The Savannah life
April 3, 2012
I opened the bedroom door yesterday morning and Lola strolled in, purring ecstatically, wearing my underpants on her head.
(Yes, I took pictures and no, you can’t see them)
I made a mental note to ALSO lock up the dirty laundry basket. These days all household objects, from art to razors, fall into one of these categories:
- Nailed down
- Museum-gel’d down
- Locked behind a door
- Cat toy (default)
Rest easy, Ernie
January 31, 2012
Ernie Monstrocat has gone, and my heart is breaking more than a little bit.
For those of you who read about Ernie, here or on Brenda Griffith’s blog, you know he was a special, special cat. He came to me almost by accident, as a foster kitty, and turned out to be a social maven of monumental proportions. (As well as a digital jinx.)
During Ernie’s stay with me he attracted more worshippers than the PTL Club, who’d show up with forbidden treats like bacon. Hamburgers. Shrimp cocktail. Canned tuna clutched in grubby little kidpaws.
You’d never have guessed Ernie’s real history. It would have taken a very special cat to survive all that, much less thrive, but that’s what Ernie was.
When it came time for Ernie to find a permanent home, I almost didn’t let it happen–if I hadn’t known that Brenda, Jessie and Dave were waiting at the other end, Ernie would have never gotten out of the house. Waiting in the airport for his flight to be called was one of the harder things I’ve done.
But they were there, they gave Ernie his own little girl, rabbit, dogs and bacon, and from the sounds of it he lived the life of, well, Ernie, until the very end. It came on suddenly, turned out to be metastatic cancer…and Ernie was gone. Just like that.
Thank you, Brenda, for taking such good care of my friend.
Towels on the floor
December 9, 2011
OK, I’m beginning to look like a doting mamma with home videos, but…I kept finding towels on the floor in the guest bath. Wasn’t difficult to figure out who was doing it–not with The Princess Lola and Nikki the Tikkimaus around–but all the other towel racks in the house seemed safe from their depredations.
So I hung the towel back on the rack, grabbed Izzy the ‘Pad (that iMovie feature is really killer), and settled into the bathtub to wait. It didn’t take long:
And I discovered what was going on. There’s an air vent right under that rack (you’ll see the towel moving slightly in the video). Lola was probably first attracted to the movement, jumped up and pulled the towel off the rack, mostly covering the vent.
But watch the video: Lola circles the fallen towel, head down, back and forth, then she settles on a spot and flops over. She does this consistently; I replaced that bloody towel ten times and ten times she circled and settled in front of wherever the hot air was emerging.
Intrigued, I slipped downstairs and turned on the air conditioning, to make cold air come out of that vent. Lola dropped the towel as usual, circled…and jumped back, yowling. She wouldn’t go near the towel rack until I turned the furnace back on.
So…I think Lola is redirecting the flow of warm air from that vent for a cozy nap. Why she doesn’t just sit on the vent and get ALL the heat is beyond me, but I’m noticing that whenever there’s a heater vent to contend with, she usually puts something on the vent first, before she sits.
Or she drops a towel on it.
Sometimes this cat is a little bit scary.
Making a cat gym (AKA “less ugly cat tree”)
November 28, 2011
Savannah kittens make wonderful housemates…if you stay two steps ahead of their inventive little minds. Give them enough “legal” stuff to do, I’m told, and they won’t edit your art collection (i.e., break stuff).
Museum gel only goes so far. I tried giving them a “highly difficult” puzzle, guaranteed to keep dogs occupied for weeks, with treat-containing cups that move along a track. The animal is supposed to slide the cups until they can upend them and grab the treat.
The kittens liberated all the treats in about 15 minutes and then, bored, headed for the bathroom to play toilet bowl jacuzzi (they LIKE water).
So much for games. I made them a cat gym.
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Cynthia, cat trainer
November 15, 2011
OK, just had to brag a bit, although I’m not sure if I’m bragging about what a great cat trainer I am (frankly, if I were, I wouldn’t be sweeping up broken sculptures), or the unusually large brains of my cats.
Sit is going well. Stay? Not so much. And we’re working on “shake paws.”
Ultracats
October 24, 2011
I’ve got it all over Jane Goodall. To make friends with wildlife, she had to go to the deep, dark jungles full of crocodiles, tsetse flies, tents and very poor room service.
All *I* do is go home.
My friend Shelby and I trekked down south a few weeks ago to pick up Nikki the Tikimaus and The Princess Lola. We returned with two carrierfuls of terrified kitten yowling to be let O-U-T. We set the carriers on the floor of the cat isolation center (AKA the laundry room), unfastened the doors and stepped back, expecting to see two furry streaks running past.
Nope. Now the carriers were the safest, most snuggly places on earth. The kittens steadfastly refused to emerge for three hours, hissing and spitting if we came near, and spent the next three days hiding. And I learned the first of several important lessons: Pick a typical kitty trait, triple it, and you have a Savannah.
Catting around
September 16, 2011
The salesclerk looked dubious. “Have you gotten one of these in this car before?” he asked.
I’ve never GOTTEN one of these before,” I replied, and he started shoving a ginormous cat tree into CherryBaby’s back seat and out the window.
“Well, I got one of these in a lady’s car last week, so I can probably get it in yours, too.” Ten minutes later, with many helpful hints from passersby, he slammed the door shut on my latest adventure, while I wondered the what heck I’ve gotten myself into this time.
Owl play
July 31, 2011
We pulled into the parking lot of a little Mexican restaurant just outside Olympia and I shut off the engine. Fifteen minutes later a woman slipped out of a blue pickup and handed Becky a boxfull of owl.
Barred owl, to be precise, now sitting in CherryBaby’s back seat. I hit the gas and we headed for home.
My friend Becky and I spent last weekend at Bellevue’s huge (and impressive) arts and crafts fair. Early Saturday, though, she got a call from the Portland Audubon Center, where she volunteers as a raptor handler: A vet in Yelm (Yelm?) had an injured owl. Could we pick it up and bring it back for rehab?
Bird flue
February 7, 2011
DISCLAIMER: I swear I am NOT making this up. I swear.
“Did you know,” said Tami, “That your bird just set off the burglar alarm?”
Tami is a friend who also happens to clean my house every couple of weeks. We’ve known each other for years, we trade arttalk (she’s a skilled painter and concrete sculptor), and occasionally we grab lunch or share farmer’s market stuff or something. I think she believes that I come from another planet, but in her view that just makes things more interesting.
Nate, still
February 7, 2011
Saturday morning I get up, yawn my way down to the living room to play yoga on the Wii* and notice that the trap looks a bit odd.
This is the Kness TipTrap I’m talking about, I got it as part of my eviction plans for Nate, and it’s been lying in wait for the furry little nuisance for a solid week, untouched. But now the trap’s a bit off-kilter and the door is down…