Category: #kittyrandom

A question for the cat people.

So last night the boyfriend and I were out with some friends, which is always nice, because the boys have bonding time and us girls talk about kitties (yeah, most of my friends are cat people. I do have some dog people friends, but I don’t think I have ANY non-animal friends. So elitist of me). She has a Persian (I think, I mix them up with Himalayas…long hair is all the same to me) and therefore she has a groomer.

Here’s my question: the last time her groomer was over, she smelled a scented candle burning and told my friend that scented candles and plug-in scents are toxic for kitties. Something about how their livers can’t process them.

Now, I am not saying that this groomer doesn’t know what she’s talking about, anyone who would risk losing a paying customer by possibly offending them by questioning their scented candle use obviously feels strongly that it’s true. But I’ve NEVER heard this before. I know that burning candles isn’t particularly good in the carcinogen sense, but I’ve never heard that the scent could be harmful to a cat. I don’t burn candles all that much, but I do have the Bath & Body Works oil plug-ins around the house. I mean, how else am I gonna cover up the cat pee smell?

So I googled a bit, and I did find a few pages that backed it up, but not an overwhelming amount. And it’s weird that I’ve never heard this before. You’d think there would be more stuff on the interwebs if it was a serious concern. I remember a while ago there were all those email forwards going around saying that using Swiffer Wet Jets were bad for your animals, which turned out to be grossly untrue.

So I’m asking you cat people out there: have you EVER heard of this? I’m really interested to know, and if you HAVE heard this, what’s my aromatic alternative? I already have lemon cats, I don’t need faulty livers on top of that. Help!

Gratutious cuteness.

I couldn’t help myself, Taco was being adorably sleepy yesterday…so I took something like a bazillion pics. I’ve never really fancied myself a photographer (I DO, however, consider myself an artist, but I prefer sketching and crafting) so my little low-grade point-and-click camera has always sufficed. So now that I am trying to get all crazy getting good blog pics, I realize it is much tougher than it seems to take a good picture. Of course, this could be because I don’t have a $500 Nikon (they have one of those in pink! Not a good reason, I know, but I am a sucker for product presentation – I’ve been a Mac girl since I was a kid compliments of my dad’s preference and I fell in love with Apple all over again when they really started pushing the pretty product envelope…so excited about the new iPhone! And although I need a  laptop and I know I could buy a perfectly good PC one for a fraction of the price of an Apple…I refuse. So I keep putting the laptop in my cart and then chickening out. I suck at saving, but I’m terrified of big purchases even though I end up spending just as much on a bunch of little ones. I’m pretty sure impulse buying is an addiction, and I need an intervention. Wow. Totally off topic here.) so maybe I just have to take a crapload of pics to get a good one. I prefer thinking that over the option that I am a bad photographer, I’m good at everything I do. And if I’m not, I don’t do it.

So without further adieu, I present my very first gallery, along with titles. I call it “Eau de Taco.” Should you like to purchase prints of these works of art, I’m sure that can be arranged for a small fee.

“Why Are You Doing This”

“One Lone Softpaw”

“I See What You Did There”

“Enough With This”

Hurricane a comin’ – batten down the kitties.

As a lifelong Florida resident, I’m fairly used to hurricanes. I personally have only been in one, and technically it didn’t come on shore, just squeezed by really close. That was 1985, and I was 3. It’s actually the earliest memory I have. Evacuating to what would one day be my high school.

The number of POTENTIAL hurricanes I’ve been through, that’s a different story. Weatherpeople positively salivate over the slightest inkling of a storm brewing. You can see the excitement in their eyes. Personally, I find them fascinating. I always wanted to be a hurricane hunter, which would conveniently combine my love of hurricanes and my love of flying, but unfortunately it also involves something I would dislike, which is joining the Navy. I think it’s the navy. Either way, my aversion to authority makes that a not-so-awesome option.

