The inevitable result of my working from home

After my last post, I did manage to get out of the city this weekend. Albeit not to go hiking but to go to a friend's bridal shower at a restaurant in northern New Jersey. Still, if nothing else, I did see some lovely early foliage along the Palisades Parkway. Unrelated to fall, I've now been working from home for a good seven months. Except for my once-a-week visits to the office, this means I have spent many, many hours in the company of my cat, Dinah. I have quickly learned her almost unvarying routine. Which is:

6:15: Petition for food. Usually granted before I leave the house at 6:30
8:30 (on my return from the gym...no idea what she does in the intervening two hours, but it's probably some combination of eating and sleeping): Walks around demanding to be petted.
9:00-12:00: Sleeps in papasan chair by the window.
12:30: Demands to be petted. Tries to sit on my lap regardless of whether or not there is already a laptop in it.
1:00-4:00: Sleeps on the floor (on hot days) or returns to the papasan.
4:30: Petition for evening feeding, not granted until 5.
5:00: Eating.

Anyway, not one to enjoy her quiet, yet adorable, tedium on my own, I started a project a few weeks ago to monitor her daily life. (And yes, I realize the implications of this means I have officially been working from home for too long.) I started to take a picture of her every day at 10:30 in the morning no matter what she was doing. Of course, frequently I forgot or was busy right at 10:30, so the times are not really that consistent. My original plan was to record her for a month, but frankly I got a little bored. Also, my camera keeps saying it has no memory left even though I emptied the memory card. What's up with that? At any rate, I made the images into a slide show. Fair warning, the following movie is exactly as advertised and is in fact 21 un-doctored images of my cat. It's exactly as interesting as it sounds.

Just in case you didn't watch the video (I don't especially blame you), I'm including a bonus picture. Sam is going to be the wedding photographer at a friend's wedding this weekend, and the bride loaned him her fancy Nikon for the event, so he has spent the last few days figuring out how to use it. As Dinah is easily the most photogenic thing in our household, this has led to a number of quality cat photos. You can note how much nicer she looks with a talented photographer behind the lens of a quality camera.

So safe and so noble. 

Now that I see what a quality camera is capable of in the right hands, I have half a mind to invest in my own fancy camera and start this project all over again. Whitney Biennial here I come!