"...and the STRING is MOVING!!!"

This morning, as I was retying my moccasin, the leather shoestring snapped. The cat was right there when it happened and, in a moment of inspiration, I tossed the short end to him. He went nuts. Five minutes later he was still playing with it. That's the most concentrated attention we've ever seen him give anything short of (a) me and (b) the squirrel he saw running around in the yard one day. When he'd finally left it for a moment, I went up and rolled the leather "worm" on the carpet once or twice with my pointer finger, causing the free ends to flop about. In his eagerness to attack it again, he scratched me.

The day after we brought him home, bunj and e. came over with a scratching post and some crinkly balls. He paid minimal attention to the former and none to the latter, nor to the "birdie" (the shuttlecock on a string) I bought at the shelter. In fact, he seemed uninterested in most of the things that tickle cats' fancies. The loose end of the toilet paper roll in the downstairs bathroom flaps in the breeze from the air vent; I thought it would be irresistible, but he hardly seems to notice it's there. I eventually got him to play with the balls by waiting for his wild moods late at night, but he looses interest in them the moment they go still; it's more like playing fetch with a dog than watching a cat play with a defenceless creature. I suggested to monshu that what was needed was a self-powered toy, like a wind-up mouse, but maybe we've discovered a low-tech solution after all.

I IZ REDDY FUR CLOZE UP!!!

Apparently, my better half has nothing better to do all day than pose our state-of-the-art robot feline in various spots around the house and photograph him. If you're curious to see the results, he has (at my urging) posted links in his journal so that this space may be reserved for ruminations of a more erudite and grave nature.

Fresh start

I work underground, like a gnome. Fortunately, this is one of the rare buildings in Cook County which is built into the slope of a (man-made--it's all lakefill out here) hill, so if I lean far into the room, I get a glimpse of the great outdoors, but the one external wall in my workspace proper is directly under a ramp and completely banked with earth. A couple years back, seepage began causing the plaster to "bloom" and crumble. I eventually complained to our task-adverse raconteur of a building engineer and was predictably told that nothing could really be done.

Fast forward to two weeks ago. A pair of physical plant guys show up out of the blue, scrutinise the wall, and tell me that they'll be back to patch it. There is a set of shelving against this wall upon which we keep a lot of materials for processing, but that's not the half of it; it also adjoins both my desk and that of my student employee, which--me being the clutterrat I am--were covered in books, papers, and sundry detritus.

You wouldn't recognise them now. There's enough space elsewhere in the department that I could've simply shifted everything, but I saw this as a rare opportunity to regain the upper hand. From the moment I learned what was to come, I began clearing away whatever I could pass on. (It's amazing how a year or two in stasis minimises almost any problem. Why did I set this aside when it's more than good enough for government work?) Of course, ten days isn't enough time to dispense with the accumulation of years, so come 4 p.m. last night I regretfully had to offload everything onto book trucks and wheel it out of the way.

When I came in this morning, the crumbly spots were replaced with patches of white plaster several times their size. All day, people have been asking me if the workmen will return to paint over them and I've been responding that I haven't the faintest idea. I'm more concerned about the historic opportunity to reconfigure the space. My desk has been in the same spot for so long that when I went hunting behind it for an outlet, I turned up a personnel document from 1993. This could be the chance I've been looking for to put another ten feet or so between me and the Evil One next door!

So far, the only casualty of all the disruption has been my plans for tonight. monshu and I were originally supposed to attend a gallery opening, but as I dragged myself from bed this morning, I reluctantly acknowledged that a few canapé weren't enough to make itchy clothes and a trip downtown more enticing than dinner at home in my pyjamas and slippers. monshu even tried to tip the scales with Café Ibérico but the thought of having to scream over all those drunken yuppies filled me with inertia.

Carla

monshu may not have gotten much done today, but the sweetheart did bring me passionfruit juice because he remembered it being an ingredient in one of the cocktails I was wanting to try. Which one he couldn't recall, but that hardly matters. It was the Carla, which intrigued me as the first mixed drink I've come across that calls specifically for jenever, which I happen to be fan of. Proportions? 'Tuurlijk!

• 1½ measures jenever (jonge)
• 2 measures orange juice
• 1 measure passionfruit juice
• 2 measures lemon-lime soda [ginger ale was what I had on hand]

Met één woord? Tegenvallende. I mean, it's a perfectly nice drink, there's simply nothing of the distinctiveness of jenever in it. Make it with any other gin--possibly even vodka--and you'd get much the same result. Must try it again upping the liquor quotient (which'll cost me, but it's all in a spirit of impartial inquiry, hoor?).

Update: Tried it with twice the jenever and tasted only that, so I dialed everything else up by half and got a better balance. (For those of you weak on your math: That ends up being the recipe as written except with the 2 measures jenever.) Still can't imagine going through the trouble of finding real passionfruit juice just to make it.