This is Tommy, my dad’s old plane. The urge to pilot is genetic. Do not attempt to hurricane hunt in this.

Fortunately, it looks like Isaac is moving away from my little peninsula-on-a-peninsula. Which means I’ll have to work tomorrow, but it also means I don’t have to sandbag my sliding glass doors. Or put up shutters, or worry about roofs flying off. Thanks to the kitties drinking only distilled water, I am able to justify my large bottled water purchase, and it will not go to waste, like the last time I bought a bunch of water for an almost-hurricane, and let it sit in the linen closet for years (I don’t know why I stored them there, I suppose it must have seemed like a good place at the time) before realizing they’d expired. Did you know water has an expiration date? I don’t know why, maybe it’s the plastic leaching into the water or something. Either way, I’m an avid follower of the expiration dates (except with peanut butter, I’m reasonably sure that never goes bad) so I poured out the water and dutifully recycled the bottles.

I’m slightly annoyed that I didn’t buy more food for the week, as I didn’t want things to go to waste if the power went out. And I completely forgot to buy more Rescue Remedy (a natural de-stresser) for Taco. Hurricanes pose more of a threat to Taco than just blowing over his home. The Feline Idiopathic Cystitis, my vet says, seems to flare up in cats when there are hurricanes around. Sensitive little things they are. And he doesn’t even have to worry about boarding up windows!

I’m not sure why Taco looks terrified here.

It’s also good that we don’t have to evacuate, because I only have one cat carrier…I keep meaning to buy another one but the prices are outrageous for what is essentially a glorified gym bag.

40 bucks for this thing, and it’s a piece of crap.

Now I’m off to go do laundry until it’s time to pick up the boyfriend from his 2nd fantasy football draft. Draft #2 for me is online, so at least I don’t have to drive anywhere else in the crappy weather that the outer bands of Isaac are supposed to bring. Traditionally, a hurricane party could still commence (as long as you did some sort of preparation because the chance of getting hit was there, that’s the only prerequisite), but that would make for an even worse Monday.

Football obsession replaces cat obsession. For now.

I have all sorts of witty things to write about the kitties but…

 

It’s fantasy football draft weekend. My entire day today was spent drafting and tomorrow will probably be spent pouring over my picks wondering why the hell I picked them. And then I have another draft tomorrow night.

 

So please excuse my lack of posting, and accept these kitty pics as payment for the excusing.

 

It’s hard to write a blog with a cat on your lap.

Yet here I am, writing a blog with a purring Taco curled up like my lap is the only place in the world that’s remotely comfortable. And even that’s a stretch, because he keeps getting up and readjusting and flopping down like his legs are broken. Taco’s a funny cat. He doesn’t do anything halfway. I give him mad props for that. When he loves you, he REALLY REALLY REALLY loves you. When he’s playing with a giant moth, he’s going to play with that hideous thing until…well…until I pick it up and throw it outside. I couldn’t find it half the time, and the few occasions that I did, it was in Taco’s mouth and that just plain grossed me out. I’m really not sure how that thing was even alive, but it was flap-flap-flapping away. Wasn’t really going anywhere. But it sure was fun for Taco. Moosh just kind of tagged along when he felt like it. I guess it was too much work for him to have any real part in it. Besides, Moosh’s specialty is attacking moving lights. He’d starve in the real world. I think he’s a little “special.”

Moosh LOOOOOVES his pillow time.

Cat is off my lap. That’s good, because he made a horrible armrest. Too furry.

Taco on my lap, one day when it was sunny. Fun fact: he will only sit on my lap while I’m sitting at the desk.

It’s a rainy, crappy day today and I don’t feel inspired by anything. So this is just some random musings. I didn’t even get to do my weekly retail therapy at Le Boutique Target today. There was thunder and lightning. Lots of it. Sure, I’ve got galoshes for the rain part, but I’m not willing to test out my lightning strikeability anytime soon.

