My new favorite reality TV show

World’s Worst Tenants, on SPIKE TV, is one of the funniest shows I’ve ever seen.  You cannot make up the stuff they walk into.  It’s simply impossible to imagine how bad/strange/weird some of the goings ons in people’s apartments are.  You have to see it to believe it.

Here’s a link to the show:  http://www.spike.com/shows/worlds-worst-tenants/

The premise is these 3 are eviction specialists and go to tenants’ apartments/homes to serve them with eviction notices, cease and desist orders, etc.  Todd is an ex-Marine, and he looks like a body-builder.  He is very aggressive, while his partner, Rick, is a bit more mellow and reasonable.  Then there’s Randye, Todd’s wife, who often goes out with them on tenant visits and calls the police, when necessary, while the guys do the more physical work.  There is some kicking in of doors, and physical confrontations do happen.  Todd often says to Randye, “Stay there” while he and Rick handle the confrontations.  She is blond and busty, natch.  Gotta have some eye candy, right?

When I first watched it was just a “let’s see what this is” foray.  I figured it would end up being dumb or boring.  Oh boy, was I wrong!  The first episode I saw had Todd and Rick going to an apartment complex because there had been a noise complaint from some tenants, and they were trying to find out what the problem was.  They traced the noise to a utility room, but could not find the source.  Then they knocked on the adjacent apartment door and discovered this guy was a keeping bees, and he had a beehive in his apartment!  What’s more, many of the bees had escaped and went through some sort of gap in the wall, which led to the utility room, which is why there was a loud, humming noise coming from inside.  They were living inside the wall!  Oh My!

The other night I watched a couple of episodes, thinking maybe the show would be less fun than the first time.  Nope.  It got better.   The guys went out to a small house in the country to evict the woman who lived there.  The owner had been ordered by the county to remediate some flood damage, which necessitated razing the house, and he’d served her with every legal notice, but she hadn’t moved out.  Todd and Rick went to talk to her to find out why, and asked if they could come inside.  She was adament she wouldn’t move out, but let them in.  They walked into her (small) living room, and there was a big sheet over the door into the next room.  One of the guys pulled it aside and there was a full-grown horse standing in the room, grazing on hay that was spread all over the floor!  A HORSE!  She couldn’t get the horse out because it was too big to go through the door!  AND I guess she was thinking, “It’s not likely they’ll notice a full grown horse in the next room”?!!!  They had to pull a wall down in order to get the horse out!  She told them when she’d gotten the horse she’d been told it was a pygmy horse.  Um, guess not.  This horse had not been outside since he was full grown, and when they led him out, he started nibbling on the grass.   This was the reason she hadn’t moved out, because she didn’t know how to get the horse out.  I was screaming at the t.v.,  “A HORSE!  She has a HORSE in her BEDROOM!”  Oh My Goodness!

But my favorite episode featured this Appalachian family living in a rather nice, seaside apartment.  Apparently, the relative who rented the apartment had died and his family decided to camp out in the apartment — about 10-20 of them.  The owner couldn’t get them to vacate (they hadn’t been paying rent).   Howard and Rick were dispatched to talk to them and knocked on the sliding glass door.  A kind of psuedo bad-ass, youngish man came to the door and gave them some posturing bullshit, but Howard, when he wants to, can be nice, and said they’d just come over to try to work things out and asked to come in for 5 minutes.  He offered the guy $5,000 to move out, so the guy said, “Only for 5 minutes”, and in they went.  Inside we see grandpa, wearing a big, floppy hat (like Jed Clampitt’s), with a white beard hanging down to his chest, and various and sundry other folks all seated in a circle in the living room.  Big ol’ Confederate flag hanging on the wall, and the “bad ass” guy was saying, “We don’t want to move because we have children.”  I didn’t see any kids, but Howard (in an aside) tells the camera they must know what they’re doing because the courts don’t like to move families when they have children living in a dwelling.

