eBook Reading Devices: RCA REB-1100/Nuvomedia Rocket eBook

I'm a huge reader. When I was a kid, my parents never worried about where I was when school wasn't in session. If my nose wasn't buried in a book, I was volunteering at the local library. It was just a branch of the county library, with a single librarian, Mrs. Weaver. I don't even know if she got paid, although I suppose she must have done.

The library was open three days per week: Monday, Wednesday and Saturday. While working my way through the Danny Dunn series, the Black Stallion series, the Freddy the Pig series, an amazing treasure trove of pulp science fiction from the 40s through the 60s, and countless other books, I would take out six books each day the library was open and exchange them for six more on the next open day. "Six books?" you're thinking. I know, I know. But Mrs. Weaver wouldn't let me have more than that at a time. She said it wasn't fair to others that might want the same books. Trust me, no one else was reading those pulps; I discovered them in a box in the storage room! But you don't argue with a librarian... especially one who was letting you get stuff off the adult shelves -- after reviewing your choices carefully, of course -- without telling your parents.

That reading habit stuck with me, and I still absorb books -- and reread old friends -- at a rate that, while certainly slowed from those days when I didn't have to work for a living, still seems prodigious to some of my acquaintances. On occasion, though, I've found myself starving for reading material. Typically, that's when I'm working overseas, or on vacation. I always find an English-language bookstore in foreign cities, whether I'm living there or visiting, but the cost can be prohibitive. And when I'm vacationing, there's a practical limit to how many books one can carry; the airline limits the number and weight of one's luggage, after all.

During my last tour of Saudi Arabia, technology answered my prayers (insert heavenly choir sound effect here): the electronic book. As devices were being readied for market, I read everything about the field that I could, knowing that I'd be an early adopter. The device that eventually found its way into my hands and heart was Nuvomedia's Rocket eBook. A bit bigger than a paperback, and more than a bit heavier, it seemed the perfect device for my needs. The monochrome screen was roughly the size of a paperback page. The reader had 16 megabytes of RAM, which let me carry 20 to 30 books at a time plus short stories. The battery charge lasted me up to 18 hours if I was careful about the backlighting strength. Books were available through the manufacturer, but also online from Barnes & Noble or Powell's. I could get almost any book I wanted over the Internet at prices no more than, and sometimes a fair bit less than, bookstore prices in the US, as opposed to three to five times the cover price in a Saudi bookstore. I could store an unlimited number of them on my PC, and move a dozen or more at a time into the Rocket to read when not working or to carry with me on the plane, making it possible to 'feed my beast' during trips without spending vacation dollars on more reading material.

I've had my Rocket for something like eight years now. A couple of years ago, I started worrying about the non-removable battery failing and leaving me in the lurch. The Rocket's parent company changed hands and a few different versions of the Rocket, with new names and admittedly improved features, had come onto the market before GemStar, the owner of the Rocket and a formerly competing device, the Softbook (more on that later), decided there was no money to be made and dropped the products. No new ones were being made. If you couldn't find one in a store close-out, you had to look on eBay. Which I did, and picked up the RCA REB-1100.

The REB-1100 isn't a whole lot different than the Rocket. A little slimmer around the battery compartment, a nice rubberized case that made the whole thing easier to hang onto. It has a USB port, so it didn't need a cradle to connect to a PC. It also has an internal modem. When the device was first released, this made it possible to plug into a phone line and communicate directly with GemStar's online library and sales system; no PC needed. Now, it's of little use. But the big improvement is removable memory in the form of SmartMedia cards. I thought 16 megs was roomy; now I have a 128 meg card in that slot, and I never worry about having enough space to carry all my faves around with me. Here's a little tour of the REB-1100 and its capabilities:

Battery life is excellent, although I still dislike the fact that the battery is not removable. With backlighting set at 20%, I get 8-12 hours of reading on a charge. That's enough for a flight from Chicago to Tokyo. (So far, both my devices are still holding a charge just fine.)

The backlight is the biggest drain on the battery. At 100%, you can use the reader to light your way down a dark hall. Imagine what that does to your eyes when reading! I find that 20% is sufficient to make up for most odd lighting conditions where you can't read the screen without backlighting. Too bad E-Ink technology wasn't around when they were still making this device.

