Wherein I find the music of my dreams
Many years ago, (no later than 2000), I fell asleep on the couch in front of the TV while watching something or other on PBS. Then Austin City Limits came on, and while I was in stage 1 sleep, I heard the most wonderful music. It was instrumental, consisting of mandolins and guitars and banjos and violins. It was folksy but also not, and it flowed like the lazy ripples of a wide river, hypnotic and complex, and I never forgot how cool it sounded.
(If I had to make a list of my 10 favorite things, Stage 1 sleep would occupy the first five slots, followed by a good rack of pork ribs, the lemon cake at Olive Garden, and Stage 1 sleep three more times. Especially with the TV or radio on.)
I had no idea who the artists were, and up until yesterday, had not known how to find them. (I'm pretty sure that iTunes and Wikipedia didn't exist when this happened.) So yesterday it occurred to me to look. I got on Wiki and discovered that some poor soul with less of a life than I have had posted a list of Austin City Limits performers. Of course, the list said nothing about what kind of performers they all were, so I looked up every group, and if they were in the country/bluegrass/folk category, I listened to a few tracks on iTunes.
And, mirabile dictu, I found them: Strength in Numbers, an ad hoc "supergroup" of bluegrass musicians who released only one album, Telluride Sessions, and iTunes had it. They are described as a blend of bluegrass and jazz, which combo I'd never seen, but it fit to a tee.
So this afternoon, I loaded it up on the iPod, set it on infinite repeat, and dozed away. Bliss!
Bad!Kitteh
Which is something I've needed. On Friday night, I incurred a semi-serious wound to the inside of my left forearm while herding cats. No, seriously. I had been finding poo deposits in the living room again in the usual hiding places, and a bit more barf than usual, so naturally, I thought it was the gray kitty telling me that she wanted to use the litterbox inside again. (I make her go outside during the summer.)
Friday, I was on the couch, watching a movie after midnight, when lo, a cat crept out from behind the printer stand. It was a cat I'd recently seen hanging around outside and even surprised inside. I tried to chase it (as did my other kitties), but to no avail, it hunkered down behind the printer stand (and bookshelf and computer desk), so I decided to open the front door so that it could wander out when it cared to.
But it didn't. So after the movie, I tried to scare it out, and it ended up running into the back room and into all kinds of unaccessible places. I opened the back door, but it wouldn't head that way. I filled a squirt bottle and set it on stun. (Fine, on long narrow stream.) I zapped it a few times, and he ran off, sure enough, but never toward the doors. I tried to block off his avenues of escape with the enormous box of 30% black nylon shade cloth that is not what I ordered but is too big to send back with any celerity. He still wouldn't dash outside, even when he had the choice of the door, the squirt gun, and my hissing black tomcat.
At one point, he got back behind the printer stand and I sat there and squirted him over and over, and he didn't budge, even as he hissed all his catty curses at me. For whatever catty reason, he wasn't going to leave the house. Mind you, the thing was far from skinny and destitute. He was fat and healthy (and quite pretty: a faint gray tiger stripe with a bit of siamese). So I don't think he was facing starvation by leaving my place.
Finally, after I had shut all the bedroom and bathroom doors, I cornered him at the end of the hall and grabbed him by the back skin. He was sopping wet and pissed as hell, and I held onto his skin as I hurried toward the back door. Enraged, he "exploded," suddenly twisting in all directions the way cats do, and my forearm received three good scratches from the back feet, which also ended up bruising a little while later.
I dropped him then, and he scampered past the open back door and behind the seed starter. This time I grabbed him good with both hands and tossed him out the door and locked it behind him. (This was 3am.)
He doesn't have a magnetic collar, so he couldn't have got in through the cat door (or out to use the toilet, hence the excrement in the living room). Probably he snuck in on Wednesday or Thursday, while I worked in the garden for a bit before work. I would have left the back door open, getting in was easy, and he stayed concealed while I was home until Friday night.
Why he wanted to stay inside, with two cats who hated his guts (but who didn't have the courage to chase him out) and a crazy squirt-gun-carrying hooman is beyond me. I've surprised cats inside the house before, but they always tore outside as fast as they could. It never occurred to me that a cat would come in and STAY in.
I guess that explains some of the singing my black cat was doing some nights. He often comes into the bedroom late at night, singing as if he'd caught something (and twice last week he had). I guess I need a better catty-to-hooman translator.
