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Updated 03/02/09 |
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Includes Apollo's Pictures |
Serina Gets Her Say |
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Apollo's little sister has finally found her voice. He's not very happy about it. She, on the other hand, is delighted to get a word or two in edgewise. Or maybe that's "hedgewise", seeing as Apollo has his rants and raves at The Shrubbery. She's allowed the Editor (aka "Mama") to archive her 2006 entries, which are available as a .pdf file below. The movie had to go because of problems with the code in the data file. If the Editor can fix things, it will come back somehow, though it is to the best of our knowledge available for repeated viewing at Apollo's site. Read the Underbrush entries for 2006: 2006_Underbrush.pdf / 948KB March 2, 2009 You'd think I disappeared, wouldn't you? I can't even blame it on the Beast; this is all Mama's doing. I won't even be able to dictate for long because Mama says she's getting hungry. Like that should matter. Oh, well. Life is actually pretty good here in Pennsylvania. It's been very cold this winter with lots of ice and some snow. The floor in the kitchen gets messy when it's wet outside, and the melting snow is VERY, VERY COLD. Mama needs to learn to scrape her boots off OUTSIDE. But can I convince her of this? No. I am not a vicious beast with claws that could slice a loaf of bread in one swipe. And do you think the Beast notices? No. He's a man. Speaking of the Beast, my fans will all be delighted to know that I am now more than willing and able to pick a fight with him any time day or night. Apollo doesn't scare me any more, though I still let him think that he is the boss because it's just easier that way. Mama's secretary does the same thing to her. Way to go, Linda! We know who really has the power! Anyway, we've had our vacation from Mama for the winter, which went very well. We had plenty of food and water and Mama even washed our favorite fleece blanket for us to have for the cold nights. Not that the house was cold, of course, but without Mama to warm up the bed, the fleece was a welcome addition. Mostly, Apollo slept at one end and I slept at the other. Really. Not much snuggling. Well, okay, some. Between wrestling matches. Mama's giving me the evil eye now, so I'd better sign off. I want company, so please come see us this spring or summer or fall! PROUD TO BE
A GIRL IN SPIRIT IF NOT IN PLUMBING, Quick update, December 14, 2007 Humans are finally catching on to the superiority of the Feline Way: December 11, 2007 Don't get me started. I will say that Mama has done a nice job updating the look of the website, which she started oh, back sometime before EASTER... And do you think she could have taken the time to update MY page when she updated the homepage back when Bill was here? No, of course not. I can't say much now because Mama has to head out to Choir Practice, but I think this says it all and is sure to prompt a comment from the R-PITA known as the Orange Beast of Aaaarrrggghhhh! around here:
Thank you, Bill! A GIRL AND PROUD
OF IT, September 6, 2007 As usual, Apollo got first say. And I resent the implication that I give anything but the absolute truth when I report on events here. That's just rude. But what do you expect from a man with an over-inflated ego? Okay, I know, that's a redundancy. And there will be no jokes about my biological status, either. I think of myself as a girl and I have every right to be a girl, even if I have a boy's plumbing. Mama says, "Leave it to a UCC pastor to have a transgendered cat." Whatever that means... Summer wasn't as bad as he made it out to be. There were lots of things to look at out the windows and it really didn't get that hot here until late August. It was humid, though, which I think is just as bad. Mama says she could live in Texas if the humidity would go down 60%. Mama's tired and she has to edit my page the hard way because of a glitch in the code, so I'm going to stop now as long as she promises to take my dictation first next time. She's nodding and...oh, maybe I'll even get one that Apollo doesn't get to reply to! How exciting! Sorry to leave you hanging, but with that offer, I'm signing off now :-) A GIRL AND PROUD
