I had the catio closed while I painted the floor, so Mama Manx took advantage of the sunny day to go out and have a roll in the mulch. After a few rolls, she paused to yawn, and then acted embarrassed about the yawn by putting her paw over her face. When she finished rolling in the mulch, she nestled into a dried catnip for a catnap.
While I got up bright an early, Diné and Rosencrantz chose to sleep in.
Sunrise poured light through the window, prompting Rosencrantz to rise, shine and model for me.
Since the dance room/photo studio is still full of stuff from our reorganizing, I had to get a shot of Laurie in her cute outfit of the day as she was literally ready to step out the door. The cats were all stacked up like a puzzle on me when I woke up, and the house was so cold that after some effort to extract myself, the cats stayed in place locked together. Even Mama Manx, who is always spring loaded, and normally jumps off the bed from my slightest movement, held firm on the edge of the bed waiting for the heat to come on.
Work continues on the catio. We started preparing the old cement slab for resurfacing on Saturday, but then we discovered we needed to rent a high pressure sprayer to clean it before we put on the resurfacing cement, plus the temperatures are supposed to stay above 50º F for 8 hours after the new surface is applied. Since the temperature only got into the 40’s over the weekend we decided to prepare surfaces for painting.
The first photo is Laurie preparing to wire brush the French windows so I could paint them. In the second photo, she is telling Rosencrantz and Guildenstern what they could do to help. The third photo shows Guildenstern supervising Laurie. He had a lot to say about our work, so much so, that it wore him out and he had to take a break (fourth photo). The French windows and door had not been painted in 22 years. The ivy had grown up on them which marked and pulled off paint in various places, so I spent a good part of the day painting the windows and doors with a very good, “stain killer” primer. The last photo shows Laurie standing by the freshly primed windows.
As I have mentioned before, we live in a cold spot — the reason Laurie was dressed in layers of warm clothes to work on the catio. We went to a dinner party last night in Albuquerque. When we left the party at a little after 10:00 PM, the car showed the outside temperature was 47º F. When we got home 20 minutes later, the temperature at our house was 26º F. We live about 10 miles north and west as the crow flies, and about 700 feet lower than the part of Albuquerque we attended the dinner party, yet we were 21degrees colder.
Rosencrantz was so cute sleeping in, that I had to do a photo. I got only one shot of him sleeping before he kitty-sensed my camera, woke up, and looked around a bit disoriented. He was definitely unhappy with me disturbing his bliss by taking a photo of him while he was sleeping.
I had to get out my 17mm, super-wideangle lens to get a photo of Beaker impatiently waiting for the waffle that’s in the toaster oven. You can see the tips of his wings are a little blurry because he is fluttering them in anticipation. Guildenstern got up on the table, flopped himself down and waited to see what Laurie was having for breakfast. He wasn’t too sure about either the granola or the coffee.
What do our cats do in winter? Romeo was not sure about me taking yet another photo of him. Rosencrantz made like a kitty statue, while Guildenstern relaxed on a Viking book to see if he could soak up some Old Norse. Mama Manx dozed on a “cat magnet” blanket, and Diné got warm lying on the heater vent.
Rosencrantz and René were both wanting my attention, and neither one cared much for the critter competition they had going on.
I can’t think of a better way to start 2014 than with portraits of a new kitty. This is Nyuu, who belongs to Roxy. I was visiting with Roxy when Nyuu got on her lap — the rest is photo history. Happy New Year!
Off Center & Not Even 