While Howard was talking to Mr. Badass and some of the other kinfolk, Rick asked ol’ grandaddy if he could use the bathroom.  This was just an excuse to look around, but ol’ grandaddy wasn’t too bright and gave him directions.  Off Rick goes.  He opens the toilet lid and sees the water is brown, and then turns on the faucet and no water comes out.  It’s clear the water has been shut off.  He tells the camera if he can find any violations, they can evict for those reasons, and that’s what he’s looking for.  He starts off down the hall and opens a bedroom door.  There is a STILL in the bedroom, working away!  I’m saying it had an open flame underneath it, a propane tank off to the side (with a hose connecting it to the thing under the still providing the flames), and the still itself looked like the textbook copper still you’d see in the Appalachian mountains!  In fact, there is a t.v. show about moonshining, and this one looked just like some of the stills the backwoods moonshiners are using!

A still in a regular apartment, in an apartment complex!  I loved it and about fell off my couch laughing.  Howard amended his offer to the Moonshiners down to $500 and a moving van.  They took the deal.

If you want a huge laugh, and an eye opener about what people do in their rental units, please give this show a gander.  It is hysterical.  I swear if you saw this stuff in a movie you’d say it could never happen in real life, but it IS happening.  Oh My Goodness Gracious!

Mistaken Identity

I was shocked to find on imdb.com that this movie was only rated 5.8 out of 10.  Wonder where these folks’ funny bones were hiding?  I laughed frequently throughout ”Identity Thief” and found it thoroughly funny and enjoyable.

Originally I wanted to see it because I saw Melissa McCarthy on a talk show and she seemed so funny that I felt it would be a good bet.  She is a white, overweight, youngish woman, a profile you rarely, if ever, see in movies.  She mentioned that originally the role was written for a man and they changed it for her.  Another tired “buddy” movie with 2 men?  Would have skipped it if that had been the premise.

Turns out Melissa McCarthy is the cousin of Jenny McCarthy!  If you look at her face you can see that same prettiness.  I’m sure she’s one of those fat women to whom people have commented,  “You’re so pretty, if you’d only lose a few pounds!”  I think she’s pretty as-is, and frankly, it was rather wonderful to see a woman in a movie who doesn’t look like she came straight out of “Models-R-Us”.

She is hysterical in the movie, and believable, as well.  There are a couple of sub-plots, and I kept forgetting these other folks would be showing up again.  Maybe because Melissa McCarthy is so frikkin’ funny and I was very focused on her and Jason Bateman.  When the other characters popped in from time to time I was always surprised, which in itself surprised me because I can usually see plot points being set up and coming a mile away.  For some reason this movie felt very fresh to me, and I enjoyed it thoroughly.

McCarthy’s comedic ability is amazing.  She’s physically and facially funny, and her line delivery is hysterical.  Her rapport with Jason Bateman is very credible.  Her character goes through a transformation, and her relationship with Jason Bateman’s character changes, and it all makes sense.  At least, to me it did.

Jason Bateman is someone whose acting is always substantial.  I feel like his characters come from the inside out.  Saw him recently in “Horrible Bosses” (on cable) and his character was very low-key — almost flat — but he was able to give it dimension.  Here his character is pretty low-key, as he is essentially the straight man in the movie, but as the movie progresses he gets some very funny lines.  Melissa McCarthy’s character helps him loosen up, and he helps her to understand she has real value as a person.  There is a moral at the end of the story, but it stays funny right up to the end and they don’t whack you over the head with it, thankfully.  She still retains enough of her bad-girl attitude to make it seem like she’s still got some crazy left!

Amanda Peet, as Jason Bateman’s wife, in the unenviable role of being a generic mom, doesn’t have that much screen time, so the character is almost extraneous, except to establish that Jason Bateman loves his family very much and would never do any of the terrible things the police think he’s done (when his identity gets stolen by Melissa McCarthy).  Kept thinking how pretty Amanda Peet is, what a waste this role was, is this really what happens when a pretty actress reaches a certain age, isn’t being cast as the romantic lead lead any more and hasn’t established herself as a comic actress (like Melissa McCarthy)?  She is consigned to boring “Mom” roles?  How thankless.

