Productivity, Thy Foe is Cat

Productivity, Thy Foe is Cat

I was just settling down to do some pre-work planning, but apparently this was not meant to be:

Silly Cat... He laid down right on top of everything I was working on. Yeah, my office is a mess right now. Still need to mount the check rail over my monitor! In the meantime I’m using some extra-sticky Post-It pads on a portable whiteboard…that’s a useful trick to write about, now that I think about it.

(Aside: Thine? Thy? Which one is it?) UPDATE: Fixed the title :-) I was confused whether Productivity was plural or not…thanks, commenters!

18 Comments

  1. psg 19 years ago

    gotta love our pets. of course my hamster isn’t tame enough to distract me in that way yet. her day time sleeping is definitly influential … :)

    ——-

  2. Blu_Matt 19 years ago

    An easy way to distract a cat is to pretend to feed it.  It will hang around the food dish for a good hour of so.  You will received dirty looks, but you will be otherwise left to your own devices.

    As for thy/thine, think of them as equivalents of my/mine for “your/yours” (the 2rd person singlular possessive pronoun)  e.g. this is my hat, that is thy hat; this hat is mine, that hat is thine.

    So, in this case, it would be “Productivity, thy foe is cat”.

  3. Robert 19 years ago

    Very nice cat:)  I experience the problem of one of my cats taking over my hand when I use the mouse and the other one who likes to climb on my shoulder while I am sitting at the computer.

  4. Emily 19 years ago

    I think it’s “thy” foe is cat (or Kat).

    He looks very handsome against the green desk, though! It suits him. :)

  5. David W. 19 years ago

    “Thy” is correct here. It’s like “a” and “an”, it depends on if the following word starts with a vowel sound. “thy foe is…” vs “thine enemy is…”

    (yep, I had to look it up)

    I get lots of distractions from my cats as well! Partly because their favorite window is right behind my desk, so I get a lot of ooh-there’s-a-bird-outside traffic. But they also try to lie right between my arms when I’m typing, too. Very distracting!

  6. Anna 19 years ago

    I have just broken away from recording my podcast for the week because my older cat was snoring and you could hear it, so I started again after waking her up when my second cat came in and jumped on the keyboard….the words from me will need to be edited! Who ever said cats helped ease stress…

  7. Dave Seah 19 years ago

    Cats can snore? My cats don’t even meow very much, though the girl cat squeaks. I’d like to get that recorded :-) I’d like to make a mobile podcasting suit: discrete and self-contained, so I can record stuff that’s going on around me…I could capture the squeak that way then!

  8. Bo Jordan 19 years ago

    Oh, Cat reminds me of my old friend Peabody (also a long-hair).  Pea would not only cover whatever was getting attention, but then proceed to drool all over it.

  9. Dave Seah 19 years ago

    Gross! One thing I like about cats is that they aren’t droolers or lickers. Ironically, Kat (short for Katai) likes licking my hand and poking his wet nose on any exposed skin he can find…I might as well have gotten a dog. He’s a Maine Coon, btw.

  10. David W. 19 years ago

    “poking his wet nose on any exposed skin he can find”

    I get that one a lot too. I haven’t heard any snoring from mine, though. Although I have been witness to one of them burping in their sleep so loud it woke them both up.

  11. Krista 19 years ago

    Sometimes, the animals are great at reminding you to stop and smell the roses. I have a Yorkie Poo named Gus. He follows me everywhere around the house and sleeps at my feet while I work at the computer. I like to call him my employee of the month. Every once in a while, he’ll get up, put both front paws on my thigh (this is stretching himself as much as he can) and pretend to dig a hole in my thigh – scritchscritchscritch. That means “It’s time for a break mom. I need cuddling and you need to work a little less.”.

  12. beth 19 years ago

    I just got a new puppy last weekend, and between her and my other dog I never get anything done at home.  And it’s wonderful haha :)

  13. mathie 19 years ago

    Yep, cats are helpful like that, aren’t they?  One of mine has this habit of sitting directly in front of the monitor when he wants attention.  If that doesn’t work, he walks over the keyboard.

    Still, it’s one up on one of my parents’ cats.  She not only sits in front of the screen, but paws at the mouse cursor, trying to trap it.  I’m not looking forward to the day when they discover that LCD screens and claws really don’t mix…

  14. Gordon 19 years ago

    That’s all well and good but what if it’s not YOUR cat that’s sitting on your keyboard! – http://www.flickr.com/photos/gmclean/146197746/

  15. Dave Seah 19 years ago

    Gordon: That is a scenario I hadn’t considered! Just when you think things are as bad as they can be, they get worse!!! At least they are fluffy :-)

  16. senioritis 19 years ago

    My cats send IM and delete emails. And it’s “thy.” “Thine” is the equivalent of “mine.”

  17. KittyMomma 18 years ago

    I have 8 cats.  Recently switched from a desktop to a lap top and now the cats are psycho over the fact that they can stomp on Mommy’s clicky-board anywhere in the house when she’s working. :) I even tried working outside on the porch but Dorothy (the Maine Coon in her loves walking on a harness)will cry and cry if she can’t come outside with me. Plus, the screen saver on the laptop is much brighter than on the old computer.  Way more fun to play with apparently.  I love my babies :) and boy..they are the best procrastination any one could ever ask for.  Who needs netflix?  Get a cat…or two…or three….or eight.

    KittyMomma – and Dexter, Katie, Artemis, Hermione, Charonna, Dorothy, Rose, & Jack-Jack

  18. Katy McNiel 16 years ago

    Cats always lay on the wierdest things. Mine will choose a tv stand over a bed, lol.