Saturday Notes

Four-day holiday from work:

Thursday: Ate my own Thanksgiving meal. Mildly depressed about not being with family, as I have been up until last year. But then: In the past, I was usually kind of the adjunct and I felt it. Time to move on and do my own thing, however lonely.

Friday: Stayed on the couch all day with a hangover, watching the UT Longhorns victory on TV, then other random TV for the rest of the hours in the day.

Saturday: A couple of hours of driving errands. Returned a sweater to The Gap; shopped unsuccessfully for bargains at Sue Patrick (tried to equal the exuberant greeting upon my entrance to this upscale Texas store); went to the Dollar Store and got cheap lighters and cheap cat dishes; went to Target trying to find a new microwave (my mother's hand-me-down from 1985 is about to give out) --- all the microwaves were cheap and horrible, but I did find three cheap shirts and some sweatpants; at the end got my favorite KFC three-strips meal and went home to watch horrible tales of serial killers on the REELZ network. Was happily surprised by how empty and relaxed the stores were on Saturday. Because the huge sales took place on Black Friday, I suppose, and everyone was tapped out the day after? Traffic was nice; The Gap and Target were mostly empty, with relaxed and helpful staff...

In Penny Family News:
OK, recap: There's Penny (the original cat hanging around), Henny Penny (looks just like Penny except a scarred nose and shorter tail), Papa Penny, and L'il Penny. Papa Penny scares Penny and Henny. Often, he sits on my back step both in the mornings, and in the evenings ahead of feeding time (when I get home after 5pm): If he's there, Penny and Henny might be in the vicinity watching, but they won't actually come into the fenced area. Friday, Penny and Henny got there first and were eating... Then Papa Penny started approaching from outside the fence... Penny and Henny spotted him and both immediately stopped eating and started backing off from their food dishes in literal slow motion. (Papa Penny is old and fat and can't see that well. For instance, he can be sitting right outside my sliding glass door, but when I open the blinds, he doesn't move. And when I lightly tap on the glass, he looks up vaguely, but not directly at me. That's why I think Henny/Penny move so slowly when they see him coming --- they know he can't see them exactly!) Henny and Penny can take turns sharing one dish between them without getting overly aggressive with each other (I've seen each bop the other on top of the head sans claws, but that's all), so I can tell they were born at the same time, but they're both scared of Papa. p.s. Thursday eve, I included some Thanksgiving turkey meat for Henny and Penny, which FINALLY got an anticipatory MEOW out of Henny! (I'd never heard any of the Family talk before!)