Paid full price to see this movie and didn’t regret the expense at all.  Went with a girlfriend, but honestly think men would like this movie, too.  It’s all-around funny.  Don’t know who was voting on imdb, but my friend and I enjoyed the movie and I’d recommend it to anyone if they want an extended laugh fest that doesn’t feel done to death.  Well worth watching.

Nijinsky has Left Us for the Great Cat Haven in the Sky

Nijinsky in “his” chair

I didn’t want to post this and have been avoiding doing so, but feel like I need to post an update.  We had to put Nijinsky to sleep a couple of months ago. He was not doing well. However, looking back on my posts I realize he lived 8 months longer than I’d initially expected, and for a lot of that time he was coddled, ate as much as he wanted, snoozed in “his” chair, and generally had a pretty good quality of life.

In the last few months he began needing to be fed more often and it finally got to the point where I was feeding him every 2-3 hours. He didn’t eat a lot, but he yowled when he got hungry and you couldn’t ignore it — the yowling was loud. Then he began yowling when we were alseep, and I was getting up 3-4 times a night to feed him, which was not good for my sleep.

Soon he started yowling even when he wasn’t hungry. He’d just yowl. He could still walk but sometimes he would not (he seemed confused about getting down out of the chair), and I would pick him up and take him into the kitchen to try feeding him, but often in the last weeks he refused to eat.

We finally came to the conclusion (my husband and I) that he was yowling because he was in pain. That seemed to be the only explanation. Nijinsky had lost even more weight and was so thin that you could feel every single bump in his spine, and all his ribs clearly showed through his fur. Plus, he was throwing up a lot and did not seem to be keeping most of his food down or digesting it very well (there was a lot of runny/smelly poop in the cat litter boxes that stopped happening after we had him put to sleep, as did the excessive cat cack).

We took him to the vet and had him put to sleep.  I’d really been hoping he would pass at home, but he just hung on and hung on.  It was a difficult decision, as he was still mobile, but really seemed to be the most compassionate decision. As was his way, he didn’t make it easy to decide.  My other cat, Peleas, made it clear the day he had to be taken to the vet (11 years ago).  He stopped walking and his hind legs wouldn’t work.  But with Nijinsky, while it wasn’t 100% clear, there didn’t seem to be another decision to make except to put up with yowling all the time and to get no sleep.  And since it seemed he was yowling for reasons other than hunger, we had to think it was because he was not feeling good.

The other cats didn’t sleep in his chair for a couple months after we had him put to sleep, and even now only one of them has slept on the arm of the chair once. So his chair seems to be regarded as “his” even now.  I can’t say that the other two seem to miss him, because Nijinsky was something of a bully with Lulu, and with Isadora, he stopped letting her sleep with him once he went blind.  It scared him when she jumped up and he would hiss and freak out, so she stopped sleeping with him.  By the time we took him in to the vet, I think Isadora didn’t miss sleeping with him any more, and for Lulu, it was a relief when he went blind because he no longer attacked her, so she didn’t care that he was gone.

Nijinsky lived to be 14, and while that’s not super old, it’s better than the alternative. When I took him he was going to be taken to the pound because his owners hadn’t found a home for him and he was about 9 months old by then. Initially I wanted him because he looked like my older cat (Peleas), and I thought he would be sweet like him (not!), so I saved from going to the pound and likely being put to sleep.

He had a good life, lived in a warm home with plenty of food and love, and never wanted for anything. I hope he’s in cat heaven. He used to love to watch men work (when they came into my apartment to fix things) and I have always sworn that when he comes back in his next life, if he is a human being, he’ll be a handyman. If you see a handyman who reminds you of a cranky cat, call him “Nijinsky” and see if he answers!

