Daydreams of the White City

Saturday, November 28th, 2009

5:18 pm - Merry Early Christmas, Fluffies!

For some time now, I have been planning on obtaining a kitty condo for the fluffies. Pam Johnson-Bennett, a feline behaviorist whose books I love, emphasizes that kitty conflicts can be decreased and general happiness and health increased by creating more "vertical territory" via kitty condos in your home. Since I live in apartments, I figured this was quite appropriate, also since my fluffies love to climb.

So I found one I liked: three levels, good solid carpeting that won't shred (not right away, anyway), good construction, and scratching posts built in, and recruited Da to bring the minivan to PetsMart to transport it.

After Mum and I attended a local cat show this morning (and nearly came home with pet quality purebred Abyssinians, Tonkinese, and Ragdolls, as well as possibly a stolen Birman or three), we headed out. PetsMart was having its weekly adoption event, and I nearly came home with a chihuahua. (Mum had her eye on two siamese mixes with big blue eyes.)

I spent a small fortune on the condo (it was on sale Black Friday - I KNEW I should have gone back for it!), and we brought it home.

Within thirty minutes of setting it up, all three fluffies had climbed to the top level, and Bagel and Bast had found their way off the top to the uppermost window sill above the sliding glass door to my balcony. Took both of 'em a few minutes to figure out how to get back down, but they managed it.

However, while we were watching them play, I went into the kitchen.

"Oh SHIT! There's water on the floor!" I exclaimed.
"Uh oh," said Da, thinking (as did I) that something was leaking. "How much?"
I searched for the source of the leak - hmm, not sink, not dishwasher, not fridge...
"Oh for gawd's sake, they knocked their water bowl off the counter! And I just filled it!"

To stop the kits from drinking from the sink, I keep a bowl of water on the kitchen counter. Works out well - except when, as it seems, they dump the whole damn thing on the floor!

After Mum and Da departed, I spent ten minutes cleaning up water in the kitchen.

"I buy you a beautiful cat tree for your health and pleasure and THIS is how you repay me?!"

current mood:

bouncy

Friday, November 20th, 2009

9:45 pm - I Hate Twilight...

I've tried more than once to read the series without success - the concept is interesting, but the writing drives me up the wall and the "romances" make me nauseous. I've seen part of the first movie...I like Robert Pattinson, but ye gawds, it sucked. I snark the series viciously and gleefully and unrepentantly...

...but I think I will buy a few dozen tickets to the new movie and a few dozen copies of the books, and give them away to anybody who wants them, just for spite over the following:

The Pope Condemns Twilight.

Nothing annoys me more than religious leaders sticking their oar in the entertainment industry, particularly in cases like this where the story has NOTHING WHATSOEVER TO DO WITH THEIR RELIGION! This isn't the freakin' Da Vinci Code (not that the Catholic church had any business bitching about that piece of fiction either.)

And did His Stuffiness somehow miss the abstinence message in the Twilight series? I despise them and have never managed to finish reading any of them - but I caught it! You'd think the Vatican would be happy about it!

Then again, maybe they're just bitching because the author is Mormon and has made a bigger splash with the public than Mel Gibson ever will again. Just a thought.

current mood:

bitchy

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Tuesday, November 10th, 2009

7:55 pm - 15 Interesting Cat Facts

Gakked from hoppytoad79 who in turn gakked from catster.com:

1. Cats lose almost as much fluid in the saliva while grooming themselves as they do through urination.

2. Charles A. Lindbergh left his kitten, Patsy, at home in 1927 when he made his famous transatlantic flight because it was “too dangerous a journey” to risk her life. But a kitten named Jazz crossed the Atlantic on the first dirigible flight from England to America.

3. Bouhaki, the earliest cat name on record, dates back to Egyptian writings of 2000 B.C. In the hieroglyphs of that period, bou signifed “house” and “hak” was the symbol for “divine ruler.” (Now THAT is appropriate!)

4. In ancient Egypt, entire families were forced by law to shave their eyebrows as a sign of mourning when the family cat died.

