(Trust me, the rest of the pictures look a lot better.) Yes, we do indeed have new feline residents. Rather newer than Mega-Jay and Nipper-san. Akagane* arrived in early August and immediately began exploring the Library/Transition Room. After all, the boundaries of her new domain had to be established. * Copper, for reasons which should be obvious. For logistical reasons, Owen* didn’t arrive until a few days later.

Nipper-san has been a member of the family for, at a guess, about three decades. Part of Dad’s collection of Victrola memorabilia, he’s been charming people since his arrival—including the friend and fellow collector from Japan who named him. He continues to charm even those who know nothing about turn-of-the-previous-century audio technology or advertising mascots. Hotaru is quite taken with him and can often be found sharing his pedestal and chilling.

Kidneys. Heart. Pancreas. Hard to say which one gave out first. Doesn’t matter, really. Rhubarb—aka Rube Goldcat, Chaos Engineer—has passed on. The eldest of our group was never the center of attention, but he was always there. Let someone else stir things up. Rhubarb would watch from the fringes until he got swept up in the action, usually as a buffer between the true culprits.

The youngsters have decided that the library—nominally their room—is all well and good, especially at dinner time, but hardly the best place to hang out. Hotaru is frequently found on one of the dining room chairs. Hoozuki, on the other forepaw, moves around a fair amount, but seems to have a liking for my box of masks. All things considered, we much prefer her choice to his.

We had a spell of hot weather recently—legitimately hot, not just hot-by-local-standards. The cats melted. Fortunately, it’s not that serious; as we already knew, cats are liquid anyway. But having them melting down outside of a container can have awkward side effects, especially when the weather cools down again. Things get sticky. Good thing Em and Lefty have different coloration, or we might not have been able to figure out which bits were who.

The hellions formerly known as The Kittens are now officially adults. It’s largely a chronological thing, but they are starting to take on some of the privileges of adulthood. They’re eating “Big Kitty” food—mostly, there’s still a little bit of kitten krunchiez mixed into the adult dry food—and, perhaps most importantly, they’re not being confined to their room overnight. They haven’t yet discovered the adult pleasure of sleeping on the bed with the hoomins and the big kitties, but that’ll probably come.

Watanuki can often be found chilling in his cave. It was designed as a high-class litter box enclosure, but the drop-front opening just didn’t work for us: scooping a box is much easier from above. So, no box and no litter; instead, it’s got a few blankets and a sleeping pad. Comfy, convenient to the actual litter box and to the food bowls, and with a reasonable field of view toward the master bedroom.

Lest Rhubarb feel left out, yes, he’s just as low-energy as everyone else around here. Pink toebeans, brick red nose, and artfully draped tail. Good work by Maggie to get a shot of him when he wasn’t singing the sad song of his people. Speaking of which… Maggie recently added some decoration to the young hellion’s room. (The art is by…

I know it’s been rather quiet around here lately. The bottom line is that everyone has been rather low-energy. Case in point: (Yes, ‘Nuki is wearing a bib. He’s a drooler, and even though there’s a Protect-o-Blanket on the bed, we’d prefer to impose a bit of flood control.) Sachiko makes sure she always has the important tools of her trade handy, even while napping in the sun.

Emeraldas, Watanuki, and Lefty are currently in a friendlier phase of their ever-shifting relationship dynamic. Sometimes she’ll cuddle with one or the other; recently she was focused on Lefty, until he decided she was being too snuggly. Several brief spats ensued, featuring startled exclamations, pointy-pawed slaps, and just a dash of ear biting. Since she started paying more attention to Watanuki again, bedtime has been quieter.

Although the Hellbeastsyoungsters spend a large fraction of their time hanging out together, it’s rare to see them cooperating on a project. One will nap while the other wanders off to check the food bowls. One will explore the kitchen sink while the other watches from below. Bug hunting is an exception. They stalk together, chase together, and on occasion, even use each other as springboards to launch themselves to ever-higher altitudes. A true exemplar of the saying that “The family that eats moths together, stays together.”

