Today is the fourteenth anniversary of Mixed Meters. Feeble yay.
To celebrate, here's a picture of a cactus flower.
Now, a quiz: How is a cactus flower like this blog?
Answer: a cactus doesn't often get new flowers and this blog doesn't often get new posts.
My very first post in 2005 addressed the issue of infrequent posting. Here's the whole thing:
In which David fails to find an interesting first comment
Every new adventure begins with the words "Why am I doing this?" It would be so much easier not to bother trying new things.
If you, future person reading these words, discover that this blog hasn't changed in months . . . years . . . then you'll know I couldn't find a good answer for the question.
My philosophy will be . . . keep it short.
Fascinating, huh?
And here's another quiz question for you, O Future-Person-reading-these-words: Why am I doing this?
Please write your answers on a postcard and send them to the comment section. The winner receives a four year stay at the Trump property of their choice, no expenses paid.
Finally . . .
In celebration of Mixed Meters' august September anniversary I created a video from my cactus flower picture.
The video is entitled Cactus Flower. The picture above is the only visual component. If you watch very closely you might notice some slight changes as time passes.
I suggest watching at the largest size and highest resolution available to you.
This post is to celebrate our excellent kumquat harvest.
An uncertain number of years ago, maybe 25 or so, Leslie bought me a kumquat tree because she had discovered that I liked them. For roughly half those years Kumquat Tree lived in a big pot. Then we replanted it in the ground next to our driveway.
The tree went through some difficult years until we discovered that it needs lots of water. More water did the trick and we started getting a lot more fruit. This last winter was very wet rain-wise in Pasadena. Our kumquat harvest was exemplary. This picture shows about 40 pounds worth, about 75% of the total haul.
The English name "kumquat" derives from the Cantonese gām-gwāt 金橘, literally meaning "golden orange" or "golden tangerine". Kumquats are apparently symbols of good luck in China. I was told by our friend Richard that the name can be translated as "orange fortune". Or something.
Are you wondering what we did with all those little kumquats? Leslie took them to her friend and colleague Regina who supervised the production of kumquat/orange marmalade. Here's the after picture.
Good stuff. Thanks Regina.
I created a video showing the piles of these little bursts of citrus, often in extreme closeup, before they met their jellied fate. You'll see Leslie's hands doing the washing.
TRIGGER WARNING: if you find that exposure to bright orange color disturbs you, please use caution.
Back during the B.E. posting an occasional picture of your pet was essential. "What's the B.E.?" I hear you ask. It was "The Blog Era."
The B.E.is long gone, killed off by Social Media. S.M. makes posting pictures of your pets much easier. Actually, anything you could do on a blog is easier with S.M. You just need to sell your soul by sharing your personal data. And also spend time looking at ads.
Today, in a 'glorious' homage to the B.E., I present more than a few pictures of our pets. (Click them to see enlargements.) We will begin with Chowderhead.
Chowderhead is our dog. He's old for a big dog. We got him in 2007 when we figured he was about one year old. That makes him twelve now. (Read a little about his origin story here.)
More gray hairs. Moves more slowly. Deterioration of hearing. Sleeps a lot more. Overweight. Those things all describe me. Also the dog. Still, we're both doing pretty well for our ages. We both have health insurance.
Chowderhead did have a recent medical issue, a hematoma in his left ear. We took him to the vet who said he had to wear the collar for a week. At the end of the week he had totally reduced the collar to plastic shards.
Chowderhead hates the vet. He hates the vet so much he growls a lot and, when the doctors try to touch him, he vibrates with fear like a cellphone. They make him wear a muzzle when he visits lest he bite. Otherwise leatherwear is not really his thing.
His thing is sleeping in the backyard. He is king of the backyard.
Most certainly Chowderhead's most remarkable appendage is his tail. Here's a little video of 'The Tail' in action.
Mixed Meters' one remaining reader will remember that we also have three cats. They rarely gather for a group photo unless food is involved.
The two gray and white cats are twins. Spackle Puss is the smaller one; she has white stripes on the back of her ears. Her brother, Crackle Pop, has a tabby stripe tail and a white spot on his back. Like the dog, they're about twelve years old. Here's their origin story.
We'll start with pictures of Crackle. There isn't much to say about Crackle.
Crackle isn't very friendly to strangers. He hides when there are visitors. Otherwise he's a great cat who likes getting petted and doesn't often make a mess. He likes to climb on my lap but he can never get comfortable up there.
