Outies

A couple of comments from my on-line poker buddies (or my "imaginary friends" as Peggy calls them), reminds me I've been shirking writing about poker since roughly the time of the live WPBT in Vegas.

I could moan about extraordinary bad beats, overwhelming suckouts, a rapidly dwindling stake and the Law of Averages on summer vacay, but I think you get my drift. I've gotten to the point where I congratulate myself inordinately if I place 3rd in a $1 SnG on UltimateBet. And speaking of Summer, I live with two unruly cats who think it their birthright to go for daily Outies and Walkies when the weather turns nice.

While we're not exactly living in the woods, we're close enough that Nature, "red in tooth and claw," makes regular guest appearances. I've been chasing away a large red fox for the past several weeks, who discovered that the area under our bird feeder is an always-open chipmunk buffet. If he keeps returning, I'm planning on warning off the fox with the same method I used to rid ourselves of a fisher a few years back; a method that delicacy requires me to note only that it involves a jug and micturition.

Yesterday afternoon, while reading on the porch, I heard clucking and looked up to find a solo turkey marching up to the wading pool that the cats use as an outdoor water dish. Later this season I expect we'll see flocks of as many of 15 turkeys. As well as deer marching through the backyard which annoys Curly the cat, aka Kittenish, tremendously. There's usually a skunk family in the woodpile during the winter that holds an uneasy truce with me (when I get too close to wherever they're denned I get a whiff). And we're hoping the hawk family will come back later this summer...

We have lots of critters, a few of which would probably attempt to munch on Curl and Bear if given half the chance. So, they go out under supervision, usually mine during the weekdays. I try to hold to a work schedule that sees me done between 3 and 4, and when the laptop closes up, both cats are standing at the door a few seconds later. The second season of Deadwood, the TiVo'd movies, Batman Begins, the 1st and 2nd season of Moonlighting that the cats bought me for Father's Day with their hard-earned cans of food, afternoon Hold `Em tournies or Sit-and-Goes -- all that's going to have to go on hold until the Fall or bad weather. Outies take precedence over all.