We have been in hibernation now for weeks. Not doing much except catching up on old movies and TV series. I am collecting props for my next tabletop still life photo (of what? I haven't decided). Tin boxes from Ebay & magazine pictures that I glue and varnish onto plywood.

Hoping that the artistic inspiration will come to me at some point, but right now I'm in the collect-your-junk mode.

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Cats

We think we are ready to get a new cat, or maybe 2 new kittens. This is probably true, probably. So we went to a shelter last night to check things out. Did not come home with any new critters, but talked a lot and watched local volunteers and neighborhood people spending time in the (large) cages playing and talking to the cats. It was an education. We have to think about what kind of cats to bring in here because Abby can be so twitchy twitchy - it's been 15 years and she still hasn't decided if she likes me !

If we did not have Abby, I'd go for an old cat, for various reasons. There were a few there. One shorthair was huge and likeable, but the sign said "Will keep trying to run out the door", which would be certain death where we live.

Hearing Test

I got to drive my audiologist crazy this week. Every year she puts me in a sound booth and torture tests me for an hour. Then we sit in the office and I explain to her all the technical reasons that she's doing everything all wrong, while she reads a magazine 'til I'm finished.

This week my lecture was on how she was calibrating my implant sound levels. It was similar to a Trump-Pelosi meeting about The Wall.

We ended up compromising how she re-programmed my implant. Two subroutines (sound levels scales) as she wanted and two as I wanted . (I just don't use the ones she likes.)

New Translator by Google

Sadly, I learn that it transmits each word of your conversation to a Google server to be transcribed and sent back to your screen. It also has access your microphone, but does not say that only works during a transcription. Well ...... too much paranoia running through my veins to send everything my cell phone hears to Google's server.

My Next Cochlear Implant

I have decided to go ahead with an implant on my left side. By the end of 2019. It takes months from start to finish, so I have to get in the schedule soon. A bit scary as I will be 100% totally absolutely deaf in both ears from now on. Dependent on electronics and batteries forever.

Full story on Friday

As of last night, we adopted 2 semi-wild cats (why? - good question). Extremely skittish, they disappeared in the basement 2 seconds after I opened the carrier. They are behind the basement wall !! Jees. I set up a time-lapse camera through the night and got one of them.

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2nd night

Last night (middle of night), the camera showed they were out and frisky all night. Ate *all* food and filled the litter box. Played with toys and explored. We have one brave cat (Luca) and one cautious cat (Dante). Luca was up on my table and counter top and knocked some papers off and eventually knocked the camera over.

We are very happy to record this, because the previous day we worried about owning two hopelessly feral animals. Been in touch with previous caretaker and other folks and all say this takes months of patience before cats feel safe enough to trust you. (These guys lived in the ceiling of a factory until she trapped them and took them home.)

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3rd night

They only come out at night!

New Cats: an Education for Us

The good news is that chapter one has ended well, with both new cats now safe and well-fed in the spare bedroom.
But we got an education along the way.

These guys grew up on their own, living in, under and around an 18-wheeler, until someone trapped them in October. Spent 2 months in a room above her garage, then she gave them to the shelter in January because she has 7 other cats at home. We took them here last week, put them in the basement, where they immediately hid in the walls and ceiling. They came out at night to eat and watch TV on the sofa, Then disappeared again during the day. Took us a week to get them out.

The lady who rescued them came here a few nights to try and coax them out. Last night, we took down some ceiling tiles and caught the last of the 2 and we got them tucked in and locked down upstairs.

There is one 6' section of the back wall, behind racks of clothes that had the wallboard removed, and he skooted up inside the wall into the ceiling. We set a trap, but he never came down to eat, so we had to get in there and grab him.

They are sweet cats, but very afraid of people. I think it will take 6 months or longer for them to get cozy with us.

This is not the movie that we were hoping to see, but our hearts are now set on takng care of these two guys who were dealt a bad deal from the start.

Getting away from the cat theme .... I just rejuvenated these 3 pictures to "artistic" (stop giggling) and made them B&W. They are from Ogunquit at various times, last few years.

I try hard to keep my political opinion out of here. But last night I turned on the Oscars for like one minute and there's some Hollywood guy making an impassioned political speech imploring the audience to make the right choices in 2020. He gets a standing ovation. I turned it off. Shit, guys !!

Well .... I worked myself into a lather on the subject of slavery, white guilt, black people making false accusations, etc etc and I wrote this:

White folks should stop wallowing in guilt over slavery.