Pointless photography, yet again.

I should just call the blog Photo Dump at this point, since I haven't felt much like spouting off lately. Ah well.

I got the real, actual camera out yesterday for a bit, as opposed to being lazy and just using the cell phone. Let me tell you, phone cameras are getting pretty good, but they're never going to beat a dSLR if you really want to compose things. I'm not saying that I worked especially hard at composition yesterday -- I was pretty much just taking snaps -- but playing with the bokeh on a prime lens is somehow just plain satisfying. Let's see what we've got, then:

Buds on the apple tree that produces big apples.

Buds on the apple tree that produces small apples.

Double-flowering Plum. It doesn't actually glow; that's just from the sun's angle.

Saskatoon flowers.

These next few are from the phone, because cats. And Forsythia.

The Forsythia wasn't clear on the camera (bad angle), so here's the phone version.

I used this for a catsandbirds.ca post on work's FB. Nice of the Turkey Brothers to pose.

And finally... the usual. One in a basket, one figuring out chairs.

That's it for today. I'll see if I can come up with a blather sometime in the future so that this place can be a bit more bloggy again.

And for those interested, http://catsandbirds.ca/

Pointless photos; now including philosophical cats

Didn't bring my camera with me to Dad's this time, so it's all phone pics all the time. Let's see what's up:

What's literally up are the tulips and daffodils. It's a bit of a cheat, though. This corner gets warmed by the dryer vent, so it gets a head start on spring. 

March 30th was Pencil Day, in honour of the first end-of-pencil eraser. Here are some (some, yes) of my art pencils which, ironically, never have erasers on them.

Two cats outdoors. One enjoys it; one doesn't. Guess which is which?

Cat philosophy. The yin yang of sleeping in a too-small basket together.

Pointless cat photo of yesterday:

I'm Bob, and I'm a doofus.

And just because yesterday was World Cat Day, but only in Europe:

Pointless photos of the weekend:

There aren't too many today, because it was boring and foggy outside yesterday and the cats were being sedentary when I had the camera out. Ah well, here they are in their completely unedited glory:

Thanks for folding the laundry, Dee.

Somewhere down in the fog is my home town.

Circle of Bob.

T'was the day after Christmas...

Otherwise known as Boxing Day here in Canada (and the UK, and probably other Commonwealth Countries as well. I'm too lazy to check, to be honest).

To the left, you'll see my annual slow shutter speed photo of the Christmas tree, because it's more fun that way. Plus, you can tell by the dotted lines up top and the solid lines below that Dad has one string of LED lights and one string of old-fashioned incandescents, and that appeals to the nerd in me.

And that implies that there are parts of me that aren't nerd, I suppose. I'm not entirely sure that it's true, but we'll roll with it.

And how was Christmas? Not too bad, actually. Dad didn't think that the gifts I gave him were too stupid (gifts, plural, only because he got a few little things this year instead of one big thing), I made out nicely myself, I was (as usual) spoiled by my brother and sister-in-law and will have a shopping trip to blog about when I get the chance, and the turkey was pretty good.

We didn't go out to view the Christmas lights this time, as we often do, because it was bloody cold out there. Ah well, I was inside so that's all right. I managed to make it into town just before a heavy snowfall and will leave (probably tomorrow) as it's warming up, so my timing was pretty good for a change.

And as for Boxing Day sales? Just online ones this year for me. I don't exactly have to budget to find more things than I need, anyway.

I'll leave you with a few shots of... well, any cat owner can guess who enjoys Christmas the most, I guess.

Hope you had a merry/happy whatever.

Actual new pointless photos

The problem with Dad having a cat named Bob (the tabby that you sometimes see on the blog) is that I sometimes think that Tom here should have been named Jesus. Then the other cat could be Jesus' Brother Bob...

Everybody needs a bit more Arrogant Worms in their lives, I figure.

One thing to note about the picture, by the way. It's hard to see here, but this cat is on a leash and wearing a harness. We used to let our cats roam free during the day when I was a kid, but I'm very much against it now. Free range cats kill millions (no, I'm not exaggerating) of birds, and often have much shorter lives themselves because of fights, illness, and injuries. Check out Cats and Birds for some good reasons to either keep your cat indoors or only let it out tethered and supervised.

