Ever seen a cat with a medi-collar on? That’s what they put on at the vet’s before they put me in the carrier. They thought to stop me scratching, licking and biting the bandage. Huh? I am the Hand-of God, I don’t do that sort of stuff.

The vet cut my toe off. Just hanging by a thread, she said. So I’m a two-toe wonder now. Most cats that happens to, lose their whole foot, she said. That’s all while I’m still caged in the recovery room.

They gave me wet food. I hate wet food. I’d rather eat a spiny gecko tail. I turned up my nose and the vet nurse laughed. I turned my back then.

As soon as I heard my human in the waiting room, I started a racket. Yowling and throwing myself against the wire front of the cage.

“Take her home, for peace’s sake,” said the vet. “Come back later to pay and for the meds.”

That’s what happened. Me in the shed. The pernickety old woman fetching the meds which she now knew how to toss down my throat. The vet nurse had demoed presumably. I saw her apply the method to some other poor creature. One good thing, to get these meds into me, the pernickety old woman had to take the collar off me.

To open my mouth, the pernickety old woman squeezed my jaws apart at the joints. Then, having tossed the goods into the gulch, she clenched my jaws together to stop me spitting them out! Honestly, where do humans learn this tricks?

But, as a treat, I was then allowed to sleep on her bed within the klamboe—that’s the mosquito net—usually a serious no no. On the understanding that I wouldn’t rip the bandage off.

I gave her my best expression of disdain. Why would I rip off the bandages? Did you know cats can do 247 different expressions? Proven fact. A couple of people studying cats in a cat cafe. In Japan. You find out more? Just do that thing humans always do when they want to know something, using the thing you talk into.

Lodestar 42, Ahni in the Night

42.-ahni-in-the-night-236 Download

Modem troubles

My modem is ‘on the blink’, which is a colloquial way of saying it has started to fail. Sometimes its little lights work well and my computer has an internet connection.

Sometimes they’re blinking and I know then there’s a gappy reception and goodbye to getting anything done online except by mobile. That means one-fingered typing for me.

I’m sitting on instalment 16 of Cat Tales, with no way that I have found of getting the photos from the computer onto my phone.

People will tell me the cloud and/or dropbox. Seems like neither of them like going in reverse. Mind you that could be a personal bugbear.

Anyway, there it is. Another hold-up.

Now to access the other photo …

Lego: Building a Swamp, 1

Surrounding the island where Bosley and Company have settled, lies a vast wetland of sandbanks, low islands and mostly shallow channels. The only river channel deep enough to take shipping fortunately runs past the west of the island.

But today I’ll be starting part of the swampy landscape using this old road-plate. I realize this is a very old road plate, maybe even vintage. I got it in second hand lot. And base-plates have been hard to get secondhand.

NOTE that on this plate the height of the road surface and the plate surface between the studs is exactly the same. This is what will make it very easy to convert. I’ll be using a third version of my so far favorite technique … the MILS plate!

Surrounding the plate in the photo above are some of the bits and pieces I’ll be using to install a ‘skin’ over the whole plate. And I’ll be trying to save pieces (I never have enough) and time by laying down the bases of the various islands I’m planning as well as water channels as I’ve roughed up below. Scale is 4 studs per square. (I keep all my maps for this project in a Year 1 and 2 maths exercise book. )

Here I’m about a third of the way. Light blue and grey will be water and mud. The tan places the islands. I’m using black and mid green plates to either fasten the larger plates to the studs or to support them on the flat roadway. To get everything to hang together it helps to connect the landscaping plates to each other with the underlay pieces.

This is my base layer. I’ve tested it by pressing down hard on all the plates and discovered two loose 3×3’s. They’ll need better foundations. The hole to the left? I didn’t have enough grey plates of the right sizes and shapes. I fixed it with two grey 1x2s on a black elbow. Pressed it in. It’s good to go.

Comparing this to the map, you’ve seen already that I had to let go of my ideas as to where to place the islands. It’s all right. I will solve that problem in the next installment.

Lego: Mapping

My original plan was about four times larger than I have available … my tabletop is four baseplates wide (baseplates are 25 cm/10 inches a side.)

The first thing that told me I’d be biting off more than I could chew was realizing I’d need about 45 baseplates.

The sheer work involved in building them and the cost were the next considerations. I reminded myself of the premise.

“Bosley and Co are building their accommodation on an island that nobody wants, surrounded by wetlands.”

The cost of the wetlands alone would’ve been beyond the scope of the project. Transparent light blue 1×2 tiles are 22 cents each in my scene.

I decided to go back to my original idea. Instead of covering seven baseplates with swamp, I’ll make one, at most two, swamps and move them around as needed.

I’m not sure yet what I’ll do about the deep water river channel. Two baseplates already but including with the channel, places for large ships and small boats to dock. As seen below: