Remember this little kitty, mentioned in this story?

As it happens, El Tigre is a female. Not being a good Xian kitty, she didn't put up too much of a fight when Sambo, aka Stompy, aka The Black Cat, who also happens to be the talkingest cat on the freakin' planet, (just walk in the room and he'll run up and start blabbing) doinked her when she came into her first heat, even though he's her brother.

You can see where this is going, right?

El Tigre, aka Stampy, aka Rusty, started swelling up like a poisoned pup. Just last night, CG asked me when I thought she'd domino. I told her that Rusty wasn't near fat enough yet, that it's be a few more weeks.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again - I am someties wrong, but rarely uncertain. ;-)

I actually took today off from work, to catch up on email and blogging. I had the door to the office shut, as just yesterday, Shelby the WonderHound had managed to knock a glass of, thank dog, water, off my desk and down onto the cable modem, hosing it and therefore my broadband connection for most of the day, while I dried the damn thing out. (Had it had been my more typical glass of beer I'da been shopping for a new SurfBoard)

So, I had all the damn animals banned from the office. Cats are a real PITA when they decide their mission in life is to chase the mouse cursor around the monitor.

I then hear the most pitiful mewling just outside the door. sounded like Little Bit, aka Ashley, the little Siamese, was crying outside the door. I open it up to find that Rusty had just squirted out two little black kittens on a pile of dirty laundry. They look like large wet mice.

Black as Saddam's heart they are, spitting images of their daddy/uncle. Must be from Alabama. :-)

She promptly dragged them off into the bedroom, and they are presently ensconced under the bed, So no pics yet.

Anyway, free kittens soon - get your reservation in now. Assuming of course, that MamaCat is a good mother, and figures out how to take care of them - I've heard that first litters can be problematic.

Looks like I'm a new KatDaddy. ;-)

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I've not written too much this week, and I owe email to so many people it's ridiculous. Nor am I likely to catch up in the next week or so, for a few reasons...

It's rodeo season here in Houston. My life of late has been like this...

Work. Eat. BBQ Cookoff. Drink. Eat. Drink. Dance. Drink. Sleep. Work. ZZ Top. Drink. Dance. Drink. Eat. Drink. Dance. Drink. Sleep. Take massive vitamin doses in attempt to salvage liver. Work. Toby Keith. Drink. Dance. Eat. Drink. Dance. Boink CG. Sleep. Work.....

And so on....

But it gets worse...

CG blew her knee out two days ago. Dislocated it for sure, and probably tore the ACL. We've got to wait until Monday for an MRI.

This was her good knee, mind you - not the one she ripped to shreds when she was an All-State softball players sliding into second when she was about seventeen, the one that has three screws in it to hold her kneecap together, and will probably have to be compleatly replaced sometime in the next few years.

Worst part of it is, she did it dancing. With somebody other than me. I'm not jealous, dammit, but I love to dance with her, and we don't get to near as often as I like, and when we do go out, I can only dance with her to the slower tunes, and just a few dances a night, because of her bad wheels.

I figure if anybody was going to wreck her knee dancing, it shoulda been me.

So, she's gimping around on crutches, with an ankle to hip brace that keeps her leg locked straight. So, I'm having to play nursemaid. (sigh)

This is cutting down a bit on the time for writing. But my lack of output will leave a hole in the blogosphere like the one you get when you pull your hand out of a bucket of water. :-)

There's all kinda good stuff to read over there in the link farm on the right. Have fun.

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So, late this afternoon I'm about seventeen feet up up a ladder.

Why?

Well, in general, familial obligations required that I help pull some Xmas decorations down. In particular, there was this one little piece of velcro sticking to the top of a second story window that I was told just had to go.

I don't mind ladders. I look at them like guns; used properly, obeying all the rules, they can be used safely for a legit purpose. I've used them a lot, without any serious consequences.

Getting that piece of velcro, though, required that I extend that ladder out to it's very tippy-tip. Said window was under a flower bed, one, moreover, that had been freshly mulched. When I tried to lean the ladder up, it ws evident it could not reach unless I:

a) Put the base of the ladder in the mulched bed,

b) set the ladder at a more vertical angle than is my normal practice, and

c) climbed almost to the very end.

I looked around for some one to brace the ladder, but everyone was busy elsewhere. No prob - I just checked the base of the ladder to see that it was firmly set in the ground there, (I was worried about it slipping) and started up.

You can already see where this is going, right?

About the time I putting my foot on the penultimate step, and reaching for that pesky square of velcro tape, I feel the ladder start to go over sideways right as the soft mulched bed gave way.

My first thought was "Oh boy, this is going to be fun."

I honestly can't say if the ladder fell slowly, or if time changed pace or what, but it seemed like it took a long time to get to the ground. I started dancing down the ladder, trying to stay vertical as the ladder fell. My mind inventoried the likely impact area, recalling nothing much but some bushes. I concluded this was gonna hurt, but I'd prolly live.

Aaah, but there where those flagstones next to the house.

Time to abandon ship.

I could hear one of the onlookers in the yard, notified of this circus by the noise of the aluminum ladder skittering down the side of the house, scream " Oh my God!"

I didn't want to get my feet caught up in the rungs. About halfway down, I kicked out backwards, and did my best to roll into the fall, in best paratrooper fashion.

Slambangouch.

I hit on my feet, but moving backwards and sideways so hard that there was no way to stand on them. I toppled and landed hard on my shoulder, so hard the my sunglasses flew off and landed about fifteen feet away. It felt like taking a good lick in football.

I lay there a moment, inventorying.

"Marcus, are you OK?"

"Yeah, I'm fine."

"You sure?"

I started laughing uncontrollably, mostly from relief.

"Goddamit, where are the video cameras when you need them? This woulda made me a boodle on one a' those funniest video shows."

Somehow, amazingly, thank (insert $DEITY$ of your choice), I am completely unhurt, not even a bruise. Nobody that witnessed it (about a half-dozen folks) thought it could be true.

Only the good die young, I suppose. :-)

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