Cause Max certainly can! He is one big, strong cat who loves to take great flying leaps over anything in his path. I am constantly amazed by his flights down the 15 step stairway in two or three bounds (sometimes it looks more like a controlled fall). Today Rocky was in his way, and he leapt over the laundry hamper with nary a thought. He’s really quite graceful when he wants to be. If only he’d stop knocking my (full) water cups off the table and liked to cuddle longer, he’d be a perfect cat.

The one place I haven’t seen him on top of is my computer cabinet in the office. Dusty and Lucky have both been up there, although not much lately. Maybe Max just hasn’t seen either of them up there, so doesn’t know of the challenge.

Little Lucky worships Spooky. This morning I was awakened when Spooky shifted locations, curling up under my right arm. This event was immediately followed by the little orange and white girl climbing up onto my belly to lay down right next to my big boy. She not only allowed me to pet her head to tail, she even started purring, very softly.

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Cats like routine, and so do I. Especially my morning routine. I get up and head right into my home office (the spare room upstairs, right next to my bedroom). I sit at the computer, turn on the stereo (so I can hear the computer’s sounds) and turn on the SAD light. Then I set about responding to mail, browsing my favorite sites and doing some work.

About that time, Spooky and/or Julius enter the picture. Spooky jumps up onto the piano bench, which sits right next to me. Julius jumps up onto the office table, between my keyboard and the SAD light. Both get scritched, and often Spooky climbs into my arms to hog all the attention, but I never let that last too long.

It’s a good way to wake up to the day. The combination of SAD light and warm purring kitties perk up my mood no matter what ails me.

Everybody is a little on edge this morning. Julius just got chased back upstairs. Dusty likes to hunker down in the hallway next to the bottom of the staircase, hoping to pounce on Julius when he sneaks downstairs. Most of the time, she pops out only to discover it was only Spooky or Max. So much that the two of them are starting to hesitate everytime they reach the bottom step and peek over the edge of the railing, or they walk around the far outside of the corner.

This morning, however, her patience paid off. She caught the orange boy and leapt out screaming loudly. In a fraction of a second it was all over, and Jules was under the bed. All the other cats (except Echo) were still upstairs, and came out to the landing, leg muscles tensed, eyes wide open and ears perked up alertly, to see what the commotion was.

Spooky has earned himself a new nickname - “Sparky", due to the high static electricity content of his fur yesterday and today. He likes it!

It’s been nearly a week since Apple announced it’s newest product line, the iPad. My first reaction to the announcement was that it’s just a larger iPod Touch. It has no camera, like the Touch. It has no phone capabilities, like the Touch. The only thing going for it seemed to be the larger screen real estate.

But I’ve been approaching the whole concept all wrong.

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