Spunk checking out the stairs before his first ascent.

Even though hammocking is the perfect lounging behavior for cats, the kitties also wanted stairs so they could get floors on their little kitty Fitbits. After making coffee this morning, I went out and gathered up some old mahogany shelves I had in the shed, built the kitties a set of stairs and mounted them on the wall above my camera shelf on the other side on the hammock I hung yesterday.  While all the kitties checked out the new stairs, Spunk and Marble have been using the stairs and the hammock the most of all the kitties. Spunk went right into modeling mode after I got the stairs installed.

Marble making her way up the steps.

Spunk was the first one to figure out that he could go over to the bookcase, scratch on the pole and then go back over the shelf and hammock and back down the steps. The rest of the kitties acted stuck on the bookcase, and then jumped off the bookcase to the floor.

Marble was not very happy after Spunk pushed her out of the hammock.

Spunk grooming while hammocking.

Spunk doing a great pose while scratching on the pole.

Marble finally reclaimed the hammock from Spunk and did some serious hammocking in the afternoon.

The kitties heard that Hammocking was all the rage, and asked me if I could get them a hammock. I searched the property for various goods to repurpose and came up with a telephone pole for the kitties to climb to get on the shelf. Then I found an old melamine cabinet door, and an old bicycle tire for the shelf. The kitties had been lying around on an empty beanbag that had 20 pounds of Anasazi pinto beans in it, so I took the nylon rope that I had saved from one of the canopies that the wind tore up, and stitched it through the beanbag to make the hammock. I put hooks in the ceiling to hang the shelf and hammock from and voilà! A new shelf and beanbag hammock so the cats can go a hammocking in.

Earlier in the day, I rebuilt the seat on our benchpress. I had welded together the benchpress out of scrap iron 40 years ago, and the plywood that makes up the base of the multi-position seat had weathered to the point that the screws in the various hinged parts were falling out. I sandwiched the plywood between aluminum strips to create strong surfaces to secure the various hinges to, so now the multi-position seat is rebuilt and fully operational. We'll have to see if it lasts another 40 years.

Rosencrantz isn't so sure about hammocking.

Marble is always looking for high places, so she was very interested in the hammock.

Marble had a good vantage point to see what no good the other kitties were up to.

The new telephone pole makes a great scratching post.

Nice fashion statement on the hardhat in the foreground.

"It's stuck!"

Walking the lines.

I forgot my Fitbit 
Oh this mourn
Steps wasted 
Throughout the day
Heavy steps 
Up down stairs
Accumulate floors 
Unrecorded
All for nothing 
Steps in thousands 
Slipped slided away

Reunited
Late in the day
Steps steps need recording
Out to the bank
Dusk turned to darkness
Up down ramps
Cut into levees
A waxing quarter moon
Wanes in cloudless sky
Only smoke from distant fires
Color the horizon

Heavy treads
Boots scrape on gravely trail
Steps more steps
You need more steps
Press on into
The falling gloom
“Almost there!”
Fibit cheers
“Get 2,453 steps more…”
Only a mile to go
Oh dear

Turned around 
At seven thousand
Headed Back 
On dim lit trail
Owls swooped past
Coyotes yipped
Beavers slapped the water
Get those steps
No matter what
All hail to the fitness
dictator

Nighthawk fluttered here and there as it flew around a sliver moon
Overhead, buzzed by a bat as the phone sounded nine
Covered by a sliver moon hanging over a mountain of clouds behind the trees
The coyote defiantly danced across the ditch bank in the ensuing darkness
Under tangled arms, silhouetted against the sky
Rustling in dark shadows unseen movements only heard
Now deep growls warn the wanton they should be weary
As grays turn darker, shadows come alive
Lavender clouds turned gunmetal blue watch colors fade  

Spunk chewing on grass in the black bamboo.

Hanging out on the deck rail.

Getting ready to drink water from the sink on the deck.

Rolling in the catnip

Puffed up at something. Probably the Mournful Kitty.

Chewing on catnip

Standing around half poofed.

Spunk and Mournful Kitty imitating Goya's "Cat Fight".