I don’t have anything to talk about today, so enjoy your “nothing but cats” post. Hoozuki is often found sitting on the back of the futon in the kittens’ room, just watching the world go by. Recent warm weather forced us to close the blinds; he can still see out, but it’s not quite as entertaining, so he sometimes rotates his viewpoint 180 degrees.

Persistence is a virtue. (Please consider the obligatory comment on the current political landscape as made.) Take Sachiko for example. In recent days, she’s decided that my pillow makes an excellent place to sleep, or just hang out. I’m fine with her snoozing there during the day. I’m at work, so why shouldn’t she get comfortable? And it’s not like the pillow is going to wear out.

It really is Tahoe and MacOS 26. Too bad; it woulda been a nice joke. Before I start ranting about everything Apple, here are ‘Nuki and Emeraldas to remind us all that some things aren’t worth getting worked up about and we should really just chill. Relaxed? Good, let’s move on to WWDC. -=*=- Revamped name scheme aside, Apple’s big announcement was the (well-leaked) design change.

Hoozuki has discovered the joys of the ‘nip. (Photo credit to Maggie) Meanwhile, helpful creature that she is, Hotaru helps Maggie load the dishwasher. She’s also been known to help unload it, but we try to discourage that because it makes us nervous to see her emptying the knife basket with her mouth. -=*=- In other news, Google has declared their destruction of the Wallet app on watches to be a bug and has reversed the change.

Graydon is the Champion of Chill. It’s not, by the way, that nobody indoors is doing anything photo-worthy, just that they’re not doing it when I have my phone handy. To mitigate the lack of feline variety, how about a special bonus for the ‘bean fanciers? You’re welcome. -=*=- I don’t have anything like Graydon’s level of chill. Many things tick me off.

No, that’s not G’aw. They do look similar, but this fellow doesn’t have as much white around his front shoulders. Meet Graydon. He’s been visiting the Backyard Bowl somewhat frequently of late. He’ll typically show up mid-morning, help himself to some catnip while he sunbathes, and then raid the gooshy fud before he wanders off to take care of his other feline obligations.

I know some of you have been waiting for this for months, so without further ado: Hoozuki Toe Beans! And, of course, Hotaru Toe Beans! -=*=- In other bean-related news, Yahoo! informs us that a “standard” serving of 28 chocolate-covered espresso beans has between three and four times as much caffeine as the “standard” 8 ounce cup of coffee. And in my opinion, tastes three to four times better as well.

Why does one always get sick on one’s day off? Apologies for the later-than-usual post. Not only was it written under the influence of a slight fever, but the upload was delayed by Xfinity’s attempt to “enhance the network” in our area. This resulted in frequent and protracted losses of connectivity for much of the day. Anyhow. The Terrible Twosome’s integration with the rest of the gang continues.

There’s actually a reason for last week’s lack of a post. I mean, a reason other than my common excuse of "too many tasks that needed to be done on my nominal day off". I was all set to share a charming photo of Sachiko snoozing on Watanuki’s heated pad. And then Sachiko got sick. Not “a couple of piles of barf” sick.

The Pile of Rarely Worn Clothing is Hotaru’s favorite hang-out spot. On those rare occasions when she stops tearing around the house at a significant fraction of the speed of light, she can generally be found sacked out up there. And it is “up”. The Pile sits atop The Dresser of Even Less Frequently Worn Clothing. That means her perch is about two catten-heights below the ceiling.

Watanuki has a heated pad. He is, as Paul Simon put it, older than he once was and younger than he’ll be, and his joints pain him. The pad helps. I’ll admit to a bit of jealousy: there are days when a warm spot to rest my shoulders on would go very well. He’s not a generous sort. Not at all known for sharing.