5. There are approximately 60,000 hairs per square inch on the back of a cat and about 120,000 per square inch on its underside. (So that's why their tummies are so fluffy!)

6. The largest litter ever documented was produced by a Burmese/Siamese mother. There were 19 kittens in the litter.

7. Besides smelling with their noses, cats can smell with an additional organ called the vomeronasal organ (or Jacobson’s organ), located in the upper surface of the mouth.

8. Sir Isaac Newton is credited with the invention of the cat flap-door.

9. Cat’s ears can be rotated because they are connected to thirty (30) muscles. There are only six (6) muscles connecting human ears – we can’t rotate ours. (Creates an interesting mental picture, though, doesn't it?)

10. The first modern cat show, featuring two dozen show classes, was held in London in 1871.

11. At top speed, a domestic cat can run over 30 mph.

12. A cat named Towser eliminated 28,899 mice while she was employed by the Glenturret Distillery near Crieff, Tayside, Scotland.

13. Every cat’s nose pad, or nose leather, has unique characteristics. Just as no two humans have the same fingerprints, it’s a fact that no two feline noseprints are ever alike.

14. Both humans and cats have identical regions in the brain responsible for emotion.

15. Back in the late 1940s in Buenos Aires, a black female cat climbed a 40 foot tree where she resided for six years. Her name was Mincha and she wasn’t lonely for companionship. She had three litters while living in the tree. The local Argentinians fed her by putting her food on poles. O.o!

current mood:

tired

Friday, November 6th, 2009

1:09 pm - WAY Too Close To Home!

Report: 2 Dead, At Least 8 Shot In Orlando High-Rise

I live within a block of that building.

The streets where those emergency authorities are are my streets.

That's my home.

I got a message from a worried out-of-state relative right before my Breaking News email arrived - for a split second, I thought the picture was of the building downtown where I used to work by City Hall. My heart is still thumping.

Even though I'm relieved beyond words that it's NOT my old building (and relieved that my apartment windows don't face that street!), there are law firms in that building and businesses that I've worked with. I don't *think* anyone I know well works there, but still...somebody knows them. Somebody knows each and every one of them. Somebody loves them. Somebody is calling somebody on the phone and not getting an answer, or getting an answer that they're on their way to the hospital after being shot probaby by a complete stranger.

Why? WHY?!

This after yesterday. I hate the human race.

As the NRA just looooves to trumpet at times like this, "Guns don't kill people, people kill people."

So why do we make it so goddamn easy for so many goddamn people to get their paws on guns, regardless of their mental state, age, or criminal record?!

Those poor people.

current mood:

sick

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Monday, October 5th, 2009

9:47 pm - We Have Encountered Our Enemy...And This Time He Gotta PLAN!

On a MUCH lighter note than my wheeze-whidden post o' the night o' yore, I stumbled across this most precious piece of science fiction civiolization planning:

The Top 100 Things I'd Do If I Ever Became An Evil Overlord

The website: http://www.fantasylibrary.com/lounge/overlord.htm is a must-see. Please do give it a look.

(And all the Doctors, Star ships, Rebel Alliances, federations of planets, scientists, and timetravelers should TTTTTRREEEEMBLE in fear!)

current mood:

giggly
current music: "Dance All Night" -- No Moon

Wednesday, September 30th, 2009

12:32 am - Remembrance...

I've been meaning to do this post for awhile. For the past few months, I've been working my way through two of the most spectacular miniseries ever made - The Winds of War and War & Remembrance. They're based on books by the same name written by Herman Wouk.

Every single person on the planet should see these two series at some point in their life.

I first saw The Winds of War when I was about ten or eleven, still living in Orlando, and War & Remembrance in Gainesville when I was twelve or thirteen. I've been planning for years to rewatch the series, because although it had quite the impact on me as a young girl, there were aspects of it that I just didn't...quite...get as a kid, which interested me more now - namely the buildup of the war and all the strategic discussion.

