Clear Lake Balloon Fest -&- Jingle Cat-Bells

We went out to dinner last night and got back into town in time to see the hot-air balloons lifting off from the grounds of the Johnson Space Center. The traffic on NASA Road One was practically at a stand-still as cars pulled off to the sides of the road to watch the balloons. One balloon was having a particularly difficult time getting up into the air. No matter how hard the crew tried, they just couldn't seem to inflate the balloon enough to make it rise higher than twenty feet into the air.

We watched some of the balloons going up, then noticed that one of them was headed towards the local college, so we drove up that way following the path of the balloon. We thought the balloon pilot was heading towards the soccer field on campus, but just before he reached that area, he slowly let the balloon drift down into a field behind a small office complex across from the college. How he managed to land on such a small patch of grass was just amazing, but he must've had it planned because he had people there waiting to grab onto the ropes and secure the balloon as it deflated on the ground.

The last weekend of August is usually set aside for the balloon festival here. We can see a lot of the balloons from the park in our subdivision, being that we're not that far from the Space Center. Sort of magical, to see them floating around in the sky. I don't want to go up in one, but I like to watch them soaring.

Mickey Kitty has now learned to go in and out of the breakfast room window. It was easier than I thought it would be to teach him, but I had help from ShadowBaby. I opened up the window between the breakfast room and the screen-porch (just enough from the bottom to let the cats fit through) and Mickey Kitty followed ShadowBaby right out. It only took Mickey Kitty a few times to learn that he can get to the litter boxes on the porch by going through the window, plus he has already used the litter boxes in the house.

One thing that's taking him a little longer to understand is why he can't get through the glass when the window is closed and locked. He'll put his little nose up against the glass and meow in the most pitiful way. He sounds even more pitiful than AngelBoy, and that's going some. Each of the cats have their own individual meows, and it's easy for me to tell them apart. My husband has asked me how I can do that and I tell him Because I'm the mama cat, that's why.

Even the little bells on the cat collars sound different on all of them. Since they all have a different pace to their walk, the bells don't sound the same as they move. AngelBoy walks like a fashion model walking a runway-- slow and deliberate, as he watches to see who's looking at him. AngelBoy's bell sounds sort of like jingggg...gle.... jingggg...gle.... jingggg...gle as he prances his prissy self around the house.

ShadowBaby has shorter legs than AngelBoy's, so his walk is more duck-like than model-like. His little bell sounds like jin-gle, jin-gle, jin-gle. Mickey Kitty's legs are long and slim, and he's going to be a taller cat than ShadowBaby, I think. Mickey's little bell has its own unique sound: jinglejinglejinglejingle.

As for Rusty's bell... that's long gone. He still wears a collar, but he has managed to make every bell disappear. I caught him in the act with the last bell he had, so I know it was no accident that he lost them all. Rusty would roll around on the concrete driveway and rub his collar on the ground, again and again till the little threads holding the bell tore away. Like cat-magic.... no more bell. I think I sewed five or six bells onto his collars until I realized what was happening, then I just gave in and left him bell-less. He doesn't mind the collar, but I guess he thought the jingle-sound was an affront to his cat-dignity.