As a boon to those of us with aging eyes, you can download any TrueType font currently installed on your PC (unfortunately for us Mac folks, this device's software is PC-only; this device is the main reason I keep a PC in the house), at any size. You can choose two different typefaces to keep in the reader, and each can be a different size.

The buttons to advance from page to page are large and well-placed. You can decide which one is 'forward' and which is 'backward.' (I prefer the bottom button to advance pages.) You can also decide which orientation works best for you: buttons on the left or the right with the screen vertical, or buttons at the top or bottom with the screen horizontal. This is handy because the reader can get a little heavy if you're holding it one-handed. If I read while eating, I like to orient the screen with the buttons at the top; the battery 'bump' serves as a stand, holding the reader at an angle I can see without craning my head.

If you keep the supplied dictionary loaded, you can look up words in a story as you read it. You can add 'margin notes' if you like, although they don't appear alongside the text. The note is attached to a highlighted section of text, and touching the highlight opens a window with the note in it. There's a bookmarking facility, as well. This isn't necessary if you keep the story loaded in the reader until you finish it; every time you come back, the reader is on the page you last read. However, bookmarking is useful if you want to unload the story before finishing. Just connect the reader to your PC, launch the librarian software, and let it update itself with the data in the book. The bookmarks and notes will transfer to the librarian, and then back to the reader when you reload the story. (Although with 128 megs of storage on that SmartMedia card, there's not much reason to delete a book/story from the reader any more.)

There is a certain paucity of material available for download nowadays, unfortunately. Baen Books supports the REB format for science fiction, and FictionWise sells short stories, novellas and full-length books of various types. However, the major publishers -- and thus the major booksellers -- dropped the format when Gemstar scrapped the readers; GemStar didn't release the necessary software, so it was no longer possible to make REB format files that were encrypted to a specific reader. (You know how most publishers love their DRM. After all, we're just slavering pirates waiting for the opportunity to bootleg their books. Makes you wonder why publishing houses aren't organizing protests in front of libraries and photocopier manufacturing plants.)

Fortunately, the original RocketLibrarian software and the later eBook Librarian software will convert text into the unencrypted version REB format. You use a subset of HTML commands for formatting, and can run just straight through from start to end or break it up into chapters, with links at the end of each to the table of contents or the next/previous chapter. It just depends on how detailed you want to get with the HTML code.

And because HTML is the lingua franca for creating your own REB files, you can pull down Web pages and convert them, too. However, this works best with pages that stick with simple HTML and don't have dozens of advertising links. The librarian software ignores any code it doesn't understand, but it will follow links to other pages if you tell it to, which can lead to huge files, and not necessarily organized in any fashion that makes sense. Where copyright law stands on this, I can't say. Suffice to say that doing this to a Web page so you can read it at your leisure and then delete it is probably okay. Passing the file around to other people, whether or not you charge anything, is probably not okay.

As of today (06 June 2006), you can still download the librarian software, which will let you create unencrypted REB files, at this site: http://www.rocket-ebook.com/Readers/Software/index.html. However, Gemstar has stated that they will completely close all ebook operations as of 16 July 2006 (http://www.gemstar-ebook.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/eBookstore.woa/wa/default?56,7). Quite likely, this page will then disappear.

eBookWise, another face of FictionWise, now sells a version of the REB-1100, so there's still some life left in the independent reader market. Some former Nuvomedia folks have also formed a new company, eBook Technologies and still sell a version of it, as well, along with a version of the Softbook, which has a larger, color screen. They also operate an online library system where you can store your books. I prefer local storage, thanks. I might not be able to access it when I'm away from home, but then I'm already carrying most of my library with me, anyway.

All in all, this is an excellent ebook reader. It's easy to use, has good battery life, and with the appropriate librarian software, will let you add your own content to your library. Reading material is available for sale, if not necessarily the bestsellers. You might prefer a regular hardback to sit around the house -- I still buy them; just ask Amazon! -- but for travel, this device is ideal. Highly recommended.

