The Light of Day

R.I.P. Emily Junior

It’s never fun to lose a fuzzy buddy.

She just couldn’t make it through another surgery. Think a happy thought for her the next time you eat noodles. She loved them noodles.

Mouse update

Emily Junior is home. Her fur is a bit scraggly looking, from going a couple days without her groomer, but I’m sure that shortly after I put her back in with Ralphie she will be shined up to a radiant glow. She had a small tumor just behind her front leg, and when I took her in a week ago, the doc said she needed to first take antibiotics for a week because she (the doc) felt that her (Em Jr’s) breathing ought to be a little less labored before going under the anesthesia. So we (I) did our (my) best at attempting to trick her into taking said meds, and we (I) were (was) semi-successful. And apparently, semi-successful was good enough, because she was in good shape for the operation.

One thing I like about going to Cats & Critters: everyone there, including the other customers, says “awwww”, and nobody says “ewwww”. For some reason, out of any random sampling of our fellow meat puppets, there will invariably be one or two folks who are horrified by little animals. For the sake of all y’all, I will clarify one thing: I don’t keep mice to offend or shock you, or to be a “non conformist”. In fact, none of the “non conforming” things I do are to be “non conformist”. I try to live my life in a genuine way, and it just so happens that I think mice are among the awesomest of critters.

Mice are a paradox, simultaneously the most innocent and mischievous of creatures. To some degree, individual mice are polarized, some being predominantly “alpha” while some are “beta”; but every mouse has components of both. Their innocence is projected by their tiny, almost dainty feet, inquisitive eyes, big ears, round bellies, and outgoing social nature… but the movement of their tails gives away their naughty side. They sometimes yearn to escape and asplore, but if they have a nice home, they want to come back to it. The fact that Ralphie was so determined to move into the cage removed any doubts I may have had; if PETA comes knocking on my door, insisting that mice belong out in the woods, I can tell them to fuck off in good conscience.

Mice are very “people-aware”; although to some degree they’re in their “own universe”, they’re not oblivious like a bowlful of cockroaches. Emily Junior in particular will always rush to greet me at the wall of the cage, even if it means putting aside one of her favorite foods. Ralphie, although she has been living the domestic life for a year, still has her wild background and preservation instincts, so although she wants to “check me out”, she will often twist her body to one side to get ready to run away if I move too quickly. If I back up a few inches, she understands that I am surrendering, and she relaxes again.

Anyway, pretty soon here, I’ll re-unite these best of buddies, and there will be a whole lot of groomin’ goin’ on. Thanks to anyone who read my previous posts and sent positive thoughts (without necessarily knowing what was the matter).

Follow-through

I suspect that my blog would be a more effective tool (CATEGORY ALERT!!!) if I followed through by consistently providing updates of the things I wrote previously. This would also make me appear to have an attention span of more than a few seconds.

Without even peeking at my blog, I’m going to pull a number out of some dark and dirty place, and that number is…

Five! Ah, the comforting sound of men and women singing an octave apart… and when we’re little kids, we don’t notice how thumpy the tom toms are. (Why do I suddenly have an urge to listen to Hair?) So anyway, without further ado, here are quick follow-ups to my five most recent posts, from oldest to most recent…

1. First “final” mix of Rival Big Bang. I’ve noticed that, within my album tracklists, there are some things that are more absolute than others. Within those lists, I’ll often find pairs of songs that are, in my mind, absolutely inseperable. You know the kind: Heartbreaker and Living Loving Maid. We Will Rock You and We Are The Champions. Well, in my case, one such pair would be What Do You Think Of Yourself? and Rival Big Bang. Those two songs are married to each other. So what I should be doing is making videos of these pairs as “mini suites”. And just think, these “mini-suites” will fit into the YouTube ten-minute limit (which for some strange reason doesn’t apply to everyone… hmmm…).

2. Open letter to Republicans. Some masochistic force within me made me watch a thirty-second Mitt Romney campaign promo tonight. By the six second mark, he had already said something negative about Democrats. By the 15 second mark he did it again. Only 30 seconds to talk, and at such loss for something constructive to say that the time has to be padded out with broad insults. But the greatest insult was that his voice was dubbed. You know the sound of a hollywood movie, where every time someone talks, it sounds like the microphone is a few inches in front of the actor’s mouth, even though there’s no microphone anywhere in the shot? Makes you wonder what else was fake about it…

3. I’m so tired. The “night crew” paid a visit to Cats and Critters this evening, because Emily Junior is gonna need to get fixed up, and she’s gonna need to take some meds for at least a week beforehand. I took the whole darn cage along, so Ralphie had a chance to check out the scenery too. Em Jr. is still acting sociable and energetic — but nonetheless, now would be a good time to send some positive energy her way. Thanks!

4. Possible video: creating drum parts. Maybe I can go ahead and shoot this. The main thing holding me back is how to get the camera to pick up the sound as I’m working, so I don’t have to sync it up after the fact… I suppose I can just turn my speakers on. Can’t do that for vocal sessions though. Other videos that I want to do: a video at the Fender Rhodes where I discuss chords, and a video at the desk of improvised doodling, cutting shapes out of colored paper, making some kind of “paper puppets”, and generally making images inspired by music without knowing ahead of time what they’re going to be.

5. My results on the equal loudness test. I finished doing what I had to do to create my vocal limiter/de-esser effect, which is both functional and theoretical, in that I’ve tested it, but not on vocals. Don’t forget, that post links to a site where you can test yourself to see how you perceive volume at different pitches. It’s useful stuff to be aware of when you produce audio of any kind.

Well, that certainly felt responsible! Let’s do this again sometime.

I’m so tired

Come on, internet. Keep it going. Make me appear to be awake 24 hours a day.

Don’t make me come up with a new category just for this stupid post. It’s a stretch to pick “caffeine” from the list, but I’ve got better things to be doing than adding categories.

While I call upon the other side to instruct and guide me in the use of a weekend that’s already starting to slip through my fingers, here’s the night crew to the rescue:

I guess that suggests another tag I could add… done and done.

(You only needed one “done” there, Keith.)

(Well, put the second one towards something else then. How about adding “your soul”?)

(Done.)

(Nooooo, see, now that you said that, I’m off by one again.)

(Just go to bed, Keith.)

(By the way, you never checked “your soul”.)

(By the way, you’re still up.)

Wild mouse and fancy mouse living together harmoniously

For anyone who doesn’t already know: little brown Ralphie stalked the cage for several weeks this past winter, and finally moved in. The other one is Emily Junior, a “proper” pet fancy mouse. See how well they get along despite their divergent backgrounds?

I’m sure there’s some political lesson in all of this, but considering that Ralph actually barged in uninvited, I think I won’t go down that road.

Sorry, buddy…

…I know you heard I take in stray rodents.  But they have to be land-bound.

Goodnight, Mooshika

Happy 100 hits, Ralph!

Ralph, the tiny wild mouse that visits and interacts with my caged pet mice on a daily basis, has just reached his first 100 hits on YouTube. Based on his size relative to other mice, I would estimate that he only weighs about ten grams; that’s ten hits per gram. Given our body weights as humans, we would have to get anywhere from half a million to a million hits to achieve the same hits-to-grams ratio … so 100 hits is pretty good for such a little mouse!

I’m not sure who out there is watching the video, but when I look up the ip address it always comes back as “a hole in a wall somewhere”.