The story covers an American military family, the Henrys: Victor "Pug", a naval officer, played by the still-lamented and fantastic Robert Mitchum, his wife Rhoda, and his sons, Warren, a navy pilot, and Byron, eventually a submarine officer. Before joining the military, Byron is roaming Europe, and while in Italy, meets a Jewish-American scholar, Aaron Jastrow, and his beautiful niece, Natalie. Byron and Natalie fall in love and are married as war breaks out in Europe, and a big part of the story involves Natalie and Aaron's efforts to get out of Europe and the danger they are in, along with Natalie and Byron's baby son, Louis.

The two series were groundbreaking in many ways, and also some of the last really HUGE miniseries to appear on US network television. W&R in particular provided some of the first really intense coverage of the Holocaust on television. I read that some of the most horrific scenes were shown uncut by commercial breaks, in all their graphic brutality.

It was strange to begin the miniseries almost twenty years after the first time I saw it, comparing the story with the memories I have of it. Parts that bored me then now fascinate me now, and parts that interested me then now bore me now. (There are various romances in the story between multiple characters - I will never be a fan of romance as its own genre. Don't get me wrong - the romances are great...I just need something else going on.)

But the first surprise I got takes place when Natalie and Byron travel to Aaron Jastrow's native Poland right before Germany invades to visit Natalie's then-fiancee and some of Aaron's relatives for a wedding. I remember being bored during the wedding scenes among the Jewish family...this time, the wedding made me cry.

Being the blazing nerd that I am, any time I delve into historical fiction, I spend a lot of time reading up on the subject. The Holocaust is a subject that grates on the brain at the best of times, but what stuck in my head was Poland. Ninety percent of the Jewish population of that country, around three million people, wiped out. Ninety percent. 90 PERCENT. The sheer scale of the slaughter of an entire population, with their culture, history, faith, and lives, so deliberately, so completely, and so recently, is so mindbending that for the tiniest fraction of a second, I can almost understand why people might deny it happened. It's that hard to fathom. (Of course, that doesn't stop me from wanting to bludgeon every Holocaust denier in existence.)

The Jastrow wedding in Poland isn't the last scene where I cried watching the series as an adult - and not all the emotional scenes are sad. Parts of the series, particularly early on, are uproariously funny. One of the most interesting characters is that of Armin von Roon, a German general who befriends Pug when he is stationed in Germany before the war - played by the brilliant Jeremy Kemp. He's the primary fictional character through whose eyes we see the "other side" of the war and all the goings-on, particularly in the mind of Hitler, although we get to know many of the actual historical figures in Nazi Germany. TWoW covers the buildup to war, from before the invasion of Poland to just after Pearl Harbor, ending with the US entry into the war. W&R covers war from beginning to end in all its horrific glory, in Europe as well as the Pacific. It includes the failed Operation Valkyrie attempt to assassinate Hitler and seize control of Germany (with Claus von Stauffenberg played by Sky Dumont, who was better - not to mention HOTTER - than Tom Cruise can ever dream of being!) I'd forgotten until I saw this that Rommel was involved in Valkyrie, although every time I saw him onscreen (trivia points to anyone who gets this - another World War II movie reference to another of my favorite actors - I kept wanting to yell, "Rommel, you magnificent bastard, I READ YOUR BOOK!"

I acknowledge that these aren't easy shows to watch at times. More than once, you need to keep a tight grip on something - and not even just the Holocaust scenes. The two series cover major battles, and while not always as graphic as some of our modern World War II movies (which tend to take the "sensory overload" approach to violent storytelling, piling one gruesome, glaring image on top of the next until you can't differentiate anymore - I'm looking at YOU, Spielberg!) there's a real intensity and tension that can be captured just as effectively, if not moreso, with more understated images. As a result, when we do land in the really graphic moments, such as the ones that take place in Auschwitz, they stand out and drive their way home in the mind.

All the same, I recommend them - strongly. Everyone should see them, particularly those of our generations who have not lived in an era of real war. That kind of war will never be fought again - war itself evolves over time, as history shows us. In some ways, our modern wars, fought in shadows and back alleys as "terrorism", are an improvement, and in other ways, not.

