Life Without Coffee

zzzz....

*snort*

What? Oh, sorry!

I've been having trouble focusing and staying alert this week. My supply of coffee ran out at home on Monday morning, and even on Monday I only had enough coffee to make two cups. Which I converted into Dave-uccino to stretch it out. M'm! M'm! Good!

But that was Monday morning.

Tuesday was just a foggy caffeine-free day. Absolutely dreadful.

Wednesday was a slighty less foggy caffeine-free day as my body adjusted to the lack of its favorite alkaloid.

Thursday my body was starting to get used to functioning without coffee.

Then my lovely wife discovered I'd run out of coffee and bought a canister for me. She is awesome!

Now it's Friday, and I have coffee.

Ah! Life is good.

What's Dave-uccino, you ask? Simple! It's my own special version of homemade iced cappuccino, kind of like a Frappuccino made with French Roast coffee.

TJ Is Gone

The oldest of our four cats, TJ, past away during the night. A few weeks ago, one of the boys said he thought she was losing weight, but we figured he was just seeing things. Especially since the kitten was now nearly as large as TJ. It seems his instincts may have been correct. During the past few days, it'd become quite obvious that TJ was not well, as she seemed unable to do anything other than lie very still. Especially yesterday.

TJ was a good cat. She was the mom of two of our other cats, Blackie and Chubby. She was quite adept at slipping through open doors, dashing to the freedom of the outdoors, which especially beckoned to her during this time of year. Once outdoors, rodents and small birds fled in terror, knowing that the mighty huntress was on the prowl.

TJ's favorite toy was elastic hairbands, the kind that have 2" or 3" diameter. She'd "acquire" one from someone's bedroom and then run through the house with the hairband hanging from her mouth and her yelling "rowr! rowr! rowr!". At least until she realized she'd been seen. Then she would drop the hairband to the floor and just walk away, as if thinking, "I don't know where that hairband came from! Eh heh. (I'm so embarrassed)"

One bit of silly behavior of hers stands out in my memory. Our family room's windows have top panes that can slide down, as well as the bottom panes being able to slide up. Sometimes I open just the top pane, especially when it's windy outside, to direct incoming air toward the ceiling. One night a few weeks ago I'd done just that. When I came downstairs in the morning, there was TJ, sitting INSIDE the window between the closed bottom pane and the exterior screen. Yep... during the night she'd jumped up to the top of the opening, and then either jumped or fallen down, and then realized she was trapped. Silly cat. :)

Disconnected

This morning my family and I faced one of the greatest trials an early 21st century midwestern family can face... an Internet service outage. AHHHHHH!

I sometimes forget how dependent I am on the Internet, or more specifically the World Web Web, aka The Information Superhighway. No reading or writing e-mail. No checking weather forecasts. No checking the business hours for the local bank branch. No Xbox Live. (Well, actually I don't care about that one, but my boys do.) No nuthin. :( It's like when a thunderstorm knocks out electricity service for a few hours... what do you do with your time then? Talk to family members? Yeah, like that'll happen. :)

Internet access has been restored! Huzzah! Our access came back to life while I was on the phone, for the second time today, with our ISP's customer support. How convenient.

Our Kitten Is Trying To Kill Me

A few days ago, I was doing one of those things you always tell your kids not to do, but do yourself when no one's around... running through the house. I was getting ready to leave for work, and felt a need to move quickly from one end of our main floor to the other.

Unfortunately for me, our kitten Georgie decided that would be the ideal time to run at full speed up the stairs from our lower level to the main level, his path directly intersecting my own as we both ran, well for me "ran", through the house. He got caught up in my feet and spun a little off-course, while I tripped and almost fell, though didn't actually fall.

Later when I recounted this incident to another family member, her first comment was, "Is Georgie okay?" I could've broken my nose like Paula Abdul, but people are concerned about the kitten!!!

Lessons Learned

me: Don't run through the house when the kitten is in one of his hyperactive modes.

Georgie: meow! meow! meow! (loosely translated: "Where's my food, I'm hungry again!")

FHOTY

A few weeks ago, my lovely wife and I observed FHOTY (pronounced "faugh-tee", like "faulty" but more fun). What's FHOTY you ask? Well, kind reader, you've no doubt already deduced that it is an acronym, given the presence of many capital letters. If that is your deduction, you are correct. It IS an acronym! Congratulations!

FHOTY stands for "first hummingbird of the year".

My wife adores hummingbirds. A few weeks ago, we observed the first hummingbird of the year visiting one of our hummingbird traps feeders. It drank a little "nectar", squeaked "hello" to us, then flew on its way.

Have you experienced FHOTY yet?