Les Miserables — the movie-musical

Saw it on Christmas (opening) day, thanks to a kind lawyer at my firm who gave me movie tickets as a gift!  See – there are a few good lawyers, after all!  I looked forward to seeing it because I’d caught the buzz about Anne Hathaway’s performance, and since I like her as an actress, was interested in seeing what she did.  Have never seen the staged musical, so went in without preconceptions, although of course I’d heard “I Dreamed a Dream” and “Bring Him Home” before, as well as “Master of the House”.

Had read a review prior to seeing the movie that mentioned Hugh Jackman’s singing as being very good, and Russell Crowe’s as not, but I beg to differ.  Hugh Jackman’s singing sounded strained to me, and became more so as the movie progressed.  I looked up the voice types for the show and realized Valjean (Jackman’s character) is supposed to be a dramatic tenor.  It’s a rare voice type that’s genuinely hard to find even for opera (for which the term was coined), so finding one for musical theater strikes me as absurdly difficult.  Valjean is in nearly every scene of the movie, and a long movie at that, so if you don’t enjoy his singing you’re stuck because everything is sung, and his singing began to grate on me early on.  “Bring Him Home” was particularly disturbing because it is so high, and he has to sustain that genuinely difficult, high tessitura in the most emotional part of the movie (near the end), which took away, slightly, from the performance, in my opinion.  They couldn’t find a tenor for this role?  Or adjust the key for him?  I just don’t understand it, because acting-wise he was right on the money.  I don’t agree with talk of an Oscar nomination for this particular performance.

My feeling is the main problem for Hugh Jackman is he has a baritone voice (he played Curly in “Oklahoma” on Broadway and won a Tony), and the tessitura for Valjean is extremely high, even for a tenor.  It would be challenging for an experienced tenor to handle this tessitura, and I think in Jackman’s case, although he tried valiantly, it sounded much of the time like he was almost screaming.  Not particularly pleasant.  His voice tended to sound ragged, and when he came down (out of the stratosphere) he was often a little flat.  Also, it was so annoyingly nasal (probably in order to nail that high tessitura) that I found it whiny, and the vibrato was frequently WAY too wide.  It seemed to me his support was not always properly engaged.  When I start breathing for a singer and supporting from the diaphragm while they sing, I know there’s trouble.

However, as I mentioned, his acting is excellent.  In fact, all the acting in the movie is good.  None of the singers are weak actors.  Enjolras (the head of the revolutionaries) has a polished singing technique and, as a light tenor, an exceptionally lovely voice to listen to; his acting is convincing, as well, and he never sacrificed acting for singing.  No one did.  The casting in that respect was exemplary.

Colm Wilkinson, who was renowned for his portrayal of Valjean on Broadway, appears in a cameo as the Bishop of Digne.  I didn’t know his work or face at all, but deduced he was Colm Wilkinson (the original Valjean) because his vocal work in the film, even as an older singer, was so good.  Even though this is supposed to be a baritone role, and he is obviously a tenor, his singing is grounded in an outstanding singing technique, and I could tell he had a great deal of training even though he didn’t have a large role or do much singing.  Reading the credits at the end of the movie validated my guess that the Bishop was, indeed, the original Valjean (on Broadway).

Anne Hathaway’s voice is surprisingly pleasant and musical.  I didn’t realize Fantine’s role is so small — she appears for maybe 1/2 hour in the beginning of the movie and then dies, so you don’t see that much of her.  It is hard to overestimate how affecting her appearance is, though.  Dramatically and musically she gives a seamless, acutely emotional and exceptionally moving performance.  Neither does she sacrifice drama for singing, nor is her singing disconnected from the drama.  She manages to scream/emote and then get back on track to actual singing and made the transition seem quite easy, but as someone with a background in opera and a knowledge of vocal technique, I can’t begin to explain how difficult what she did is to pull off.  It’s likely I won’t see the other movies in which actresses are nominated for an Oscar in her category, but I’d be hard pressed to think of another performance in recent memory that was as transcendent.  She was for me the undisputed standout of the movie.  I read somewhere that her mother played this role on tour and wondered if she’d helped her daughter prepare, musically.  I saw Anne Hathaway in an interview about the role, but this question was not asked and I’d love to know the answer.  Wouldn’t it be a fabulous continuum from mother to daughter to create the definitive film (musical) version of Fantine?

