Sitting In A Puddle

Rusty:  Well, this is sure disappointing!

Micah:  It sure is.  I was looking forward to doing another interview today.

Rusty:  Jan has a nerve canceling it.  She isn't the one who writes it.

Micah:  I have to admit it has been a long, hard week with Jan tottering around the house and groaning while we try to nap.

Rusty:  It's a good thing she doesn't do yard work for a living.  We'd starve!

Micah:   And yesterday morning was way too stressful.  Someone was yelling words on our HBO list and it wasn't us!

Rusty:  I wonder why Jan was so upset.  It isn't like she had anything to do.

Micah:  And her shoes?  Is it our fault she only had one pair of shoes to wear to a meeting and they happened to be her dirty, smelly dog walking shoes?

Rusty:  We certainly didn't make her spray them with vinegar and set them outside on the porch to air out so they would smell better.

Micah:  I wonder who made a mess out of the cover Jan uses for the chair so she took it outside to hang it over the porch railing and spray it with the hose?

Rusty:  I'm not telling because Jan was sure angry when she walked up the steps and found her shoes sitting in a puddle of water.

Micah:  Yes, not one of her better days, was it!  But she did manage to find a pair of cheap sneakers she could fit a sock, an ace bandage and her big foot into for the meeting.

Rusty:  It was nice of Mr. Doug to come by to work on the screen door before Marcus starts visiting the neighbors without permission.  It now closes.  It has only slapped her in the ankle once and once in the head.

Micah: Since these things were only part of her day, I think I'm beginning to understand why Jan says we're going to hibernate for a few days.

Rusty:  We'll see you next week.

Micah:  We hope!

July 2017 Snooze at Mousebreath.

The Alien Rusty Virus

Rusty:  It's been a quiet day.  I hope we have a quiet night so I can catch up on my sleep.

Cyndi:  I hope the aliens have gone!  I'd sure hate to have them playing on our computer again.

Rusty:  What aliens?  Did I miss something?

Cyndi:  How could you miss that?  I could have sworn I heard Rod Serling's "Twilight Zone" music playing.  If not, it was the only noise missing.

Rusty:  I didn't hear any music and I didn't see any aliens.

Cyndi:  I didn't see any either but don't tell me you slept through last night's events.

Rusty:  I must have.  What happened?

Cyndi:  Jan was reading an email in Thunderbird on our computer when it suddenly started winking, dinging and zipping up and down , and boxes started opening and nonsense typing sped line-by-line across the page.

Rusty:  What did she do?

Cyndi:  She shut down Thunderbird.  She reopened it and it commenced doing the same thing.  She shut it down a second time.  She had just edited some pictures in Picasa and brought that back up on the desktop.

Rusty:  Was that okay?

Cyndi:  NO!  It was doing the same thing.  Scrolling really fast and dinging like crazy.  She closed that program too.

Rusty:  So everything was okay then?

Cyndi:  You know Jan.  She opened it back up and it did the same thing.  Only that time,the Thunderbird icon in the tray was pulsing a glowing orange as if it was sending Morse code.

Rusty:  Did she get a virus or did someone get control of our computer?

Cyndi:  Actually, she looked down at the keyboard.  Guess what she found?

Rusty:  What?

Cyndi:  YOU!  You had been sleeping on the desk with one paw dangling, but then, your head - and you are a big cat with a big head! - must have slowly lowered onto the keyboard until it was resting flat on a mass of keys. 

Rusty:  Why didn't Jan notice that right away?

Cyndi:  Jan watches the monitor screen, not the keyboard, when she is concentrating on a task.  She's not going to let you sleep on the desk when she's working again.  You were oblivious to the chaos you created as you slept.

Rusty:  You mean I slept through all that dinging and typing?  Is why Jan so rudely pushed me off the desk?

Cyndi:  You could say that. She was sure relieved the computer survived the Alien Rusty Virus.




Merci:  Well, the cats wrote the first part of our post, so guess I can introduce the second part.  It's Friday, time for another Mousebreath cat interview.

Percy:  This week our subject is Purrseidon the Water Cat.  You will enjoy meeting him and his fur siblings Saphera and Mister M.

Taylor:  Here is a link to Purrseidon's blog.   Her human is Jeanne Foguth who writes Sci-fi and Fantasy books.


We are joining the Pet Parade hosted by Rascal and Rocco, Basil the Bionic Cat, Barking from the Bayou and Owned by a husky.

Long Distance Internet Epidemic

Percy: This is Rusty.  He's a bit daffy.

Rusty:  I am not daffy.

