Building a better cat trap

The stray cat ate the food but didn’t spring the trap!  Arggghhh!  This means war, because if I can’t figure out a way to outsmart a cat, I’d might as well just retire now.  I put new food in the trap tonight and tried to place the dish in the rear corner, as far back as I could get it, but I guess it could take a few days to get this right.  At the very least, the cat could become complacent after a few nights of entering the trap, and that might make it more likely to spring the door.  Every morning is like Christmas morning when you’re not sure if there’ll be a caged cat on your doorstep when you wake up.

It’s been a while since I mentioned our friend Mark Bittner, but I wanted to report how well his movie, The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill is doing.  It’s playing at dozens and dozens of screens all over the country, with openings scheduled right through until August (and new screens added daily), and it just received “two thumbs up” from Ebert and Roper!  It was also an Entertainment Weekly “must see” recommendation.  It now has a Canadian distributor as well, so soon my parents will be able to go to their theatre to see it.  It seems like we’ve all come a long way since Nancy and I used to drop by Mark’s little place near the Telegraph Hill steps just to hang out and watch the birds and have a chat.  I’m sure Mark and Judy will only be thinking of us when they accept their Academy Award, right Mark, right?  Oh, one more thing—I’ll soon be redesigning the Shadow Distribution website, and that should be fun but challenging.

I ate the world’s hottest jalapeno today.  I’m so not kidding about that… I’m sure it gave me second-degree burns.  I have a great tolerance for spicy foods, but wow, this pepper was painful.  I also found out that Sam Woo Barbeque (home of the duck feet) has pig’s blood porridge, and I’ve decided I don’t want to try it.  I’m giving my share to Rosella.

Our electrical upgrade takes place on Thursday, and I’m just dreading a day without electricity.  What really worries me is that I haven’t thought of everything in our home which requires electricity, and that I’m somehow going to end up in a crisis situation without a quick fix.  I think we’re going to try to move the freezer into the “breakfast nook” tomorrow and out of the garage, and I’ll cross my fingers that the power will be back on quickly enough that we won’t lose any food.  I guess if I had to sit down and eat a bunch of ice cream to keep it from spoiling, I could force myself to that, you know, just so I wouldn’t waste anything.  I’m a trooper.

So, what is it with kids who can’t spell?  I remember being in 1st grade and having my spelling lists and working through them with my Mom so I’d get a perfect score on my weekly tests.  Poor spelling was never tolerated, ever—marks were deducted from tests for spelling mistakes, even if it was history class and not English.  Now I find that a large percentage of kids online can’t spell if their lives depended on it—I just found one who runs a “message bored”.  Perhaps she’s just trying to indicate how interesting it is, but wow, it’s mortifying.  I used to wonder if it’s just my Canadian education speaking but no, Nancy feels the same way about spelling that I do.  I guess I think it’s a matter of personal pride to spell properly, and that sites full of spelling errors are the web equivalent of a person with bad hygiene.  It’s just nasty.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 04/12 at 10:50 PM

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