 

So. Lazy boyfriend, lazy cats, lazy me. Anyone doing anything fun and sunshiny? Don’t tell me, I don’t wanna hear about it. Sigh.

 

Taco is a FOUL beast. Ugh.

MEOWlympics.

As most of the world is, I’m currently fascinated with the olympics. At the tender age of 30, I realize my athletic prime has passed and it’s unlikely that I’ll find my niche to win gold. But I think about the sports and activities that passed me by…like gymnastics. I’m 5’8″ now, and I’m broad. If I stopped eating, I’d still be a large skeleton. So that wasn’t a sport made for me. Rhythmic gymnastics? I remember having some cassette tape when I was a kid…it came with the stick with the ribbon and you were supposed to do twirlies with it but that’s about all I remember of it. Obviously rhythmic gymnastics didn’t make that much of an impression on me either. I did swimming for awhile, I wasn’t bad but I wasn’t Natalie Coughlin or anything. I took diving classes, I was terrified. Not of the height, but the flippy flips. I think I saw the Greg Louganis faceplant too early in life. Never been much of a runner, so that’s out. It’s just flat out amusing to watch me play tennis. I manage to hit the ball over the fence repeatedly. Fencing sounds fun but I never had the opportunity. Weightlifting, in theory, sounds like something I would be good at. I build muscle easily. But I’m also prone to injury and “clean and jerk” sounds like waaaaay too much opportunity to pop something out of place.
Now SHOTPUT. That is something I could have excelled at. Except I don’t recall them offering that in high school. Where does one go to start shotputting? I’m excellent at throwing things. Aiming, that is a different story. The safest place to be is where I am trying to throw something.

Which brings me, in a VERY roundabout way, to the subject of my post. Throwing mousies. I am SUPER KICK ASS at throwing mousies.

Unfortunately for the boyfriend, as per the above-mentioned aiming abilities, I usually hit him with the mousies. Face, crotch, the exact place on the floor where he will immediately step on it and curse me…this is not on purpose. The cats, bless their hearts, will come to a screeching halt when mousie lands on Daddy. They know better. It would probably be worse if he got hit with cat, too. I’m also one of those people who laugh at inappropriate times…which makes him even madder. My own ineptness at aiming and the hilarity that ensues brings on a giggle that can’t be controlled. The inappropriateness of it makes me giggle more, and well, you can see where that goes.

I’ve always thought that the cats lose the mousies under things and in closets and such…but after writing this I’m questioning that conclusion.

To be fair, there ARE cat toys everywhere, and it’s just the mousies that seem to go missing.

Seriously, though, if being a crazy cat lady was an olympic sport I would win gold every four years. I realize I have stiff competition, but I’m pretty crazy. I exercise my crazy cat ladyness EVERY FREAKIN’ DAY.

 

UPDATE: I just found the thing that I did with the cassette tape (and by that I mean I searched the interwebz) — GET IN SHAPE, GIRL! OMG I totally remember this! I wish I still had this. I sense a youtube 80s fest.

Pussycat polka. Meow, meow, meow.

I’m a dancing machine. Watch me get down.

I really love “So You Think You Can Dance.” A long, long time ago, I was a child. A child who took dance classes. Ballet, Jazz and Tap. I took gymnastics for a while too, but the gymnastics people told my parents I was going to be too tall for gymnastics so maybe I should focus my efforts elsewhere. I sucked at back walkovers anyway, and my balance beam balancing was vague at best. Being that it was a long, long time ago, I don’t remember an awful lot about my dancing skills ( I DID just buy a discounted deal to transfer VHS to DVD, and I’m super stoked about digitizing my old recitals) but I do know that I wasn’t up to par with the kids on Dance Moms (yeah, I watch that too, I’m sorry, I really like to watch dancing).

Anyway, my parents divorced and I think dance lessons were not feasible financially anymore (neither was catholic school, YAY) and that’s why I stopped. I suppose I should ask my mom, she has a much better memory than I do. However, there IS a dancer in me that is yearning to get out. I’m more flexible than most people and I have rhythm.

