AbsurdBeats

Posts in my head, not on the page—so I bring you instead pics of This Absurd Household.

Back in May I decided to experiment with growing basil, so I bought a few wee plants and rigged up a box planter (I stuck a tension rod in the window track, stuck the box on the ledge, then secured it with a bungi cord hooked to the rod):

A week or so after I set ’em up

That window faces west-south-west, but as its set back a bit I wasn’t sure it would get enough sun.

Here’s how they looked in early August:

Those little buggers were water fiends, taking up a soaking every other day, and not minding if they got rained on some more.

I didn’t take any pictures in September before I harvested most of the leaves, but they got bigger and bushier and leaned over the lip of the box toward the sun. I bought extra basil from the Bowling Green green-market in order to make pesto, but next year I might just plant a few extra and see if I have enough for my, what, 5 or 6 double-batches.

The plants still have quite a few leaves: Since I bought basil I only took the larger leaves to supplement the purchase, and the smaller leaves have since filled out nicely. I think I’m going to harvest the rest in the next week or so and try to freeze ’em.

Now, on to the critters.

This is what I awoke to one morning:

The ottoman should, obviously, be parked against the chair, the footstool under the chair, and that rug should, well, should not be visible from this angle.

The cats do enjoy skiing on that rug, and Trickster likes to hide herself behind the little moguls she creates after bunching it all up.

Speaking of the Tricky Girl, she’s a pretty, pretty kitty:

Everything here is mine

She looks quite elegant there, doesn’t she? Well, she also has a habit of slunking down:

She leans her head forward down; it would look like a hunch, except that she extends rather than scrunches her neck.

Anyway, she’s a gorgeous weirdo.

And the Kitty-boy, the most beautiful black cat in the world? (You might think your black cat is the most beautiful black cat in the world, but you would be wrong.)

Well, Jasper also has the BEST PROFILE IN THE WORLD—but he refuses to let me take a picture of it:

This is as close as I could get, and you can’t really see it.

You can, however, see his impressive claws. . .

. . . which, yes, I should cut more often, but I like how they look. (I know, I know: stupid human.)

That desk, by the way, is 42 inches across. Yes, Jasper is a big, big cat.

And how do the cats get along?

At least in this instance they’re not doing this at 3 in the morning. On top of me.

Anyway, back to words tomorrow.