But we shouldn't forget the way it was. Maybe fiction brings those past realities home in ways that nonfiction can't, at least not right away. Probably because fiction can show us the lives of ordinary people thrown into an utterly incomprehensible situation - that's what drives it home. Oh, there were heads of state, great military leaders, and famous civilians involved, but where the amazement, awe, and also horror really strike hardest are the lives of the ordinary people - the ones who went to fight, the ones who had the fights come to them, the ones who lost their homes, the ones treated as the enemy, and the ones whose entire families and culture were wiped out all around them. We'll never know all their stories, so fiction represents them so that we can feel the grief, awe, and pride that every one of them deserves.

I agree with Tom Brokaw that they were the greatest generation, but I don't think they were born particularly special or different than the rest of us. Circumstance is what molds people and drives them, not some mystical force, to do the extraordinary. It happened then, a "perfect storm" of danger, evil, desperation, loss, and necessity, and it could happen again.

I don't know whether to hope for that or not.

current mood:

contemplative

Monday, September 28th, 2009

10:10 pm - The Correlation Between Cats And Romantic Prospects...

Quote of the day from one of my favorite blogs:

Annie, trying to meet new people on the internet does not make you lonely, it makes you human. Having a 10-year subscription to Cat Fancy magazine? Well, yes, that kind of makes you a lonely person.

And if you're using the internet to meet cats, then you have a serious fucking problem.

Ya know...I used the Internet to meet cats. Namely, three of 'em. (See:

kittypix.) *sporfle!* (But I buy my Cat Fancy magazine off the rack at the pet supply store! That's something, right?)

That quote made me laugh out loud. It's from Psychotic Letters From Men, one of my favorite blogs.

Be warned: This blog contains foul language, crude humor, and chronicles some seriously-wacky behavior by the members supposedly-stronger sex in their quests for romance. (Essentially, it contains emails, messages, and stories from women who have been pursued by some exceedingly-clueless males. Some of the stories are rather creepy and alarming.) Proceed with caution - this blog is not for the easily-offended.

(However, after reading a few entries, you might understand why gals like me prefer cats to people!)

In other news, I start my new job in the nonprofit sector on Thursday, October 1st. Getting both excited and nervous.

current mood:

amused
current music: "Falling For The First Time" - Barenaked Ladies

Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009

11:08 pm - Feline Follies: The Pillow Quilt

I am a cold body. Even if I have the temperature in my apartment on 80 degrees, I get chilled. I also like having something to drape over me when I'm on my couch or my bed.

A few years ago, Mum made me a pillow quilt. It's a quilt with a pocket that can be converted into a pillow. The pocket is also handy for cold feet to tuck into. I picked out the fabric pattern - no surprise, it has cats on it. I now keep it on my couch as my throw when I'm watching TV or napping.

Sometimes, I tuck my feet in the pocket. Or at least I did until the fluffies discovered the pocket.

Now baby Bastis will burrow into it almost as soon as I am on the couch. She'll dig around in there for a few minutes, then peer out, her gold eyes bright against her shadowy little body, all wild-eyed and wiggly. I'm sure she imagines she's the bold mountain lion stalking her prey.

Bagel spent a good chunk of time in there today, and Raqi was half-in, half-out for awhile, but unlike her siblings, did not turn around so her head was out and instead had her tail sticking out for half an hour. I was beginning to wonder if she'd smothered in there!

One can never tell what will fascinate one's cats.

current mood:

full

Thursday, September 17th, 2009

12:44 pm - Trauma: Life At The Vet's Office - Bagel Day...

Praise Ceiling Cat! Thank you GAWD!

The vet has just departed after the home visit. Bagel has been vaccinated.

I, the vet, and Bagel's littermates are unmauled.

Let us now raise our voices in several rounds of the Halleluiah Chorus.

Oh, the boyo was alarmed by the strange man's presence in his house, and then made his displeasure known via hisses and growls upon getting a needle poked in him, but he neither snarled, nor bit, nor scratched. After a few "you brought stranger into house who gave me a SHOT!" hisses, he is now on my desk, taking a bath and letting me rub his tummy.

