Rocket (grandcat) helping me blog

When I first started blogging I vowed I would never write about animals.  It just seemed way too easy to put up cute pictures of cats and dogs and blabber away about their antics instead of seriously blogging.  Besides, there are probably a zillion people who blog daily about animals much more competently than me.  They’ve even created the hashtag “anipals” in order to find other pet lovers in the Twitterverse.

From “Man Training 1.0”

Patriotic dogs from “Dog Daze”

It didn’t take long before I broke my vow.  In total, I’ve blogged about animals over ten times.  It all began when my husband’s attempts to train squirrels backfired, leading to  Man Training 1.0.  After that, well – I fell off the wagon.  Soon I was blogging about the pooches at our small town Fourth of July parade, the mourning dove who sits on a branch of the tree next to me waiting for the return its dead mate, a chickadee suspected of eating the ears off my chocolate bunny, and, finally, cats.

Well, not all cats.  Just the stray we dragged into the house one rainy afternoon covered in mud, its long fur tangled into dreadlocks. Upon capture, first it yowled, then it ran downstairs to hide under a bed in the basement for two weeks.  We set out food, water and a kitty litter box (we had taken care of cats in the past) which he would only visit if we were nowhere in sight. But at least, thank God, he knew how to use the litter box.

Pretty Kitty pre-capture. The poor thing only weighed 7 pounds despite all that fur.

The first time we took him to the vet, we had to shut the door to the room where he hid, turn over the bed and chase him around till finally cornering him, again with the pathetic yowl of defeat.  At the vet’s we warned the doctor he was not a nice kitty but Pretty Kitty, as we then called him, turned out to be the perfect patient.  Evidently he has a split personality.

Trying to type one handed.

He was such a fetching cat that we were certain someone was looking for him and did the usual posting at the Animal Shelter, etc.  We heard tragic stories about people who’d been looking for their cats for years but alas, Pretty matched none of the descriptions, nor did anyone come forward and recognize his picture. So, now he’s become my writing companion.

King and cat from Bing images

Stephen King once said “… it might be that the biggest division in the world isn’t men and women but folks who like cats and folks who like dogs.”  Plenty of people have both cats and dogs and seem to love them equally but it sounds like he’s not one of them.

I was surprised to learn how many writers I wouldn’t have pegged as cat folks actually were.  Here are a few quotes from renowned cat loving writers.  See if you can match the quote to the writer:

1. “I wish I could write as mysterious as a cat.”
2. “There are no ordinary cats.”
3. “I love cats because I enjoy my home; and little by little, they become its visible soul.
4. I’m going to have a much harder time one day, months or even years from now, explaining why I miss the meanest, grumpiest and most dangerous cat I’ve ever encountered.”
5. “Holding up my purring cat to the moon, I sighed.”
6. “Books. Cats. Life is good.”
7. “Have had to shoot people but never anyone I knew and loved for eleven years. Nor anyone that purred with two broken legs.”
8. “Cats can be very funny, and have the oddest ways of showing they’re glad to see you. Rudimace always peed in our shoes.”
9.  “I write so much because my cat sits on my lap. She purrs so I don’t want to get up. She’s so much more calming than my husband.”
10. The more cats you have, the longer you live. If you have a hundred cats, you’ll live ten times longer than if you have ten. Someday this will be discovered, and people will have a thousand cats and live forever. It’s truly ridiculous.”
11. “I simply can’t resist a cat, particularly a purring one. They are the cleanest, cunningest, and most intelligent things I know, outside of the girl you love, of course.”

Hemingway and cat from Bing images

Your choices, in random order: a. Ernest Hemingway b. Mark Twain c. Edgar Allen Poe d. Colette e. Jack Kerouac f. Jean Cocteau g. W.H. Auden h. Joyce Carol Oates i. Edward Gorey  j. Neil Gaiman k. Charles Bukowski

Course, if you visit this post: Renowned Authors Inspired by Cats – you’ll know the answers but I bet you’ll be surprised. (well, maybe not by Hemingway)

Gaston, my dog crush.

I was surprised that so many writers were cat lovers because a dog will lay wrapped up at your feet while you write.  A dog won’t climb on your lap, shove its butt in your face and knead your breasts with its claws.  Maybe it’s because dogs have a tendency to worship their owners whereas cats can sense our frailty, our insecurities and self-doubt. Cats also know when you must take a break from your all too serious attempts to write, a profession they rightly view as a life threatening disease.

Hiding his face in shame.

Apparently my cat has a substance abuse problem but before I tell that sad tale, here are the answers to the quiz on my previous post – The League of Vile though Witty Literary Reviewers.

1. “Each adventure is tedious, repititious and inane… and there’s over 500 pages of it.” Don Quixote
2. “But let’s be honest:  It’s as fun as reading the telephone book.” Ulysses by James Joyce
3. “I ended up throwing this book away after reading about 5 chapters.  If you enjoy reading pedophilic ramblings of a perv, go for it! Yuk!” Lolita 
4. “This book in my opinion should get the “Turkey of the Century” award.  A big book B-B-Q should be devoted to all the copies in print.” Huckleberry Finn
5. So if you see *** at your neighbor’s garage sale, go ahead and buy it, hallow it out and put a handgun in it.  Or leave it next to your toilet if you have unwanted guests. Beat your disobedient child with it.  Put it in your fireplace and have a nice glass of vodka.  Just don’t read it.  You have been warned.” Anna Karenina 

Banished to the tower for re-hab!

