He’s doing what he does at this hour, which is to store up energy so he can run around the house all night long and make the dogs bark:
Here is Rosie chewing the hell out of a toy:
Lily is under the comforter in the bed, where she spends 75% of her life (and God Bless her for her), so no pics about her.
*** Update ***
Check out this glamorous monster I found on my glass door when I just let the girls out:
We all know how much my photography sucks, but this was worse than normal because it was on a glass pane at night with an iPhone. Regardless, this baby was every bit of 6-7 inches.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader?
What about John?
SIA
Steve has beautiful markings. Love all your pets.
Botsplainer
Into the second season of Boardwalk Empire, and just got through the mom-son flashback.
Jesus…
YellowJournalism
Steve looks like a comfy pillow. Just want to lay your heading him and listen to him purr.
eemom
I still think Steve is a funny name for a puddy tat.
Yatsuno
I see Papa Stevedore Hemingway Esq. is training you well. It’s great that you have a feline overlord with a different touch than His Lord and Tunchness, Peace Be Upon Him.
Paddy
I miss having a cat. Every once in a while I still have the “corner of the eye” thing and think I see one of my boys. 20 years with them got me trained.
SIA
I opened (?) a twitter account last might, SIA was taken so I am now Madame Crab. I tried to tweet Tom’s post about Chuck Todd to said Chuck Todd, but no idea if it was successful. I do not understand the twitter machine. And yes, I’m old and get offa my lawn.
Jackie
Steve is totally relaxed and feeling safe in his forever home. Rosie and Lily are happy and content as dogs can be in their forever home :)
Comrade Mary
Oh, that’s the best pic of Steve yet. Rosie looks like a sweetie, too.
PurpleGirl
You’ve got a young cat who is going to act like a cat. Cats are nocturnal: they run around all night. Get used to it.
John O
Looks like a very contented household, John. Good on ya.
Linnaeus
Cheered me up a little. Well, that and the pinot grigio.
The Dangerman
Steelers fan?
Captain Comrade
This friend needed a place to crash due to some problems and I had this room and then had to go away for a while. So this friend had this ex with a cat who was renting a place you weren’t supposed to have cats and the landlord found out about the cat so this friend, without letting me know and took this cat in. Now my room stinks and I don’t like my friend anymore. So be wary of cats.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Yatsuno: What does your wifey think of Steve? I expect she was distraught by the reason for his arrival.
Do I need to change my nym to Abbess of Mutally Assured Destruction of Tolerance? My drag queen name is Rachel Intervention. Link for bribe at my current nym. :)
kc
Aww! Thanks!
kc
@Captain Comrade:
You be nice to that kitty, now . . .
Suzanne
So it was, like, three inches long.
Bob In Portland
The wonders of nature!
Hill Dweller
@Botsplainer: The second and third seasons are much better than the first.
zanamu
I have a kitty who is all about chasing bugs, so she could take care of that critter on the glass. Of course, she would barf it up later, for twice the fun
Mary G
Thanx for the pics, John.
jeffreyw
Preaching Mantis
Yatsuno
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): Wifey was devastated by the death of his Tunchness. She likes the idea of Steve but I think she’s still warming up to the concept. I’m working on it though and I’ll report this sighting to her when I get home.
I haz a nym in mind, but again the bribe shall be fulfilled when I get home. I just gotz paid. :P
Narcissus
Steve needs a little hat.
Tokyokie
@PurpleGirl: My cats mostly sleep during the night. For that matter, they mostly sleep during the day, too.
Karen in GA
My four cats still aren’t pleased with Iggy. Trouble is, he’ll try to play, one of them will hiss, and he’ll leave them alone — but they don’t know they’ve won. So they still prefer hiding.
Meanwhile, here’s what he looks like through the lens of the crappy iPad 2 camera, with hipster “drama” filter added so people will think the graininess was intentional.
https://iggyetc.shutterfly.com/pictures/31
CaseyL
Love the mantis! Do you have a lot of them where you live?