*WHEW!* Methinks I shall swoon in relief.

So, at last, I have a viable method of vet treatment for my Bagel boyo. Of course, in an emergency, I'll just have to wrap him in a towel, stuff him in a carrier, and grit my teeth, but at least for his regular shots and anything non-urgent, I can do home visits again.

Such a relief not to worry about potential bodily harm to myself or others whenever my cat has to go to the doctor!

current mood:

relieved
current music: "The Remedy" - Jason Mraz

Tuesday, September 15th, 2009

4:02 am - Macro Spam!

This is what I do when I can't sleep - reacquaint myself with the delights of cheap Interwebs entertainment. Tonight: LOL Celebs, featuring Star Trek, Mythbusters, Twilight-bashing, etc. Many macros behind the cut... ( Late night LOLs... ) One more for the road... see more Lol Celebs current mood: giggly
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Wednesday, September 9th, 2009

7:15 pm - Un Meme...

Gakked from

misscam (and also answering her interview questions...)

1. Leave me a comment ~~saying anything random, like your favorite lyric to your current favorite song~~ ~~saying "meow!"~~ naming your favorite animal.
2. I respond by asking you five personal questions so I can get to know you better.
3. You will update your LJ with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and offer to ask someone else in the post.
5. When others comment asking to be asked, you will ask them five questions.

Here are misscam's questions to me and my answers:

1. What's the most common misconception about lawyers?

That our job is cushy. It ain't. It's stressful, brain-frying, frustrating, and often-thankless due to aforementioned misconceptions. A huge percentage leave the profession within ten years, and a healthy percentage leave it within five years.

2. What's your favourite lyric to a song?

"My dog Sam eats purple flowers."

3. If you could change one fact of your country's history, what would you change and why?

Only one? Hmm...the internment of Japanese Americans in World War II after Pearl Harbor. That was one of the ugliest things in our history and happened within the past hundred years - it still boggles me that we so easily assume that ancestry confers loyalty and that it can render our own citizens spies. Hell, it's still happening now!

4. Which colour do you wish people would use far less?

Bright red in house decorating. Annoys me.

5. What's made you most happy today?

My purring gray kitty sitting on my lap with his paws and chin on my knees while I was IMing my Mum. Nothing more soothing in the world (except a purring kitty cuddled against me when I'm dozing on the couch!)

current mood:

content
current music: "Anytime" - Brian McKnight

Wednesday, August 26th, 2009

12:01 am - What Matters...

The thrice-damned, eardrum-melting fire alarm just went off in my building. After covering my ears for a few minutes praying it would stop, I decided this was the real thing and that I had no choice but to evacuate.

So I hustled myself into some clothes, grabbed my keys and cell phone, and then comes the fun part: the cats.

That roaring alarm had sent all three into hiding. I started with Bagel, who naturally started spitting and snarling as soon as he realized I was shoving him into his carrier amid this racket, but I managed with the element of surprise and got him in there.

Raqita was next - I dragged her out from under the futon bed in the kitty room and likewise wrestled her in.

Bast was last, and was actually hardest to get into the carrier - hers is a soft sherpa carrier, and she's actually the wiggliest of the three.

With that, off we went. The noise is even louder in the hall - I'm sure it was agony for the fluffies. It's painful even for me. And I had to carry the carriers with the combined weight of approximately 40 pounds of terrified felines down 4 flights of stairs. NOT fun. Bagel was lunging at my hand, snarling like a demon by the time I set them down in the parking lot next door.

Some people reported having smelled something like burned rubber on another floor, but the fire department wasn't there long before they let us back in to the building. At least by the time we were sure we had the all-clear, the elevator was back on, so I didn't have to climb UP those accursed stairs to my apartment.

Now I'm back, still shaky and overheated, heart still going 1000 beats per minute, with the kits still in their carriers because I'm paranoid about the alarm going off again, which it might if something, even something harmless, generates smoke again. Gawd knows that if that happened and the kits were out, I wouldn't be able to get Bagel boyo back into his carrier without risk of major bodily injury - he's growling his furry little head off at this very moment. He'll calm down (eventually) once I let him out and let him hide for awhile, but if there's any chance of needing to evacuate again, in his box he must stay, along with his sisters.