Lefty is long. No question about it. He’s not even at full extension here, but he still stretches more than half the length of my legs. -=*=- Also long: the odds against my 2025 MLB predictions being any more accurate than 2024, 2022, or, indeed, any season since I started guessingcalculating how the season would end. So, probably not a good idea to put any money on my predictions.

It’s that time. Hoozuki is aggressively uninterested in the baseball I offered him. Far more exciting is the chance to run around the house during the afternoon—they don’t usually get released until evening. That may change once I put a game on the big TV, though history suggests Hotaru will be more interested. Anything moving on screen can hypnotize her. It may be a while before I get the chance to see who likes televised baseball: to nobody’s particular surprise, MLB.TV is having problems.

The kittens—well, these days they’re probably better identified as cattens—are settling in. We’ve begun giving them the freedom of the house* while we’re around to keep an eye out for trouble. * Well, most of the house. Our offices have far too many little nooks and crannies where they could hide, so for the moment, those rooms are off-limits. They’ve started to interact with the older cats.

I don’t really want to make this blog “All kittens, all the time”. The temptation is great, but I’ll try to restrain myself. Oh, and apologies for the blurriness of this set of photos. The critters move fast and it’s rare to catch them stationary long enough for a clear photo. As is the usual process around here, we’ve been slowly allowing them more freedom, and they’ve been taking full advantage.

Emeraldas and Lefty tried to form a yin/yang symbol the other day. I’m not sure what their motivation was: a call for peace? A reminder that what goes around, comes around? A simple artistic effort? It didn’t quite come off as planned. Even the feline spine has, it seems, some limitations on curvature. And they both lack contrasting color dots on their flanks.

Yes, an unfamiliar face. Here’s another one. You’ve probably guessed that our family has grown. As Maggie put it, we failed our saving roll against teh kyute. To be strictly accurate, she failed the roll. But let me back up. Whenever we need to pick up anything—usually gooshy fud—from PetSmart, we always stop by the adoption area. Not with any actual intention of adopting, just to say hello to whoever’s there.

Yes, an unfamiliar face. Here’s another one. You’ve probably guessed that our family has grown. As Maggie put it, we failed our saving roll against teh kyute. To be strictly accurate, she failed the roll. But let me back up. Whenever we need to pick up anything—usually gooshy fud—from PetSmart, we always stop by the adoption area. Not with any actual intention of adopting, just to say hello to whoever’s there.

Emeraldas spends most of the day curled up on the bed with her purramours. She does move around—sometimes with one, sometimes both, occasionally by herself. Her preferred spot for solo lounging is the foot of the bed on my side, so this sighting of her leaning on my pillow is extremely rare. In fact, I don’t believe there’s ever been another such occasion to date.

Sachiko’s usual daytime habitat is the dining room, usually in her (my) chair. In times past, when the weather turned colder, she’d migrate to the nearest heat vent. These days… These days, it seems my pillow is a more-than-adequate substitute for the vent. It may not be quite as warm, but it doesn’t press parallel dents into her butt, and it’s closer to company, since the other cats generally hang out on the bed most of the day.

It’s a well-known truism that when you look into the void, the void looks back into you. But when the void is as irresistibly sweet as a snugglepanther wondering where his next cuddle is coming from… …you really have no option but to give thanks to the void for coming into your life and soul. -=+=- I never did say anything about Thanksgiving, did I?

With the weather cooling off—overnight lows around here have been down in the low 40s lately—Mr. Knuckles has a new heated pad. We’ll skip the jokes about the size mismatch, though we probably should have gotten him one size larger. The bottom line is that he likes it, now that he’s figured out it’s for sitting, not chewing. Warms his achy joints.

Sachiko has strong feelings about the ownership of “my” chair. She grudgingly allows me to use it at breakfast and dinner time, but as far as she’s concerned, it’s her chair and she has first dibs. -=*=- This is not the post I intended to write today. Maybe I’ll get to that one eventually. But, mice and men. Today is my day off, the day I usually devote to taking care of Stuff What Needs Doing When Other People Are Working.