Oh, and Sophia, I was thinking about you last night when my cat decided that my forearm made nice prey and tried to bite it. After dumping her onto the floor and checking for bitemarks (she didn't dig in that hard, thank goodness!), I looked at her crouching on the floor beside the couch and eyeing the other forearm. I managed to stop her from leaping, but it took a concerted effort to snap her out of stalk mode. Very scary stuff, because I'd never seen her that keen to attack me before!

Dear Lord, perhaps the cats are trying to take over the earth!

When haven't the cats been trying to take over the earth?

I swallowed a quarter on two different occasions. Yes, you read that right, putting a quarter in my mouth and accidentally swallowing it the first time wasn't enough to learn me not to put quarters in my mouth, I did it again a few years later.

I managed to stop her from leaping, but it took a concerted effort to snap her out of stalk mode. Very scary stuff, because I'd never seen her that keen to attack me before!

I got trapped in our office by my cat. He likes to hang out in makeshift caves, and one of them is the closet in the office. I was walking around in the office and he started hissing and growling at me, and I put on a primate threat display to get him to back down, but it didn't work. In fact it kind of backfired, because it really got the hair on his back up, and he started yowling and hissing even more and backed me into a corner. I had to have S come into the office with the squirt bottle and squirt him until he ran off and found somewhere else to hide.

I had a literal green thumb, when I was a kid. A splinter got stuck underneath my skin and took to infection, but it had been wrapped by a band-aid; my mother didn't know until I took it off, and took me to the emergency room.

When haven't the cats been trying to take over the earth?

It's just that they've gotten more overt about it lately. Mine have been depending on plausible deniability, and then falling back on the Big Eyes maneuver.

In fact it kind of backfired, because it really got the hair on his back up, and he started yowling and hissing even more and backed me into a corner.

You know, Sean, even when they fluff up their fur they are quite a bit smaller than you.

My cat is currently too hot for nefarious plots. He's been either flat on the floor or under my bed for the past couple of days.

So, my marathon of shopping will continue today, I guess. I'm going to take my modem to the cable company store at the mall (although of course, now it's been working for an hour straight, for the first time in days), where they also have a Fossil store, which I hope will ba able to sell me a new watchband. Then I need shoes, too. THEN I think I will have a new work wardrobe.

My cat gets in weird moods where he'll stand or sit next to me and just stare at me. His pupils get really big and he stares *really* intensly. Then, a few things can happen:

1. I pet him and he's mollified by the attention and settles down.

2. I don't pet him (the horrors!), and he pounces, bites my arm extremely hard (yes, he has punctured the skin), and runs away because he knows he did a bad thing.

3. I pet him and he still pounces and bites.

4. I notice the weird staring and I shove him off the couch with my foot and that seems to make him snap out of it.

I thought I had broken him of the behavior, but he did it again just a few days ago.