Baby Bast is fussing at her carrier, but she's staying too. They'll all be 20 times as difficult to wrestle into those boxes if we have to go again.

So that was my night! Oh well, at least this served as a real drill of what I've planned - I can, in fact, carry all three carriers at once, pissed-off kitties and all, and get said kitties into said carriers during a full-blown fire alarm. That's all I need to know.
So should my building burn down, I will escape with my life, with the clothes on my back, and with my three beloved cats.

Nothing else matters.

ETA: I've just released El Boyo Loco from his carrier first, figuring I'd give him a chance to run and hide before I let the girls loose. Er...slight problem. He's not hiding. Rather, he's sticking to the open and snarling and lunging at me. Damn.

EATA: The girls are safely out, although everybody's growly and unhappy.

current mood:

drained
current music: My pulse in my ears

Monday, August 24th, 2009

11:47 pm - A Little Random Advice Cross-Posted to My Facebook...

For any of my dear friends, relatives, casual acquaintances, fangirls, fanboys, fanbrats, and snarkaholics who read my LJ and are yourselves, like myself, currently engaged in the delightful and intricate dance of the job market, please do heed this one item of advice I have just discovered:

DO NOT READ CLASSIFIEDS AND WRITE COVER LETTERS AT 10:00 AT NIGHT!

You will be so antsy and stressed that you'll have no chance of getting any sleep for at least six hours.

current mood:

fidgety

10:49 pm - Trauma: Life At The Vet's Office - Baby's First Hiss!

Last week, I took the girls to the vet for their checkup and shot. I am going to do a home visit with Bagel, but decided to go ahead and get the girlies taken care of so that all the attention could be focused on the boyo when the time comes (dun dun DUN!!!!)

Gata Raquela, as always, expressed her intense displeasure by means of much hissing and growling, but as the vets and I know by now, she's (mostly) all bark and no bite (though a cat will undoubtedly object to such a figure of speech), so she got her shots and assorted pokes and prods with very little trouble...although the vet had trouble hearing her heart over the rumble of her growl motor going full-volume!

Baby Bast was, initially, her angelic little self. Not a peep out of her through weighing, poking, and prodding, and she even was curious enough to prowl around the examination room a bit once I let her out of her carrier. However, my poor sweetest girl seems to be made to suffer - her stomach has been upset quite often recently, and I wanted the vet to make sure nothing was seriously wrong.

Of course, to test what might be in a kitty's tummy, a sample was needed. You know what kind. And there was only one way to get it.

Poor Bast. They got it, but in the process, my timid girl finally reached the end of her VERY long fuse, and let out a full-on, kitty-is-thoroughly-pissed-off hiss. Never in her life have I heard a hiss out of her.

Then again, I'd have been a lot more shocked if she HADN'T hissed, given what the vets were doing!

She calmed down very fast afterward - even the vets were amazed at how tolerant Bastis is. She sulked for about ten minutes after that, even when getting her shots, but was soon relaxing in the chair next to the exam table as if she were right at home.

Funny little girl, that Bast.

Oh, and as I've suspected, both my girls are a tad overweight, especially my Raqi. Bast has a clean bill of health, so the vets think she's reacting to their food, which means I'll have to play around with different weight control diets until I find one that doesn't bother her stomach. In Raqi's case, I think she's already starting to lose some, probably due to the endless games of bottlecap fetch every evening!

Yesterday, I was on the couch watching TV, and Bast came to visit. While I was lying on my stomach, she climbed up onto my back, and after kneading me for a minute, settled herself right down and nuzzled her little face in my hair, purring in my ear. There she stayed for almost half an hour. Purring cat - best massage anywhere!

current mood:

chipper

Wednesday, August 19th, 2009

3:44 am - Even More Observations Of Feline Weirdness...

Was bad and took a nap today, so now I'm wide awake at nearly 4 am. Fortunately, the fluffies are keeping me company.

