ampersands! (and some without)

Mean and Regressive: "...one of those points that is ex post obvious, but ex ante rather brilliant."

Tea & Crackers: "A hall full of elderly white people in Medicare-paid scooters, railing against government spending and imagining themselves revolutionaries as they cheer on the vice-presidential puppet hand-picked by the GOP establishment. If there exists a better snapshot of everything the Tea Party represents, I can't imagine it."

The Wrestler and the Cornflake Girl: "My wife, upon meeting Tori last summer, accused her half-jokingly of having cast some type of spell over her husband. Fifteen minutes later, upon leaving her dressing room, my wife said, 'OK, Mick, I completely get it now.'"

The Problem With Phone Orders: "Really? This is what they want on the cake?"

Communist Love Song, by Soltero: "It was well-conceived in theory, but it doesn't work in life..." Heartbreaking and hilarious.

Dot: 90 seconds of wholly charming stop-motion.

And (for me to watch this evening), Stasis, a short (25") film that Looks Interesting.

... yow that was a lot of links. I guess I'll save the extra cat for another post.

spare cat

My mother's cat Gracie has come to stay with me for a couple of weeks while my folks are in Germany and points east (seeing the Passion Play at Oberammergau again after thirty years, and also doing some amount of churchy touristy stuff). I say "with me" rather than "with us" because it looks like she's going to spend much of the time locked in my room. Which is better than a vet kennel, I guess.

Most of my cat interaction for the last decade has been with Chaos and Kai. Chaos has pretty much always loooooved people, and will happily come out to get petted at any opportunity. I think he's finally gotten over his disappointment at how sometimes he can hear people on the stairs outside and then they turn out to not be coming to pay attention to him. Kai used to be a skittish little beast, but sometime in the past few years she's decided that the best place to be is the lap of someone who's settled and not being loud or likely to move quickly. They're both fairly sociable cats.

I'm not entirely clear on Gracie's history. I know she was my brother-in-law's cat from before he married my sister, and I've heard that when she lived at their house (featuring some number of other cats, at least one dog, and a small child) she hid in the basement a lot. I don't know how or why Mom ended up with her a year or two ago.

It took three or four visits to my parents' place before I met Gracie. She's a gorgeous dark tortie, of the kind that looks like she's going to be Trouble. She stayed with me a couple of weeks ago for a few days, to see how it was going to work out, and spent most of that time hiding under the bed. Attempts to introduce her to the other cats were... unpromising, at best. Chaos didn't seem to care; Kai got mad, and Gracie got mad, and then we decided that was about enough of that.

Her default response to unfamiliar stimuli is to hiss. This isn't an "i'm mad" hiss, it's got a lot more of a casual feel to it. (Her "i'm mad" hiss is usually accompanied by actually showing teeth and rearing back.) She's also willing to maow inquisitively, or insistently if she's decided that it's time to be petted and you aren't cooperating. She seems to really like being brushed, which is good, because according to Mom if she's not brushed every other day or so she starts yuking up hairballs.

I don't really know what to do with her other than leave her alone, and hang out in the bedroom sometimes so she can have some company.