Yep, this post is dedicated to pictures of our largest cat and smallest cat napping together. Enjoy!
Diane and Zuko
Cat Week #?
Exactly what it says on the tin. Time is meaningless and last weekend seems like both yesterday and a lifetime ago. So rather than scramble to draft something that surely deserves more time(?) and effort, I’m going to pull from the Great Archives of Cat Pictures for some convenient prepackaged, ready-to-go adorableness. Enjoy!
New Desserts, New Customers
Some of you may recall that I wrote about a game called Just Desserts a couple years back. For those of you who don’t, I’d advise you read that post here before continuing with this one. Why? Because today I’m talking about the expansions!
Just Desserts currently has two expansions: Just Coffee, and Better With Bacon. Yeah, I know, ew. Believe me, Mom and I spent plenty of time making faces at cards like Chocolate Bacon Cupcakes and Maple Bacon Donut.
The expansions don’t change the mechanics of the game; what they do is add two new ingredients (coffee and bacon), and two new families, bringing the count up to 9. Each has 4 customers, and six new desserts. For each expansion pack, there’s one dessert that doesn’t have the expansion’s special ingredient in it, and a customer who’s favorite is that one dessert. Which makes sense — none of the other families have one ingredient entirely in common, after all.
The one thing I think is really different with the expansions is that they each have a character who has their favorite listed as “Anything With Bacon” or “Anything With Coffee,” which allows players a way to use a single-ingredient card on its own (not possible with any other customers) or to use something with extra ingredients and still get the tip for a favorite.
For some extra fun and opinionated commentary (because seriously, why do people put bacon in desserts) I’d suggest getting the expansions (Just Coffee, Better With Bacon) to add to your base deck, or buying them all together at the Looney Labs online store. It’s worth it!
New Year, Same Cats
This week’s post features Zuko being adorable, because, well, Zuko is adorable, and I think while the “new year, new you” idea is well-intentioned, it can be a lot of pressure and lead to a lack of constancy as you try to fix all your problems at once. Sooo, here’s some pictures of Zuzu curling up with Diane and bothering Arwen to remind you that it’s ok if you’re not setting loads of new goals right now or making major life changes based on an arbitrary date — Zuko sure isn’t!
MALINDA
If you haven’t heard of Malinda Kathleen Reese, then you, my friend, are missing out. Who is she? Well…
Malinda runs two YouTube channels, one of which is MALINDA (hence why the post’s title is in all caps). This channel has a wide range of fantastic music, all of which I’d highly recommend (even the stuff I haven’t heard yet; I’m sure it’s great) but there are a few in particular that stand out as examples. First, there’s how I was introduced to her content: “Don’t Make Me,” a music video with excellent acting and choreography about a newly-wedded princess whose prince betrays her. The prince is played by Thomas Sanders, who’s also awesome and should probably get a post of his own at some point.
A more solemn selection is the song she wrote about quarantine, featuring her likewise talented parents, or, for something light and fun, you could check out “The Song of the Puffin.” In addition to a hilariously random song about puffins, this video includes some of the process of creating the song, which I found fascinating. It was a group effort with her fans, so an unorthodox means of songwriting for sure, but lots of fun to follow along with through the first 5 or 6 minutes of the video. (If you just want to listen to the song part, well, your loss, but the time signature for that is 6:07.)
And then there’s Malinda’s other channel, Twisted Translations (formerly known as Translator Fails), where she runs the script for the video through Google Translate too many times and presents the resulting madness. A good one is the Google Translate Explains How To Vote video from this September. The election may be over, but the translator fails will never cease to be amusing. She also does Google Translate songs, like “You’re Welcome” from Moana, which can lead to some interesting alternate lyrics. You’ll see what I mean.
While those translations are the meat of the channel’s content, what really sells it is her performance, with Google Translate Malinda’s over-the-top confidence in the nonsense being articulated while Real Malinda listens, providing a series of confused and downright exasperated reactions that resonate with my soul.
I could fangirl further about how awesome Malinda is, but, honestly, just– just go watch her videos, people; her work needs no further pitch than that.
Small Miracles
Yes, yes, I know, you’ve gotten a lot of cat photos lately. But this week had some incredibly adorable pictures. I mean, look at their wittle faces:
More impressive, though, are the next two pictures. For reference, June was by far the most opposed to our newest addition (Zuko), and, though they’re on pretty “just let me pretend you don’t exist” terms now, she’s still a bit of a holdout. Seeing them willingly interacting is pretty rare, and catching it on camera is even rarer. Hence why this week’s post is justified, because awwww.
Patience
What’s this? A deep, eloquent message about the value of patience? Well… no, not exactly. More cat photos! And yes, I know I posted some of those last week, but these were taken around the same time as the last two from that post, and I really don’t want to hold off on the cuteness of Diane being unbelievably patient with Zuko. You’ll see what I mean.
Bath Time! (Meow)
Do I have the energy to write a real post this week? …no. Is anyone complaining? It means you get more cat photos, so I sincerely doubt it.
Counting
When you have four cats, successfully keeping track of all of them can be… challenging. So this is just a quick chronicle of my such efforts after I woke up on Friday. Yes, I’m just making up an excuse to post more cat photos. Are you really going to complain?
Starting space: bedroom. Hey, look! Arwen’s here!
That’s 1! I wonder where the other cats are…
Second stop, the kitchen, to find food, because it’s not like Cat 1 is moving anywhere anytime soon. Might as well pop my head into the living room; see if anyone’s there.
2, 3, 4! I guess counting is easier during nap time, huh?
As a bonus, here’s a picture from the next day of all four together:
The Sky
Pretty much what it says on the label. The sky is beautiful, I’ve spent an excessive amount of time staring at it lately, I took some pictures, here are the highlights.
