The Old Hack

She must have worn herself out, as she is now sleeping in the chair. She was maximum active for about 30 minutes.

I have an ottoman as part of my over stuffed chair. Explorer, my cat,  just blasted out the bedroom, charged across the living room and jumped over the ottoman, ending up in the kitchen, with enough hang time as to be noticeable. She has done this like 3 times in the last 5 minutes.

Terry Jones, of Monty Python, died.

My cat, Explorer, has spent most of this morning either on my WW2 American/UK tank book on my book shelf or in the window sill. More on the window sill than on the book, but enough on the book that I'm not putting it back in the normal book shelf slot for it, because she seems to like it on top of the smaller shelf. Any rate, she is bird watching and making the odd chittering sound every once and a while.

I've decided to punt.  Me and the cat are back in bed and I'm reading EGS from "New and Old Flames" on to current. 

Explorer, my cat, seems to be of the opinion that I can and should do something about the weather. She has gone from sitting on the window sill to being at my feet several times this morning during the rain. After the 3rd cycle of this she has given up and is on the chair.

Pretty much.  She doesn't seem to be shedding that much, but that could be the time of year more than any thing else.

Cats are soft and warm and fluffy
Anything that is also soft and warm and fluffy but isn't a cat is obviously incomplete
so she is obligated to cover it with her scent and hair to make it as cat like as possible

Just got home from my follow-up appointment with the knee surgeon. He said he found "a lot" (his emphasis) more arthritis in my left knee, mainly on the back of the kneecap. After going in and doing the arthroscopy, he now, finally, recommends that I have my left knee replaced.
It's about damned time. I've been trying to get this knee replaced for over a decade now.
Of course, he doesn't think it should be replaced any time soon. In fact, he hopes the arthroscopy bought "a couple of years" for my knee. I don't see that happening. Ideally, I'd like to have it replaced before the end of this year. Of course, Mrs. Prof. would probably go ballistic if I told her that. We may soon find out. My next follow-up is in four weeks.

Can legs have a hangover?
Mrs. Prof. and I went to the NHL Winter Classic at the Cotton Bowl here in Dallas and saw our Stars pull out a 4-2 comeback win over the Nashville Predators hockey club. I should say that we and around 85,358 other people went to the game. I wasn't ready for how cold it would be, nor was I ready for how narrow the seats would be (both front-to-back as well as side-to-side). However, what I really wasn't prepared for was the walk.
Ohmydearlord, the walk.
We decided to save $30 on parking and take the DART light rail from Garland (our suburb) to Fair Park (home of the Cotton Bowl). Bad move on many levels. One, the distance from the rail station to the stadium is ridiculous, especially when you consider my disabilities, the fact that I don't walk much, and that little thingy I had last Monday, what was it ... arthroscopic surgery! Oh, yeah, that. Mrs. Prof. had to help me navigate item number two, the official attendance of 85,360 (including ourselves). Everywhere you went, there was a line, especially to get past the metal detectors.
Once we found our seats, or what there was of them - tiny little things - we actually had good sight lines. I had to keep pumping down the oxycodone to survive the experience, though.
Game over, and repeat the excruciating incursion in reverse, right? Wrong. All but two gates to the gigantic complex were closed. DART police were letting people through in small groups to get onto outbound trains going to random destinations. My quads and calf muscles were in flames, and my knee joint was screaming at me with every passing minute. DART police didn't care. We had to wait with everyone else.
We did finally make it through the mass of people and onto a train, but I had to ride standing up for the first half of the trip. We transferred onto a train with free seats, where I was finally able to sit and let some of the burn dissipate.
It's now Friday, and my legs still hurt. I'm going to physical therapy this afternoon, where I'm going to ask them to concentrate not so much on my knee by itself and work more on getting my knee and my legs to recover from Wednesday's walk. Sort of a one-off therapy session.
That's how you have a New Year's hangover without alcohol.

Except for Susan of course.
Lets say for a moment that Susan's mom's maiden name is Pompoms though, it could be the reason her dad married her in the first place if she was "his type" as in having been a cheerleader in highschool/post secondary school. This would mean we wouldn't know what Susan's dad's last name is though, but I doubt it'd be Raven cus Susan was probably old enough when she caught him cheating to remember what her last name used to be.

Good to hear. Feel better soon!

Yeah, pretty much. Getting over it, weekend should be OK.

So you've spent the entire year so far being sick? Oh man.

I can tolerate that people hold strongly to a religious belief. I cannot and will not tolerate that they attempt to impose their religious belief on me either personally or politically. I will to the end of my life fight against attitudes so insular and so blind that they will deny me my personal identity, liberties and rights simply because my existence makes them feel uncomfortable. And since I strongly feel that this sort of oppression links together and intersects, that includes the oppression they direct towards beliefs other than their own, persons of colour and Blacks, the disabled, all other LGBTQI* people and the impoverished. That is all.

Well, you are hitting on why I have faith, but don't like religion. If you feel the need to beat someone up because they do not believe as you do, you've already blown it.

Thank you. We can only strive to do better.

I can tolerate that people hold strongly to a religious belief. I cannot and will not tolerate that they attempt to impose their religious belief on me either personally or politically. I will to the end of my life fight against attitudes so insular and so blind that they will deny me my personal identity, liberties and rights simply because my existence makes them feel uncomfortable. And since I strongly feel that this sort of oppression links together and intersects, that includes the oppression they direct towards beliefs other than their own, persons of colour and Blacks, the disabled, all other LGBTQI* people and the impoverished. That is all.

I can tolerate that people hold strongly to a religious belief. I cannot and will not tolerate that they attempt to impose their religious belief on me either personally or politically. I will to the end of my life fight against attitudes so insular and so blind that they will deny me my personal identity, liberties and rights simply because my existence makes them feel uncomfortable. And since I strongly feel that this sort of oppression links together and intersects, that includes the oppression they direct towards beliefs other than their own, persons of colour and Blacks, the disabled, all other LGBTQI* people and the impoverished. That is all.

Wednesday's going to be a real test of my scoped-out knee.
Mrs. Prof and I are going to the NHL Winter Classic at the Cotton Bowl Stadium in Dallas on New Year's Day, just a light rail ride away from our house. Only problem is that there's quite a walk from the parking lot to the rail station, then another much longer walk from the terminal station to the Cotton Bowl. After that, we've got to go through security, make it up the ramps, and navigate the steps to our seats.
I hadn't planned for this when I scheduled my surgery. Here's hoping my knee holds out ... either that, or my pain medicine holds out.

Literarily allergic to cats. >_>

Cosmetic Morphing Device. Or Tedd's Uryuom transformation gun.

Makes sense.
I don't have cat. My sister had one when we still lived together but that's years ago. I like cats, but only from safe distance ... I'm allergic to them. I mean literally.

Honestly, that last panel speaks to me on multiple levels. I think the combination of the human desire for physical contact (hugs), and specifically from someone who is taller or larger than  I am, must trigger some kind of latent memory or instinct. Not to get too scientific, but you see it in animals like cats - when you do things like picking them up by their scruff (disclaimer: don't do this to an adult cat) and they go limp, or when littermates who've grown up together wash each other by mimicking the behaviour of their mother.

I have a good time, in spite of my family's best efforts to derail it.