Tuesday 29 April 2026: 5:00 AM
Notes from a Childless Cat Lady Working Away in one of the Sub-Basements of the Ministry of Snark.


News: (MSNOW)
• The Justice Department has decided to prosecute James Comey, former head of the FBI, again, for posting online a photograph of something that was written in the sand with an arrangement of sea shells. And, so it goes on, the circus of useless, expensive, prosecutions of Trump’s perceived domestic enemies. This is while we are in the middle of a war.
• The FCC is trying to pull ABC’s licensee over a joke Jimmy Kimmel made about Melania Trump.
• King Charles spoke before the Congress, said some things that needed to be said about Ukraine and NATO, 9/11 and the history of cooperative action between the two countries. He did this while managing to be tasteful and amusing. What a refreshing difference in political speech.

CAT TALES
I’m up early because our youngest rescue cat, Sam Clemens, was trying diligently to steal our other cat, Hiram Bernard’s, food. Hiram, aka the Pooper, sleeps with us and right now, since he has cancer, his food intake is carefully measured. Sam, ingenious Houdini that he is, managed to make the bedroom door open and wake everybody up, announcing breakfast time.
“I can’t keep up with how much food Hiram is eating if Sam eats most of it.” Mike, my long-term partner, grumbled, standing across the bed from me in a tee shirt and green and black boxer shorts. He was using his left arm to try to push Sam away from Hiram’s food bowl, to no success.
“Come on,” I said to Sam. “Let’s go and get some real breakfast.” Sam, of course, knew exactly what I said, they always do, but he gave one more try, pushing his nose up under Mike’s arm in an attempt to get at the food.
But one more “come on,” did the trick and Sam threw himself off the end of the bed and followed me to the door. When we got there, he paused, looking around, sure that we were trying to deceive him (which we were), but decided that following his Mom was likely to get him unobstructed breakfast. I walked down the cat walk to the stairs and Sam, as usual, cavorted to the steps and hurled himself down, skipping steps, sliding on steps. I had been convinced for months that this was going to result in a broken leg and another expensive visit to the vet which we could not afford, especially now, during Hiram’s chemo treatment which was costing, on average, $700 a visit to the Oncology Clinic. Some visits were near $3,000 when we had to have complicated procedures, like the food tube lodged in his little stomach. Another cat medical disaster was the last thing we needed.
But, dampening the overflowing love of life in Sam, was a losing proposition. I have never seen such a happy cat in my life. He ran, he jumped, he tried to finagle abandoned food bowls off the cabinet. He launched himself on top of one of the other much bigger cats in an attempt to start a wrestling match. He hid behind anything really, waiting for one of them to approach so he could bound out and ambush. He was a delight to watch and after having been rescued five-weeks-old, starving, soaking wet, screaming his head off in a pouring rain, having just been mauled by our outdoor cat Willa for trying to eat her food, he seemingly had no fear – of anybody or anything. Everything was a toy, every day was a celebration,
• I have no idea what has happened to Joyce Vance. She appears to have lost a lot of weight and looks truly horrible. I saw her on another network yesterday and didn’t even recognize her.