Russell Crowe was well cast and I didn’t agree at all that his voice was not strong enough for the character (the one review I read prior to seeing the movie mentioned this).  His certainly has a more mellow and less Broadway-style voice, and although it is clearly not well-trained, I thought he handled the singing just fine, and his acting is outstanding.  My discomfort came in that he was a bit stiff in some of the scenes, physically, when he just stood and sang, but whether he was directed that way (he stands atop a parapet and sings several times, and the camera focuses on him just standing there) or if he sort of stiffened up when he sang, which is a common problem for opera singers, I don’t know.  In any case, his singing didn’t bother me the way Hugh Jackman’s did and I thought he was very effective as Javert.  He certainly has the commanding voice (when he spoke/sang) and persona of a dogmatic police inspector.

Samantha Barks as Eponine is a Broadway veteran in the role, and she was excellent.  Her singing and acting was as seamless as Anne Hathaway’s, although her role is somewhat less emotionally intense.  She certainly deserved to be cast and is a marvelous addition to the movie.  Eddie Redmayne as Marius is outstanding.  I first saw and loved him in a television mini series, “Pillars of the Earth”, and was happily looking forward to his performance as Cosette’s love interest.  He did not disappoint.  While his singing is not particularly exceptional, he can definitely sing, and his acting is so splendid that I barely noticed his singing at all.  He just seemed to be the character.  He has an uncommon acting gift and I believe will be one of the actors I look forward to seeing in anything he does

Generally I do not consider myself a big Sacha Baron Cohen fan, but I liked him in “Sweeney Todd”, and enjoyed him in “Les Miserables”, for similar reasons.  In fact, the two movies remind me of each other with their acting singers and unrelenting darkness and depravity.  Cohen really has a surprisingly good singing voice, and as the exceedingly unsavory Thenardier, is unmatchably smarmy and funny.  His foil, Helena Bonham Carter, as Madame Thenardier, was less successful for me.  She mugs so much, it seemed less a character and more of a caricature.  Interestingly, this is supposed to be a mezzo soprano role, but she has a light, high soprano voice, and her singing doesn’t have much meat to it, although she uses it well in a dramatic sense (she is able to sing/talk when necessary to bring more heft to the voice).  She and SBC worked well together, and as a team I think HBC’s performance was enhanced by her pairing with SBC.  She has the ability, as all British actors seem to, of being able to flip off a light, sarcastic remark in such a way as to be both funny and sarcastic, but w/out a heaviness that makes it seem mean spirited.  She and Cohen are adept at this, and it keeps their loathsome characters from being too oppressive.  “Master of the House” is much-needed comic-relief and enjoyably done.

I must say the singing I liked least of all was Amanda Seyfried’s (Cosette).  Her voice is especially light, high and thin, and has a fast, nervous vibrato.  The very high notes (and this is also an extremely high role) were pinched and thin, and I just did not enjoy her singing at all.  Since everything is sung, it’s hard to embrace a character whose voice you dislike.  Her acting, as was everyone’s, is solid, and she is an extraordinarily pretty girl, but I wish they’d looked harder for an actress with more vocal training and a more pleasant singing voice.  She’s the only person I would have replaced, because her singing distracted and bothered me so much.  Even Hugh Jackman, whose singing was not always pleasant, was still unquestionably effective as an actor.  I just wanted to shoot this girl to put me out of the misery of listening to her.

Isabelle Allen as the poor orphan and mistreated ward of the Thenardiers, (young) Cosette, was excellent.  Her singing is childlike, which worked well, and her acting was quite good.  The little boy (Daniel Huttlestone), as Gavroche, was equally effective as the guttersnipe thief turned revolutionary.  His wonderful cockney accent was very entertaining.

