D.I.Y. Coffee and cake

Unfortunately I will not be able to participate in #gtchat and the merriment in the #gtstoogies lobby this week so Sprite helped me to set up the coffee machine and dessert fridge so that you can help yourself.
Tweet and Retweet are having a great honeymoon at an undisclosed location and have sent us a postcard. Their wedding photo albums are still on the floor by the couch.
You will find a copy of the new book  Making the Choice: When Typical School Doesn’t Fit Your Atypical Child by Corin Barsily Goodwin and Mika Gustavson on the couch. For an excellent review of the book by Lisa Conrad see http://giftedparentingsupport.blogspot.com/2011/09/making-choice.html

Caramel Cat has given up the idea of chocolate coating the mice by drenching them from above and has instead rigged up a ramp leading from the Mouse House to a chocolate plunge bath similar to the arrangement used for dipping sheep.

Dobrou chut for #gtstoogies

This week the #gtstoogies will be serving food from Prague including the favourite, Fried Cheese.
Several posters and postcards showing views of Prague are displayed on the pin board, along with a flyer for the 19th Biennial Conference of the WCGTC – Making a World of Difference for Gifted Children which will be held in Prague 8-12 August 2011. Click on the picture if you would like to see an enlargement and be able to see the pin board more clearly.
Caramel Cat is using cheese as bait for mouse fishing; not realising that the mice are already enjoying a cheese feast. The stout hearted (and  stout waisted) Oliver Moremouse had already returned the platter from last week  to Sprite and, in his best Dickensian voice, requested “Please can I have some more?”

#gtstoogies 19 Happy Hour

This week the #gtstoogies will be enjoying Happy Hour with Appetizers/wine and Tapas Bar and for the animals there will be Doggie treats/catnip in the Annex.
The smiling clock is dancing with the Twitter birds because time always flies when you are having fun with friends.
The Twitter birds are still wearing their Melbourne Cup hats and growing their November moustaches and writing their November Blog Posts. The Twitter birds who are participating in NaNoWriMo are too busy to come to the Happy Hour.

Here are the Tapas which Sprite prepared for us to bring to the Happy Hour.

In the Annex Caramel Cat is having a wonderful time rolling in the capnip and playing with the catnip cat toys

Paws for Poise Parlour 6

The Australian taste tester dogs arrived and the three small dogs enjoyed their pamper session. But Australian Cattle Dog said he had only come to say that he and Australian Kelpie were too busy with herding work to have a pamper session at the moment.

So Intellectual Dabrowski, Native American Indian Dog and Australian Cattle Dog  ‘pawsed’ for a brief conference to organize a working dog pamper session complete with remedial massages.

Before they could set a new time for the working dog pamper session Australian Kelpie arrived complete with the flock of sheep he had been moving.

In the ensuing chaos La Souris managed to hide under the Paws for Poise bus, Australian Kelpie managed to direct one of the sheep into the Paws for Poise Parlour and Psycho Motor Dabrowski managed to direct Caramel Cat into the Paws for Poise Parlour!

Paws for Poise Parlour 3

After such a glowing revue from Monsieur Parfait the other French taste tester dogs Papillon and French Bulldog called their friends Bichon Frise and Briard and they all enjoyed a pamper session.
Caramel Cat staged a reprise appearance as Caramel le chat- the chat cat saying
“J’aime manger les souris avec le chocolat.
J’ai l’intention de plonger les souris dans la fontaine de chocolat.”

Caramel the Chat Cat

As Intellectual Dabrowski and Pugnacious Loyola returned to Sprite’s Site blog after farewelling the Chinese taste tester dogs and bringing the Italian flag for use at next week’s #gtstoogies gathering Caramel Cat emerged from the shadows with a mouth full of Twitter bird saying
“Je suis Caramel le chat – le CHAT chat vous savez?
J’aime manger les oiseaux de Twitter avec la crème!”

Apparently Caramel had realised that there was delicious food to be had at the chat gatherings and also that the word chat was the French word for cat.

There were so many things I should be doing rather than chasing Caramel around the Blog to make him spit out the Twitter birds – like writing the next newsletter, finishing a presentation, preparing for meetings, and writing a series of blog entries about getting organised.
Sprite’s room had resembled Camlan, the scene of King Arthur’s last battle  already but was even messier after we had chased Caramel though it.
“OK!  We really do have to get organised!” I said.

Caramel Caught in the Act

Email friendships can be really great for gifted kids. I am very glad that Sprite has some great email friends like Jen E Wren, Cowie the Starjump Starfish and Harry.

Harry can always be relied on to make Sprite laugh.

On Sun, 8 Nov 2009 “Harry” wrote
Hi Sprite Look at this super funny cat photo!
From Harry

That’s SO funny, Harry!
It looks like Caramel before I told her the Twitter Birds were not part of the lunch menu and made her spit them out!

Sprite

Sprite Schrödinger’s Cat

Sprite Schrödinger’s Cat

Keeping a gifted child occupied can be a real challenge

I have become used to finding crystals of various shape and colour suspended above glasses of solution on the bench and strange objects in the freezer but Sprite’s latest experiment really upset the decorum of the household.
A dreadful caterwauling made me race to Sprite’s room where I found her attempting to stuff Caramel the cat into a tiny cupboard.

She was saying “Go on, in you go, Caramel! You’ll only be in there for an hour and you’ll only die if one atom breaks down and trips the alarm which opens the cyanide bottle and…
… and then we can look and see whether you are dead or not. Because before we look you could be either!”
Caramel was screeching and bracing with all four paws against the sides of the cupboard door.
Sprite had been watching a video about the theoretical Schrödinger’s Cat experiment at http://hubpages.com/hub/Quantum-Physics—Schrodingers-Cat

“But I’m not hurting her. I wouldn’t dream of hurting her. Nothing bad is really going to happen. I just want her to go into the cupboard”
I’m just pretending” said Sprite. It’s just pretend cyanide and radioactive stuff and just a pretend Geiger counter!”

“I think Caramel would prefer it if you used a pretend cat too!” I said.