StrangeRanger

Another quiet day

Daisy is off in the great crawl space theme park. Probably still trying to tunnel out past the cinderblock, brick, rock and wire obstruction we erected to keep her inside.  

LadyRanger and I have had a quiet celebration of our 29th anniversary.  Our fave Asian/Indian fusion shrimp dish with a fun and tasty mango prosecco on the good china, thank you very much! We know how to be thankful for each other even after a year of quarantine.

This morning I am a wee bit tired.

Here's a pick of Maddie.  Enjoy!

Have a great, safe week ahead!

Drawers

Drawers seem to hold some sort of attraction for cats.  Maddie liked to lie down in them.  If it was a low drawer, Ivy would crawl in.  It's an atavistic, primal, security instinct, I think.  Perhaps the same reason that cats and boxes are such a reliable partnership.

I have noticed though, that there is one drawer in particular that exerts an almost mystical pull, a more than magnetic attraction for the cats.  It is, of course, the "3-S drawer".  You know, Socks, Skivvies 'n' ...... Stuff"  

Maddie Loved the sock drawer.

Ahh...nothing like a layer of good SmartWool (tm) socks 'neath my furry tum.

Really, she mostly liked disrupting my precision organized collections of socks, skivvies 'n'......stuff.

Chaos, disorder, confusion.... My work here is done.

Ivy was never spry enough to venture so far from the ground.  She made up for it by usually being the first to boxes on ground level.  Maddie, not really being an inside the box wort of girl, did not contest them.

Daisy loves the 3-S drawer.  She'll hop up when I open it in the morning and spend some time rearranging the disorder left from the previous morning.  SmartWool socks still seem to be a powerful draw.  Daisy has, though, taken things a bit farther.  Not a step farther, but maybe a wriggle and a skootch farther.  Daisy has a predilection for trying to fit herself into the smallest, most inconvenient and physically challenging cracks she can.  Honestly, we live in fear that one day she'll realize that a) our fireplace has a chimney that goes waaaayyy up and is very inviting and b) there is not currently a fire burning.   

I was dressing one morning this past week while Daisy was exploring and spelunking in the sock drawer.  And then she vanished.  I knew she hadn't jumped down because I'd have heard it.  There was only one place she could have gotten to.

Yep.

Whoa!  This is like Narnia!

Zoom in , if you can.  She's upside down.

She's gotten between the top of the drawer and the inside of the top of the dresser.  This cat..... She did not, despite appearances, push the entire sock drawer out of the dresser.  Although I'm pretty sure our little spelunking vandal is more than capable of it.  I'm going to make sure the chimney is bricked up now.

We hope you all have a great week ahead!

Okay, *today* I got somethin'......

.....and it's cute!

What?

Okay, so....maaaaayyyybe it's a bit more "mug shot" than "cutie pic", but hey, it's hot off the digital press and it is Daisy!

Like a lot of Americans, we have been relying on the iron-men and -women at Amazon for some necessary goods.  It's been a boon for a wee cat who enjoys the toys that the human's necessities come packed in.  Of course, once she realizes that her cuteness is being incompetently documented, she has the same reaction as most celebs.....

psssshhh.....  I'm out!  I do NOT believe that Chandoha stood me up and sent this clown in his place!

Ah, the temperamental model..... She gets away with it 'cause she's beautiful.

We hope that you all get away with a great week!  And have a lovely Valentine's Day with your sweetie!

I dunno.....

...I got nothin' today.

Have another vintage pic.  

One of the few moments that our two girls were within 3 feet of each other and seemingly at peace.  Thank goodness for that wedge pillow.  As Robert Frost wrote, "...good fences make good neighbors..."

Have a great week, all!  

A little touch of Daisy...

...on a cold gray day.

Have a wee bit of warm furry tummy!  It will bring cheer to your day!

Have a great week!

Affection

Daisy is quite an affectionate little predator.  She does have her own idiom though, and it's very different from our other cats.

Daisy is not a lap cat.  She has maybe done substantial lap-time 6 or 7 times in the nearly 5 years we've had her.  Daisy is more of a head-bonk, twine around your ankles and try to trip you as you walk down the stairs with the laundry sort of cat.  She tolerates being picked up and smooched on 75 times per day.

She shows her affection for us by wanting to be where we are.  Sometimes this takes the form of "I want to lie down on the dining room table while you're having dinner" or "I want to stand on the butcher block while you're chopping veggies".  She does like to sleep on my legs when I've got them up and we're all watching tv.  She goes through phases where she'll sleep on them all night.  There have been many times, unfortunately not regular, when I wake up in the morning and she walks up on my chest and lies down for a snuggle.  Usually that's the highlight of my day.

She often shows her affection and trust by having a tummy-up wash on the bed.