Spunk back inside.

Saturday Nights All Right for Writing

Another parody music video production by The Average White Boys that is very appropriate for a Saturday night.  The words are below for your convenience.

Saturday Night’s All Right for Writing
Music by Elton John
Lyrics by Timothy Price
Writer/Vocals by An Average White Boy

It’s getting late I found my PaperMate
I’m procrastinating sitting here
Seventy lines that I gotta pine
I have modifiers dangling near

My old Mac’s bonkers and it’s acting kind of funky
And my old adage is to be clear
My writing  is cute like a guy in army Boots
A cowboy hat in his hair
Ohhhhhh

Don’t give us none of your imagination
Write facts be on your discipline
Cause Saturday night’s all right for writing
Let’s get a little action verbiage in

Let’s get about as riled as an op-ed rage
Let’s try to set this page alight
Cause writing on a Saturday night I like
Saturday night’s all right
to write  to write
Ooooo     oo-oo  oh

A lot of words are getting packed in here tonight
I’m looking for a phrase that will seem alright
I might use an antecedent to get what I need
I might bare an infinitive and shout out “conditionally”

Some of the words that I really like
Are future perfect voicing that are out of sight
I’m a high school dropout from the ergative class
Whose passive voices, dangled modified and got a pass
Ohhhhhhh

Don’t give us none of your imagination
Write facts be on your discipline
Cause Saturday night’s all right for writing
Let’s get a little action verbiage in

Let’s get about as riled as an op-ed rage
Let’s try to set this page alight
Cause writing on Saturday night I like
A Saturday night’s all right 
to write to write
Oooooo    oo-oo  ooh

The latest scoop on happenings in Downtown Albuquerque.

It was another scorcher in the parking lot with temperatures reaching 107º F (41.7º C)

The buildings were warping in the intense heat. The area on Civic Plaza where the fountain was, is pretty well cleared out.

The Lutheran Women's Missionary League is having their convention in Albuquerque.

I ran into a Lutheran looking lady near the Convention Center and asked her if she was a Lutheran Woman. She said she was. I asked her if she was attending the Lutheran Women's Missionary League convention. She said she was. I asked her what they did at a Lutheran Woman's convention. She said they studied the bible, prayed, talked about missions, had speakers, and stuff like that. I told her I noticed she had Southern Illinois on her back, and asked her if she was from Illinois. She said yes she was from East St. Louis. I asked her how she liked the heat in Albuquerque. She said she didn't think Albuquerque was so hot. Hmmm?

A long lost relative (maybe?) has an installation that includes some blue kitties hanging in her Projects Gallery.

Biking and brewing — getting ready to take off from the parking lot of the Zendo Coffee | Art and Sidetrack Brewing parking lot.

A group of Lutheran looking ladies got a bunch of old guys to peddle them around downtown. Hallelujah!

Let the light shine down

Of all things, today was national selfie day. Being the cranky contrarian that I am, I did not do a selfie today. But Laurie, the wild, with-it woman that she is, got a perfect selfie after we trekked through thick, prickly underbrush in slick, slimy mud to get to "the beach" at the bend in the river that was still mostly underwater.

The wind blew a "snow storm" of cotton as the sun slowing sank behind the clouds on the smoke filled horizon, turning the sky red for a short time before the smoke swallowed the bright colors, leaving a dull gray sky at dusk.

Bruce and I went out around lunchtime to checkout the progress on the various construction projects downtown. As it were, Bruce ended up doing Shakespeare on Civic Plaza with a city working who was inspecting the set to see what repairs needed to be made before the next regular performance. They simply alternated lines back and forth between Comedy of Errors and MacBeth.

   “Am I in Earth, in heaven, or in hell?"                "Something wicked this way comes."

"This is a sorry sight."       “Yet this my comfort: when your words are done, My woes end likewise with the evening sun.”

  "Out, damned spot! out, I say!"             “Until I know this sure uncertainty, I'll entertain the offered fallacy.”

  "Fair is foul, and foul is fair."             “Ill deeds is doubled with an evil word.”