Sweet Memories

Apples. Sweet, crisp, tree-ripened, hand-picked, no-wax, hand-delivered-from-New-York apples. The crisp 'snap' from biting through the skin. The creamy texture of a McIntosh hybrid's white flesh. Juice running down my chin, through my beard, and dripping onto my chest. Autumn really has come to northwest Florida!

I grew up in Ohio, a state that has real seasons, including autumn. In late September and early October, even before the first frost, the air took on a certain crispness in the morning, a freshness that wasn't there all summer long. The summer's growth was done, and the ripened fruits were ready for harvest. Even if you didn't live on a farm or near an orchard, you could somehow just smell them in the air. Roadside stands popped up everywhere, offering someone's crop of peaches or apples, and home-squeezed cider. Some of the more enterprising types included baked goods filled with the product of their orchards: pies, cobblers, cakes, jellies and jams, you name it. I have no idea what varieties any of these people grew, but it didn't matter. They were all good.

My mother would sometimes take my sister and I, with various cousins, to an orchard where we picked our own apples so the moms could make their own pies, applesauce and jellies. More than a few made their way into our bellies, and I have the tactile memories of eating those apples right off the tree. Store-bought apples just couldn't compare! They still can't.

There are also some memories involving apple fights and giving up some of my paper route money for an extended period to pay for the 'ammo' expended...

And now, thanks the Teresa's fiance Mike, all of that came back in a rush this morning. Mike took a road trip to upstate New York. While he was there, he rambled through farmers' markets and roadside stands, sampling the local harvest. He brought back several bags of different varieties, and he & Teresa were willing to share.

So here on my desk are four fresh apples, fully tree-ripened like nothing in the supermarket, just the size of my palm the way an apple should be. No wax or preservatives, so they won't last long. (Heh-heh, no, they won't!) Two Cortlands, an Empire, and a Macoun. I started out with a pair of each, but that was 15 minutes ago... ages in fresh-apple time!

I've been trying to remember the Empire's name for more than a week now, since Teresa first told me Mike was in New York. A college buddy, Tom Moldenhauer, turned me onto them and I've never seen them in stores. Tom had been visiting his folks near Albany in the fall of our freshman year, and he brought a case of Empires, a McIntosh/Red Delicious hybrid, back with him. Although they were introduced in 1966, I'd never heard of them before, and still haven't seen them in grocery stores.

Try as I might, I couldn't remember the name of the apple, even though I knew its 'parents' and definitely remembered the texture and taste. This morning, T walked in with a big smile on her face and several plastic grocery bags. She reached into one and pulled out two apples. My eyes bugged out as I asked, "Is Mike back? Did he bring those from New York?"

She nodded and said, "These are Empires."

I shouted, "That's it! That's the one! That's the apple Tom brought back to college!"

Teresa smiled and pulled out a pair of apples from each of the other bags. They were Cortlands and Macouns, two varieties that I wasn't familiar with. We chatted a bit about Mike, and then T went to deliver some apples to our boss.

I waited awhile—say, 3 seconds—and then reached out to the Empires that were softly calling my name. I picked one up and sniffed it, inhaling that very faint aroma. And then I bit into it... oh, yeah, that's the one! Oh, man... mmph... ... That. Is. The. One.

But then there were the Cortlands and Macouns. I sat there, staring, like a mouse in a cheese processing plant. Which one first? I decided to try a Macoun; another McIntosh hybrid with the Jersey Black as its other parent, first introduced in 1923, named for a Canadian fruit breeder, and still not in any supermarkets I've ever frequented.

And lo, it was good! No noticeable scent, but the first bite reminded me right away of a good Mac. (The Empire is crisper, thanks to its Red Delicious antecedents.) Not so tart as the Empire, but very, very good, with a smooth texture and flavor. This would be a good cider apple. And maybe I can con Teresa into putting some into a pie...

The Cortlands—yet another Mac hybrid, this time with the Ben Davis, introduced to the public in 1915—smell very McIntosh-like, not to mention very tempting, but I'm saving them for lunch. One of them ought to be a great finish for the tuna melt I'm planning to get at the snack bar.

