A departure from the usual programming

It's been another crappy week.  The news out of the US capitol is difficult to watch, although I'm still consuming more coverage than may be healthy.  Our humidity level dropped to ten percent as the Santa Ana winds picked up again.  Three fires broke out in San Diego County yesterday, while the battle to contain the Palisades and Eaton Fires in Los Angeles County continues.  (There's no marine layer at the moment!)  The air quality here remains poor and, with the wind chill, it's felt especially cold so, other than a little watering, I've barely touched my garden this week.

Meanwhile, on a recommendation from blogger Tracy at tz-garden, I pulled up a few Cat TV videos off YouTube to keep my cat entertained.

It took a little while for Meeko to warm up to it.  Some videos were clearly more compelling than others.  Those with noisy, active birds had the greatest appeal.

The videos kept her attention longer than I'd expected but she was periodically distracted by the activity at the bird feeders outside my office window.

The air purifier in my office has proven to be one of her favorite perches when tracking the outdoor birds.  Regrettably, she's also inclined to take in the view of the feeders from our kitchen island, a habit I'm having difficulty breaking. 

The real-time activity outside the the window tends to get her riled up, which led me to try "calming" Cat TV videos.  They worked, sort of.

The videos feature views of numerous cats and kittens, most sleeping with background music

The video shown above is accompanied by piano music with a continuous undertone of a cat purring.  It does seem to relax Meeko, although it's possible that's just a coincidence.

Snapshot of Meeko in my lap with the video playing.  She seems to ignore the video's visuals.

The purring sounds, which my husband complained about, brought to mind an old episode of the Star Trek TV series, entitled "The Trouble with Tribbles."  Tribbles were furry creatures that purred incessantly, and also procreated like mad, creating chaos.  Captiain Kirk eventually rid his ship of them by transporting them to a Klingon battle ship that was threatening the Enterprise.  Apparently, Klingons fervently dislike tribbles, which I suppose puts my husband in the same class as Klingons.  For the record: I can't in any way be construed as a "Trekkie" but my college boyfriend, now husband, and his friends exposed me to re-runs of that series back in the day and this particular episode stuck in my mind for some reason.

I hope to soon return to my regular garden-related programming.  According to AccuWeather (but not all weather agencies), there's currently a seventy percent chance of light rain here this weekend and a seventy-five percent chance of more rain on February 4th.  Fingers crossed!

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