Much like “Sweeny Todd”, the filmmaker captures the squalor, darkness, and despair of the Paris and the common folk of the 19^th century.  The cinematography and sets perfectly capture the misery of the era, and even though the revolutionaries are doomed, one can imagine why it seemed well worth it to stage a revolt against their treatment and situation during that time.

The end of the film is, thankfully, uplifting and I was grateful because if it had not been, I would have left feeling pretty depressed by all the destitution and misery depicted.  Unless you simply hate musicals, go see this.  It’s well worth the ticket and will transport you to another place and time.  While I will likely see it again when it comes out on cable, the big screen is probably how you want to experience this movie first.  Also, although the movie is longer than most, I was never bored and the time flew by.

Nijinksy Update

He’s doing pretty well.  Although still very, very thin, he’s eating quite heartily and regularly.  For a while he was eating 8 meals a day!  I thought he would burst, but he seemed to be keeping it all down.  It was a little much, because every time I went into the kitchen he seemed to be there, waiting by his food plate.  Or if he heard me walk past his chair he’d get up and jump down to go into the kitchen (to be fed).  Not that he was eating a tremendous amount per meal, just that he seemed to want to eat very frequently.  Lately he’s down to around 6 meals a day, and is sometimes eating more per meal, which is easier on us.

One day last week he actually ventured beyond his chair in the bedroom to the next room where my husband and I have desks/computers, and flopped down in the middle of the rug, right in the path of anyone walking in or out.  I had to move him because I was afraid my husband would step on him (inadvertently), but I was encouraged that Nijinsky decided to go walkabout.

He still sleeps a lot and I guess he’ll never gain weight again, but his health seems to have stabilized and he is very much in the land of the living.  Who knows for how long, but at least Nijinsky doesn’t seem to be at (or near) death’s door any more.

St. Patty’s Day Cherry Blossom Surprise!

Can anyone believe the cherry blossoms are in bloom already? I took all these on March 17, 2012, in Newark, NJ, in Branchbrook Park. St. Patrick was in the pink this year! Click on the bottom of the slideshow frame (on the middle square) to stop the show, or on the arrows to go from picture to picture at your own pace.

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Nijinsky is improving!

Will wonders never cease?  A good friend of mine, a truly sweet and caring woman, says Nijinsky in always in her prayers, and it might be working! 

Two nights ago he was standing by the water bowl right after I fed him, and I tried giving him more food but he didn’t want it.  I had a weird intuition he might want to jump into “his chair” in the kitchen, which he hasn’t used for many months.  It’s a small table with only 2 chairs, both torn to hell (the seats) because of the cats, but he liked, in particular, to sleep in one of them.  So I cleared my husband’s two pair of shoes away from the chair (he won’t wear his outside shoes inside, and this table is near the door), and thought maybe that would help.  Nijinsky had been a bit confused about where he was going lately, so I wasn’t 100% sure this is what he wanted to do, but on Tuesday morning I got up and didn’t see him in “his chair” in the bedroom, and went to see if he was standing by the water bowl hoping to be fed.  Nope.  He was curled up in “his chair” in the kitchen, sound asleep! 

Then last night he meowed to be fed.  (He had lately mostly been standing silently by the water bowl waiting for someone to come in and feed him.)  And this morning he got up and came into the bathroom when he heard me go through the kitchen (he slept in “his chair” in the kitchen again last night), and meowed at me to feed him.  He’s going back to being annoying, which is very “Nijinsky”. 

But the real kicker is:  when I tried to get out of the bathroom today he went in front of me, then stopped and kept me waiting!  That was true, pure Nijinsky, getting in my way.  And I had to nudge him along to get him out of the way!  So he seems to be feeling much better, if ‘normal’ behavior for him is an indication.  He’s continuing to eat quite a bit.  Now I’m feeling sort of foolish for being so dramatic when I said he was dying, but I honestly thought that was what was happening.  He has proven me wrong, and I’m glad.

Short Nijinsky Update

For the past week Nijinsky has been eating quite well. Today he actually came into the bathroom just for petting, and it’s been a while since he did that.  He seems to be having an upturn in health.