I admit, this being the office, I had to be a little more civilized in my eating habits. But this evening, out on my deck as the sun goes down, the juice—and some autumn memories—will flow...

Two's Company

I'd always planned to have two cats again, but things didn't work out with Hakim, the Savannah. Kezia was a lot happier after he went back to his breeder and found a new home with other Savannahs. But after a month or so, she started getting lonely. I'd come home from work and hear her calling even as I was getting out of the car. She wouldn't let me out of her sight, to the point of leaving her dinner to run in and make sure I was still on the sofa. In the morning, when I put on my shoes to leave for work, Kezia would wrap herself around my ankles or try to get in my lap, meowing mournfully.

Clearly, it was time for a companion.

I whipped out my trusty Mac and started searching the 'net. I knew I didn't want any of the hybrid cats. I knew where to get another ocicat, if I decided to go that route, but I started thinking about how much I enjoyed my Siamese cats years ago. Personality is the most important thing in a cat, after good health, or at least it is for me. Still, looks count for something, too. I knew what to expect from a Siamese, personality-wise, but I was also really taken with Kezia's cinnamon color. I'd heard of cinnamon Orientals, which were bred from Siamese. A cat with Kezia's coloring and a personality like my sweethearts from years ago would be perfect.

That cinnamon color isn't just uncommon in ocicats; it's downright rare, period. There are cinnamon Orientals, but I couldn't find any breeders that had one available, either as a kitten or an adult. On top of that, I really didn't much care for the "Martian" look of the Orientals. The body type has just gotten too extreme, thanks to show judges that can't seem to draw a line in the sand and say, "Enough is enough." And Siamese have gotten just as bad.

Okay, back the the Siamese idea, but only from a breeder that works with the "classic" or "traditional" body style, like the pair I had way back when. And try to find someone a little closer to home, so the cat wouldn't be collecting frequent flyer miles, like Hakim did. Finally found a breeder in Florida with the type of Siamese I was interested in, but I lost interest when I learned the price... and that didn't include driving across the state to pick up the cat.

I spent some time at various cat sites, just looking at pictures and reading about personalities. Then a thought hit me (with a loud 'smack,' I might add) and I ran a search on Tonkinese. Tonks resulted from crossing Burmese and Siamese, and they're a study in moderation. Because of the genetics for coat and eye color, Tonks appear in a range that runs from blue-eyed and pointed, like their Siamese progenitors, to green-eyed and solid, like their Burmese ancestors. In the middle, you have the "minks." Their eyes are aqua (although there is a wide shade variance) and their coats are shaded, rather than pointed. They're every bit as people-oriented as the Siamese, but not quite as vocal.

Some more search time turned up a breeder less than two hours' drive away, so I got in touch and made an appointment. Although I started out thinking I might take one the retired breeding females, things ended up a little differently.

While sitting and talking with the breeders, several of their nearly 30 cats/kittens were wandering around. A particular little guy kept climbing up in my lap. He'd settle down and start purring without even being stroked. After a few minutes, he'd go check out something one of his housemates was doing, but he kept coming back. Seemed pretty obvious to me, so he ended up riding back home with me.

First things first: the registered name has GOT to go. I'm not having a cat named "Blueberry" in the house. But in case he had gotten used to it, I changed it to something close: "Barry." Sometimes I call him Mr. Barrington, or B-boy, or BeBop, or even "Hey, you" but the vet has him listed as Barry.

Barry is a blue mink Tonkinese. "Blue" is a dark silver-grey. His "points" are darkest, shading into somewhat lighter areas on his body, but not as sharply contrasting as a Siamese. His eyes aren't aqua, but rather a very cool-looking pale sea-green. At 7-1/2 months, he's a little over 7 pounds and it's all muscle. He's not much of a talker, but he does speak up now & then; usually when he feels ignored, or one of his toys is trapped someplace where he can't reach it.

Barry can be a real lap-cat when he wants to be. He'll crawl right in and make himself at home, regardless of what I'm doing. Like last week when I was sitting on the floor behind the entertainment stand, reconnecting all my gear after moving into a new place. Neither cable nor cord nor annoyance of the keeper of the can-opener shall keep this cat from his appointed lap.