The reason I’m writing about all this is because I had a lightbulb moment. One of the first dances on SYTYCD was to the tune of The Lovecats by The Cure. Awesome song. I love it. And I thought the dance was adorable as well, even though the two dancers dancing it are not two of my favorites. So I put it on last night while the boyfriend and I were playing mini golf on the Wii and having a few frosty adult beverages. As I was dancing around, I started thinking about how much of dance is cat movements. The slinkiness, the speed, the agility. Because I love connecting the dots, I continued this thought process. My first recital was to the song “Pussycat Polka” and we all had kitty faces on costumes and big kitty paw gloves. (I just googled this song, holy crap. It’s a super old Mousketeers song.) That led me to look at my iTunes.

Adorable, right?

Stray Cat Strut. That song always makes me feel dance-y. Cat Daddy. Which is both a song AND a dance (and I can totally do the dance). It’s not really about cats, I don’t think…in fact, I’m not really sure what it’s about. “Call me Sponge Bob, stackin’ crabby patties, bitch I go to work, doin’ my Cat Daddy.” …what? Whatever it all means, it’s a fun dance. Then I also have “Cat Dancer” by Leslie Hall, which perfectly fits my point but I’m not sure if it counts because I’m reasonably sure she’s a crazy cat lady too. In fact, all of her songs are about things I like, like crafts and shiny outfits. If you like crafts, shiny outfits and overall awesomeness, PLEASE check out Leslie Hall here.

Leslie Hall is A-MAYZ-ING.

I have no real conclusion to this, except that I like cats and dancing, and cats make good song subjects, I guess. Anyone have a better correlation?

Dance, Mooshie, dance!

Now I have to go ice my hip flexor because I pulled it trying to do a split last night (I should have warmed up more first, but injuring myself stupidly is MY THING).

Too busy for cats???

It seems like I never have time to write anymore. And when I do, I’m too tired. Both jobs have been busting my ass lately. Usually I would get out of the part time job early at least a few times a week, but this hasn’t been the case lately. Adding to that, I’ve been renewing my vows with the gym lately. No more “Eh, I’ll just go sit on my ass and mess around with my blog” between jobs. Only sweat. And pain. So sore. And I keep injuring myself. That’s normal, though, I am the super klutz. I will, however, take this opportunity to show off my new shoes, which I LOVE!

My sweet Asics. Too bad I suck at running. But they make me think I can! I tried. My knees hurt. Love you, elliptical!

So I think the cats have been feeling a tad left out.

Putting your nose in your brother’s butt is NOT gonna get you attention.

After all, there’s no treadmill for kitties at the gym, and they’re miserable when they leave the house, anyway. The upside to all of this is that they’ve been extra needy when I AM home, which makes me feel super loved. They have been so snuggly while I sleep. I woke up in the middle of the night to Taco giving himself a bath while curled up on my stomach. I thought it was an odd place to take a bath, but in a weird way I liked that he was comfortable enough there.

Moosh hasn’t slept on my head in months, but has the past few days. Taco’s been sleeping on my feet when I sit on the recliner, even. So cute.

Sleeping kitty…IN YOUR FACE

It’s also very buggy outside. Like, a lot. They keep flying in. Fortunately, Taco is a master of the hunt. Last night, one flew in and within 30 seconds he had it down and eaten. Lower food bills, to boot!

This is Taco eating his catch. Yum.

So I have no exciting cat insights today because I have been too busy to pester or enjoy them. What a sad life. Sigh.

So sad and alone!

All black cats do not look the same.

I love black cats. I don’t know why. I also love the color black. I’m not goth or anything, it just matches with things so well. And it’s slimming.

Fatty, he lives with my mom, he’s rotund (as the name implies). He’s got medium length hair so he’s extra fluffy, and he’s got big, wide greenish-gold eyes.

Large and in charge.