He is still painfully thin (you can see the outline of his ribcage from above) and I have no doubt this is a temporary improvement, but am happy that he is again able to get to and from the kitchen, is eating quite a bit, and is mobile and unconfused enough to come find me in the bathroom.

Oh, and it’s a most wonderful Spring day outside on the first day of “spring forward”, a full week and a half before the official first day of Spring. And the daffodils outside are in full bloom, early, early, early! Nijinsky will live to see another Spring, I think (although he can’t actually see and my indoor cats are not allowed to go out, so I’m speaking metaphorically here).  Spring is such a time of hope for me, and it’s my favorite season, so I can’t help being optimistic that Nijinsky seems better on the cusp of another Spring.

On Hanging in There

I guess it’s time to write an update on Nijinsky.  I thought (again) at the beginning of last week we might lose him because he was eating so little.  About ¼ of a small can (3 oz.) of cat food per meal, and he was only eating twice a day, if that.  Then, sometime last week (or the previous week) he stopped coming into the kitchen.

I sort of flew him in.  Did you ever see those B. Kliban cat cartoons? There was one drawing I remember where the cat had wings.  Most of his cartoons were in black and white, and he often drew tabby cats, so the cat(s) looked a lot like Nijinsky, at least from the top.  N. has white paws and lower face and stomach, but he is definitely a black and white tabby from the top.  How I “flew” him was by picking him up by the nape of the neck and underneath the ribcage and bringing him into the kitchen, then setting him down by the food plate/water bowl.

I began to realize he was afraid to jump down out of the chair.  He would just walk around in circles on the seat.  He started howling again, just a little, when he was doing this.  I figured he’d either forgotten how to jump down, or was confused or afraid.  So I “flew” him into the kitchen.  Not that it worked out all that well, because sometimes he refused to eat. However, he could walk back to the chair afterwards and jump up (he can feel the chair and the seat with his front paws, which I guess makes him feel safer than when he has to jump down), so I think it was fear and not forgetting that made him stop jumping down off the chair.

About mid-week I began coaxing him to jump down.  I would call him and talk nice and finally he jumped out of the chair on his own and came in to eat.  Since about mid-late week he has been coming into the kitchen and eating a lot more.  In fact, over the weekend I fed him about 5 times a day – and at least ½ a can (a 3 oz. size), so he was getting quite a bit more food than earlier in the week.  Plus, if he’s in the kitchen he’s hungry, so it’s good to feed him when I know he wants to eat.

Once he jumped out of the chair again he seemed to have gotten over his fear of doing it.  Who knows, maybe he made an ill-timed jump and jumped on Lulu as she was walking by and she whacked him while we were out?  I do try to police when he walks back from the kitchen to the bedroom, because sometimes she’ll stand right by the door and if he gets close enough to brush against her he balks and will walk all around the perimeter of the kitchen before he tries to get back to the bedroom again.  She’s not aggressive with him, but they never got along very well and I think he gets nervous when he runs into her.  After all, he is blind, and it can’t be a good thing to walk (or jump) smack into an adversary!

If she’s hanging out near the door (the better to rush in and get any scraps he may have left behind), I’ll shoo her away and then call him and coax him out to let him know the coast is clear.  This seems to be working pretty well and he seems to have regained his confidence.

Good grief.  I’m finding out that dying can be a long process, sometimes.  I’m not complaining, just sayin’.  I’ve found I really have to observe all the time because there are frequent changes one has to adjust to.  I mean, I could have let him sit in the chair and then concluded he was too weak and then taken him to the vet to put him down, but he continues to be astonishing in that he is seemingly still not in pain, and really pretty mobile (he jumps up onto the chair w/out any problem at all) for a cat who maybe weighs 6 pounds at this point and has seemingly been ill and getting worse for a while, now.  And now that his appetite has rallied again, he seems to be making the choice to hang in there.  So I’m trying to hang in there with him too, and adjust to what he seems to want/need.

