Some Holiday Gifts

As December comes and goes, Corrie and I find ourselves with gifts and toys and odd things we'd never purchase for ourselves (or our cat), but things that which seem to make the days lighter. I'm talking about the traditional stocking-stuffer fodder.

The first are of the traditional "add water and watch it grow" kind. Reading the small print on the packaging I saw it said "not instantaneous, takes up to 72 hours, do not ingest, NOT A TOY". Oh really?

Here they are at max size:

As of now they're drying out and returning to the barely one-inch square size. I'm going to make them big again and start a cycle of water resource abuse/experimentation to see specifically how many times they can go through the process before total disintegration occurs.

This next toy is a stress ball from thinkgeek.com that was a present from my Auntie. They were dubbed the infectious disease stress ball. The "flavors" we got to see on our little Tuesday morning fun-time were smallpox (Mike and Liz), zombie virus (Corrie), and mine, bubonic plague.

Why the crazy names? They have the effect that when squeezed, the netting causes different colored "pustules" to develop:

I think the smallpox was red and green, the zombie virus was an orange and granny smith apple green, and mine is blue and neon green. They're pretty sweet.

Lastly, my mom's dog Gus was kind enough to get our cat Tuxedo a feathery toy. Here he is chewing on it after only seconds of him being aware of it:

He let it alone mostly after the initial taste, but each morning we get up and find another feathered appendage all chewed on and licked clean:

Feathers are pretty cool on toys for Tux: he'll go ape shit for it and usually within minutes will have literally eaten the feather right off its bushing. Here, though, he's oddly shown some restraint. 

I do appreciate the gifts.