You Dirty Rat!

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Several days ago, my wife said she saw something in our bird feeder that she thought might be a rat, but she wasn’t sure. Yesterday she saw it again and called me over to look at it. it was definitely a rat enjoying our bird food. I didn’t have my phone, so I didn’t get a photo of it at the time.

It ran away and returned sometime later. This time our neighbor’s cat Frankie saw it and forced it off the feeder and into the bush below. We cheered Frankie on, but rather than go after it, she just stood there waiting for it to come out.

The rat is hidden in the plant.

After a minute or two I decided to go out and try to scare the rat into the waiting jaws of Frankie. Instead, I scared Frankie in one direction and the rat in the other.

Needless to say, Rose was not happy about the situation. She wanted me to get rid of the bird feeder. I understood. I didn’t want to encourage rats to come to our house, but I do feel bad that the cats will no longer enjoy seeing the birds and squirrels. In addition, Rose and I will miss seeing the family of cardinals that came by several times a day. Now I have to figure out what to do with the big bag of bird seed I just bought.

Not Worth the Effort

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As soon as Frankie and I left the house this morning for our walk, we encountered the neighbor’s female cat, also named Frankie. She immediately hissed at Frankie. Normally, her hissing would go in one ear and out the other, and Frankie would move toward her, prompting her to run away. This time, Frankie just turned and walked away from her.

I think he finally decided that she is not worth the effort.

Photo Friday: Young Chris

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This is a photo of Chris from March 5, 2010, when Chris was about a year old, maybe younger. I used to celebrate his birthday on May 14, but evidence has suggested he was born as early as March of that year.

I don’t know why we had children’s bedsheets. We had three bedrooms at the time. Perhaps we had visitors who slept in one of the other bedrooms.

Fun with AI

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I was playing around this morning and uploaded a photo of Chris and me to ChatGPT.

Cat Chris and Chuck profile photo

I typed, “Can you recreate this image as a formal portrait painting in high resolution?”

It gave me this, although it ignored the high-resolution part.

I then said, “Now, recreate the uploaded photo as a 18th century formal painting,” and got this.

It then said:

If you’d like, I can also:

🎨 Turn it into other historical styles (e.g., Renaissance, Victorian, Impressionist, or Baroque)
🖼️ Create a museum-style framed version
📜 Make it look like an aged canvas hanging in a palace gallery
🐱 Or even create a matching portrait of just the cat (which could be fun if that’s Frankie!)

I said, “Yes, create a museum-style framed version.” I then told it that was me and Chris and mentioned when Chris died.

I wasn’t happy with my hair, so I asked to have it combed neater.

I then asked it to remove the picture from the wall and crop it so the entire frame was visible, but it said I reached the free limit for chats with attachments. Oh, well.