Wednesday, October 25, 2006

By Popular Request

The Jack-O-Lanterns
My son's.
My daughter's
Mine.

And now, portraits of the artists:
My Daughter
My Son.

And now, an angry cat.
Why is she angry? We don't know. Perhaps it's because I'm not brushing her. Of course, if I was brushing her, she'd be angry about that. Perhaps it's because there are no mice. That's because she killed them all. When we moved in to our house, there were mice. Five minutes later there were no mice, and my cat wasn't quite as angry. She's been this way for fifteen years. She once killed a mouse in my ex-wife's bra.*


And now, the very rare chrono-cat.
This is an extremely unusual breed, in that it knows what time its human sets his alarm clock, and will wake him up to be fed one half-hour before the alarm goes off--regardless of what time the alarm is set. The waking technique is by rattling the bedroom doorknob, making it sound exaclty like someone is about to enter the room.** I'm sure the chrono-cat is on the other side, silently cursing the fact that it was born without thumbs. It has been suggested that I leave the bedroom door ajar, thus allowing the chrono-cat access to the bedroom. However, if this is done, the chrono-cat uses its alternate waking technique, which entails lying on the bed in such a way that the human wakes up to a face full of furry chrono-cat butt.

The show's over, folks. Move along.

Yeharr

*My wife wasn't wearing it at the time.
**Which is always the sound one wishes to hear when waking from a deep sleep.

15 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Great job on those pumpkins! Very fancy...BTW, I like your son's the best.

I like chrono-cat. He would be dangerous with thumbs!

3:39 PM  
Blogger cadbury_vw said...

wow

now i feel inadequate

4:17 PM  
Blogger Heidi the Hick said...

Those Jack o Lanterns are awesome! We'll be doing the old gap toothed thing but last year we did Xs for eyes.

Your kids have lovely faces! Obviously the pumpkins were not self portraits.

Love your cats. Mine has been in a downstairs-couch phase lately and I kind of miss him. Is it possible to have a chrono-dog? He always whimpers a half hour before my alarm goes and dammit, that's my favourite half hour of the whole night...

8:22 PM  
Blogger Åsa said...

Balloon Pirate! Work of art pumpkins! I hope they last a while! That must have taken some time to do.

How can you close the door on your cats?! That’s cruel! Nothing wrong with waking up with a bit of kitty-fluff in your face. Simon (my dog) actually sleeps alongside of my legs. Unless I have human company: then he will squeeze in-between and we’ll wake up with doggie breath on our faces. Why do animals love pillows as much as humans?

Maybe angry cat simply like to be angry? Keeps the family on their toes. It’s one way of gaining power I guess.

Nice of you to share :-)

3:25 AM  
Blogger Balloon Pirate said...

notso: thanks. chrono-cat is dangerous enough as it is.

cad: don't.

heidi: thanks. I think they're kind of cute, too. I suppose a chrono-dog is better than a bark-at-everything-real-or-imagined-that -moves-dog.

Åsa: unfortunately, my pumpkin got snatched this morning. At least it didn't get smashed all over my yard.

As far as the closed-door thing--that comes from having kids, and privacy issues. When mommy left, I did leave the door open for a while. Angry cat would come on the bed and lie down nicely, but chrono-cat would prance and pounce and then lie down with his butt in my face. Which is bad enough, but he would also flick his big fluffy tail incessantly. Not the best sleeping situation.

Yeharr

8:41 AM  
Blogger Pablo said...

Yeah, I can't do that. Nice work.

At least, you don't have smelly cat.

10:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Funny, I have a chrono-cat too! They must be littermates.

10:17 AM  
Blogger Madame X said...

Wow very impressive pumpkin carving!

What is it about mice in people's bras?
I had a mouse in my bra...no I wasn't wearing it either but mice seem attracted to bras for some reason

7:36 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

i think those must be male mice, since they're so attracted to bras.

god, pirate, those pumpkins are amazing!

and your kids are adorable.

i can't believe you don't enjoy waking up to a face full of cat ass.

one of my dearly departed kitties used to be obsessed with my eyelashes. she always wanted to nibble on them, and whenever i'd lay down in bed, she'd be in my face so much i had to start learning to sleep with my arm slung over my face. and even then, she'd try to nudge my arm away so she could get to my eyes. better than cat ass, i guess...

9:29 PM  
Blogger Dee said...

re Chrono-cat
I have 2 chrono cats. Don't know how I got so lucky. Funny thing is when we have daylight savings time, chrono cats get confused, and angry.And I wind up at work late. I am also confused, and angry.

ps are you selling the pumpkins?

2:32 PM  
Blogger Jessica said...

Great photos. Happy Halloween! Your previous post about pumpkin-hunting inspired us all the way to our local patch. Thanks.

5:59 PM  
Blogger United We Lay said...

I'm very impressed and it's nice to see pictures of the kids we hear so much about. My husband is a chef, so ours are usually pretty decent. The Wyatt Museum sponsors a carving contest every year that is incredible.

7:55 AM  
Blogger Colleen said...

coolness with the pumpkins
we went a little old school

that's covert for we can't carve as artistly you ;)

8:35 AM  
Blogger mal said...

whoa! works of art on those pumpkins. I was just happy when we did not leave blood marking our work *G*

I believe cats have 2 purposes in the greater cosmic scheme. Eat and annoy their putative owners

11:08 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

ADVANCED PUMPKIN ACTION!

1:13 PM  

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