Don't know if you can zoom in, but there's a wee tiny bit of pink kitty tongue visible there, and wee stretchy toes on the extended back paw. Funny what makes me smile, really....

Daisy's not a big cuddler, like Maddie was, but she shows her affection in her own particular way.  She even puts a unique cat spin on human modes.

Hug you.  You want me to hug you?  Of course I'll hug you...

With My Teeth!

I guess that's another form of affection.  She's treating me like she would any other cat that she wanted a rumpus with.  And really, that's fine.  I love my cat and I heal quick.

Have a safe and wonderful week ahead, all!

 

A Vintage Picture

Because I'm feeling tired and lazy today, you get a vintage picture of our dear Maddie!  

This pic was taken back in '02, not too terribly long after we found Maddie in the adoption fair at one of our local pet supply stores.

Humbly, I must inform you that this pic went to #1 on Lawrence Simon's Carnival of the Cats page banner (the week after Ivy's had done the same!!). (Truth!)  And this was in competition with Lair's own bevy of internet starts Edloe, Piper, Nardo and Frisky!  That's some pretty exalted company for Maddie to be keeping.  Speaking of exalted, well, here's Maddie.

Awfully pretty girl, wasn't she?

Have a great week ahead all! Stay safe!

Happy New Year!

A happy new year to all!

How did we celebrate here at ChezRanger?  With a good dinner, champagne by the fire, and our first attempt at Russian Honey Cake

This was some serious work.  And I made it even more difficult for myself by ignoring LadyRanger's advice to spread the making over two days.  A lot of work...

Anyways, there are 8 thin layers of cake (this beast was too tall to go in our large cake-saver!), a VERY sticky batter and lots of whipping cream mixed with sour cream, which is not something I'd have imagined in a cake frosting.  LadyRanger and I both had our doubts about each individual component of this creation, but wow, it turned out well.  You get all these different flavors put together and they are indeed greater than the sum of the parts.  

We had to break out the good plates for it!

Daisy likes licking a bit of the frosting off my finger, but that's not why she's looking smug....

I didn't even have to help clean up!

One of the perks of being a cat, I guess.  Daisy just gets to make messes, not clean them up.  And if anyone could call and talk to Daisy about her recent habit of knocking our large containers of coffee creamer from the kitchen counter (where Daisy is NOT supposed to be) to the floor and spilling it all over the place, we'd really appreciate it.  

In any event, we here hope that 2021 is a banner year for all!  Stay safe and well, all!

The Quickest Possible Post

Because I am tired, that's why!

Ivy, enjoying the delights presented by her Christmas tree!  She loved that tree!  A delightful reminder of happy Christmases past.

I'm going to sit by the tree and watch Daisy enjoy the tree.  Probably won't have moved much by bed time.

I hope you all have a great week ahead!!

Gateau Basque!

Since my retirement from teaching, I have had a lot of time in which to randomly appreciate life, LadyRanger, Daisy, my house and, really, most of my environment.  It's been a boon to me.  One of the things I have really started enjoying is baking.  I've always been a full partner in the cooking arena (really, when LadyRanger and I are in the kitchen together, working on our fancy Saturday night dinner, it can look like modern dance!) but I've not done much of the baking before.

LadyRanger does all of our bread baking.  I get to do the tangential baking. Y'know, biscuits, cornbread, and of course, the sweet stuff.  My chocolate-chip-cookie-fu is strong.  I have been branching out, though.  My latest creation was Gateau Basque!  It is a really lovely pie/cake combo.  It's got a cakey shell filled with cherry preserves and vanilla custard, and covered with another cake-like crust.  While my attempt wasn't as pretty as the professional's, I think it was pretty nice. 

Everything hand made save the cherry preserves.  Not too bad for a first effort!

The big problem with the gateau (the french word for cake) was purely linguistic.  Daisy misheard the pronunciation of gateau, and doesn't speak enough french to guess at a meaning.  this lead to an unfortunate misunderstanding!

GATO Basque?!?  you're eating a cake made out of Basque Cats??!!??  You MONSTER!!!!

She immediately retreated to the most secure fortress she could find, 

I'm staying in here forever and NEVER trusting you ever again!!

I had to do some fancy dancing around the whole phonics/foreign language issue.  Fortunately, I managed to convince her that she'd merely misheard me, and that the name of the cake sounded far more acceptable and significantly more delicious that she'd thought....

Wait, what's that you say?  Gateau BATS?  My, that does sound scrumptious!  I'd eat the heck outta that.  I'll go catch you some more bats!  Carry on, then, save me a slice!

Crisis averted.

Daisy was actually convinced I wasn't a monster in time to help us decorate the tree.  She was her usual, helpful self.

You're doing it wrong.

 No pics yet of her under the tree.  I'm sure I'll get a shot at some point, though.  When I do, I'll share.

Have a great week ahead all!  Be safe and well!