Back in the Hangar

Sorry I've been slacking off on posting these last few days. I'm still dealing with serious health issues with one of our cats, Banzai. (He's the yellow-and-white guy on the left in this picture, the other guy being Oz.) He been off food and we weren't sure he was drinking. Two trips to the vets and about $300 later, we're making progress. He's hydrated again, and actually ate a couple of kitty-treats out of my hand this evening, the first solid food I'm aware that he's touched since before Christmas. So I'm hopeful that we'll get him eating again, and back on the road to health.

Okay, so this picture is relatively free of 1/6th content, it isn't completely free.

The picture is taken in my office, a converted 1943 garage I call "Hangar 18" after the mythical hangar of UFO lore where the remains of a crashed UFO and its pilots are kept. I left the ceiling unfinished because I liked the rustic look, and any added woodwork was stained to match the reddish color of the 60-plus year-old cedar. Among the added woodwork is a "cat bridge" along the top of an existing wood rafter that the cats were using anyway, and the cat-ladder on the left, which extends from the beam to the office floor. Just off-camera up and to the right is an opening into the semi-connected house attic. The cats can leave my wife's attic office, go through the attic, and come down the cat ladder in my office.

Considering that the office is my primary GI Joe display area, it's a good thing that both cats are pretty-well behaved about my collectively. They usually stay off tables and shelves, and rarely knock things over. An especially worrisome display is the shelf of pilots right behind the cats. What you can't see in the picture is that this isn't a normal shelf (see picture below). It's a hand-carved replica of the front of a WWII B-17 bomber, produced by a local craftsman (since retired for health reasons, this was one of the last ones he made). It's a beautiful piece, and great for displaying GI Joes, but it's only supported by two screws in the back of the fuselage, so any "wing walking" by the cats would be disastrous.

Tempting through it must be, though, none of the cats have ever bothered it. Let's hope it stays this way, as this is one item in my collection that is literally irreplaceable.