INVINCIBLE

This bloody road remains a mystery
This sudden darkness fills the air
What are we waiting for
Won’t anybody help us
What are we waiting for

We can’t afford to be innocent
Stand up and face the enemy
It’s a do-or-die situation
We will be invincible
And with the power of conviction
There is no sacrifice
It’s a do-or-die situation
We will be invincible

(S. Climie/H. Knight; recorded by Pat Benatar)

This song took on a whole new meaning for me after 9/11. In honor of Patriot Day, I’d like to dedicate it to those who protect us both at home and abroad.

We have managed to control our curiosity fairly well over the past week or so, just venturing a cracked-door peek every other day. But tonight, we opened the shed door all the way to see how things were going. The sound caused five little beaks to open up in anticipation of dinner, with a chorus of tiny cheeps. Mama bird was apparently at the grocery store. I tried to get some pictures, but my camera was just not cooperating for some reason—even the best picture I took turned out fuzzier than the little birds themselves. You can still make out some beaks, though. I’ll post it if I can force my stubborn computer to download the pix.

I am continually amazed by Lucy. Maybe it’s just because she’s my first dog, but I dunno…

Over the weekend I was cleaning up the bedroom. Lucy found a small box, picked it up in her mouth and walked out of the room with it. Since that was exactly the sort of thing I was trying to collect and throw away, I griped, “Aww, Lucy, bring that back here.”

She put the box down and came back to where I was.

Intrigued, I went for broke. “No, go get that box and bring it back here.”

She DID.

Massive hugs and praise ensued.

I know border collies are notorious for this kind of thing, but it’s amazing to see it in action.

Well, I’m awake now. So is China.

I was out working in the yard, and I went into the tool shed to get a particular implement of destruction. The shed has shelves with attachments on the front that you can hang tools from.

On the shelf behind my desired thingy was a wad of dried-up yard stuff, which looked like it might have been removed from under a lawnmower or something. But on a shelf?? I gave it the fishy eye, decided it was unlikely to house wasps, and gingerly reached for my tool. Whereupon, out from the wad of debris jetted a bird, so fast I couldn’t even tell what color it was. It exited through a space at the back of the shed where one of the doors is loose (apparently the way it had been getting in there all along).

So now I’m concerned that, between my inadvertently getting too close to the nest, and the wake-the-dead squawk I made when the bird zoomed out, I might have scared a mama bird away from her eggs. Is it still hatching season?

Sure would be cool to set up a webcam for Bird Watch ‘06.

Tonight, in my ongoing redo-the-home-office project, I put together a bookshelf.

I did several like this some months ago, and Mickie was so intent on being right in the middle of everything that I literally had to assemble it around her, thus giving new meaning to the term “kit furniture”.

Mickie’s about 18 months old now. She may have just been trying to be a cool teenager, but as I was noisily constructing away tonight, she gave me a Look from the adjacent chair, displeased that I had disturbed her nap. If she had eyebrows she would have raised one.

But a few minutes later, she did walk all over the back of my masterpiece, and once it was upright, she jumped up briefly to check out one of the shelves. Since she didn’t leave an “Inspector 12” sticker anywhere, I’m going to convince myself that this was a return to kitten mode. Eeeeyup.

Sneakers has a story to tell.

But unfortunately, there are secrets the 11-year-old feline is going to keep to himself.

Like why he disappeared from his yard in Seattle and showed up in a Sacramento animal shelter—10 years later.

By all accounts, Sneakers happily spent his kitten year with a Seattle family.

Then, after he turned a year old, he disappeared from his yard, leaving only his collar behind.

His 5-year-old mistress, Hilary Keyes, was brokenhearted.

She and her mother combed the neighborhood, posted his picture and pined for his return.

“I was devastated when he went missing,” said Keyes, now 14.

» Bee: Sneakers the cat—missing 10 years—is going home

Ten years later, he’s dropped off at the animal shelter, where they check him for a microchip—and that’s how they connect him with the Keyes family.

It’s good that there was a chip. Otherwise Sneakers, no longer a kitten, might have ended up an ex-cat.

Spay or neuter—and chip—your pets.

In the last few days Mickie has been acting strangely.

Well, more strangely than usual. She will go on a catfit-like spree, her tail lashing wildly (she often chases it because it’s acting like a wild animal) and the fur on her back twitching and writhing as though she’s being tickled by invisible fingernails.

