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All tuckered out

Alright, after ruffling some feathers with my two previous posts, here’s a picture of Little Queen Olivia relaxing yesterday evening after spending all night and all day on her catio stalking the birds, rabbits, squirrels, and rats. She’s all tuckered out.

Get those cooties off me!

One of my roommates in 1974 at Texas A&M University was from Waller, Texas, which is about half way between Houston and College Station.

I lost track of him when I moved to San Diego in April 1993. I moved with the intent of distancing myself from old family and friends. No more need to keep up with the Joneses.

In 2011, I was exploring the border area in South San Diego when I came upon San Diego Beach Rides. I rented a horse ride for the beach. Pretty cool.

When I got back, I told the owner that he looked like my college roommate from 1974. He said, “Oh, I’m from Texas.” That, of course, started a conversation. Turns out that he wasn’t my roommate, but he was my roommate’s younger brother.

I was able to get connected again to my old roommate who was living in Littleton CO. Small world. Unfortunately, as with all but two of my old friends and family in Texas, our politics didn’t mesh, so I disconnected again.

This horse picture is from October 4, 2011, at San Diego Beach Rides. It’s the horse that I rode. I guess it wanted to get those Russel cooties off. After I pet Little Queen Olivia, she proceeds to do the same thing.

She loves me, she loves me not

Little Queen Olivia (LQO) is helping me with this blog post this morning, so you’ll have to overlook any typos, poor grammar, and, of course, paw prints.

The little queen definitely is one of those cats that is more awake from dusk to dawn than at any other time of the day. I learned from Jackson Galaxy on My Cat From Hell to play with the little one before I go to bed and to put out some food so that she will eat the food rather than waking me up to tell me that she wants food.

For the most part, it works. Today it didn’t. Here’s how the night went:

Midnight — LQO jumps up on the bed, jumps on me, and begs to be petted for 10 minutes while purring loudly, at which point she jumps down, eats some food, and wanders away.

12:30 a.m. — LQO jumps up on the bed, jumps on me, and begs to be petted for 10 minutes while purring loudly, at which point she jumps down, eats some food, and wanders away.

1:00 a.m. — LQO jumps up on the bed, jumps on me, and begs to be petted for 10 minutes while purring loudly, at which point she jumps down, eats some food, and wanders away.

1:30 a.m. — LQO jumps up on the bed, jumps on me, and begs to be petted for 10 minutes while purring loudly, at which point she jumps down, eats some food, and wanders away.

2:00 a.m. — LQO jumps up on the bed, jumps on me, and begs to be petted for 10 minutes while purring loudly, at which point she jumps down, eats some food, and wanders away.

2:30 a.m. — LQO jumps up on the bed, jumps on me, and begs to be petted for 10 minutes while purring loudly, at which point she jumps down, eats some food, and wanders away.

3:00 a.m. — LQO jumps up on the bed, jumps on me, and begs to be petted for 10 minutes while purring loudly, at which point she jumps down, eats some food, and wanders away.

3:30 a.m. — LQO jumps up on the bed, jumps on me, and begs to be petted for 10 minutes while purring loudly, at which point she jumps down, eats some food, and wanders away.

4:00 a.m. — LQO jumps up on the bed, jumps on me, and begs to be petted for 10 minutes while purring loudly, at which point she jumps down and eats the rest of the food, licking the dish so clean that I wondered if there ever had been food in it.

4:30 a.m. (You’d think the little queen can tell time.) — LQO jumps up on the bed, jumps on me, and begs to be petted for 10 minutes while purring loudly, at which point she jumps down and stares at the empty food dish.

4:45 a.m. — After watching LQO stare at the empty food dish for 5 minutes, Russel gets up and puts some fresh food in the dish, puts it back in her overnight food spot, and lays back down to watch her eat. She proceeds to stare at the fresh food for 5 minutes and then wanders away without ever eating any of it.

4:50 a.m. — Russel gets up and heads to the home office to write this blog post.

5:00 a.m. — LQO joins me in the home office. Here she is helping me this morning:

Meanwhile, here’s her food dish, untouched and full of food:

I guess sometimes she just wants to be with me, to know that I love her and will always take care of her.

Which reminds me.

I need to take her to the vet for her annual checkup.

I wonder if she will still think that I love her afterwards.

Hmmmmmm.

She loves me, she loves me not.

My assistant demonstrates

I have been in self-isolation since March 14, always looking for things to do inside when it’s crappy outside.

Yesterday, I was thinking about doing yoga, so I was going through all the yoga poses.

Some looked really hard.

Fortunately, my assistant, Little Queen Olivia, decided to show me just how easy yoga poses are.

In fact, she can do them in her sleep!

The little monster

I have been spending a lot of time cataloging and organizing pictures, so I don’t have much to say today.

When I don’t have much to say, I let pictures do the talking.