My uber-long-haired girls, Raqi and Bast, occasionally get mats in their fur, and I was using my trusty wide-toothed grooming comb on Raqi earlier - fortunately, she likes it.

Bagel came scampering up onto the desk after completing one of his late-night catfits (including attempting to dig a hole in the tile kitchen floor, running sideways along the entire length of the couch, and leaping halfway up the door to attack the peephole) and discovered the comb still sitting there.

He proceeded to tackle the comb and shake it violently, growling his furry little head off. I know not what fiercesome foe he imagines the comb to be, but he growled like a daemon kitteh at it, and hissed at me when I tried to take it away, and then jumped off the desk still carrying the comb, apparently for a victory lap. That's no light little comb either - a good sturdy heavy comb is a great investment for dealing with mat-prone longhairs.

Earlier today, extravagance in this time of unemployment notwithstanding, I let the maid service clean the place up one more time (figure it's like starting with a clean slate and does wonders for my peace of mind), and the maid left the little metal dish drainer in the sink after cleaning it, instead of locking it in place as I normally do.

Why do I do this, you ask? Because Bagel Boyo is OBSESSED with the thing. If I don't lock it in the sink or stick it in a drawer where he can't get to it, the gray fluffball will retrieve it and carry it around the apartment, and I'll find it in the oddest places.

He doesn't play with it. Just carries it around, and puts it down, and stares at it. Then he leaves it until it captures his attention and he carries it around again.

Cats. There is no limit to their weirdness.

Oh, and as I finish this, Baby Bast just pulled a prarie dog, standing on her hind legs to look at something and held it for about 30 seconds. It's a truly hilariously cute sight for that fluffy dark girl. I only wish I'd had the camera handy!

current mood:

curious

Wednesday, August 12th, 2009

9:37 pm - The Mean Kitty On YouTube...

(Cross-posted to

kittypix ...)

Many of us have seen the Mean Kitty Song video on YouTube about Sparta the cat, and Sparta's owner, Cory "Mr. Safety" Williams, has created an entire YouTube channel around Sparta and his subsequently-rescued adopted brother, Loki: The Mean Kitty Channel.

Do check it out. Lots of the vids are hilarious, very professionally shot, and the cat shenanigans are too much fun to watch.

This month he started posting a new short vid every day, and today's was so pretty I just had to post it. It's a time-lapse of Loki in a Boston hotel room for 1.5 hours.

Is there anything so lovely as a kitty at rest? I enjoyed watching him with the clouds rolling by.

current mood:

warm and fuzzy

Tuesday, August 11th, 2009

12:34 am - More Observations Of Feline Weirdness...

My desk in this apartment is built into the wall - great feature. Normally, when I'm working on the computer, one or more of los gatitos will settle on the desk, either facing me or examining the items on the desk, be they books or papers or nibbles. Often, one or more of them will curl up for a nap in typical kitty fashion.

Tonight, for reasons known only to her furry little head, Raqi has folded herself into a "kitty loaf" (all cat owners know the look, we also refer to it as "legless kitty" in which kitty folds himself or herself into a compact loaf with all four legs tucked underneath and tail tucked tightly as well) and is staring fixedly at the wall. Her nose is right up against the wall.

She's growling at the wall.

Now she's licking the wall.

There's nothing on the wall.

At least nothing that human eyes can see.

When Bagel leaps at a point about four feet above his head on a blank wall for twenty minutes running, and Bast appears to be trying to dig a passage straight through the living room to my bedroom...I wonder if my apartment has poltergeists!

If it does, only the cats know about it.

current mood:

curious

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Saturday, August 8th, 2009

2:08 pm - There's A Cat In My Hair!

Had a bad night last night - I have a raging head cold, some partiers kept waking me up. I got up and spent an hour or two on the couch watching TV and dozing.

Usually, my Baby Bastis curls up at my side to suck her thumb. Today, however, she got up on the arm of the couch behind the throw pillows and became fascinated by my hair. She burrowed in it for the better part of an hour, nuzzling my head and purring in my ear.

Wuv.

current mood:

sick