In the following picture you can see a cow poster hanging in my office. It was given to me by a composer named John Adams. It's the cover of his Gnarly Buttons album. He autographed it for me, accidentally finishing the tail end of his signature on the wall itself. Then the signature faded. However the mark on the wall remains. Later he returned and signed the poster again, twice, in indelible ink.
While Donald Trump's dislike of dogs is well known, I've never read anything about his feeling towards felines. You can search almost five million words he has spoken at this website. I couldn't find a single reference to 'cat' or 'kitty' or 'feline'. 'Pussy' gets a few hits.
The second pussy on our list is named Spackle. Spell check does not know the word Spackle; it underlines every occurrence as a possible misspelling. There's much more to tell you about Spackle than about her brother.
Spackle has an incredibly sharp tongue. We know this because she likes to lick people's bare skin. When she really gets into her licking it can be very painful for the human. We don't know why she does this.
Another annoying thing is that she drools a lot. After she sits on your lap you'll find a damp spot on your leg. Yuch.
Spackle is an extremely vocal cat. While underfoot in the kitchen she repeats - in cat language - "Give me some of that." over and over. It's gotten to the point that she'll beg anytime a human walks into the kitchen. This happens whether food is present or not. Then she runs excitedly from one side of the room to the other. And she runs back. She does these little cat sprints over and over again.
When dinner time finally rolls around she eats voraciously. And yet somehow she is still a super thin kitty, just skin and bones. Her skinniness is actually worrying. At least we've gotten her to stop vomiting her dinner in unexpected places.
Although Chowderhead and Crackle and Spackle are all approximately the same chronological age, they are different ages relative to their species. I've seen charts which suggest that Chowder, compared to human lifespan, is in his 'late seventies'. The gray cats, compared to humans, are, oh, about mid-sixties. By coincidence, I'm in my mid-sixties as well.
Pets don't have any idea how old they are. I think I might enjoy not knowing how old I am. Unfortunately we humans have calendars to keep track of these things. For an excellent description of the invention of the calendar I suggest you listen to The Adventures of Greggery Peccary by Frank Zappa.
By any measure the youngest member of our household is Doctor Pyewacket, the black kitten which Leslie found in the bushes near our house. Pyewacket will be four years old this spring. This cat on the fence post is not Doctor Pyewacket.
That fence cat is probably one of Pye's distant cousins, a member of the same feral clowder of cats to which we think Pyewacket traces his ancestry. HERE is the real Doctor Pyewacket sitting on the floor. (Yeah, I had to look up the word 'clowder'.)
The good doctor recently had serious health issues in the form of blocked urinary tract. He nearly died. After multiple visits to the the kitty hospital his condition mysteriously improved just about the time the vet suggested surgically removing his penis.
Penectomies are never the preferred option for billions of male humans worldwide. I, for one, wince just hearing the suggestion, even when it isn't me being considered as the patient. The subject of penises has come up several times during Mixed Meters' varied history. Read all about them here.
We presume that Pyewacket spent the first few weeks of his life out in the wilds of suburban Pasasdena. Since then we've confined him indoors - safely away from predatory coyotes and unable to predate on cute little birdies. Spackle and Crackle have never been outside a single day in their entire lives. Or, for that matter, even for a few minutes. (Yeah, predate is not really a real word.)
Poor Doctor Pyewacket is pretty much at the bottom of the feline pecking order in our little cat trio. Maybe it should be called "scratching order"? In any case, old skinny Spackle can send young virile Pyewacket running off with one swipe of her paw.
Shooting pictures of Pyewacket is difficult. All black cats are hard to photograph. Or maybe not. Maybe I'm just not a great photographer. Maybe shooting pictures of black cats is really easy. Or maybe I don't have good enough equipment. Yes, that's it. That must be the problem - I have been given inadequate tools.
Blaming inadequate results on something or someone else is becoming common in the U.S. these days. If good stuff happens, sure, that was us doing that. We'll happily take credit for the good stuff. When bad stuff hits the fan - find someone to blame. In fact, maybe "Blame Them" should replace "e pluribus unum" as our national motto. It's shorter and easier to remember.
Recently a complete stranger came up to me and said she thought that I looked like Marlon Brando. She asked whether I was told that often. Looking at this picture of Doctor Pyewacket holding on to my shoulder for dear life, I think I look more like Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell. Now there's someone who deserves a lot of blame for America's current impasses.
I will say that Mitch does have more hair than I do. I wonder if he owns a cat.
