a parachute trap.

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Seattle and Eugene both get a lot of rainy weather, but Eugene gets a lot more rainbow weather.

Also, I walked by a garden today that was decorated with small, stone statues of angels. Seen with the eyes of a Doctor Who fan, the angels gave the garden a very neat, creepy vibe. I suspect they weren't meant that way.