Tom Mangan’s home page

I’ve been such a blogging fiend lately that I’ve gotten out of the habit of just playing around with my computer. Well, this weekend was mostly about goofing off, so I have no hikes to report, no road trips, no flashes of insight on the state of the world.

I have Garage Band, iMovie and iTunes, and my digicam has rudimentary video/recording capabilities, so I’ve been noodling around making little videos and sound tracks and other stuff that would immediately reveal my utter ineptitude with all this stuff, if I were to post anything. There’s enough junk out here already, no need in my adding to the pile. But if genius strikes in coming days I’ll be sure to post something here. After I call the paper and tell them to hold page one, because if I’m ever stricken with sudden genius it’ll be news of earthquake-rerouting-the-Mississippi magnitude.

I have a long weekend planned from Thursday through Monday which should yield some interesting possibilities.

(Mostly I’m posting in the absence of having done anything so I’ll have something above the cat pictures on my home page. The cat is adorable — she even plays fetch! — but cat pix at the top of one’s homepage are a bit of an embarrassment.)

Well, we have a new cat. We lost her predecessor, Floyd, to illness back in September and we thought we might remain catless because Melissa’s a bit allergic to them. Her resolve lasted five months, which is impressive, given that she’s lived almost all her life in the company of the furry felines.

We’ve named this one Hildy after the intrepid reporter in “His Girl Friday,” my all-time favorite newspaper movie. Rosalind Russell plays the indefatigable Hildy Johnson and Cary Grant is her boss who will not let her shirk her duty to The Paper. For you purists out there, I realize Hildy is a guy in “The Front Page,” the basis for “His Girl Friday.” Didn’t matter to Howard Hawks; doesn’t matter to me.

May as well look at some pictures:

Hildy’s coat is called a tortoise pattern. She’s much faster than a shelled reptile. Took her about 30 seconds, for instance, to declare are whole apartment her new domain. She likes the digs — much more spacious than her digs at the SPCA in Dublin — but she’s taking her time getting used to her new human neighbors.

She’s checking out the smells of everything, including empty Super Bowl beer bottles. (Too bad about the Bears .. I think there’s a clause in their union contract which forbids proper passing, blocking and receiving on Sundays in February. Of all the luck. )

The living room’s her new fitness center and the couch is her obstacle course.

Where will she go next?

Ah yes, over to make sure no mice are partying down under the stove.

A moment’s pause after declaring the kitchen mouse-free.

Oh, wait, something else must be explored.

Pausing between explorations.

A slightly flirtatious glance, I do believe.

This is her “look, bucko, there are limits to how much flash photography I accept before shredding a roll of toilet paper” look.

Got something on your mind? Talk to the tail, she says.