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Archive for July, 2022

The new cat is settling in. Despite the initial freak out and subsequent hiding marathon, today he came out from under his chair and decided that we would be allowed to pet him. We spent an hour demonstrating our kitty servant bonafides, and he graciously decided to give us a chance.

Progress, hooray!

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Photo by Jonathan Cooper on Unsplash

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Lord Argyle

Meet Lord Argyle!

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Will we change his name? How long will it take for him to get comfortable in his new home? Will he ever come out from inside that chair?

We’ll have to wait for answers to these and other questions, but for now we’re just happy to have him ensconced (as per the rescue’s recommendation) in a quiet room of his own. He’s a little freaked out (unsurprisingly) but was curious and active, both good signs!

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The Kitty Countdown is coming to an end! We pick up our new cat tomorrow afternoon, so we’ve been running around moving precariously-balanced items, stocking up on catnip and toys, and generally getting the house ready. It’s exciting.

Wish us luck!

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Photo by Melvina Mak on Unsplash

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While chatting with my father about a sci-fi book he’s reading, I remembered this short bit of free fiction from John Scalzi. Now I share it with you, too.

When the Yogurt Took Over: A Short Story | Whatever

When the yogurt took over, we all made the same jokes – “Finally, our rulers will have culture,” “Our society has curdled,” “Our government is now the cream of the crop,” and so on. But when we weren’t laughing about the absurdity of it all, we looked into each others’ eyes with the same unasked question – how did we ever get to the point where we were, in fact, ruled by a dairy product?

Enjoy!

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Photo by Mae Mu on Unsplash

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Our menagerie is about to expand. Not only have three adorable little bunny rabbits taken to frequenting the front yard, but we finally decided on a cat. We went with the slightly older, shy, fluffy and adorable option. We’ll pick him up this weekend so no pics yet, but here’s what he looked like as a kitten.

I asked DALL-E to make you an image of “a white cat with black spots and three rabbits in a garden, layered paper style” and got this.

DALL-E: It’s nice that it tried.

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Today in delightfully artistically incredibly cool:

Infinite Stories by Vaskange

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Photo by Mathew Schwartz on Unsplash

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I believe I mentioned that we are just about ready for a new cat. (Honestly, can I even call myself a writer if I don’t have a cat?) The problem is, how to choose? 

We’ve started the search at our local rescue, the one we turned to when we realized that the local strays were breeding up a storm and both they and their progeny needed to be trapped. Now we’re on the other side of that equation, which feels good. Still, there are so many options, each a door into a different version of the future. (It’s kind of fun when you think of it like that.)

Do we go for a kitten, engineered by evolution to be cute (nice) but without any idea what sort of personality they’ll develop as they get older (feels a bit risky)? 

Do we go for a more sedate, cuddly cat with a couple of years under its collar, both to know what we’re getting and to skip the crazy kitten “It’s four a.m. and you have toes! I will eatz them!” phase? 

Or somewhere in between?

Friday we met a pair of kittens relatively fresh from the trap and still a bit skittish. Yesterday we met the shy adult cuddler. Tonight we meet the in-betweeners.

This is why I don’t visit the animal section in pet stores; I want to help them all.

How to choose?

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It’s a lazy, rainy Sunday afternoon and (full transparency here) I find myself sorely lacking in motivation. Since we’ve had a mini “aliens on Earth” theme this week, let’s round it out with a short story from Fireside

The Tourist by Em Liu

He goes to Earth alone.

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Photo by Chris Ried on Unsplash

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“. . . what I like doing best is Nothing.”
“How do you do Nothing?” asked Pooh, after he had wondered for a long time.
“Well, it’s when people call out at you just as you’re going off to do it, What are you going to do, Christopher Robin, and you say, Oh, nothing, and then you go and do it.”

― A.A. Milne, The House at Pooh Corner

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Photo by claire jones on Unsplash

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Yesterday’s drabble was fiction, but this article is not. There really are Martians, and they’re living among us!

NASA engineer Nagin Cox on Mars rover time

This comic, illustrated by Anuj Shrestha, is inspired by an interview with NASA engineer Nagin Cox from TED Radio Hour’s episode It Takes Time.

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