Figures. I just got one of those screen things you hang over the doorway to keep the flies out, because I do like to leave the back door open while I putter around outside. You'd think I'd already learned my lesson about what can wander into the house when the door is open, unattended, but I guess not. Stoopid hooman.
(If I had to make a list of my 10 favorite things, Stage 1 sleep would occupy the first five slots, followed by a good rack of pork ribs, the lemon cake at Olive Garden, and Stage 1 sleep three more times. Especially with the TV or radio on.)
I had no idea who the artists were, and up until yesterday, had not known how to find them. (I'm pretty sure that iTunes and Wikipedia didn't exist when this happened.) So yesterday it occurred to me to look. I got on Wiki and discovered that some poor soul with less of a life than I have had posted a list of Austin City Limits performers. Of course, the list said nothing about what kind of performers they all were, so I looked up every group, and if they were in the country/bluegrass/folk category, I listened to a few tracks on iTunes.
And, mirabile dictu, I found them: Strength in Numbers, an ad hoc "supergroup" of bluegrass musicians who released only one album, Telluride Sessions, and iTunes had it. They are described as a blend of bluegrass and jazz, which combo I'd never seen, but it fit to a tee.
So this afternoon, I loaded it up on the iPod, set it on infinite repeat, and dozed away. Bliss!
Bad!Kitteh
Which is something I've needed. On Friday night, I incurred a semi-serious wound to the inside of my left forearm while herding cats. No, seriously. I had been finding poo deposits in the living room again in the usual hiding places, and a bit more barf than usual, so naturally, I thought it was the gray kitty telling me that she wanted to use the litterbox inside again. (I make her go outside during the summer.)
Friday, I was on the couch, watching a movie after midnight, when lo, a cat crept out from behind the printer stand. It was a cat I'd recently seen hanging around outside and even surprised inside. I tried to chase it (as did my other kitties), but to no avail, it hunkered down behind the printer stand (and bookshelf and computer desk), so I decided to open the front door so that it could wander out when it cared to.
But it didn't. So after the movie, I tried to scare it out, and it ended up running into the back room and into all kinds of unaccessible places. I opened the back door, but it wouldn't head that way. I filled a squirt bottle and set it on stun. (Fine, on long narrow stream.) I zapped it a few times, and he ran off, sure enough, but never toward the doors. I tried to block off his avenues of escape with the enormous box of 30% black nylon shade cloth that is not what I ordered but is too big to send back with any celerity. He still wouldn't dash outside, even when he had the choice of the door, the squirt gun, and my hissing black tomcat.
At one point, he got back behind the printer stand and I sat there and squirted him over and over, and he didn't budge, even as he hissed all his catty curses at me. For whatever catty reason, he wasn't going to leave the house. Mind you, the thing was far from skinny and destitute. He was fat and healthy (and quite pretty: a faint gray tiger stripe with a bit of siamese). So I don't think he was facing starvation by leaving my place.
Finally, after I had shut all the bedroom and bathroom doors, I cornered him at the end of the hall and grabbed him by the back skin. He was sopping wet and pissed as hell, and I held onto his skin as I hurried toward the back door. Enraged, he "exploded," suddenly twisting in all directions the way cats do, and my forearm received three good scratches from the back feet, which also ended up bruising a little while later.
I dropped him then, and he scampered past the open back door and behind the seed starter. This time I grabbed him good with both hands and tossed him out the door and locked it behind him. (This was 3am.)
He doesn't have a magnetic collar, so he couldn't have got in through the cat door (or out to use the toilet, hence the excrement in the living room). Probably he snuck in on Wednesday or Thursday, while I worked in the garden for a bit before work. I would have left the back door open, getting in was easy, and he stayed concealed while I was home until Friday night.
Why he wanted to stay inside, with two cats who hated his guts (but who didn't have the courage to chase him out) and a crazy squirt-gun-carrying hooman is beyond me. I've surprised cats inside the house before, but they always tore outside as fast as they could. It never occurred to me that a cat would come in and STAY in.
I guess that explains some of the singing my black cat was doing some nights. He often comes into the bedroom late at night, singing as if he'd caught something (and twice last week he had). I guess I need a better catty-to-hooman translator.
Figures. I just got one of those screen things you hang over the doorway to keep the flies out, because I do like to leave the back door open while I putter around outside. You'd think I'd already learned my lesson about what can wander into the house when the door is open, unattended, but I guess not. Stoopid hooman.