A cat a mouse and a television........

I just realized I have a big problem with the new television. I actually have the movie "The Mask" bookmarked with a reminder. It's starting in ten minutes. I saw bits and pieces of it when first released. I am not a Jim Carey fan but I remember the movie is very colorful. Last night Wanda and I watched "Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship" for the gazillionith time. Watching this TV is seeing things for the first time, but "The Mask?"

I know, no one is twisting my arm. Nobody is aiming a sock filled with nickles at my head. I am not duct taped to the chair. I don't have a "movie report" to write and I certainly know how to turn the set off. 

I just have enough time to make a samich before it starts, I'll see you all later.

I just couldn't do it. The movie started, it was made in 1994 by the way, I lasted all of ten minutes. Some things are better left undone, or in this case, unwatched.

I am having a very hard time thinking about 1994 being SEVENTEEN years ago. How is that possible? It sure seems like the nineteen nineties were a few days ago, not a decade.

Shortly after we set up the new TV I wrote a little about the viewing possibilities. Now that we have had it for three weeks I am more familiar with things. I hope you don't mind if I write a little about programming.

Comcast is our provider, we are very happy with the service and the product. In an earlier blog I wrote the number of channels offered was approximately 475. Wanda and I set up a favorites list that has 118 channels. Of those we probably watch only a dozen or so. We limit our watching to movies, sports, and four or five hour long programs. NCIS, The Closer,White Collar and a few more. I have discovered the Hi-Def programming looks so good I rarely watch Low-Def anything.

We also have On Demand, the recorded things on our DVR, Netflix, Cimema Now, Vudu and all the programming on the computers. I bet at any given time we have over five thousand choices of things to watch. I wonder why it's so difficult to find something that we will enjoy?

The other night we started on the channel merry go round before eight o'clock. By the time we went through half the choices it was nine thirty. We never found anything to watch. If we still had a VCR hooked up we could record ourselves changing channels for a couple of hours then play the tape. The end result would be the same with no need to actually hold the remote and push buttons.

I have been trying to call my Aunt Lee every evening since I returned from Michigan. She is 95 and still going strong. The only thing she has stopped doing over the last few years is driving. She sold her business five years ago and has an ex employee who lives a few blocks from her. She gave him her car. For it's use he takes her on errands once or twice a week. She owned a pet shop for years and until recently always had a cat or dog. One of the subjects last night was animals. She misses the cat but not the maintence like cat box cleaning.

The other night Wanda came in from the garage and said, "I think we may have a problem." I hate that. When I hear that it usually means, time and money. This problem meant neither. This problem was a very plump, very furry, very dead mouse. This poor dead, stupid mouse was laying in the middle of our garage. To be fair, it's not as if I knew the mouse well enough to comment on it's intelligence. I happen to think any mouse that finds it's way into a house with cats, is, stupid. Now I understand why Dakota, our calico cat, kept going in and out of the cat door to the garage that night.

This was our second rodent in over twenty years here. There was no evidence of it's residing in the garage. I doubt we will have an entire family moving in after this ones demise. So, Aunt Lee and I were talking about the mouse and our cats.

The photo in the blog yesterday was Steve. At one time Steve had a different name and lived across the street. He was a non neutered soon to be tom cat. We talked to "his people" who had no interest in careing for him. He started hanging around our backyard, one day with a rather large wound on his neck. Wanda tried to treat him and in doing so they bonded. Later, we told "his people" we would take him. So, he was neutered, cleaned up and the rest is history. He has been a loving cat and good companion for over a year now. We figure him at four years old. Since the day he came in here he has shown no interest in going outside, ever.

Jill, the black cat above is also from across the street. The young man over there married, Jill came with the new wife. The marriage didn't take and we ended up with the cat. It's a damn good thing they didn't have kids.

Jill is a very strange animal, she loves toilet paper. She will sit in the bathroom and yowl if she can't get at it. She loves pulling the paper off the roll, spooling it on the floor. And, she loves eating it. Wanda said she is probably the only cat in the world who can poop and wipe at the same time.

The cat kept showing up in our backyard when the new wife moved in over there. Every time I saw her her I would pick her up, walk her back and set her on their porch. More often than not Jill would get back here before me. Eventually the wife asked us if we would "take care of Jill" until she relocated and got settled. That was a couple of years ago. I'm pretty sure we are going to be buying extra toilet paper for a few years. Lynn (the wife) told us she had the cat for eleven years.

This is Dakota. She is a little crazed and walks with a swagger just like John Wayne. Dakota was in terrible shape when we found her in the backyard. I doubt she would have seen another day had we not taken her right to the vet. She's been with us for eleven years now. Dakota doesn't eat toilet paper or cause us any grief at all, she's a good kitty.

Last but not least is Casper. We can't remember exactly when or under what circumstances she came to live here. Our best guess is 1994, which ironically, was the same year "The Mask" was released. I doubt her arrival and the movie have anything in common. Casper wouldn't come within five feet of us the first ten years she was here. All we did was look in her direction to spook her out of the room. Now I can't sit down for ten minutes with out her jumping in my lap. The only time she isn't sitting on me is when she eats, uses the cat box, or is sitting on Wanda. She has become a real sweetheart of a cat.

Now, I bet you understand why I said the mouse was stupid.