A few years ago, I was in Alice Springs (Australian outback), staying at a hotel where the individual room doors opened to the outside, like a motel. There weren’t too many bugs around during the day, so we had no idea what was about to happen once the sun set.
The first night, when we all came back from dinner, the entire patio area, walkways, exterior walls, and doors were covered – honestly, literally, covered – with various insects and bugs. Mostly beetles, some ginormous grasshoppers, and enough huge red-eyed cicadas to give one a serious case of the willies.
I had to flick about eight bugs off the doorknob to get into the room. My aunt and I sort of jumped in together and slammed the door before a few hundred bugs jumped in with us.
More than a few had gotten into the room anyway. My aunt began grabbing them in wads of kleenex, killing them and tossing them into the trash. I said they weren’t really hurting anyone, and we should put them outside. My aunt said if I opened the door to put the bugs outside, I could damned well stay outside with them.
I don’t mind bugs and insects – I like most of them – but the sheer numbers just blew my mind.
Jackie
I used to have a cat who caught praying mantis’s on a regular basis. He’d catch, bring into house via cat door – alive – and me or my son would rescue and take out the front door and hang it on the tree trunk. He was the laziest cat ever, but he could catch a praying mantis in flight (similar to catching a grasshopper in flight.) Couldn’t catch a bird or a mouse for the life of him. Not that he didn’t try. :) He caught his last mantis at age 13 and passed prior to mantis season just shy of 14. I miss Oreo. His mama is still with me at the young age of 19 1/2 yrs.
Anne Laurie
The mantis heard that yours is a fine home for small carnivores, John. S/he’s hoping you’ll be beguiled enough to provide a safe space and a regular supply of tasty insects, now that winter is coming…
jeffreyw
Face off!
Violet
Thanks for the pictures, John. Everyone looks so happy, even the mantis.
lamh36
Bowling update: I bowled better than my average for at least 2 frames. And I finished close to my avg on the last frame. I’m still the lowest on my team, but I did better than I expected. I need a better follow through and better form.
I joined late so I had to pick up 2 games. I stayed after regular tournament tonight, with just me and the other newest bowler and I did twice my average the first frame & I went at least 20 pins over my avg for the final 2 frames.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@jeffreyw: Fabulous photo. I’m hoping to visit Stuck’s place this or next weekend, and want to take a hummingbird and a Charlie and one of those amazing landscapes. My thought was a photo of his photos by his place for Balloon Juice. Is that dumb? Of course I’ll need to remember where it is in Middletown, but I’m hoping Anne Laurie will help.
kc
That’s a fine bug.
John Cole
@Suzanne:
That was brilliant… I’m in tears.
eemom
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
That’s so great of you to do that!
I’ll be with you in spirit, as I’m sure will many others.
RIP mon General.
pseudonymous in nc
We saw a huuuuuge mantis on the screen door last week. Tis the season.
Hummingbirds are on the southward trail. Adult males are pretty much gone this week, and the females are squabbling over the feeders like chittering fighter pilots. As ever, I’ll miss them when they’re gone.
SIA
@eemom: @a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): I still think about Gen Stuck and miss him a lot. I would’ve loved to meet him in person.
janeform
@SIA: I also miss the General.
Soonergrunt
Mark Kessler, the Police Chief (and only officer) of Gilberton, PA has been fired.
*That would be the purchase of several assault rifles and shotguns for the one-man police “force,” which he then used without authorization in his Youtube videos. There’s a word for that. It’s called “fraud.”
KS in MA
@Karen in GA:
Awww! Terrier! Essence of adorableness!
RSR
We had a praying mantis that lived on the sage plant in our container herb garden for at least three weeks this summer. It molted–twice! We visited it almost every day. Then we left for a week vacation, and it was gone when we returned.
I once saw it actually eating some other little creature, which was fascinating. The feasting was very fast, too. I did not see the capture, which would have made it even better.