So here are some recent pictures of the little monster, Little Queen Olivia.

She’s been with us for six months now and is as crazy as ever.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

Which is your favorite picture of the little monster?

Still sad

My wise old grandmother adopted me in December 1965 when I was three months short of 11. She was the only person who wanted me since I was a juvenile delinquent and then residing in the Troubled Youth program at the Thomas D. Dee Memorial Hospital in Ogden, Utah.

I learned a lot from her about life, responsibility, gardening, plants, and compassion for animals. She was the person who captured flies and returned them to the outdoors. Captured snakes, rats, mice, roaches, spiders, and lizards, and returned them to the outdoors.

When she knew that she was dying, she asked me if there was anything I wanted to ask her. I did. I wanted to know how she kept ants from getting into the house. She practiced things like rinsing off dishes immediately after a meal, keeping sugar in a container rather than in the store package, keeping cereal in containers as well, rinsing honey residue off the container before putting it back in the cupboard, and spreading fine mulch around the exterior of the house. Her experiential evidence indicated that ants and snails didn’t like crawling on fine mulch. Larger sizes didn’t bother them.

I follow in her footsteps, capturing anything inside that belongs outside and returning it outside. I have watched the Nature Channel and many nature documentaries. I know how cruel and unforgiving the food chain can be, but I guess as long as I don’t have to watch it in person, I’m okay.

Yesterday, Little Queen Olivia took a position in front of the dresser, refusing to budge. Very strange behavior, so I got the idea that, perhaps, there was a lizard behind the dresser. Instead I found a young rat. I know it was a young rat because it was only about four inches long with just a four-inch tail. The rats we have out here in the East San Diego County boondocks are huge, the size of opossums.

I tried capturing the rat, but all I did was encourage it to move to a different corner behind the bed where it was much more difficult to try to get to, especially for one person. I called pest control hoping for a humane way to capture the rat and move it outside. They recommended glue traps. The rat gets stuck to the glue trap and then they take it back to their office, use a mineral oil to soften and remove the glue, and then return the creature to the outside.

However, due to the arrangement of the room, as well as the furniture, he also set a few regular snap traps just in case the rat avoided the glue traps. Well, said rat did avoid the glue traps but didn’t make it past the snap tracks.

I felt so bad. While the rat was squished behind the bed headbord, I had been shining a light on it, making eye contact, and talking to it, ensuring it that I would help it get back to the outdoors. The poor little rat was so frightened, and it’s little eyes seemed to plead with me not to kill it.

Sadly, now it is dead.

I interrupted the food chain. There might be a coyote or raptor that went hungry yesterday.

Do I worry too much?

All during the ordeal, Little Queen Olivia was endeavoring to help. I didn’t get the impression that she wanted to kill it. I thought that she simply wanted it removed from her domain.

I know how the rat got in, and I’ve taken care of that.

I also believe that the rat got in sometime on Saturday, January 11. Little Queen Olivia was telling me because she took a position during the day next to the entry spot. At night she didn’t sleep on the bed like she usually does, preferring to run up and down the hall. I now believe she was chasing the rat. There also was the fact that suddenly she was eating half a bowl of dry food during the night. I’m thinking the rat was eating the food.

Last night, Little Queen Olivia slept on the bed again, not running up and down the hallway, and not eating half a bowl of dry food.

Little Queen Olivia is back to her pre-rat self. Problems solved. Still sad.

Are you happy?

Today is the most important day on the cat calendar. Happy Boxing Day!

I believe Little Queen Olivia is the world’s only cat that does not like boxes. In the six months she has lived here, I caught her in a box only once, and then for only a few seconds, just long enough for me to take a picture. She seems to be saying, “See! I am a cat! Are you happy?”

How does she do this?

I think cats are fascinating animals.

The following picture is of Little Queen Olivia sound asleep on an office chair.

With her so peacefully sleeping, I decide to go to the kitchen to get something to eat.

The kitchen is 25 feet away. It takes 9.31415 seconds to get there from the office.

This is what I see when I get to the kitchen:

How does she do this?

Cyber Monday 2019: 20% off all items at my Esty shop.

Tomorrow will be the first Cyber Monday for which I actually have product to sell and can sell it at a discount.

Everything 20% off at my Etsy shop.

Free U.S. nationwide shipping. Media Mail for the book and First Class for the calendars.

Not shipping internationally yet; still working on that.

• “Nature’s Geometry: Succulents” (174-page soft-cover book with over 600 pictures)
  Regularly $25.
  $20 for Cyber Monday only.
• 10 calendars: Birds, Butterflies, Cats, Dogs, Fibonacci Flora, Flowers, Orchids, Roses, Spirals, Succulents
  All pictures are from my own camera.
  Regularly $20.
  $16 for Cyber Monday only.

Use this link to have the 20% discount applied automatically at checkout:

Double R Creations shop at Etsy