Best friends, for 15 minutes.

     A couple months back, my gentleman and I bought an automatic laser kitty toy to keep his cat busy. She is decidedly of the portly persuasion, and we figured that we'd be able to turn the toy on while we were busy, and she could chase the laser around for exercise. There was a bit of a problem at first with getting it to sit correctly so it didn't either go all over the wall and furniture (where she'd either ignore it or claw the furniture to pieces), but a convenient roll of duct tape serves to keep the thing balanced nicely. While it's a little loud, it's nice to know that kitty can play on her own while we get things done.

     Kitty has learned that the "click!" of it starting means there's a red dot to play with, and comes running. She's oddly shy about batting after it when we're around, but since the toy has a 15 minute timer on it, we just turn it on, walk away, and let her at it.

     The other day, I happened to be just one room away while the toy was working its magic on kitty, and I'd tuned out the noise it makes. I was pretty engrossed in what I was doing, and was slightly disoriented when the noise suddenly stopped. It took me a second to realize the timer had been tripped, and the toy was turned off. I was about to get back to work when I heard a single, soft, sad little "meow…" of kitty realizing her playmate had vanished again.

     Who knew an automated laser could have such an affect? I went and turned it back on, and she promptly ignored both it and me. At least until I left the room. 

Cross-promotion

     For those of you who don't keep tabs on this sort of thing, I started a business this year, making hats and bags for cosplayers (Steampunk in particular), and those of us who don't fit the "one-size-fits-most" hat sizing that women have been saddled with. As the winter's coming on, and things get colder, I discovered that my go-to hat, which is unlined, does absolutely nothing to keep my head warm when the wind comes through. So, the latest offering from the store is a fully-lined hat made from old tweed jackets that covers the tips of the ears (for those of you without thick hair to keep them warm). Go check it out!

New winter hat, the first of many!

Time and books

     When I was younger, I read a book about Merlin and King Arthur that suggested the reason Merlin was so wise is that he lived backwards in time. Therefore, to him, everything was clear as day, because it had, in a sense, already happened.

     Now, first of all, to a linguist- even a young, untrained one- this brought about a fascination with the problem of verb tenses he would have to use. If it were true, and his intellect was running backwards through time and into a progressively youth-ing (roll with it) body, then he'd have started off as a doddering old man with no idea how to speak, take care of himself, or reason. Ok, fair enough, that's how a lot of lives end, so makes sense, and he'd be so venerable and respected by then that there probably would have been people to help him.

     But think of the problems with language acquisition! No one's going to babble baby-talk or use simple words to someone they believe to be wise beyond everything. If Neil deGrasse Tyson walked up to you, pointed at a dog, and said "What's that," you'd be confused as all heck, think it's a trick question, and answer with as many details and scientific facts as possible! Ok, maybe that's just me, but you see my point?