First, Miss Gracie, doing what she loves most: Relaxing in the sun in my office (which I think is now her office).

Since I work from home most days, Gracie spends the bulk of her time with me in the office, or out on the landing within view. I keep my camera in the office now, for just such occasions.

Next, it’s Tig, posing on my newly-made bed.

Making the bed with Tig in the room is a challenge. Quite often, I have to kick him out completely, as he tries to get under the fitted sheet, then the flat sheet, then any blankets. He loves getting under things and has since he was a kitten. Then there’s the biting-my-feet-through-the-blanket thing that he has. Every so often, I wake up with Tigger’s jaws clamped around my toes, which evidently I was wiggling in my sleep.

Tigger was curious, yet worried. He took to the high ground pretty much the whole time.

He stayed upstairs. As for Gracie, she never moved from under the bed. It’s naptime, dammit, and those kids are always so noisy.

Max decided to curl up in The Chair That Swallows You Whole, thus proving its name.

This, of course, initiated the usual reaction among children: Me too.

And me, too. Except in my own way.

Jake, as the oldest of the four, did not deign to curl up in the chair. You’ll have to go over to Sarah’s site to see pictures, or maybe I’ll just take pictures of him next week. He’s got an actual job here, as I’ve hired him to help me organize and categorize my comic collection, which will then be put into file cabinets when I finally find the kind that I like at an affordable price (lateral, wooden files, if you know of any good places to get them). I’ve pretty much blown my budget for office furniture for the year with my new bookcases (due at the end of the month, woo-hoo!).

We also watched an episode or two of SpongeBob, and I must highly recommend “One Krab’s Trash” as what may be the funniest SpongeBob ever. (”Oh my gosh, it’s a shopping list!“) [And by the way, um, spongepedia? Spongepedia?) I had laughtears falling, I was laughing so hard.

There is now a rule in my house that no child is allowed upstairs without adult supervision. That’s because I have a handgun in the house, and when the kids come for an expected visit, it is firmly locked up in a clamshell that disables it from being used as anything but a club. But it’s been a while, and I didn’t think about locking the clamshell until they got there. Sarah had to dash back to Ukrops because she’d left her purse there, so I figured I’d better go upstairs and lock up the gun. Max, obeying the letter of the law, came upstairs right behind me. Note that I never said they had to have permission. Just supervision. All children are born lawyers, and will parse the hell out of any rule you set down. Max stayed on my exercise machine while I locked up the gun and put it out of reach. After that, I didn’t mind if they were up on the landing while we were downstairs, but I do insist that they stay in sight (and out of my office and bedroom).

All in all, a nice break. We used to have lunch together every Thursday. Perhaps we should bring back that tradition.

Researchers at the University of Sussex have discovered that cats use a “soliciting purr” to overpower their owners and garner attention and food.

Unlike regular purring, this sound incorporates a “cry”, with a similar frequency to a human baby’s.

The team said cats have “tapped into” a human bias – producing a sound that humans find very difficult to ignore.

Ah-ha! So that’s not a “Good morning, glad you’re awake!” purr. It’s a “Feed me, slave” purr.

Admit it. We always knew it.

That’s my new, good-for-your-back computer chair that I bought immediately following my unfortunate rear-ending experience up in NorVA. Moron was watching traffic, when she should have been watching me, and it was enough of a bump to aggravate my back, setting me back from months of anti-inflammatories and exercise for my arthritis. Oh, wait. I don’t think I told you all about that. Another time.

I think I need one for downstairs, too. That’s my work chair.

Next, fuzzy Gracie belly!

It has been literally years since I’ve seen Gracie’s fur all grown back on her belly. She may look a bit undignified here, but I just love seeing her pure white belly fur again.

You can thank Lair Simon for the kitty pictures. Visiting his blog made me realize I miss them.

So we have cat pictures.

Tigger on deck.

Gracie napping.

Believe me when I tell you that Tig is not nearly as fat as he looks. He has about twice as much fur as Tig the Second had.

Although, he is a chubbo.

The Pet Club in my area went out of business, and as I drove by today I saw a liquidation sign. I just bought about 60 lbs. of Felidae for about $60. I won’t have to be heading over to the West End for cat foood for a while. Even Tig will take a while to go through that much cat food. Not for lack of trying, of course.

Because we need a laugh.

My cat scratch fever is possibly beginning to show signs of abating, but it still freaking hurts. And I cannot for the life of me get that damned Nugent song out of my head. Damn you, Ted! Damn you to hell!

Anyway. Here’s a recent shot of Miss Gracie, recovering from the weary task of napping in the office while I work.

That was my desktop on my work computer for a while. Now it’s this:

That’s my condo a couple of weeks ago, the morning after a dusting of snow. Gracie doesn’t go out anymore, and she doesn’t miss it in the least. She’s extremely content to follow me from room to room and sleep wherever I happen to be at the time. It’s a very happy home.

Nope. I can’t see Tig or Gracie doing anything but running in shock and horror from a Roomba.

I’m trying to figure out how to leave extra food for Tig without his eating it all the first day. In spite of being mostly Maine Coon, Mr. Tig does not have the Maine Coon cat habit of eating many small meals per day. Tig will eat and eat and eat and then eat some more if I let him. I have taken to putting the food up at night, because last week, Mr. Tig ate and ate and ate and ate, and then, while I was sleeping, threw up the food in my office. On the carpet. That was fun to clean. I’m afraid I might be coming home to a few messes, but, oh, well. Them’s the breaks when you have animals.

In any case, I’ve decided to leave food in the kitchen as well as in their regular eating place. I set them up in my bathroom, since it’s large enough to fit a whole herd of cats, and by keeping the food dishes upstairs, I no longer trip over the cats while they’re eating. Come to think of it, I think my bathroom is larger than the kitchen, if you don’t count the part with the table. (The kitchen, not the bathroom. There is no table in the bathroom. Just a double vanity with only one sink.)

Mr. Tig is tipping the scales at over twelve pounds now. He’s a week past nine months. And he’s about 36 inches long, tip to tail, when you stretch him out. It’s actually kind of tough measuring him, because he likes to play with the yardstick while I try to see how long he is. The tail alone is fourteen inches. He’s going to be much larger than Tig 2, I think. Fifteen pounds before plumping up is my guess, though I’m really going to try to keep him thin, or at least, as thin as a Maine Coon can be. They’re stocky critters.

Miss Gracie, meantime, is continuing to show nothing but happiness in her new home. She’s currently very happy that it’s cold out, because I put a blanket on my leather living room chair, and when I get up, she gets in the chair and then gives me The Look when I want to get back in it. So of course, I put a blanket on the sofa. And of course, she refuses to use it until I toss her out of my chair. She gave the cleaning crew quite a bit of entertainment last week when she tried to find a hiding place where they wouldn’t bother her. She did, ultimately. I couldn’t find her. When she finally came into the kitchen, hours after they left, she came from the direction of the guest room. I think she was hiding in the bathroom, behind the toilet. Or maybe even in the shower stall. But I didn’t think to look there. Tig stayed under the bureau the whole time. I wonder where he’ll go when he gets too big to fit under there?

Above is Miss Gracie in the bathroom doorway on a sunny morning. Soon after that, she wound her way up on the bed to sleep in the sun. All’s right with her world.

An early Happy Thanskgiving to you all. Posting will be light tomorrow, as eating will be heavy.