It took awhile—about 24 hours—for Kezia to get used to the idea of a roommate. At first, she didn't think much of the idea. Now they romp together all the time. Although Barry's idea of "fun" can look a little weird:



My friend Teresa calls him "the kitty-cat Lestat." But Kezia doesn't always play Mena to Barry's Dracula. At least half the time, I see her chasing him up over the furniture, or walking up and bapping him one on top of the head.

It's obvious she's not lonely any more, and I like the feeling I get when I open the door and they're both waiting for me, purring already.

2nd Opinion

Turns out that my first surgeon's former partner is a nice guy, and isn't particularly interested in cutting into my groin unless it's really necessary. Good answer!

He's of the opinion that the original repair hasn't herniated, but rather caused a hematoma. The mesh used for hernia repair flexes, but it doesn't stretch like human tissue. If some movement pulls the mesh beyond its limited ability to stretch, it can tear the surrounding tissue, making it bleed and forming a hematoma. That can take up to 6 weeks to fully resolve. When I saw the surgeon, I'd been having the pain for about 3 weeks, so he said let's see how I'm doing in 3 more weeks. I'm okay with that.

I don't generally feel any pain when working out or lifting & carrying (something I did a lot of during a recent move). I mean, I might, or I might not. I can be sitting or standing still, and all of a sudden it feels like someone reached into my shorts & squeezed. Or I might roll over in bed, or lean forward in my chair at work, and have the same feeling. That's part of the reason the surgeon thinks it's a hematoma rather than another hernia. It makes sense, I guess.

Thing is, the original hernia diagnosis and subsequent surgery were based on exactly the same kind of pain occuring under the same circumstances.

I guess we'll see in a few weeks.

Repair & Refurbishment

Earlier this summer, I had a little repair work done. Not as a result of the continuing 'hit parade' of hurricanes, though. It was more of a personal refurbishment: I had a hernia repaired.

This was only the third time in 47 years that I've been under the knife. At age 3, my tonsils got yanked. At age 30, my right knee finally got bad enough that I had it fixed. And then, out of nowhere, I started having this odd pain that was sort of like sitting down too fast in jeans that are way too tight. I put up with it for several months before finally deciding there might actually be something wrong.

My GP did the standard 'turn your head and cough' exam, and I jumped back 2 feet—but not just because his hands were a little cold. His eyebrows went up, and he said, "I think I know what's wrong." The 'good news,' in his terms, was that I was "at the shallow end of the pool." Before this exam, all I knew about hernias was that they were supposed to happen to old men who were lifting stuff that was too heavy for them, and then they had to wear a truss. Now I learned that, not only can hernias just appear, even in young (relatively, in my case) healthy men, they can escalate to the point that they're life-threatening. I'll spare you the full details, but the "deep end of the pool" involves necrotic intestinal tissue becoming gangrenous. That was enough to make me agree to see a surgeon, even though my doctor could feel only a very small "bubble."

The surgeon got the same reactionfrom me, and his hands were warm. He gave a very thorough description of the problem and the solution. He told me I could wait if I wanted to, but the sooner I had the surgery, the easier the procedure—and the recovery—would be. Being an old-fashioned surgeon, he planned to install mesh in the defect, to make sure it stayed closed up. He said it was day-surgery, with a pretty quick recovery, but he did say he wanted to be honest. "Some doctors will say it's no big deal and there's not much pain, but I gotta tell ya: when you wake up in the recovery room, you'll be cursin' my name and wantin' to sic your dog on me. But the good news is that goes away within a few days."

About a month later, I got to test his honesty. The in-processing at the surgical center went smoothly, and everyone I dealt with while conscious was pleasant and professional. The surgeon came in, said "Good night," and I woke up feeling dopey but otherwise okay. Then they made me get off the bed and into a wheelchair to go out to my friend's car for the ride home. Damn if that doctor wasn't exactly right; I asked Teresa if I could borrow her dog to sic it on him.

