I am screaming and punching myself

Our Halloween petscape

Adding Peach to the mix of critters in the house has made some things more complicated, to be sure, but one aspect we hadn't really considered when we got her back in March was how she was going to fit into the traditional dressing of the pets for Halloween.

See, it's fairly easy to find two coordinating outfits. But once you're dressing three pets, you're creating what I call a "petscape," a thematically consistent tableau of velcro, fur and hate. And that can be a little tricky.

Back in September, J found an adorable Snow White costume for Peach.

Of course, we already had Emily's witch costume from several years ago.

But what to do with Mojo? Creating a Snow White petscape would mean including one of the Seven Dwarfs—and what better choice for our weird little boy cat than...

Here, I think he really lives up to the name:

If that hat he's wearing looks a little weird, that's because I made it. We couldn't find a proper Dopey costume, but I managed to dig up a photo of a hat that Disney Pets used to make with little felt ears and "dopey" embroidered on it. It took me three hours, but I hand-stitched this replica. (It reminds me more of the Underpants Gnomes from South Park than of Dopey, but I was not about to redo that sucker.)

Getting all three pets into the same frame proved difficult; we deleted dozens of blurry shots from the camera that night. Here's what happened when we tried to get Peach and Emily together:

Snow White tackling the witch; there's an alternate ending I could get behind!

We finally got a bit of inspiration when Emily wandered over to the open door and gazed out.

I'm not sure if she's looking for trick-or-treaters or summoning her flying monkeys here. But we took that idea and ran with it, resulting in..

There we go! Of course, seconds later, Mojo beat feet and Peach lunged for Emily again, but for one brief shining moment, we had all three pets together in a Snow White petscape.

Hope you all had a great Halloween!

Black (Kitty) power!

There's a house on the corner that we always drive by to get into or out of our little suburban subdivision. And there's a cat who lives in that house that we see fairly frequently, as the little critter likes to hang out on the front porch or driveway.

This little critter.

Seeing the cat reminded me of a column I'd read in college about a student adopting a black kitten. She had seen the sign proclaiming "Free Black Kitty" and had briefly misread it as a political slogan. (You know, Free Leonard Peltier! Free the Chicago Seven! Free Black Kitty!)

So I started chanting "Free Black Kitty!" whenever I saw the little furball. Then I began to chant it when the weather was nice but I couldn't see the cat outside. But then I came to realize: sometimes, freedom isn't a good thing for a kitty. So on days when the weather is crappy, the rallying cry becomes "Enclose Black Kitty!"

(I do hope Black Kitty's humans enclose him or her on Saturday, 'cause I've heard horror stories about stuff done to black cats on Halloween.)

Every so often, J and I ponder going up to Black Kitty's house when the humans were in the front yard and asking to pet Black Kitty. We figure it would be best to leave out the rather elaborate inner life we've developed around the cat.

Prior to last night, I had only admired Black Kitty from afar. Then, on my way to class, I spotted a familiar furry silhouette on the driveway of the house. I stopped the car, put the hazards on, grabbed my phone (hence the crap picture quality) and walked up to Black Kitty, hoping he or she wouldn't bolt before I could snap a pic.

I needn't have worried. Black Kitty trotted up to me, meowing a greeting and nudging my hand. In fact, I couldn't get him or her to stop moving long enough to get a shot that looked like anything other than a vaguely cat-shaped black blur.

And I was very relieved that Black Kitty's humans were nowhere near the house, otherwise they would have seen a car stopped as if for an emergency and a clearly deranged lady holding out a camera phone while telling their cat "Okay, okay--no, back--easy--back it--sit. Sit. Stay. Hold on. Dammit!"

I'm still unsure of Black Kitty's gender and also of his or her name. For Black Kitty wears no collar. So I have a request for Black Kitty's owners, if by some odd chance they're reading this. Free Black Kitty when it's nice out. Enclose Black Kitty when it's raining or it's Halloween. But most of all, Clothe Black Kitty.

Happy (hateful) Halloween

Yeah, I said I was going to stop blogging. But, like dressing the cats, it's a hard habit to quit cold turkey. So here's a little valentine of feline hatred for your Halloween. Many happy, spooky, glucose-laden returns of the day!

I can scarcely think of a better match of costume and wearer.

Here, Mojo is supposed to be Emily's familiar in a spider costume. You can kind of see the extra legs on the side and the googly eyes atop his head. But the best part, to me, is the "why are you doing this?" look of stoic suffering on his little face.

"You too, huh?" "Yup." "They'll pay for this, won't they?" "Oh, yes."

Happy Halloween, y'all.

I saw J snuggling Santa Claws

Despite our best efforts at conditioning using praise and treats, the cats still haven't warmed to the idea of holiday headgear.

O Little Generator of P-Town

While this house probably wouldn't even make an appearance on one of those "Wacky Christmas Decorating" specials, and it's certainly not fodder for Ugly Christmas Lights, I'm utterly awed by the time, money and energy one of my neighbors puts into their annual holiday festival of lights. I'm not even mocking, here; I'm genuinely impressed!

How to almost ruin "A Christmas Story"

Jason and I managed to catch most of A Christmas Story on AMC yesterday and had a lovely time re-watching it. It had been a few years since either of us had seen it; we'd both gotten a little burned out by the marathon showings of previous years. But the writing holds up, as do the performances, so it was quite enjoyable to see it again. There was just one little thing bothering me.

(Photos from the Christmas Story fan site Flick's Tongue... more about that later.)

Deck the -- no, I can't

You know, some concepts should never be combined. Sometimes, two great tastes simply don't taste great together. "You got your prurient material in my holiday decorations!" "Aw, your holiday crapped all over my prurient materials!"

Much as it pains me to do so, I give you... pornaments.

How else can 2 months' salary and a severed hand last forever?

Of all the irritations of the holiday season, the one that picks my nit the most (besides traffic, of course) is the prevalence of diamond ads and all the ickiness they either imply or proclaim outright. "You can buy love!" the ads all but state, with a nasty undercurrent of "Women can be bought... and you know what that makes them!"

"Mildred! I finally saved up the five large for some bling! Now can I hit it?"

A Very Wookiee Christmas

The Star Wars Holiday Special has attained a kind of mythic status in the annals of bad TV. Those who haven't seen it tend to exclaim, "Oh, come on! How bad can it be?" while those who have seen it stare back at them with the battle-hardened eyes of a Bataan veteran and say, "You have no idea."

Well, let me give you a bit of an idea. Here's the intro to this abomination. (Of course the video quality is awful; this only aired once in December 1978, and I think the intro alone gives you a pretty good idea of why it was just the one time.)

It's the most wonderful time of the year

I don't know about y'all, but this is why I have pets.