Jager, he was our little kitten that we lost to FIP (I always want to write about him but it’s too personal to a story for me to share just yet), he was wiry and had amber colored eyes.

Jager, my boo.

Moosh, he’s a big boy (like a panther, not like Fatty) and his eyes change color, but they’re mostly midway between Fatty’s and Jager’s.

Lurkin’ like a panther.

They all look completely different to me. When we lost Jager, the boyfriend didn’t want another black cat, because he felt like it would remind him of Jager too much. To me, this is like saying all girls with blonde hair look the same. That’s ridiculous. Moosh won him over anyway, so that was a moot point. When I talked him into a 2nd, I wanted another black one, but he thought it would be confusing. This is why we don’t have children. What if we had twins? Chaos would ensue. Also a moot point, because Taco came along, and although he has a black brother, I didn’t have much choice in the matter, because Taco was up for grabs, not his brother Zorro.

You can barely see Zorro, but that’s brotherly love.

So because all cats have slightly different facial features, eye shape, eye color, etc., it greatly surprises me when I browse around other cat blogs to see pictures of kitties that look strikingly similar to my own. This is not to say I couldn’t pick mine out of a lineup. Moosh has one little fu manchu whisker on his chin and stray white hairs here and there that I know the exact placement of. Taco has a freckle on his head and a little one on his chin.

I can usually even tell which one of them is sleeping on my feet at night, just by moving. Moosh is more bulk. Taco is more snake. He just melts into wherever he is.

Last night I was out with some friends, including the one who gave us Taco. She still has Zorro, and the momma of the two. We often compare kitty stories, but her boyfriend hadn’t heard them before and was amazed to hear that they’re so similar even though they’ve grown up in two totally different environments. Granted, my friend is one of the awesomest people that I know and a fellow crazy cat lady, so I’m sure the parenting skills are on par with my own, but cats do form their own personalities so it is pretty interesting that their genetics have such an effect on them. They’re both loud, jump chest high and get into EVERYTHING. Zorro doesn’t pee on their couch though. I got the lemon. But lemon cats are my THING, apparently, so I roll with it.

Sigh. This makes me want another black cat.

 

 

Cats in the wild? Nah, they’re pussies.

Sometimes I’m half tempted to let my cats out just to see how they would really interact with other animals. They’ll spend hours cackling at a non-moving lizard just outside the window. Taco stares down Stella, the big Boxer that lives a few houses down (she’s actually afraid of him, this amuses me).

Notice the tail thwacking.

The other day there was a random turtle on the sidewalk. Snapper turtle.

Those things have bigger claws than the cats do and a dinosaur tail. The cats didn’t see it, but Stella sure did. Her owner was holding her back while we studied it, and probably for good reason. I think “snapper turtle” is an apt name.

Stella has no idea.

Anyway, I occasionally wonder how my spoiled little brats would react without a window barring them from actual contact and smell. Would they be so big and bad? Or would they cower in the corner like Taco does when people he doesn’t know come into the house? The bunnies that eat the grass outside in the morning don’t look all that concerned. Nor does the giant neighborhood stray that comes by to ‘bow up every once in awhile. My guys act all big and mighty but I’m guessing they really wouldn’t know what to do with themselves. I’m fairly certain they would starve within days. Their natural instincts have been replaced by recognizing me and the boyfriend as the giver of food. I’m certain they have lost all intrinsic knowledge of how to catch their own food. With how much they fight, they have a better chance of catching and eating each other. I think Moosh would win. He’s bigger, even though he lets Taco push him out of the way to eat his food.

I will give them this — they are excellent bug chasers.

Taco is not, in fact, admiring the fine velvet painting of kittens I found at a thrift store. There’s a bug in the light.

But, as the crazy cat lady and overbearing kitty mommy that I am, my fear of them getting outside FAR outweighs my curiosity, so they’re safe…for now. Until someone pukes on my brand new sneakers. Then their asses are on their own.