| Vol. 2, No. 1 | 18 January, 2002 |
Well, no, actually it was from some cats, but we always wanted to say "Fan mail from some flounder" because we love Rocky and Bullwinkle.
We got our VERY FIRST fan mail. And it was from a couple of CATS! They're named Angel & Freckles, and sound a like they're more fun than the humorless felines we have living with us.
Well, all three of us do, sort of. We all contribute comments, but the actual entry work goes like this... Quasimodo proof reads what's on the screen, Razzle pushes the mouse around, and I do most of the typing. The "I" is me, Minya. Razzle can type, but likes the mouse a lot more. Quasi is a bit too fat to do much in the way of typing. He tends to hit three or four keys at a time, then gets frustrated when he makes even more mistakes trying to correct his mistakes. When he gets frustrated, he makes puddles, and that would be a dead give way that we've been using the computer, so we try to keep him happy while we're on the desk.
First, yes, they did get rid of the tree. And before we had another chance to climb around in it. Probably just as well. It was getting a little prickly from drying out.
Second, we finally got a good look at that "Pee Ess Two" thing and it turns out it's just another game system, and it's really a "PS2." Says so right on the top. Quasimodo was disappointed, and was going to try it out anyway, but the humans were watching us so he had to give up that idea.
Finally, the area under the couch is improving nicely. We've got three socks, two paper plates, a paper cup, several soda cans, three tennis balls which belong to the dogs, but they can't get under the couch go get them back. And best, we've got a, well, we're not sure what it is, but it smells interesting. Razzle thinks it'll attract ants if we can keep it hidden until summer. Since we all know "Them's GOOD EATIN'," we've moved it to the very rear of the couch. Of course, if it gets to smelling TOO interesting the humans will look for it. We're considering moving it inside the couch.
Speaking of under the couch, we don't spend ALL our playroom time under there. We check out under the other couch, and the chair, and the wood pile, and the desk, and up on the counter, especially behind the TV, and up on the book shelves.
Which brings us back to how humorless cats are. We were under the couch the other day and noticed one of the cats, looking bored, laying up on the chair. We decided that we'd try to open a meaningful dialogue with this cat. Not wanting to scare him with all three of us coming up in his face, we decided to approach in a way less likely to upset him. So, we went up on the couch, across the back, onto the table, and onto the back of the chair. We had apparently been successful in not upsetting our feline friend, because he continued to contemplate the universe in his own quiet way. Well, we had to assume that's what he was doing, since his eyes were closed and he had his head resting on his front paws. Anyway, we moved in and tried to open a discussion with the cat. Did you know cats can levitate? After showing us this amazing feat, he said some very ungentlemanly things and jumped clean over the wall the humans put up to keep us in the playroom. Next time, we're going to ask him to show us how he does that levitation thing.
We also get to play other places sometimes. One of our favorites is the bathroom. Bill sometimes let's us explore up there while he's taking a shower. The best part of that is that we get to dry off his feet while he shaves after his shower. Another fun thing to do is drag the bath mat over against the wall and make tunnels under it. An added bonus is Bill's comment when he steps out onto tiles instead of the bath mat. But while we're waiting for him to come out, though, there's all this lovely stuff to crawl into and around and under. They did lock up the cabinet after one of our earlier explorations. You'd think picking up a couple of hundred cotton balls would be fun. It was sure fun getting them all out of the bag.
But I'm just reporting on that so you'll know that we know about the bath room and that we have fun there, because we got to play in there for TWO HOURS last week while will was repairing our cage. Well, he called it a "repair." We called it restricting our fun. If they think ferret bedding is good enough for us to walk on, you'd think they'd thank us when we share it with them by pushing it out the bars and onto the hall floor, wouldn't you?
Anyhow, the most fun part was we found a little door in the wall behind the shower. We've seen this odd thing before, but never had enough time to move the trash can, work it open, and have a look around. There's pipes, and posts, and cob webs and all kinds of interesting things back there. Unfortunately, someone heard the little door crash to the floor when we opened it and they came along and shut it before we could screw up our courage to go exploring. But now we know how to open it, and maybe next shower time we'll be quick enough. We figure we'll let it drop on Quasi, to cushion the crash, then nobody will know what we're up to. Quasi is looking at me funny about that last line, but he didn't say "no."
We get out at various odd times to play in the kitchen, the playroom, Bill's office, the bathroom and so forth. But one thing we really look forward to is when they decide to watch a movie and let us out. We can expect to be out pretty much the whole time the movie is on, and we know they'll be paying attention to the TV rather than us.
Bill has started some of his Taxing Time play, but hasn't let us loose in his office while he's doing it. He seems to be using much smaller piles of paper this year too. Our cage is just outside the office, so we can see what's going on. He's been making comments about that there MUST be some cosmic relevance to April 15 being both Taxing Day AND the day the Titanic sank.
The only thing we know about Titanic is that when they watch THAT movie we get to stay out an extra long time, with a break in the middle when they usually get snacks or drinks or both and, of course, we're right there to investigate what they've got for drinks and eats and get our share. They do this during other movies too, of course, but we get TWO tries at stuff when they watch this one.
They got a new movie, so we'll probably get out for a long spell this weekend. Quasi is still interested in that PS2 thing, and we have to check out what's new under the couch. And we were watching the dogs play with those tennis balls this afternoon. It seems we may have a way to make a deal with the dogs using those tennis balls as bribes. We're not sure quite what we want yet, but we do know the dogs want those tennis balls pretty badly.
We'll be talking more about the dogs, cats, humans and other things that happen around here in future articles. For right now, though, it's time to upload this stuff to the web site before Bill gets back.