Too Many Rocks, Not Enough Pockets

In the beginning a teacher stood on a mountain in Galilee and sent his disciples out into the world. He sends them out in his own image, instructing them to make disciples and continue his teachings. There are no longer twelve of them. They are no longer symbolic of all the descendants of the patriarchs of old. But now they are sent out into contexts where that symbolism is not understandable,…

Just canceled my account (not that I used it that much). But I won’t permit this. Via @unaminh.bsky.social:

IMPORTANT: For any artists/writers/etc etc, using Linktree to point people to their work, from 5 July, they'll be feeding all imagery you use on your landing page into DALL-E by OpenAI.

Out of what I have in my fridge

Your husky isn’t “hyperactive”, it’s bred to pull sleds for 8 hours straight and you have it in a 400 sq ft yard.

Your English sheepdog isn’t “pushy”, it’s bred to herd sheep, and you have neither to space nor the herd to allow it.

Your terrier isn’t “nippy”, it’s bred to kill rats and your hamster looks a hell of a lot like one.

Your Catahoula isn’t “mean to animals”, it’s bred to hunt any and all animals smaller than it, and you didn’t acclimate it to your cat.

Your Lhasa Apso isn’t “yappy”, it’s bred to bark at any tiny noise and alert watchmen to intruders

For the past year and a half to two years we've had a black long-haired cat coming around. He (we're guessing) is untipped but possibly not unfixed, aloof, knows what a trap is well enough to not go in one (we tried when he first showed up), and trusts us enough to sit down and wait patiently for us to fill the kibble bowl and distribute Delectables broth libations.

About six weeks ago a smaller short-haired black cat showed up with a white spot on its chest, like a fairy spot, like a short-haired fairy cat. Maybe more like a kitten, because it was quite small (although it's been filling out some) and it's perpetually hungry. It is extremely skittish but also seems to want to trust humans, or at least us, because lately it's been poking its head out of the crawlspace cat entrance to meow at us when we're outside, and we meow back and have a dialog where neither of us understands each other very well, but we all understand that we are good-intentioned creatures, and here is cat food.

About a week ago a short to medium haired black cat showed up, this one with a tuxedo front and little white feetses, which I, being a fan of TS Eliot and his book of cats, promptly named Bustopher Jones. He is also indeed remarkably fat.

So, we have our cast of characters.

Today I heard someone meowing under my office where the crawlspace goes. This isn't too unusual, the cats don't usually meow but sometimes they will. So I spend about 20 minutes trying to figure out which cat it is, which entrance the cat is at, and does the cat want food. I put out some food and see the long-hair come out and eat it, okay, fair enough, he's not usually a talker but sometimes... this all takes place at the office window.

I come around to the front door then and Bustopher and the kitten are on the front stoop, Bustopher watching the kitten go to town on the kibble. After a minute or two, the long-hair comes up and sits just to one side, and all three of them are on my front stoop.

They stay like this. For thirty minutes.

Then I check on them again to see if they've been taking turns at the kibble bowl, but no, they've gone. I poke my head out the back door because all of them have been known to walk through the back field between my house and the houses behind us, and yes, someone's there by the garden beds. It's Bustopher and the kitten. In the space of time it takes for me to get my phone to take a picture and continue telling Mr. Chandler "you're not going to believe this shit" Bustopher and the kitten move over to a small stand of trees in the yard and the long-hair takes up the gardenside post.

Anyway, I blame Diane Duane for all of this, because these are clearly wizard cats escorting a kitten on its first errantry. And for some reason this is all taking place AT MY HOUSE.

(Tags explanation: the kitten is named either Oliver (the orphan) or Elijah (because it showed up ON PASSOVER) or Miriam (if it's a girl). The other two, well, Fuzzy is fuzzy, and Bustopher Jones... I mean, look at him. He's certainly not skin and bones, and he has tiny white spats.)

The vet says she seems to be in excellent health, no FIV or FeLV or heartworms, she’s been vaccinated and we’re going to discuss spaying when we take her back for her boosters in a couple weeks and hopefully it’ll be a simple spay and not a spay-abort.

She’s about the same age as our Pixie (tabby). Yes, that makes them Nyxie and Pixie. We’re introducing them slowly but so far they seem happy to touch noses and then chase each other around the living room.

Many assume a mage misheard a request for a moat. Regardless, the castle has withstood all attacks for centuries.

ACAA*, my latest for New Scientist