all cats have asperger syndrome

I have been getting sick sick sick of not having any new books to read so a couple of days ago I broke down and ordered some new books from Amazon.com. One of them is the book "All Cats have Asperger Syndrome" by Kathy Hoopman.

OK, it's a kid's picture book. But the pictures are all of cats. And the topic of Asperger Syndrome is of renewed interest to me lately as I have been diagnosed with AS and am in the process of applying for social security disability because of it.....

The book seems to be mainly aimed at providing parents of children with AS with a book they can show to the neighbors to explain why their kid is so weird. There seems to be an industry devoted to created books for parents of Aspie kids, which is very annoying to those of us diagnosed as adults. But, as I said, this book IS full of pictures of cats so that makes it okay.

Some of the cats in the book look just like some of my cats. Like, the cat on page 42 could be either Chan-ho or Negi, they both look alike. And the cat on page 29 looks like Grey.  I guess that's an Aspie-ish thing to point out that some of the cats look like my cats because that's just a detail and a good 'normal' person is supposed to see 'the big picture'.

A lot of the books on Asperger Syndrome claim that Aspies can't see 'the big picture'.  Well, I actually can, I just don't CARE about it.

I'm washing the laundry by hand--- or by foot...

Now my washing machine is having problems. It's a front-loader and the problem it is having is that about halfway thru the cycle the door pops open and water floods out. Since we have enough water coming in the basement from wall seepage and an apparent portal-to-hell in the wall, I've decided to wash the laundry by hand.

Or actually by foot. I learned the technique watching my Korean soap operas. In the good old days, poor Koreans would go into the courtyard, fill up a small tub with water and dirty clothes, and get into the tub with bare feet and stomp the laundry clean.

I do it in the bathtub though. The only drawback is that my tub drains so slow it may take a good long while before I can get to the rinse cycle. (My plumbing sucks--- because it DOESN'T suck.)

In other news, one of the kittens--- the all-orange Joel--- has opened his eyes. Evidently his report to the other kittens wasn't favorable since none of them have opened their eyes yet. They figure they're better off not knowing.

The Great Exploding Rotten Egg Adventure

Yesterday I was checking my egg incubator to see if any more ducklings or guineas from the current batch were going to hatch. I'd had some hatching out the day before and rather suspected that no more would hatch but left them in the incubator to give any slow hatchers a chance.

I touched one particular egg and *pow*! Disaster!  It didn't really explode in the sense of eggshell shrapnel flying about the room, but the eggshell broke suddenly, violently and stinkily. Yuck! I pulled the whole incubator tray out, and removed several Muscovy eggs that still have a week to go before hatching and put them on a clean incubator tray.

The broken egg was making my whole house stink way worse than normal, so I quick took the soiled tray outdoors. I heard a peep-peeping noise from one of the eggs, and saw that one--- not the rotten one of course--- had started to hatch. I broke it out of the egg and put it in the brooder, where the little duckling dried off nicely.

I then had to make an emergency run to the grocery store to buy some air fresheners 'cause the room with the incubator still smelled like rotten eggs.  The air fresheners work. My house still stinks, just not like rotten eggs.

Blessed Cat Event

My cat Chachamaru had a blessed event--- kittens! She had five but one didn't make it. :(  The survivors are doing well once Chachamaru got it into her head that she should leave her kittens in the basket and not move them outdoors.

This is Chachamaru with her kittens. You can't see the kittens too good because she's about to stand up in the hopes of being petted--- she's a very affectionate cat.

Here are the kittens without their mom. The solid orange one is Joel, the nearly white one is Other Joel, and the two others are Girl Joel and Other Girl Joel. They are all named after Joel the kitten from 'The Closer'.  By the way, saw the season premier of 'The Closer' and Joel the kitten is all grown up now. But still cute.