Every artist has those days; yesterday was such a day for Lily. She appeared 
as usual at dinnertime, meowing softly (not usual for her); soon, she was howling in obvious pain. Stella scooped her up and took her straight to the vet’s office, which was fortunately still open. Soon, Lily was herself again, having had some assistance with self-expression (cat owners will know what I mean).
But now she needs to be medicated twice a day, and Stella is heading out of town this afternoon to visit Texas A&M for the weekend with her brother, who is himself an Aggie (I’m guessing class of 1973 or so). I protested that there was no way Lily would allow me to feed her medicine; in recent months, Lily doesn’t really want me to get close to her at all. Stella was not happy with my reluctance. But this morning, she attempted to give Lily her pill… and even Stella couldn’t manage the task; Lily was too quick for her! Stella is now at work; Lily is still unmedicated (indeed, she has hidden somewhere in the house), and the scheduled trip is still scheduled… given Stella’s frame of mind, I’d best not say anything at all to her!
UPDATE: Friday evening, all’s well. See comments.
Remember Usyaka, the Oriental cat? (See link in blogroll.) Well, recently, Usyaka appeared with “laser eyes” … IN A VIDEO! How did Alexandra do that? From what she wrote, I gather that she forced the flash ON on her iPhone, then took the video in a darkened room. The result looks really cool!
UPDATE: also please see this one, in which Usyaka, without any assistance, opens a drawer, plays with the toys inside, and finally, departing, closes the drawer (perhaps not intentionally). That is one very bright cat! (I almost wrote “clever cat,” but Clever Cat is a brand of top-entry enclosed litter box. Yes, we have one, and our cats mostly use it.)
I’ve never happened to glance up exactly as Lily ascended to this location, so I don’t know exactly how she gets that high… but she certainly does. The record cabinet is 4 LPs tall; the added stack of phono disk sets of the operas of Claudio Monteverdi seems not to provide any obstacle at all to Lily.
As you may be able to see, she is considerably slimmer than in her last photo session… and that’s a good thing!
Not here. You’ve probably noticed the scarcity of Friday cat pics of late. The ladies have gone on a general strike, insisting that this foolish diet Stella imposed on them be ended forthwith… or else I’ll get no more kitty pictures.
On the other hand, as I’ve tried to point out to them, there’s at least one cat in the world who seems always willing to pose, and Alexandra of the blog Usyaka uses that willingness to good advantage. The cat is of some Asian variety. Good photos, charming cat… what more could you ask? I’m adding the site to the blogroll at left.
According to the vet, Lily now weighs fifteen pounds:
The vet says she needs to lose six of those pounds. It isn’t going to be easy…
The magnificent Lily is not happy about being photographed, but is too comfortable to leave the mats…
On arrival back from Kemah last Friday, Stella spends a little quality time with Lily.
Hey humans, this is Lily. Steve thinks I look like this because that’s the best image of me he can manage to put up, but I am much more beautiful than that. But forget all that for the moment. I can’t read what he reads and writes on the Damn Box, but I can see enough pics to understand what’s going on in the human world. Some humans seem obsessed with “politics,” which is apparently much more complicated in the human world than it is for cats. It’s easy to tell who the alpha cat is, and you have a better chance at being the top cat (and getting all the good food, choice mates, etc.) if you are a Fat Cat like me. Stella tries to keep me slender, but I fool her every time by eating as much of Esther’s food as I can, in addition to my own. Humans have this thing called “government,” which is just more humans telling ordinary humans what to do and how much of the can of food they get. Stella and Steve live under a government of a type called “democracy,” which comes from words meaning “people rule,” which is the silliest thing I’ve ever heard of, because everyone knows people are ruled by cats. Still, this group of humans has an alpha tom, the Black Cat, who thinks he runs everything (of course, no tom ever runs anything), and around him are a bunch of Fat Cats who really run the world. I hope I can be one of the Fat Cats someday, and I take my turn and Esther’s as well (as often as I can get away with it) at the food bowl, in my hope to grow up to be a Fat Cat and a member of the Cat Food Commission so I can say who gets how much of what food, when. As Steve might say, hope springs eternal. Bye now!
Lily decides that if she positions herself just right, she can see the whole room without lifting a… well, a leg, a tail, even a head:
as usual at dinnertime, meowing softly (not usual for her); soon, she was howling in obvious pain. Stella scooped her up and took her straight to the vet’s office, which was fortunately still open. Soon, Lily was herself again, having had some assistance with self-expression (cat owners will know what I mean).
Steve Bates - Yellow Doggerel Democratic Views 
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