On another note, Tom's a handsome dude, isn't he?

I'm going to do a couple of quick scheduled posts after this of a couple of things in the yard (once again, I didn't keep too many of the photos that I took yesterday. Thank Whomever for digital when it comes to bad photography), but here's one to start off with.

I'm honestly not entirely sure what this is and I'm too lazy to find out, but I thought that the speckled pattern was kind of cool. On the photography side, I love the bokeh I get from this lens. Cameraphones just can't do that.

Yet.

I'm sure that they will at some point.

Anyway, scheduled posts and then lunch. Type at you later.

Congratulations?

Just a quick post (as usual) in "celebration" of the Turkey Brothers officially making it to Cat Shaming on Instagram.

Yep, Tom sitting on Bob because there wasn't enough room in the laundry basket was post-worthy.

And no wonder...

Pointless cat photo of last month or whenever

Looking out on September? Not at the time I took the picture, no, but I guess you can look at it that way.

Tom, who isn't allowed out unless he's on harness, has apparently decided that he needs to be out ALL THE TIME. Winter will cure that for a while, but I don't think that any of us are in a hurry for that kind of cure.



Anyway, there's a quick post. Bet you thought that I'd forgotten how to do it, right?

Pointless photos of the day:

 The cat's a bit out of focus because the cat was hunting bees in the Veronica. Smart, Tom.

Incidentally, notice the harness? Cats SHOULD NOT roam free. It's harmful to wildlife, and it shortens the life of the cat pretty drastically. Build a cat run, screen in a porch, or train them to harness like Tom is. Just don't leave them unsupervised. They tend to get into trouble.

Dad's road is almost a road again. It was torn up and rerouted because the town built a new bridge. The old green one you see in the distance will be demolished.

The road's not open yet (they just moved the barricades for the construction equipment), but shortly after I took this picture they started painting in the crosswalks and stop lines.

Not long now, then.



And that's it for the scheduled posts. See you... next time I have time, I suppose.

Pointless cat photo of the day:

Shooting people at a mall. Suicide bomber at a bistro. Shooting teenagers at a nightclub. The US's increasingly scary-to-the-world-in-general election.

Oil spill on the North Saskatchewan. Church burning at Saint Isidore. Rail station canopy collapse in Chicago. California wildfires.

Have I missed anything? I'm sure I have.



The news sucks.

Let's look at a cat watching bugs on a screen door. Complete with instagram filter, even.





Yep. Much better.

Yet again, rocks

Yes, my car veered towards the rock shop again on my way to Dad's place yesterday. It was on purpose this time: I wanted something to go a little better with my uncle's diamond stud earrings. I've been using them in my second lobe holes a lot, but to be honest, some of the earrings they get paired with are a little odd some days. Nothing wrong with that, of course -- it's practically my earring MO -- but I figured that it might be nice to have something that harmonised a bit more with them for those occasions that I don't want to look so much like a weirdo interpreter.

So to speak.

It wasn't like I was going to get anything expensive, naturally. Just something a little more faceted. So as you see above, there are green onyx studs (yeah, I usually avoid dyed rocks. They were nice, though), a rose quartz pendant (yeah, it's not earrings. Whatever. It'll go with some earrings I already have), and citrine and pearl drops.

Gah. Citrine. It's basically just yellow quartz, for those of you who are unfamiliar, and I've said before that I wouldn't ever have any since the jewellery industry switched the "modern" November birthstone from topaz, which I grew up with, to citrine. A matter of (misplaced, yes) principles, I suppose, but when you grow up with one thing and then it's arbitrarily changed to another thing by an industry that wants a cheaper alternative, isn't it a cheat?

Besides, I already had my grandmother's topazes...

Aaanyway. Here's a completely unattractive shot of the side of my head that I was too lazy to crop, in case anyone wanted to see what these things look like on. I think that either of them should go okay with the diamonds when I'm in the mood, really.



And just to get that last photo out of your brain a bit, let's end with today's pointless cat pictures:

Bob under the piano bench

Tom the Hamper Boy

That should do me for now, I think. Stay tuned for some actual camera photos tomorrow, since there are finally growing and flowering things to look at in the yard. And yes, that means that you get to look at them too.