OF IT, May 7, 2007 A month isn't as bad as six weeks, but it's still too long. I will take my revenge by talking for a while because Mama fixed the issue with the WYSIWYG thingy and can type right on the page instead of in the code. So, life here has been interesting the last month. It stayed really cold for almost 2 weeks after I last wrote. We didn't get much more snow, but it flurried some and it rained quite a bit. We've had nice weather since, but a couple of days have been really, really windy. Saturday night, in fact, it was so windy that Apollo and I thought a big animal was howling outside the house. Mama opened a window to prove to us that it was the wind and I nearly got blown off the windowsill! Aunt Joanie came to take care of us again for four days while Mama was away. Apollo says she left the country because he could smell international things on her bags, but all I could smell was DOG. It turns out that her friends Jeff and Sandy have a puppy named Spencer (a Bischonpoo, whatever that is) and she was with them in Montreal to see Michael and Rachel, the kids she nannied for way back before Apollo even lived with her. All I have to say is that no DOG will ever see the inside of this house as long as I live here. Okay, maybe if Mama ever gets married and the man she marries wants a DOG, we can have a DOG. Because you know she won't marry any man who doesn't dote on me. And, I suppose, Apollo, too. And as long as the DOG knows who has the pow-OW, APOLLO!-power, then we'd be okay. I digress. Mama took the rest of her vacation a few days later by staying home and having company. From the look Apollo is giving me, I guess I'd better let him tell you most of that, but before he humiliates me, I'll confess that I was a bad kitty while our company was here. One night while Mama and Bill were settling down for the night to watch movies, Bill caught me peeing - not just marking, but peeing - in the hallway. Mama put the afghan in the laundry and sprayed the carpet with the magic stuff. And they both laughed at me. They shouldn't laugh, though. I couldn't help it if I drank too much toilet water while they were out that day. I couldn't have gotten to the litter box without peeing my way down the stairs. Mama says I finally have to admit that I'm a little boy, at least on the outside. Since I don't act like a boy except with the marking (and I don't do nearly as much of that as other male cats she's known), Mama thinks I may have a hormone deficiency. We'll know more when she gets me to the vet (that sounds scary) later this month. And she also says it doesn't matter whether I'm a boy or not because I'll be an IT soon. She's not changing my name and she wants everyone to call me "she" or "her". I'm okay with that. I'd rather be a girl anyway. If I have to be a boy, then I have to compete with Apollo on even ground instead of from the high ground of girlhood. So I'm going to be a girl, even if my body isn't cooperating. Mama says that since she's a UCC minister, she doesn't have to worry about me being transgendered. I don't understand that, but she laughs about it. So anyway, we're moving on to other things. Mama is branching out into some new things so she can meet new people, which should be a lot of fun for us after a while. It also means she probably won't be home as much as we might like, but that's okay, too. As long as she's happy, we can be happy, too. For now, I'm still
cute and still little but not really a girl, April 7, 2007 Apparently, Mama gave up taking dictation for Lent. Also, by the fact that this has appeared before Lent technically ends, you can see that her endeavor didn't work. I can't actually take credit; Apollo badgered her so much that she finally gave in. However, she let me go first to get back at the loud mouthed crank otherwise known as the Orange Beast of AAAARRRGGGHHHH. Where to start? Mama's been busy at church and here at the house, though more at the church than at the house. She was away overnight once and for two nights just this week, both times on church business. She told us about the first night of the two she was away this week, but it was pretty funny when Aunt Joanie came and told us Mama wasn't coming home that second night. Apollo put his ears back and stalked off all mad. I just let Aunt Joanie fuss over me. What? I'm not as dumb as Apollo thinks I am. I know to milk human kindness for all its worth. And all it's worth, for that matter. We had the first warm weather of the year last week, so Mama opened up the house and let us enjoy the fresh air for almost 4 full days and nights. Unfortunately, it's gotten very cold again and we've had snow, though nothing that piled up anywhere. Mama's annoyed because she's going to have to wear hose and close-toed shoes on Easter Sunday, which is usually when she "ends the tyranny" of shoes and goes into sandals until Columbus Day, or later if she can swing it. Apollo is threatening to swat me if I