The above is a quote from Neil Stephensen’s novel Cryptonomicon [archive.org link], which I started reading again after some rave reviews from Silverstr [archive.org link] and Foz. The quote is in reference to mail encrypted with such a high form of encryption that it would take centuries to break, and in response to the question of “how long do you want this to remain secret?”
Things My Cats Do
- Zoon, as soon as she hears my car alarm being armed, will sit in front of the front door waiting for me. As soon as the door is opened she races out into the hall and wanders up and down it, not running away from me (her persuer) but not letting herself be caught. When she reaches one end she’ll head to the other. I figure she’s taking me for a walk. This happens with people coming to the door in general though, but apparently she perks up when she hears the “Beep!” of my alarm.
- Corny steals my chair. More often than not he’ll wait until I’m going toward the chair to sit down than just jump up as I leave it. Sometimes it’s a race between us to see who can get there first. Of course who can resist such a cute cat stretching out on a computer chair, so I’m sure he’s associated the petting he gets when he’s in it as a good reason to steal it from me. That or maybe he likes his chairs pre-warmed.
- Every morning, generally around 5:20am, Zoon will maul me with love. She’s not a great lap cat, and doesn’t like forced affection (too much time is wasted when she could be racing around the house like a madman I guess), but in the mornings she’ll come up to me and/or A and purr her little heart out while rubbing her face and wet nose onto my face, scritching herself on my goatee. Of course, who can resist love from a little grey kitten?
- Rex seems to have been trained out of the “lick, lick, lick, bite” thing he used to do. Now it’s just “lick, lick, lick.” Generally when I’m trying to get to sleep at night he’ll arrive on my chest, standing so that he’s on all fours as to make sure the maximum amount of weight is on each pointy little paw (with at least one directly on my bladder), and recieve his stroking. When that’s been done he’ll relieve the pain by lying down so that his face is in reach of mine, and intermixed with the petting and stroking he receives he will happily lick my nose. As this doesn’t involve having his fangs up my nose I don’t mind so much. Sometimes in the mornings Corny will decide that he really wants to go under the covers and will claw at them, or simply whine and look pitiful until someone lifts the covers up for him and lets him go under to lie there. He’ll do this for a bit, then turn around, get in a more comfortable position, and snuggle more until either we stop petting him or he becomes bored.
- Something that A appears to have taught Zoon and Rex is “begging is fun!” So now whenever someone goes to the kitchen to open up the fridge the two of them are there, looking up (Zoon always sitting right between my legs) as if to say “fish! give us fish! you know you want to give us fish right?” If that fails Zoon will wander as far into the fridge (thankfully she hasn’t started actually getting into the fridge, just walking towards the hinges) as she can until I tell her “no kittens in the fridge!”