The first couple of days really were hell. The Lortab I got for pain made me dizzy and nauseous. I fell down in the bathroom because I got dizzy trying to take a leak standing up (it hurt too much to sit down and get back up). And there is no way you want to start puking when you've just had abdominal surgery; ask any woman who's had a C-section, or any appendectomy patient. So I stopped taking the pills and spent the first night not getting much sleep. I tried to stay very still, but even a small movement in my sleep woke me up with a stab of pain. The next day, I got the doctor to call in a different prescription and had Teresa pick it up. The Darvocet didn't really make me stop hurting, but it took enough of the edge off that I could sleep.

Now, there is a hurricane connection here. The surgery happened on a Thursday, and on Saturday I had to evacuate for Hurricane Dennis. I ended up staying in a friend's house a lot farther inland, watching her dog while she was in the hospital with a broken leg. No, I did not take that greyhound for walks! Totter out of bed, open the back door, shoo her out, wait, let her back in, totter back to the guest room where my cat was hiding out. I was really happy to get back to my own place a couple of days later; the cat doesn't require to me open any doors when she wants to pee!

The surprising thing is, after 5 days I felt good enough to go back to work. Admittedly, I don't dig ditches or haul bags of fertilizer, but I didn't think I'd want to go back to the office for at least a full week, maybe more. But sitting in a chair, working a keyboard and trackball, doesn't use a lot of abdominal muscles. Getting in and out of the chair is a different story, of course, but I could manage it, slowly. I looked less than business-like in my slip-on sandals, athletic pull-on pants and T-shirt. Didn't have a lot of choice there: I couldn't bend down to tie shoes, and I couldn't stand a 'hard' waistband and a belt running across my lower abdomen, near, if not on, that 4-inch incision. But that lasted only about a week, and then I was in regular business casual again. And about 10 days after that, I was back in the gym, a week after the surgeon told me to starting working out again.

And here we are, almost 3 months later. The incision is fading from its early angry red. Bits of undissolved suture have stopped working their way out through the skin. The hair has grown back and the itching has stopped.

And I'll probably have to go through it again.

That's right. It appears that I'm part of a somewhat elite group: the 10% of hernia repairs that fail. The pain is back, coming more often and lasting longer, even when I'm just sitting or standing still. Bending over, sitting down, standing up, reaching, walking, rolling over in bed... I never know when I'll "hear its voice." My GP says he thinks there's a hernia around the edge of the mesh, and that I need quick attention. I see the surgeon in a couple of days, mainly to find out when he wants to put me back on the table. So much for that trip to Rio.

I wonder if there's time to buy & train a dog. A big one. With lots of teeth.

(A + B) – A = Peace & Quiet

I said things would be different, and they are. Thing is, they’re different in a different way than I expected.

Hakim, being a savannah, was a lot wilder than I was expecting. 12.5% wild ancestry doesn’t sound like much, but it depends on what that 12.5% affects. In his case, it was behaviour—and for most F3s, apparently, because Patti said his behaviour is typical. Hakim is a high-energy, into-everything, stubborn cat. He won’t take ‘no’ for an answer, and if you force him to, he’ll take it out on you some other way. For the first time in my life, owning a cat was stressful, not restful. He would go from sitting quietly at the end of the sofa to doing a Ricochet Rabbit number off the walls, furniture and floor. He'd come to a momentary stop somewhere, his entire body tensed up and his tongue hanging out of his mouth, a 'crazed' look on his face, and then he'd start bouncing around again. And then he'd stop and do a little personal clean-up as if nothing had happened, while I'd be cleaning up the mess he'd made.

I brought Kezia, a cinnamon-solid ocicat of the same age, into the house, thinking a companion/playmate would make at least a little difference. I know Hakim didn’t like being caged during the day—I didn’t like doing it, either—but it was that or expect to spend time cataloging and repairing the damage he’d done while I was at work. As I said previously, the best-laid plans…

I had planned a 2-week quarantine period, with Kezia in my office, so as to be sure neither of them would infect the other with something. This was mainly a concern because Hakim had taken several weeks to get over an upper respiratory infection just prior to Kezia’s arrival. That went out the window the second day. I don’t know if I didn’t make sure the door was latched, or if Hakim managed to turn the handle (he’d been trying to do that before Kezia came to the house). Either way, he got in the office and I heard the pounding downstairs as he was chasing Kezia around the room. So much for quarantine.