Kitty’s indoor garden – before the destruction

On to tragic case of Das Kat. In order to alleviate kitty’s hairball problem, hubby bought enough kitty grass and catnip to fill a three foot by three foot planter, not realizing, of course, that we had a cat with a problem. In his defense, kitty was a stray we adopted.  For all we know, he could be the great grandcat of the infamous Vlad Kat, cat “mule” for Russia’s most notorious drug cartel.  Thus, he might not be able to control his addiction.

Anyway, the cat nip plant lasted three minutes.

Unable to control himself, kitty chews the head off Mr. Mole to get even more catnip!

Stoned kitty then took off skidding down the floor, leaping on the furniture and bouncing off the walls.  When scolded with a “Bad Kitty,” off he ran to attack any toy stuffed with cat nip, snapping the heads off two, a lovely yellow parakeet and goofy looking thing we call Mr. Mole.

In attempt to help him control his addiction, hubby came up with an idea:  cover the planter with an old plastic clothes hamper.

Very attractive centerpiece for our living room coffee table, don’t you think?

This contraption allowed kitty only little nibbles of grass though the slats.  Did I mention that hubby considers himself an efficiency expert?

However, approximately one o’clock in the morning we awoke to a loud crash and the skittle of claws across the wood floor.  Kitty had figured out how to tip the whole dang thing over.

I’m afraid it’s cold turkey for Das Kat!

I just sent my third book off to the editor so I guess I can be forgiven for a little silliness, can’t I?

“Try to tweet now, why don’t you?”

I have a writing problem and it involves a certain cat originally called Pretty Kitty until we found out he was a boy. Now we call him Das Kat.  Das Kat likes to find secret places to hide so that he can sleep all day and terrorize us all night. This he does by running up and down the hall outside our bedroom as if being chased by a pack of rapid dogs and then pouncing on the bed with an innocent chirp. There he makes himself at home on my calves after kneading the blanket with his claws. Hubby claims he does this because he was weaned too soon. I don’t get it. I was never breast fed and I don’t shred blankets!

Living the Penthouse life

Das Kat has a six foot kitty condo with plenty of rope to scratch so the shredding is firmly discouraged, however waking at 2:30 am to scold a cat doesn’t make for a pleasant night’s sleep. I prefer to be woken by the sun and not by kitty whiskers ticking my nose or a tail lashing my face.

“I think I’ll take my place on your lap now!”

Das Kat doesn’t approve of my writing. Every time I sit down to write, magically he appears next to my chair, looking plaintively up at me with a little meh, sometimes reaching a furry white paw up in warning “I’m about to pounce,” other times pouncing directly onto the keyboard without invitation, mangling forever whatever paragraph or email I’d been working on.

“Here’s what I think of this story!”

Then he circles my lap, swatting my face with his tail until he finds a comfortable position. Sometimes he will turn and stare into the computer screen giving me a full view of his anus as he ponders what could possibly be more fascinating than him.

On January 6th, I will have been blogging for a year.  Insane, I know.  I think I have seven followers however, because this is blog number 50,  lack of followers hasn’t stymied my blog vigor.   Well, it’s hardly vigor.  Once a week I sit down at my computer with a blank mind.  I swear, a completely blank mind. Then a crazy idea enters my head and before impulse control can kick in, I’m off and running.  So far, I written about:

• The History of Tuna Noodle Casserole
• Tasmanian Devils
• Giant Red Haired Cannibals

to name just a few.

1. Dog Daze – an ode to small town Fourth of Julys 
2. Cloud Forests and Capybaras – interview with author Cinda MacKinnon (includes a picture of her adorable dog Gaston)
   

   Gaston

3. Moby Jan – golfing in the Mayan Jungle
4. #rukidding – tweeting from gynecological stirrups
   

   Sign in OBGYN waiting room

5. Dem Dam Hippies’ Christmas in Have You Been Saved Missouri – the Hong Kong flu and an ice storm enhance the Xmas experience
6. Shattered Glass, Shattered Lives – Melody Paris describing her inspiration for the cover of FLIPKA
7. Black-eyed Susans – memories of a tornado in Michigan
8. Sigmund Freudicon at Your Service –  the first couple of pages of FLIPKA posted by Twissel’s handler after her breakdown
9. Release Anxieties – post publication jitters
10. Man Training 1.0 – Hubby attempts to train squirrels, squirrels instead train man.
    

    Squirrel trains man

I keep expecting someone to pop up and say “stop this blogging nonsense.  You clearly have nothing to say that makes any sense”  but they haven’t and so I suppose I’ll continue on next year, however, henceforth I’ll include the word “dog” in all my titles.  Then I’ll make it a point to post pictures every doggie and kitty I come across.