Road Rudeness

I would really like to know if this behavior bugs other people, or even if anyone else has been noticing this.  I am talking about “forced” lane changes, especially on the highway.  Does this sound petty?  I can’t tell.  By forced, I mean when you’re driving in a lane and somebody signals and just muscles over – and you’re right in their path and have to brake or move to the next lane yourself in order not to get hit.  I have been noticing this more and more frequently, and wonder why people think that if they put on their blinker and start to move over it’s okay to go for it without bothering to see if the actual space they’re moving into is open.  AND – if you honk (as I do) I have not infrequently been given the finger and shouted at.  It’s as though some drivers have the idea it is their right to move over when and where they want to, without looking, and you, the driver in the lane that they are moving into, should automatically yield because they are changing lanes.

When I’m driving I was taught to, and still do, signal before moving over only when the actual space I’m moving into is free, i.e., void of any other vehicle.  And if there is no room, I don’t try to muscle over (unless I’ve miscalculated and am desperate and need to get over to exit, and then I make hand signals and pleading facial expressions to let the other driver know I’m an idiot and am sorry, but could I please get over?).  And you know what?  If I can’t get over I go to the next exit and backtrack, because it was, after all, my mistake.

This happened to me again today on a very backed up highway crammed full of bumper-to-bumper, slow moving cars.  I was in the middle lane.  This big, dark blue SUV started moving over toward me (from the lane on my right) and I pulled forward to let the driver see I was there.  There was no reason to muscle over into my lane.  We were all in line to cross a bridge and it was backed up for miles.  If anything, she would have only needed to move over to the right lane if she had to exit.  Otherwise, the only other place she could go after my lane was the far left lane, and it was very bogged down, too, and there were miles to go before any of us could get anywhere else other than these two lanes.

In any case, she kept muscling over and was not being nice.  She ended up honking and cursing (her window was rolled down), and at one point she was no more than an inch from my car.  It was crazy.  Well, it made me mad and I wouldn’t let her in, because, after all, didn’t your mother always say you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar?  Mine did.  Then she pulled up and tried to get in front of the driver in front of me, who also pulled up and wouldn’t let her in, so she drifted back and tried to wedge herself in front of me again.  I mouthed “NO” to her through the window and she was cursing, shrieking, honking, etc., and was finally able to wedge herself in front of the driver in front of me (on her second try).  Then she muscled her car over into the far left lane (same tactics), and I sailed past her a few minutes later (the lane I was in always moves faster than the left lane, don’t ask me why, but I drive this route 5 days a week and know the traffic patterns).  She flipped me off, of course.  The funniest thing is she was headed for the highway (that comes in on the left – 3 lovely lanes, but you have to go over a bridge and down these 2 lanes for a while before you come to where the highway widens) and I saw in my rear view mirror that she got onto the highway (as I had) way in back of me, and she never caught up to me at all.  I can only wonder why she felt so crazed about getting over and being so rude about it in the first place.  There was absolutely no rational reason for it that I could see.

What bothers me a lot is I’ve been seeing this more and more.  It’s awfully dangerous.  I drive to and from work and have seen so many folks signal, then start pulling over, as if they’re thinking, “Surely that car in my way will let me in since I’m signaling.”  But the law is you are supposed to signal and only move over when the lane is clear.  There is no law that I know of which gives a person the right of way just because that driver signaled they want to change lanes.  It’s gracious to make room for someone if they want to come over, but at the rate of speed we’re traveling (on a highway), it’s really up to you to make sure the lane is clear before you change lanes.  I’ll let people in if they’re being nice and if it’s safe (i.e., if I’m not going faster than them, because frequently someone pull into the left lane from the right and is going slower than me, which makes me really unhappy), but that’s not the type of driver I’m talking about.  I’m talking about those who seem to think it’s their right to move on over whenever they damn well please, and you best get out of their way.

End of rant!  But please tell me if you’re seeing this yourself, ok?  Or is it just me?!