After that, I kept them separated as much as possible because Kezia wasn’t ready for a new person “in her face,” especially one who wanted to wrestle. There was no adjustment period for Hakim. He saw another cat, and expected her to be just like his siblings: raucous and rambunctious. I kept her in my bedroom with the door shut while I was home and Hakim was loose. During the day, he got caged and I gave her the run of the house. Even so, thanks to Hakim’s behaviour, she stayed under the bed unless I shut her out of the bedroom when I left for work. Whenever I got home, she was always on the upstairs landing. I’m not sure she came down even for water, and there was a litterbox up there already.

I tried a couple of supervised visits, with pretty much the same results every time: she’d flatten down to the ground and hiss; he’d prance or pounce closer; she’d growl and raise her claws at him in warning; he’d attack because she wouldn’t play. In an early visit attempt, he even jumped her while she was in the litterbox. He got her down by the throat twice, with her kicking at him with claws out. No blood drawn, thank heaven, because I yanked them apart quickly. It happened a third time when Kezia sneaked out of the room behind me, and Hakim nailed her on the stairs. He began to sit outside the bedroom, waiting for the door to open so he could get at her. When he successfully evaded my blocking maneuvers, I'd haul him out from under the bed, where he was trying to catch Kezia amid the storage boxes and the breakfast tray.

I finally decided none of us were ever going to be happy together. Despite the enjoyment I got from the daily head-butts and face-rubs, Hakim was still too wild to be allowed the run of the house without supervision. Even with it, I had to be on watch constantly to make sure he wasn’t trying to chew electrical cords, or go counter-surfing, or claw furniture (despite having scratching posts, which he did use when he didn’t prefer the sofa), or knock books & DVDs off the shelves, or knock things off the bathroom & kitchen counters just to see what would happen… (There were several occasions where we both got a time-out when I just got tired of squirting him & yelling, "No!" He went into the cage, and I went upstairs with a book.) I definitely couldn’t let him keep attacking Kezia, nor did I want to make jailbirds out of the two of them, with him in a cage and her trapped in the bedroom for 8-10 hours a day. Patti agreed to take him back, so off he went to Phoenix. He fell right back into the old rhythm of things with his brother, mom & dad, and the ‘aunties’ (the other savannah queens) and is much happier.

Kezia immediately came out of her shell. All it took was one day without Hakim in the house, and she stopped living under the bed. She also stopped the constant low-level growling.

Turns out Kezia is inquisitive and playful, as well as very loving. She’s not real rambunctious, but she enjoys a good game of tag, or playing with her toys (with or without me) without tearing them to shreds in minutes. She doesn’t counter-surf in the kitchen, and she doesn’t knock things off the bathroom counter just to see if they’ll bounce. She spends most of the night sleeping next to my pillow, and she’s all for being picked up for a good petting & ear scratching. She recognizes the difference between ‘claw’ hands (time to play) and ‘normal’ hands (time for some lovin’). If I’m lounging on the sofa, she likes to lay on the back edge where she can keep an eye on me. After all, I might get a sudden urge to dash out to the kitchen & open an extra can of cat food, and it would be a shame if she missed it.

Either she doesn’t understand English real well, or she’s naturally humble. I tell her constantly how pretty she is but her head hasn’t swelled up. The cinnamon color is rather uncommon, and the dappling on her sides—where a typical ocicat’s spots would be—is very attractive. Kezia’s coloring is changing some, though. She appeared to be a solid when she was younger, but she’s getting a silver undercoat, so it looks like she’s really a cinnamon-smoke. There’s also a patch on her chest that’s lightening up as the silver shows through. She’s a beauty.

So there we are. It’s a one-cat household and I look forward to going home at the end of the day. I have the cat I wanted: one that’s happy to see me every time I walk in the door, doesn’t wreak havoc while I’m gone, and likes to be loved on.

We’re happy.