Pointless Bad Cat photo of the day:

I love how he just poses before I yell at him for being on the table.

Lunch time, but I'll say quickly that yesterday was two more small things in the whole big recovery thing. No more packing in my former stoma site (yay), and I slept in the bed last night rather than the recliner. Comfortable? Not especially, but I did sleep, at least.



Baby steps, I guess.

Later, all.

Pointless cat photos of the day:

No blather today. Maybe tomorrow. For now, though, here's the Turkey Brothers again because I'm sure that you missed them:

Bob through the window when I was outside taking plant pictures.

This is the usual bird watching face.

Kind of a cheesy Cosmo pose, Tom?

Pointless cat photo of the day:

Bob's weird about laser pointers. He isn't fooled: he knows what makes the dot, knows what drawer the pointer is in (and you'd better be planning to play red dot for at least a bit if you go into the drawer for something else, because he'll come running), and knows that he'll never catch the dot.

He doesn't care. It's still his favourite toy.

This was from this morning. I've been sleeping in the recliner because it's still a little tough to sleep flat, and I've been (foolishly, I guess) putting my glasses in the same drawer as the laser pointer. I get my glasses out in the morning; the cat comes running because he's decided that it's red dot time.

----------

Wound update time now, I suppose. The main incision has healed up to the point that the staples are starting to irritate the skin, and I'm hoping that they don't wait until the surgeon's date of Tuesday before they remove them and go steri-strip instead. As for the stoma site, which was left partly open so that the remaining cavity could drain as it closed up, it's draining so much less that I have hopes of IT being steri-stripped too, soon. It'd be nice to not have to worry about dressings. Thank goodness for Home Care, though. It means that I don't have to make my way to a clinic or office every morning for the daily packing change.





That's it for now, I suppose. I'm hoping to get out with the camera (real camera, not phone) this afternoon for a while, so you may not be getting a daily cat-in-living-room photo EVERY time.

Maybe.

Pointless cat photo of the day:

This is what it looks like within 0.5 seconds of opening the window blinds first thing in the morning.

I used to be able to use that table for things.



Other than cat bums, I mean.

I seriously never get to use my afghan

Nothing much new on the health front to add today; moving is a little easier, the draining former stoma site is a little less drainy, etc., etc.

I'm eating easier today, though. For the first few days after the better part of a week on a fluid diet your stomach takes approximately a bite and a half or food before it feels full. Good for weight loss, I suppose, but not so good for nutrition. Things are coming along now, so I can't complain much..

Just for fun, let's end with a shot of the same afghan that I took while I was recovering from the first operation in late November of 2014. Would you say that the boys grew a little?



Yep.

Another pointless cat photo :

Call  it Noble Silhouette or something, I suppose.

That's it for today; I'm waiting on an important call.

Something's changed, I think

 When I was at Dad's recovering from surgery in December of 2014, I brought out an afghan that my grandmother made in case I needed something to cuddle up with. I didn't get to use it, because:

Notice the lack of cushions on the chair? The cats were climbing them, so Dad stowed them for a while to give them some chance of surviving.

On Saturday I brought the afghan out again, and didn't get to use it again because the cats took it over almost immediately. It looks a little different now, though:

I think the cat grew.

That's my guess, anyway.





What a difference a year and a bit makes, right?

Pointless cat photo of the day:

Consider this picture of Tom getting his favourite toy (that yellow and brown striped thing) tangled in various things in the basement equal time for Bob's feature yesterday.

Actual post later today. Or maybe tomorrow. Or sometime. We'll see.

Pointless cat photo of the day:

Bob in full Bob pose. Told you it was normal.

For Bob.



That's it for today, I'm afraid. It's been a fairly exhausting week, what with many (MANY) summer staff interviews, getting my final surgical appointments in order, and... Brussels (edited to add Baghdad, sadly), which really shouldn't be the last thing on this list. Still, I guess it's human nature that self will out, even as humanity proves once again that it too often lacks its namesake.

More blathery-type typing in the next day or so, maybe, depending on what my mood does. In the meantime, just enjoy the Bobness.