One day I picked her up during one of these fits and started running my fingernails along her back in the area that was twitchy, and she settled right down and let me do this for as long as I wanted to. In the course of this, I dislodged mass quantities of shedding fur from under her guardcoat.

Twice more that same day as she was in the middle of a crazytail fit she jumped up onto my lap and looked at me, as though asking me to do some more of that soothing thing I did before. Since then, Chris has gone at the area with a soft brush designed to dislodge loose fur, and it’s done wonders for her. Apparently Mickie’s undercoat is very coarse and has trouble making its way out from under the outer guard-hair coat. Instead it stays trapped, the loose ends of the individual hairs tickling her skin.

She’s much calmer now, but she can still be incited into another fit if, for example, I sneak up on her and tickle here right there with, say, the corner of a catalog.

Not that I would do such a thing. Heh.

Another eight-lifer from the news (last item):

A cat stuck in a wall at a house under construction initiated his rescue when he caught the attention of a prospective buyer by meowing and waving his paw out a small hole.

The cat had gotten stuck behind the wall but found a gap between a gas pipe and the wall board where he could stick out his paw. He was spotted Saturday by someone touring the house.

Collierville Animal Services supervisor Nina Wingfield said she heard a “hoarse meow” after she arrived at the house.

“When he knew we were there, it was a very hoarse, frantic meow,” she said.

Wingfield freed the feline by cutting away the wall board with a knife.

“He had his paw out touching — not clawing — the whole time, like he was saying ‘Come on! Come on,’” Wingfield said.

She thinks the cat, who had been stuck without food long enough for his ribs to be showing, is a lost pet. The owners have until Friday to come forward and claim him before he will be offered for adoption to someone else.

In the meantime, the animal shelter is calling him by a new name: Wally.

» Out There @ FoxNews: All in All He’s Just Another Kitty in the Wall

Didja ever notice that the people at those overseas “customer service” centers are trained to be both perfectly polite and perfectly unhelpful? (channeling Andy Rooney)

I gave Circuit City another chance, and they blew it again (after extracting more unearned money from me).

Previously on “Circuit City Sucks”: I made an online payment on the 14th, in plenty of time to be credited by the due date, and found they’re charging an “expedited payment fee” for payments which will be on time, but “only” several days before the due date. See rant from March 15th.

Somehow, that online payment didn’t go through, and of course I didn’t find out about it until I balanced the checkbook more than a week later. I immediately made another online payment, previous amount plus late fee, but then called them to find out what happened to the other one. I know I made the payment, because I can see the check number entry when my browser brings up an auto-complete box.

Naturally, they denied all knowledge of this earlier payment. I was reeeeeally nice anyway, and asked if they could see from their records that I’d been a good customer and always paid on time; they said yes. I asked if they would forgive one late fee, given the circumstances, but the guy (without even faking an apologetic tone) said they go strictly by the book. Against my better judgment, I even asked if they would forgive the fee if I opened the account back up: Nope. Still being reeeeally nice, I said that I regretted that they did not value me as a customer, and that this whole episode was leaving me with a very bad feeling about the whole company. You can guess his response: “Is there anything else I can help you with?”

Well, at least I have succeeded in warning over 350 people to date about the “expedited payment fee”, according to the views counter on my post at clarkhoward.com. And my spleen is a little bit vented. But the frustrating thing is, I am quite sure Circuit City does not give a crap about customer complaints, because there are tons of them out there! I can only hope that eventually, enough people will vote with their feet to make a dent in their thus far impenetrable consciousness. Especially since Best Buy has been moving toward more customer-friendly (what a concept) credit card policies.

Hey you dunderhead cat,

These past 9 months or so, we have been working so hard at trying to get your blood sugar regulated and your neuropathy healed up. And now you’re doing great.

So, what did I find you doing last night?

Eating a shoelace.

What is that, some kind of Siamese thing? I knew a guy once whose beloved sealpoint ate an entire ball of twine, and the cat was lucky to survive the experience. Surgery, the whole bit. Not fun.

I also knew a Siamese who would cheerfully devour any soft plastic that came his way, such as drycleaner bags.

Kevin told me he found you eating string once before. He said he just stepped on the end of the string and picked you up… and you didn’t like that very much. But apparently the lesson wore off.

I’m very grateful I caught you when there was still shoestring yet to be eaten, so we didn’t have to make an emergency vet visit. You don’t even like the routine ones.

No more bonehead moves, OK, Tazzber?

Luv ya, sweet boy.