On the fifth day of Christmas

Mr. Cat overdid it. Can you help?

I can’t even tie a bow!

On the fourth day of Christmas

What do you mean, one of these isn’t a bird?

On the third day of Christmas

I suggest you make Coq Au Vin.

Today Mr. Cat brought us three French hens.

He’d bring you three French hens, too, if you invite him to your house.

On the second day of Christmas

Trust me. You will like these better than two Turtledoves.

…Mr. Cat brought us two books by fantasy author Terry Pratchett. He said he prefers them to the science fiction works of Harry Turtledove. We think that’s because the Pratchett books have cats on the cover.

Mr. Cat is available for adoption in the Seattle area. You can read his story here.

On the first day of Christmas

Quit complaining and have a pear! I got them from my friends Harry and David.

On the first day of Christmas, Mr. Cat tried and failed to capture a partridge.

This beautiful cat is in need of a home. Here’s Mr. Cat’s story.

Meet Mr. Cat!

We have a lovely young foster cat who is ready for adoption in the Seattle area. Meet Mr. Cat.

Slow DSL? Over 70? You might have TTM!

The repairman from my mother’s DSL provider rang the doorbell. My 94-year-old mother answered and he said “Aha!”

Setting down his box of tools, he asked her “Do you have a heart monitor, or Life Alert system?”

“Yes,” my mother said, wondering how he knew.

He reached into his kit and handed her a line filter, the exact same DSL filter that she has attached to the jacks for all three of her phones.

On the previous day, the company’s telephone support person, following a script, had asked us to try unplugging all of her phones and connecting her router to a different jack, in an effort to improve her abysmal DSL line speed. There was no improvement, so the company dispatched repair (and we hung around all day waiting for the visit).

“They were following the script,” the repairman told us with a sigh. He explained that the DSL provider’s script never asks about heart monitors, Life Alert systems, or any other transtelephonic medical monitoring devices (TTMs), so he gets dispatched to investigate faulty lines. As soon as an elderly person opens the door, he asks about heart monitors and often discovers that a monitor, installed without a filter, is the culprit. Simply adding the filter to the line solves the problem, immediately.

By the way, we’re not talking about a slight degradation in line speed — my mom had been paying for 9 MB of download speed and was barely getting 900 KB.

It’s all better, now.