What’s New, Pussycat?

Peter Sellers & Ursula Andress in the film What’s New Pussycat?

Because of the title, What’s New, Pussycat? I suggested to Alex that he write this post. However, he responded that he does not want to write my blog now that he has his own blog! (Selfish cat).

There are several new things in the lives of the feline who owns me and me:

NEW MUSIC THINGIE

You may notice the new thingie at the top of the sidebar of Nick’s Bytes that looks like this:

It plays music when you click on it and I intend to change the music to whatever song happens to be following through my mind at the moment. That may be difficult because, as an old folkie the songs that are often flowing through my mind are stored at the thingie site. Go ahead and click it! You know you want to! (As Alex would say, OK?)

NEW DECK

The house I live in now has a new deck. The young man who purchased it when ABN-AMRO foreclosed and who is now my landlord has torn down the old one and built a completely new one. That is great since, according to him, the old steps structure that gave way and injured my legs (left leg remains swollen and painful, eve after almost four months) wasn’t the half of it. Elements of the deck itself were falling apart and someone could have fallen through its floor at any time. Also, the deck was pulling away from the house and could have collapsed completely! That would not have been nice had someone been hosting a cookout on the deck.

If you look closely at the photo of the deck, you’ll see the furball who lives with me gazing from the deck next door.Yes, Alex has made peace with the little bitty doggie who lives next door.

NEW DOOR

Along with replacing the deck, my landlord has also replaced the back door leading to it. Alex has found the door wonderful for his gazing outside. So have I, for Alex now does not bug me to open the door so that he may go out and play with his cat buddies until after he has spotted them. This means, among other things, that Alex no longer sits in the open doorway deciding whether or not the other cats are playing outside before he prances out.

DSL IS BACK!

AT&T offered me a packaged deal that I couldn’t refuse. (Why does that have me thinking that Ma Bell is like the Godfather?) As of Friday, I now again have a DSL connection. This one, at three megabytes per second, is twice the speed of my old one. Today I read every blog to which I am subscribed and left comments on many of them. It took me only about a third of the time than it would have using the horribly slow dial up connection. And, I didn’t have to sit here and play a computer game or two (Freecell is my favorite) while blogs and sites loaded.

IN ADDITION TO DSL

See the box on top of the DVD/video tape player beneath my TV:

For the first time in more than ten years I have TV that is not limited to what comes in over the airwaves. I obtained Direct TV as part of the AT&T package, which including land line telephone, cell phone, DSL, and Direct TV is costing me $40.00 less than what I was paying for landline and cell phones and dial-up Internet.

The first program I watched on my new TV setup was my alma mater, the University of Kentucky, losing to its arch-rival, the University of Tennessee, 50-52 (yeah, that’s a football score, not basketball) in quadruple overtime. Ouch!

THE CRUSADE IS ON!

Last Tuesday I wrote (again) about the meese—I mean, mouse—that escaped Alex and ended the post with the words: “So, perhaps I will join Alex and Mr. Jinks in the lament: I hate meeses to pieces. Then, again, I may not.” The idea was that I don’t really hate meeses—I mean mice.

In the comments to that blog, phishez_rules wrote:

Mice aren't so bad really. When they're in a box, and they don't run all over your stuff, a pee and poo all over it. They're nice when they sit quietly on the back of your hand and look at you calmly.

In fact, they're damn cute when they do that.

I agree! Mice are cute. Some folks keep them as pets. That is why I have been wavering on whether or not I want Alex to catch (not kill) this specific mouse. That all changed yesterday when, after cooking a hamburger, I opened my bread box and found this:

Evidently the damned meeses have figured out how to get into my bread box and through the plastic wrap on the bun package and nibble (a damned lot) of my hamburger buns. I cannot imagine how they did it, but you see the evidence above.

I am no longer irresolute on whether or not I want Alex to catch that damned mouse. I may even help him in this crusade to rid my kitchen of the unwanted guest! Or, should I say guests?

BLESSINGS

Overall, I feel I have received many blessings this week.