Can’t sleep. Cat will eat me.

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Today, Ebenezer is in the doghouse…err… cathouse…err… that's something different.

So yesterday was a great day, full of fun and adventure. It started with a quiet morning with Kim, then some pleasant alone time as she did some seamstress work for her business. Later in the day, we went to Bill's for swimming in his pool and hot tub. Oh, man, had it been a long time. I can't remember the last time I went swimming. The evening rounded out with the Pirate's Ball.

The Pirate's Ball was quite an adventure. It was at Sabala's and had a good number of people. I was one of maybe 5 or 10 that was not dressed in full pirate garb. They all had to be part of SCA or Ren Faire or something. There was an opening guy, singing sea chanties with a squeeze box…which went on entirely too long. When he sings a line about “going down to gay porn,” you have to realize that your brain just misheard that and he's talking about Cape Horn. If he sings about a toilet chest…well, you misheard something, but we couldn't figure it out.

Next up was the bellydancing of Diana. She was great and pulled a big crowd up to the front. I really wish I could say more because she really did some awesome stuff, but I can't say I know bellydancing enough to give a play-by-play of her routine.

Finally, Cap'n Bogg and Salty (http://eatalime.com) came on. They are kind of what I would expect if They Might be Giants and Weird Al got together and became pirates. They did a couple of classic pirate songs, but mostly it was “covers” of songs from all eras, just with the lyrics changed to be pirate themed. Ordinarily, they play in local libraries for kids, but they also play 21-and-older venue, like last night. There was a doo-wap song, a tango (the pegleg tango,) something that sounded like it was from Pink Floyd's The Wall (complete with megaphone,) some surf guitar, and all sorts of stuff. They even inexplicably played Nellie The Elephant. Cap'n Bogg said that you haven't seen anything until you see a hundred little kids dancing to that punk song, but I am not so sure. Fifty pirates pogoing to punk is also quite the sight.

At any rate, we got home really late and had to get up really early. Ebenezer was unusually playful and even a little vicious, shredding part of my hand. We cleaned up and climbed into bed. Ebenezer decided he really wanted to play and roll and attack. After about a half-hour of trying to ignore this, I climbed out of bed, went downstairs, and retrieved his jingle-balls (his absolute favorite toys–like whiffle balls with bells inside) from under the oven, where they get caught. I threw a couple in the front room and a couple in the tub and he happily played in the tub. Usually at bedtime, he plays with the balls for a little downstairs and that's that. This time, about a half-hour later, he REALLY wanted to play fetch. Yes, he is the only cat I am aware of that actively wants to play fetch. He grabbed one of the balls, carried it upstairs, and dropped it on the bed. He then nudged it into Kim's hand. The whole thing would have been really cute if we were not so tired. She didn't want to play, obviously, so he nudged it under her leg, then tried to pull it out (complete with claws). She took the ball, climbed out of bed, and dropped it over the railing of the stairs. He, of course, took this as part of the game, fetched it, and brought it back onto the bed. At this point, we just took it and threw it under a pillow. He would, of course, try to grab it from under there, but we would push him off of bed. This went on for a number of times until he got tired of being pushed off and would go away. About an hour later–just enough time to get to sleep–he would return with another jingle ball on the bed, ready to play fetch. This would get put under a pillow and we would have another battle. This went on throughout the night with all four jingle balls, a catnip mouse, and a wool mouse or two. Needless to say, we woke up this morning very tired and very upset at the cat. In retrospect, I should have gone downstairs and grabbed the water spray bottle, but I was too tired to think about anything other than continually hiding toys under the pillow.

To add insult to injury, he finally went to sleep at about the time the alarm went off. I can hear him, right now, playing soccer with a jingle ball upstairs.

Posted in: Dear Diary

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