tell the really big news, so I suppose the only thing left to say is that we're looking forward to Mama's schedule going back to what passes for normal. She hasn't been inside in the afternoons to work or nap lately, so we've had to take our afternoon naps alone. And, of course, HAPPY EASTER to our Christian friends and HAPPY PASSOVER (Mama apologizes for the lateness of that greeting) to our Jewish friends. Oh, and please accept my personal apologies for the shortness of this update; I'm going to cut Mama some slack because the page isn't viewing properly in the editing program, so she's actually having to type in the code rather than in the WYSIWYG (that's a funny word, but Mama filled it in for me and I think she knows what she's talking about) portion of the display. Still cute and
little and (possibly) a girl, February 21, 2007 When I told Mama I was on strike, I really didn't mean for it to last 6 WHOLE WEEKS! I guess I'd better be careful what I wish for when I curse Mama's computer, because just after I told her I was on strike, I said I wanted her laptop to crash. And then it did, catastrophically. No pun intended. I am very glad that Mama got all of her data back except about 9 songs in her iTunes; she's not that upset because she owns those CDs, though she can't find them right now. Sorry, Grandma. Hunchback of Notre Dame is one of them! The other one is PDQ Bach. I don't understand why PDQ Bach makes Mama laugh, but he does. Anyway, she made us wait until she got all caught up with church stuff before she even tried to put new stuff up for us, which Apollo says is annoying but necessary. It seems that if she doesn't do the church work, we don't get fed. Worse, we don't get to keep the house! And oh, what memories I have of this house. Great stairs to run. Lots of places to explore and hide in. Toilets to drink from. Toilets that big brother drinks from and gets caught after announcing that my drinking habit was humiliating... Heh, heh, heh! Go, Mama! Since I last wrote at the end of last year, we've had a lot of rain, a lot of really cold weather, and some snow. It's fun to watch the snow fall, though I don't think I'd like to be out in it. As for cold, well, let's just say that I did my business in the litter box as fast as I could and got back off the utility porch before my little paws froze. Mama says I have to tell you that the utility porch doesn't get below 50 degrees and that she never made us stay out there when it was so cold. She also wants you to know that she thinks it's cute that I like to lie on the radiators, which are just the right temperature most of the time for a very toasty nap. So now for the exciting part: when Mama's computer crashed, she went away. I thought she was really, really mad at me, but I don't think Aunt Joanie would have come if Mama were that upset. Aunt Joanie took very good care of me. I like to snuggle up under her chin while she's here feeding us. I like Uncle Mike, too, even though he's really good with Apollo. The only bad thing about Aunt Joanie taking care of us is it means that the bed is empty at night. It's much better to make Mama get comfortable around us than it is to sleep in an empty bed. I'm taking lessons from Apollo on how to be an immovable object when Mama tries to stretch her legs out or roll over as she's settling down. Why, he argues, should the superior beings have to give up the warm spots to the inferior - though admittedly larger - being? I guess I'm growing up. I'm starting to like the way Apollo thinks about the natural order of things. He's very quiet about getting what he wants, but he manages to impose his will on the world more than you might think. I've decided that my way of getting what I want is to talk. A lot. All the time. It's not working out very well. I expect Mama to come running when she hears me, but most of the time, she just hollers out, "What?", followed a few seconds later by, "Well, come here." I need to learn to ignore the invitation and keep yelling. But I almost always go to wherever she is, which gets me a pat on the head or a stroke and, if I don't walk away too fast, an "I love you." Which, I guess, is a good enough reason not to ignore the invitation, isn't it? Still cute and
little and (possibly) a girl, January 12, 2007 Editor's Note:
Serina is on vacation this week. She's calling it a strike because I've
revamped her page a bit, but it's really a vacation. She'll be back as
soon as she realizes that I actually caught Apollo with his head in the
toilet AND got a picture of it posted to The Shrubbery, because you KNOW
she won't let that pass without comment! |