Percy:  Than why were you licking water off the windows this morning?  By the time Jan grabbed the camera, you were making biscuits in your bed.

Rusty:  It was freezing cold outside.  It was somewhat warmer inside.  Therefore, there was water on the windows in front of the desk.  The window was closer than the water bowl in the kitchen.

Percy:  As I said, Rusty is a bit daffy, but that does make sense. 

Merci:  We've been absent quite a bit this week.  First the t-storm on Monday, then our internet went out Wednesday afternoon till Thursday morning.

Cyndi:  And then our internet went out again from Saturday afternoon until Sunday morning.  Mr. Doug's internet went out too.  There was an epidemic.

Merci:  An epidemic is an outbreak of disease.

Cyndi:  Well, there were a lot of humans breaking out in dis-ease over the lack of internet! 

Percy:  And worse.

Rusty:  What could be worse?

Percy:  There was no long distance service either.  Local only.  Landlines and cell phones.  Not that we have a cell. 

Merci:  It's been strange around here this past week and it hasn't just been our phone / DSL provider having problems.  Our internet came back on yesterday morning but Mr. Don from Jan's church lost his until the afternoon. 

Cyndi:  So if we disappear again, we hope we will be able to return before spring.  Or tomorrow.  Whichever comes first.

Rusty:  Tomorrow will come first.

Cyndi:   But when Jan called support, she was told this might persist intermittently until the problem is fixed, so if the problem returns, spring might arrive sooner than tomorrow.

Percy:  This confusion is giving me a headache.  Why can't we just say we'll be here unless we aren't?

Merci:  You just said that.

Percy:  Good.  My brain needs a nap. 

Cyndi:  There's a rivulet of water running down the bottom right window pane if you're still thirsty, Rusty.

Micah is Dying of Hunger

 
Micah:  Where is Jan?  She's late again.  She is never on time.  She's always late feeding us.  We could die of thirst and starve to death while she is off gallivanting around having a fun time.  We all need to get together and give her a good dressing down!

Well, it's about time you finally showed up again!  There's no kibble in the dish or water in the bowl.  I've been waiting  hours for you to return home and refill them.. I could have had kidney failure from dehydration or starved to death from lack of food.  You need to think of someone besides yourself once in a while!

Jan:  What?  I just walked around the house to toss a bag in the trashcan.

Micah:   Okay, I'll forgive you this time, but make sure this doesn't happen again!

Boiling Weekend

Buddy:  You won't guess how we spent our weekend!

Cyndi:  Yes, I will.  I was here.

Buddy:  I wasn't talking to you.  I was talking to our friends reading this.

Cyndi:  Does that mean I can't tell them?  I mean, you asked the question; I should get to answer.

Buddy:  Oh, go ahead. 

Cyndi:  We spent the weekend watching Jan boil water and pour it into containers when it cooled.  We have water bowls and pitchers in the fridge, on the table, and even in the bathroom so Jan can brush her teeth and take sponge baths.

Buddy:  She "washed" her hair Saturday night with boiled (not boiling) water and apple cider vinegar - no shampoo.  Dishwater gets a few drops of bleach and dish soap and are rinsed with boiling water poured from a teakettle.

Cyndi:  So far Jan has managed to rinse the dishes and not her fingers.

Buddy:  A boil water notice for this area was put out by the city Friday morning because of a leaking water main but Jan learned of it by accident on Facebook Friday night.  So she boiled water and hoped our water wasn't affected since we had all been drinking it.

Cyndi:  Saturday morning a boil water notice was put in her door.  Soon she saw a man taking a water sample from the new fire hydrant.  He said they were sending in samples hoping for a one day turn around so the boil water could be lifted Sunday afternoon.  Yeah!

Buddy:  But wait!  Sunday morning the same line broke in a different place and was repaired. 

Cyndi:  It's hot and humid here.  Pots of boiling water make the house hotter and more humid.  This makes all of us more thirsty.  Thus, Jan has to boil more water to fill our bowls.

Buddy:  She's not complaining, though.  Not as long as there is any potential for contaminated water that could make us ill.

Cyndi:  You'd think she would build a fire in the dog pen, since there's no grass to catch fire, and boil the water outside.

Buddy:  That sounds like a great idea.  Let's suggest it to her!

Late Sunday night update -
Cyndi:  Whoo hoo.  Jan just saw on FB that the Mayor posted a message lifting the boil water notice.  The bacteriological survey showed our water is safe.

Buddy:  She'd do the happy dance but she's so tired she'd probably have to do it face-down on the floor. 

Cyndi:  That sounds like a good idea to me.  She can do the happy dance on the floor.  We'll take the bed.