SIA
@janeform: There was just something about him. :)
asiangrrlMN
Awwww, Sir Whiskertons the III is a cute ball of kitteh, yes he is. Thanks, as always, to Yutsy for linking the post on FB.
@Karen in GA: That’s a ridiculously cute (and happy) puppeh.
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): This is very kind of you. Still missing the General. What a presence.
piratedan
ot: wish Grayson would do more of this:
http://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2013/09/18/watch-the-benghazi-testimony-the-conservative-m/195950
Ash Can
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): No, it’s not dumb. It’s aces.
Alison
I really wish my cat was not an Only Cat and would not kill me in my sleep if I brought another home. There are a couple at my local shelter that have been there so long and it breaks my heart whenever they post their pics on Facebook. Who knows what makes some cats get chosen and others passed over time and again? Poor babies :(
Ash Can
@Soonergrunt:
Thank God *some* people still have some common fucking sense in this nation.
aldorossi
Dude: I grew up in Fairport, before it was investment banker suburbia…u know where…there were cows grazing in my back yard. So I’m an old guy. Living with my old lady in LA now….
Doing fine, but I miss Indian summer nights nature study…what big bugs show up on the the kitchen screen door on a Saturday night.
Mantis is boss.
Upstate peace out…
trollhattan
@CaseyL:
Friend once had a darkroom set up in an unused wing of the state mental hospital in town. I borrowed it on occasion. Having used it many times I eventually used it at night. Was there quite awhile before I noticed skittery noises, and when I got to a point in the workflow I could turn on a light, I did and to my horror, gazed at a floor resplendent in cockroaches. Big, Fucking. Giant. Big Cockroaches that actually made a noise walking across the linoleum.
Never went back there after dark.
Suzanne
@John Cole: Sorry, LOL. I was just going to say, “That’s what she said”.
jl
Cole should tell the commenters that it’s fines arts photography that is beyond the appreciation of the vulgar and untutored, and to F off.
I guess Cole has the ‘F off’ part down.
AxelFoley
@asiangrrlMN:
asiangrrl!!! Where you been, boo?
asiangrrlMN
@AxelFoley: AxelF! I haven’t talked to you in FOREVER. I’ve sorta given up politics on a daily basis since the election. It’s gotten to be too much. I hope all is well with you, though! #heyboohey
jl
@asiangrrlMN: I got the impression you ran off into the Great White North with some guy, or was it gal? Or some kind of significant other.
You still in Minneapolis? I have to go but will check back later.
manyakitty
@YellowJournalism: My Heisenberg kitteh loves it when I use him as a pillow. He’s also on the floofy side, and so cozy.
sherparick
@PurpleGirl: I think you need to get your sense of humor fine tuned or perhaps it was not installed originally at the factory. JC is just riffing about his “kids” whom he loves more than life itself. Reading about the Republicans (although often grimly funny) trying to destroy the country if they can’t rule it is serious enough.
sherparick
By the way, that is a beautiful looking preying mantis.
Woodrowfan
we’ve heard THAT one before..
CaseyL
@trollhattan: Cockroaches are my biggest exception to the idea of loving all creatures: I’m absolutely phobic about them. I used to live in Miami, where they’re called “palmetto bugs” and are not only huge, but aggressive and able to fly.
Fortunately, none of the various skitterers who blanketed our Alice Spings hotel were roaches – otherwise, I would’ve simply freaked right out and possibly flown back to Seattle under my own power!
J R in WV
Nice Mantis! Many Years ago as a child I found a big eggmass and kept it in a mason jar with tiny holes in the lid. Then they hatched, hundreds of TINY mantisii just barely too bog for the holes.
I took the jar into the backyard by the edge of the woods, opened the lid, and watched them march off into the weeds, searching for tiny bugs and drops of fog.
The cat looks good too!
asiangrrlMN
@jl: Hey, jl! Long time, no talk. I’m still in Minneapolis! I’ve just laid off politics since the election and mostly swing by for the kitteh pics. How you doing?